PRIMARY SCHOOL
Little Hands Karen
Melbourn Playgroup Jane Crawford
MVC EDUCATION VILLAGE COLLEGE
Melbourn Primary School 01763 260964
07842 151512
Notre Ecole Janet Whitton Pippins Children’s Centre Alison Wood
261231 223460
Primary School Headteacher Stephanie Wilcox 223457 U3A (Univ. of Third Age) Chairman Tony Garrick 01223 510201 Village College Principal Simon Holmes
LITTLE HANDS
U3A
PLAY SCHOOL NOTRE ECOLE PLAYGROUP
Education
223400
Available at the Community HUB
Ofsted visited us in March. We hope that you have seen our banner which displays we were judged to be GOOD in all areas. We are delighted with this news and the report which validates our determined efforts over the last two and a half years. The report describes our school well. In addition to recognising the improvements in the quality of teaching and pupil outcomes, much of what could be considered hard to measure areas, such as our work around establishing a whole school ethos, has been recognised too. The fact that there is a “happy atmosphere in class, an aspirational culture among staff and pupils and that pupils develop good levels of confidence and self esteem” make us all proud. This is what primary schooling should be about. It takes determination to hang onto the wider aspects of primary schooling in the present climate. Every new communication from the Department for Education (DofE), pronouncement from the government and every newspaper article suggest that the whole focus should be on English, maths and grammar. However, the National Curriculum outlines that the curriculum offered by primary schools should be broad and balanced. We believe that by offering children opportunities in sport, the arts and science we are allowing them opportunities to develop skills and knowledge that will help shape them as individuals. Whilst we agree totally that all our children should leave us ‘secondary ready’, and have high expectations in the core skills of English and maths, we want them also to be interested in the world around them, love learning and know that they have specific talents and areas of personal skill. How fabulous to know, for example, that you are a talented artist, proficient sports person, able to work collaboratively and identify trees and birds. That having been said, this year the demands of the external tests at the end of Year 2 and Year 6 have been increased to unprecedented levels. Our school was chosen to participate in the early testing of the KS1 SPaG test. You will have read in the press that the Spelling Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) test for 7 year olds has been cancelled for this year. However, our year 2 children still had to participate in the early administration of the test, despite the actual test having been cancelled. The children were tested on their knowledge of prefixes and suffixes, nouns, verbs, and their ability to be able to identify a command, question or statement. Whilst for 11 years olds, the tests will require the children continued on page 39 melbournmagazine
33
