Hill West Primary School Issue 11, May 2014
Pedagogical Newsletter –May 2014 Work Sharing Evening ThankQuestionnaire you to all those families who came Findings
to join us on Wednesday 7th May between 3.30pm – 6.00pm to look at your child’s work. This evening was really well supported and we hope it gave you a greater insight into what your child has been doing in school. We also hope it enabled you to identify those things that your child is really good at and what your child needs to work on next. Our next work sharing evening will be early in the Autumn Term. Please remember to return your child’s learning profile to school.
In this issue: Work Sharing Evening EHC Plans Assessment after Levels Welcome to Holland Outdoor Learning What we look for in Hill West Leaders E-Safety Phonic Screening Check
EHC Plans to replace Statements From September 2014, Government reforms mean that everyone aged 0 to 25 with SEND will have a single plan setting out all the support they will receive from education, health and social care and who is responsible for each part of the plan. This EHC Plan will replace the statement of Special Educational Needs. Individuals and families will have more input into identifying their needs and the support they need to get the most out of life, whether that's from school, college, health or the county council. The council will need to produce information on all the services it expects to be available locally, 'The Local Offer', and arrange a personal budget if that is what the family wants.
Schools will also be required to publish information on how they meet SEND needs. All agencies will jointly plan and commission the services that are needed and will be responsible for monitoring whether these are improving outcomes. Those children with existing statements of special educational need will be transferred to an EHC over time (the current suggestion is within 3 years). We have been working hard with the support of our Educational Psychologist Anita Soni, the SENCO at Mere Green and a group of parents to develop our own personal offer that will soon be published on our website. This will detail what we as a school can offer children with identified special educational needs as well as signposting parents to what is available more widely as part of the City’s local offer.
Assessment after Levels Reminders: We break up for half term on Wednesday 21st May as school is closed to children on the 22nd and 23rd May for in-service training.
With the introduction of the new primary national curriculum in September 2014 we also see the disappearance of levels of attainment. Over many years of use teachers, parents and pupils to some extent, have learned to aspire to a 2B or better at the end of KS1 and a 4B or better at the end of KS2. With levels having been written out of the new national curriculum a new language of assessment needs to be created. The National Association of Head Teachers has recently published a report into life in schools after levels and made a number of recommendations. Some of which are outlined here.
Schools should adopt a consistent approach across the country even though advice from the DfE is that schools are free to design their own systems of assessment. Schools should retain the use of levels while they are designing their new systems. Pupils should be judged against objective criteria rather than ranked against each other. All assessment needs external moderation and this moderation needs to be rigorous and thorough. Assessment should be driven from the curriculum. We have already started to formalise a plan for September nd rd and will spend the 22 and 23 May preparing for the changes in our INSET days.
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Glossary of Terms
Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley (1987) I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...
Pedagogy – the craft of teaching
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum: The Michelangelo David: The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
EHC – Education, Health and Care Plans which will replace statements
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland”.
1. Phonics - a method of teaching children to read by correlating sounds with symbols in an alphabetic writing system. SEND – Special Educational Needs and Disability Ofsted – the
Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills Forest Schools –
A type of outdoor education in which children visit forests/woodlands, learning personal, social and technical skills
"Holland?" you say. "What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy". But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place. So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills.... and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned". And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss. But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things... about Holland.
Outdoor Learning An analysis of the last thousand primary schools to have been inspected by Ofsted shows two very important trends. First that the area most commonly identified for improvement (in over half the schools inspected) is teaching. Second, that the most common reason that a school is not yet good or outstanding centres upon children’s engagement levels. These have been our key drivers for many years. We understand that if children love learning because teachers are carefully orchestrating well pitched learning experiences for them they are
likely to be successful. Another of our priorities has been developing our outdoor learning environment / experiences. To support this we have identified a leader for outdoor learning throughout school and trained her as a ‘forest school’ teacher. She has thought carefully about her vision for outdoor learning and shared this with the staff and she monitors the provision and the impact it is having on learning. Thanks to our PTFA we now have an amazing canopy over the Reception Play area. This enables them to access the courtyard in all weathers and provides an excellent addition to their learning space.
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E-Safety
In 21st Century society, both adults and children need to be digitally literate and aware of the benefits that the use of technology can provide. However, it is essential that children are taught to use technology responsibly, securely and safely, being able to recognise potential risks and knowing how to respond. There are three main areas of ESafety risk that our school prioritises. First and foremost our children need to be taught that not all content is appropriate or from a reliable source. Inappropriate content can include online pornography, ignoring age ratings in games, lifestyle websites, for example anorexia/selfharm sites and hate sites. Children also need to be taught that contact may be made using digital technologies and that appropriate conduct is necessary when engaging with these technologies. Cyber bullying is a very real issue as is grooming and identity theft. Children also need to be made aware that their personal online behaviour can increase their likelihood of, or cause harm to themselves and others especially if they are not aware of privacy issues including disclosure of personal information, digital footprint and their on-line reputation.
Remember we have an E-Safety meeting for parents on Thursday 15th May 6.45pm
What we look for in Leaders at Hill West Do our current and future leaders… possess the curiosity and desire to find out more? use and apply their own life experiences in order to make sense of underlying issues and come up with innovative ways of solving problems? demonstrate the commitment to serve the needs of all those who engage with us, primarily pupils and parents? demonstrate a real desire to take on challenges and achieve excellence? prioritise activities appropriately? understand him/herself? Is this self-awareness used to make for better interactions with others? remain resilient and calm under pressure? collaborate internally and across agencies to build a common vision and purpose for the benefit of our school and the wider community? have passion. Are they passionate about developing others? Are others more capable and do they feel empowered as a result of this person’s actions? set clear expectations and hold others to account? possess the ability to generate excitement and energy in others and provide direction and clarity of vision when leading? take time to get to know and understand others in order to build relationships? enhance the free flowing exchange of ideas and their effective implementation within and beyond our school? create a climate where failed ideas are seen as a natural part of innovative thinking and working? challenge prior assumptions and ways of working?
Phonic Screening Check Year 1 / 2
Week commencing th Monday 16 June all children in Year 1 and those children in Year 2 who didn’t pass at the required standard last year will undertake this year’s phonic screening check. The outcome of the check will be included in your child’s end of year report. Further details will be issued nearer the time.
KS2 SATs As you will know if you have a child in Year 6, this week our current Year 6 pupils are undertaking their end of Key Stage 2 SATs. This year they will complete test papers in Reading; Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPAG) and Maths. These papers, once completed, are sent away for marking. As in previous years the children have been able to undertake an internally marked writing test and their achievements in this test contribute to the summative teacher assessments reported on by the Year 6 teachers. Many of our children will also be sitting Level 6 papers this week. These will also be externally marked and results for all tests are expected back in school at the beginning of July. As you know all SAT results will be published with your child’s end of year report and used by the receiving secondary schools to predict target grades for GCSE. The children in Year 6 have worked incredibly hard and we wish them all the very best now and in the future.