Hill West Primary School Issue 9, October 2013
Pedagogical Newsletter – October 2013 Learning Profiles Thank you for recently completing the learning profile with your child and returning it to school. We want to involve you in the setting and checking of your child’s learning targets so that we work in partnership to ensure rapid progress across the curriculum.
In this issue: Learning Profiles Curriculum Changes Parent View Homework Sports Funding Celebrating Achievement Children and Families Bill Parent Consultations Reading and Maths
Curriculum Changes The new primary curriculum has now been published. The programmes of study for English, Maths and Science remain detailed, while those for the foundations subjects have been substantially slimmed down. All the current subjects will remain but there is now the necessity to teach a foreign language at Key Stage 2. The existing ICT curriculum will be replaced with computing, which puts a focus on practical programming skills. The new National Curriculum is due to
be implemented from September 2014. In the meantime, the current programmes of study for English, Mathematics and Science in 20132014, for pupils in Years 3 and 4, as well as for all foundation subjects, will be dis-applied from this September to allow a smooth transition between the old and new curricular. The Government have told us that National curriculum levels will disappear and will not be replaced. Schools will be asked to design their own assessment processes and language to describe progress over time.
Parent View Reminders: We break up for half term on Friday 25th October Deadline for Secondary Preference forms is Thursday 31st October
In our last pedagogical newsletter we asked parents to access Parent View to register their thoughts about our school. We would really appreciate it if you could spare the time to complete this survey. Parent View was launched in October 2011 and includes 12 multiple-choice questions. It is used by Ofsted prior to their inspection to gather your views about our school. Ofsted claims that gathering parents’ views electronically will save time, costs and resources. They also point out that it is a more anonymous system and
parents might have greater confidence in an online process that removes the need to hand the questionnaire response directly to school. Although I don’t think this is necessarily the case at Hill West I would urge you to access the questionnaire to share your views. This is a vehicle to let us know what we could be doing better as well as celebrating all the excellent work that we do. www.ofsted.gov.uk/schools/forschools/parent-view/parent-view
Homework
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Glossary of Terms Pedagogy – the craft of teaching Programmes of Study – prescribed syllabus Feedback – comes in a number of forms including written, verbal, show and tell, stickers, house points Level 2 – National expectations at the end of Year 2 Level 3 – Higher than national expectations at the end of Year 2 Level 4 National expectations at the end of Year 6 Level 5 – Higher than national expectations at the end of Year 6 Level 6 – Significantly higher than national expectations at the end of Year 6
Why is homework important? Homework is essentially work that a child completes at home. It should extend the learning that the child has been exposed to in school and enable them to practise key skills, gain greater in-depth knowledge of a particular subject and enable them to share their learning with an adult.
Our Approach At Hill West we are committed to fostering curiosity, independence and a love of learning within all of our pupils. To achieve this all children keep a home learning journal, where they can record their learning creatively; this may involve research or a project which reinforces or extends work completed in class. We allow children freedom in how they present their work so that their home learning journal is personal and shows their learning across the year in different ways.
How this helps learning and progress
Creates autonomous and independent thinkers and learners Allows children to capitalise on their skills and available resources Children are actively involved in the process of learning Encourages children to discuss and share their thinking
Feedback ‘Effective feedback’ is highlighted by The Sutton Trust (2013) as being one of the most successful approaches to accelerate progress. However, effective feedback doesn't always have to be written. In fact, research suggests that "the most powerful form of feedback is clearly oral, face to face dialogue between teacher and child, or children giving feedback to each other" (Shirley Clarke, 2003).
School Sports Funding As you will already know the Government has committed to providing primary PE sports grants for the next two years. Schools with 17 or more primary-aged pupils will receive £8000 for the academic year 2013/2014, plus a top-up of £5 per eligible pupil. The first payment has just been made to schools in early October. The balance of the payment will be made later in the academic year but we are not sure when as yet. Schools must spend the additional funding on improving their provision of PE and sport, but they will have the freedom to choose how they do this.
Possible uses for the funding might include: hiring specialist PE teachers or qualified sports coaches to work with primary teachers when teaching PE; supporting and engaging the least active children through new or additional Change4Life clubs; paying for professional development opportunities for teachers in PE and sport; providing cover to release primary teachers for professional development in PE and sport; running sport competitions, or increasing pupils’ participation in the School Games; buying quality assured professional development modules or materials for PE and sport; providing places for pupils on after school sports clubs and holiday clubs; pooling the additional funding with that of other local schools. We are currently in discussions with Arthur Terry School to develop our strategic plan.
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Children and Families Bill The Children and Families Bill is currently before parliament. The Bill has passed through its first and second reading and has been through the Commons Committee stage. Royal Assent is expected in the Spring of 2014. The Bill will have four key impacts for SEN services that should come into legislation in September 2014. The Single Education, Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan): This will be a single assessment across education, health and social care. The plan will replace SEN statements
Personalisation: An offer of a personal budget for families of children and young people with an EHC Plan Joint Commissioning: LA, health and care services to commission services jointly re SEN and Disabilities Local Offer: LAs to publish a clear, transparent description of the local series available for children and young people with SEND This is likely to mean significant changes for some families.
Celebrating Achievements
Parent Consultations
Our pupils did exceptionally well at the end of the last academic year. Here are the highlights at the end of both Key Stages. Key Stage One English 72% of our year two children achieved a Level 2 in Speaking and Listening 25% of our children achieved a Level 3 in Speaking and Listening This means that 97% of our pupils achieved a Level 2 or better in Speaking and Listening 68% of our year two children achieved a Level 2 in Reading 25% of our children achieved a Level 3 in Reading This means that 93% of our pupils achieved a Level 2 or better in Reading 78% of our children achieved a Level 2 in Writing 13% of our children achieved a Level 3 in Writing This means that 92% of our pupils achieved a Level 2 or better in Writing Mathematics 72% of our pupils achieved a Level 2 for Mathematics 22% of our pupils achieved a Level 3 for Mathematics This means that 93% of our pupils achieved a Level 2 or better in Mathematics Science 78% of our pupils achieved a Level 2 for Science 17% of our pupils achieved a Level 3 for Science This means that 95% of our pupils achieved a Level 2 or better in Science Key Stage Two English 34% of our pupils achieved a Level 4 for and 39% for Writing 48% of our pupils achieved a Level 5 for and 48% for Writing 13% of our pupils achieved a Level 6 for and 5% for Writing This means that 95% of our pupils achieved 4 or better Mathematics 39% of our Mathematics 38% of our Mathematics 20% of our Mathematics This means that 4 or better
Reading Reading Reading a Level
pupils achieved a Level 4 for pupils achieved a Level 5 for pupils achieved a Level 6 for 97% of our pupils achieved a Level
Thank you for your valuable contribution at this week’s parent consultation meetings. I hope you found the information we shared on your children’s progress valuable.
Reading helps Pupils Maths (by Katherine Sellgren, BBC News Education Reporter, Sept 13) Children who read for pleasure are likely to do better in Maths and English than those who rarely read in their free time. The study, by the Institute of Education, London University, examined the reading habits of 6,000 children. It indicated that reading for pleasure was more important to a child’s development than how educated their parents were. The researchers concluded a wide vocabulary helped children absorb information across the curriculum. It enabled them to understand and interpret a variety of texts and gave them the ability to decipher information quickly and effectively. At Hill West we encourage the children to develop a real love of reading. This is promoted in a number of ways through class stories, guided reading sessions, individual reading sessions, the use of our school library, the Four Oaks Book Club and visiting authors. For us it is important to get to know each individual’s reading preferences, so that we can recommend books they will find personally appealing. We know that you will be doing this at home too and exposing them to a wide variety of texts and genres beyond our school reading scheme.