Posted on: December 6th 2019
As we head into our final week of the Autumn term, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the developments of the academic year so far.
This term we launched our one year School Development Plan (SDP) and the senior leadership team and I were delighted to be able to share this personally with parents at our information sessions held in October. A copy of the plan with notes from the session is available on this week’s bulletin.
We have made progress towards achieving our aims in each of the three areas we identified as current school priorities - Foundation for Learning; The Environment and Healthy Body, Healthy Mind.
Within our Foundation for Learning, September saw the full alignment of our younger years into an Early Years Foundation Stage with all children from our 2-year-olds in Pre-Nursery to our 3 and 4-year-olds in Nursery and our Reception children all working on, and being taught, the same curriculum. Feedback from parents on the updated curriculum has been very positive and it has been a joy to see how quickly the children have settled into their classes and the wonderfully engaging learning the children have participated in so far this year.
As a whole school, we have embarked upon further training during our staff meetings on using data to inform teaching through a system called Pupil Asset. Teachers are using this data to innovate their lessons to match the needs of their classes to ensure the right level of challenge for all pupils.
As part of our focus on The Environment, we have been so pleased that four of our classrooms have been refurbished this term and we will continue to upgrade the classrooms over the year ahead. To support the children in their learning, additional iPads and Chromebooks had been bought and we are trialling the use of smart TVs in the classrooms to allow children to Chromecast (share) their work with their peers.
An important strand of The Environment theme has been developing the children’s awareness of sustainability and how to reduce their impact. We are very fortunate to have the support of Katie Parker, who is a Sustainability Consultant, to help us find simple everyday changes that we can make to become more sustainable. Katie led a parent workshop this term and the children really engaged with this theme through assemblies and lessons, with our Eco Warriors leading the way.
Our final theme, Healthy Body, Healthy Mind, has been developed through our sport programme. As you will read from Mr. Charman’s sport round-up this week, the ethos and engagement in physical activity continues to strengthen. All of the children have had the chance to develop their fitness and physical skills as well as build resilience, ambition and collaborative skills through representing the school in tournaments and fixtures. There is ongoing work in the PSHE curriculum and in our staff training programme to support children’s mental health and we look forward to sharing how you can support your child in the upcoming Parent Workshops next term.
Thank you to all the staff for the outstanding contribution they all make to ensuring your children’s academic learning and emotional development is at the highest standard.
