History is just around the corner...

The Historical Association is organising it's annual Local and Community History Month in May. Visit their website to take a look at what's happening nearby. The website also has it's own primary section and links to some great resources and articles. There is also a subscription option to join the HA which might be worth investigating more...

Adopting Our Values

Here is a good example of one of our staff adopting a practical approach to how our learning values can be used and applied by pupils in lessons - in this case, PE & Games.

Valuing Policy Cards...

Following many of our staff professional development opportunities we summarise what we have learnt and would like to take forward in a 'policy card'. Here is an example of one we've put together for our recent work on Learning Values. These also form starting points for further follow up work in the future and form part of our induction for new staff.

'Hands On' Learning

Following our work on 'Challenge' over the last term, we are moving our attention to the next of our learning values. The first day back will have an assembly launch in the morning and classes will be provided with their 'Hands On' badges and stickers.
The value is divided into 3 areas and each class will have a lightly different focus:

Practical - Year 4 & 1
Hands on, using tools for support and resources

Communication - Year R, 2 & 6
Team work, engagement and collaboration

Creating - Years 3 & 5
Making and doing, Building things and working together to an end product.


We would like each class to explore what their learning behaviour might look like in the classroom. We will be discussing with the children why these learning behaviours are important and how they help us to achieve more. These ideas will then form the focus for the term and we will carry out activities to see how we can provide opportunities to promote these values in the classroom. This is where each class sharing an area with another class will consult over their plans and ideas.

Writing in the New Curriculum

Some reflection on our work so far towards moving to the new curriculum. The key areas of the new curriculum can be divided into the following areas: 

· Composition

· Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation

· Spelling

· Handwriting

We have been making our transition to the new curriculum by reviewing our current provision and assessing pupil’s progress in light of the new expectations. Since we have taken away levels and the ‘Assessment Focusses (AFs)’, we have adopted the age expected bands and steps – B,W,S (beginning, working within and secure) – within those bands to monitor our pupils progress. Aspects of the old curriculum are clearly evident in the new bands and there are defined strands which focus more on the writing process rather than outcome. Some of these key themes in the composition element of the new curriculum are picked out below.

In KS1:

Write sentences 

Discuss what they have written 

Read aloud 

Write for different purposes: real events, narratives, poetry 

Develop positive attitudes and stamina 

Consider what he/she is going to write… 

Make simple additions, revisions and corrections... 

In KS2:

Plan his/her writing… 

Draft and write… 

Evaluate and edit… 

Proof read 

Read aloud 

Paragraphs 

Settings, characters and plot 

There is also a noticeable shift in expectations and this appears to be more weighted towards the technical aspects of writing and children’s understanding and use of terminology and features like clauses and pronouns. For example, KS1 children are expected to know about and use noun phrases, past and present tense and compound and KS2 pupils are expected to know and use determiners, subordinate clauses and adverbials.

Strengths:
· Writing opportunities across the curriculum for a range of purposes are good
· Opportunities for sustained writing are frequent
· Children’s writing stamina and enjoyment are clear
· Judgements about writing and next steps are really secure
· Children’s next steps are clearly identified
· Marking and feedback moves children on

Areas for Development:
· Technical aspects are not being clearly picked up in pupils’ writing
· Children need to be reviewing their work and more actively ‘polishing’ their writing
· Less able pupils need more scaffolded tasks to support their progress
· More able pupils need more engaging, challenging and open ended opportunities in their writing

Modelling the Writing Process

One of our recent staff meetings was dedicated to a workshop on modelling strategies for pupils - particularly in writing. Our idea was to work through a series of activities with some of the staff as pupils and some as observers while we 'taught' a lesson. The learning intention was to create a shared understanding of AfL (assessment for learning) and reflect on how the modelling process helps support children as writers. One of the challenges is to have a very clear idea of what you want the children to write but getting them to write it! Children share their ideas on a whiteboard and work either alone or with a partner on ideas with the teacher facilitating, prompting and collating as appropriate - you never know quite what they will contribute. It's important that teachers model these thinking processes and share what's going on in their heads if children are going to understand and make links to what's going on in theirs.