Curriculum and Standards Committee Tuesday, 10th February

We have been enjoying the inspiring and informative talks given by our subject leaders. For this first meeting of 2015 Mrs Lilley was in the hot seat! She is responsible for literacy, a topic which is taken very seriously by us all. Spelling, reading and writing are at the heart of everything we do at school. If a pupil has a good knowledge of these three things then they are well on the way to a good education, a good job, a happy life, and possibly they will be able to fly as well... I am very enthusiastic about literacy and books and reading as you may be able to guess. Mrs Lilley gave us a very thorough explanation of why Literacy is important and how we teach it at Great Gaddesden. All pupils, whatever their interests and abilities should be able to learn and enjoy English. Improving writing has been our most recent focus. There is a Star Writers display in the hall, and each class is to contribute to the Parish Newsletter. I am looking forward to hearing that many more students have gained their Pen license for consistent and neat handwriting across all their work books. There are many exciting activities planned and we hope the School Library will be at the heart of these. Many thanks to Mrs Lilley and also to Mrs Wall who is our Literacy Governor. She has worked closely with Mrs Lilley to update our Literacy policies.
Mrs Comer showed us the achievement data for Special needs pupils and it is clear that good progress is being made. We also discussed Pupil Premium funding: how much has been spent and what it has been used for. We are a small school and intend that all pupils should be able to take a full part in the life of the school: in both education and recreation.
Sports provision is exciting at the moment. We receive £8300 a year to spend on sports provision. Half of this is used for good quality sports coaching. In addition all year groups will be able to have WOW sports experiences. Year 5 and 6 have done football which culminated in a penalty shoot our during a Championship football match at Watford FC!!! WOW indeed.
We have quite a few books in the School Library on football and I am reading The Little Village school by Gervaise Phinn. English and Literacy at the heart of everything!

Parish News Feburary 2015

Great Gaddesden CoE (VA) School

We welcomed Leo, Jack, Holly, Mylo and Hannah to our Nursery in January. It is a very special milestone when a child goes off to school for the first time, and we really hope that our newest pupils have embarked on a happy and successful adventure in education.

Lucy in Year 1 wrote about her recollection of starting at Great Gaddesden School:

‘I felt scared on Saturday because it was my very first day at school and I didn’t know where the toys were and I felt nervous and worried. I made friends straight away because they were very nice at my very first day.’

I am sure that if our new nursery children couldn’t find the toys, the wonderfully friendly and kind children at our school would help them.

Writing has been a major focus area for the whole school and the progress of children of all ages has been very impressive.

One element of our drive to improve writing standards is ‘Big Writing’: children are given the time and space to write at length, often in a relaxed classroom with music playing. We also encourage children to write at length in all areas of the curriculum, not just literacy. For instance, the skills needed to write up a science experiment, to write instructions for a design project or to recount a historical event are as important as the skills of creative writing.

The following comparison of a Victorian and modern kitchen was written by Fenella in Year 2 :

‘Today there are lots of differences between an old Victorian kitchen and a new kitchen. A larder keeps things cold so it doesn’t have any windows. In a new kitchen we have an electric fridge, they didn’t have electric in the olden times. The range is a fire, however the people needed to get down on their knees and get paper, sticks and make a coal fire. When the range is a bit damaged they used special black polish and put it on the range and they put porridge in before they went to bed.

But in the new kitchen we have an electric microwave also and an oven. In the Victorian days and our days one thing is the same it is the table and chairs!

Victorians made rag rugs because it used up old rags. They wouldn’t want to walk on a cold floor so they made rag rugs. In the new kitchen they would have a rug so they could keep their feet warm.’

I recently did a ‘learning walk’, spending a short time in each classroom, and I was struck by the purposeful and positive atmosphere in every classroom. As a school we are trying to instill a love of learning, and a resilience that helps the children develop the ‘self-belief to conquer new challenges and achieve excellence’.

Alison Wilkinson

Chair of Governors

 

Meeting of Finance, Personnel & Premises Sub Committee

The work of the sub committee is a real mixture of day-to-day concerns (such as reviewing the school accident log) and longer-term strategic issues (such as looking at how we can invest in the school buildings and premises to create the best possible environment for learning.)

Our meeting this week had a particularly wide ranging agenda: from fire drills to financial forecasts;  building projects to budget assumptions;  staff training to safeguarding; and smartboards to schedules of financial delegation!

We all enjoyed the discussions and made good progress on many issues.

Alison Wilkinson
Chair of Governors