Fun and games at Curriculum and Standards Committee

Our meeting on Friday was packed full of interesting and exciting stuff. Miss Worsley presented her review of attainment data which showed just how much progress our children have made. The future looks bright with the promise of even greater progress and achievement. No time to stop and congratulate ourselves: the New Curriculum will be implemented in September 2014 and the staff are busy preparing for this.  Miss Williams gave us a very interesting report on the new curriculum subject Computing. Her schedule is detailed and challenging, covering the school year and all year groups. In the Autumn Nursery and Reception will be detectives, in Spring they will be journalists, in the Summer, TV chefs and astronauts! In all these activities they will be learning skills which will enable them to build a thorough understanding of what can be done with technology. And it looks like fun too!
Right through the school Miss Williams has devised interesting and challenging ways for the children to use and interact with computers and technology.
PE is another of Miss Willliams' responsibilities. We were presented with an exciting program of the games and activities offered through the school year. Football, Hockey, Netball, Tennis, Rounders, and much more. Dance, Gymnastics, Orienteering, Swimming and Athletics. We were also told of other exciting possibilities. Miss Williams did not tap dance on the table (as she hinted she might) but her report was inspirational and was quite exciting enough for one afternoon.....

Post by Gill Edwards

Chairs' Network

Yesterday Gill Edwards and I attended the Chairs’ Network organized by the Hertfordshire Association of School Governors.

The Chairs’ Network is a termly event aimed at Governing Bodies from across Hertfordshire with guest speakers making presentations about current issues of concern and interest to Governing Bodies. 

This term’s meeting was focused on the New Curriculum. It was very interesting to gain a broader perspective on the changes that are taking place right through from Early Years to Year 13. There is going to be a renewed focus on raising attainment levels for pupils at every stage of their education; and the curriculum will be divided into Core (English, Maths, Science) and Non-Core. Schools will have strict guidance on how they teach Core subjects but will have more freedom in the Non-Core areas. 
 

GCSE grading is being changed to a numerical system, the future of AS levels in doubt, and there are plans to make Maths compulsory for all sixth form students. It certainly will be interesting times for teachers and students alike!

Miss Worsley and the teachers at Great Gaddesden School have already done a lot of work on how the new curriculum will be introduced in our school and are planning exciting schemes of work for the next academic year. Some of the requirements, such as foreign language teaching for all students in Key Stage 2, are already embedded in our curriculum. It’s going to be a very exciting year.

Post by Alison Wilkinson

Walking for Inspiration

Did you know that May is National Walking Month in the UK? I certainly didn’t!

It was interesting to read a BBC article about famous authors who have drawn inspiration from ‘aimless’ walking: the poet Wordsworth rambled through the majestic Lake District countryside; Charles Dickens walked up to 20 miles through the streets of London at night when he couldn’t sleep; and the travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermour walked from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul in 1933 when he was 18 years old. A journey of over 1500 miles!  Can you find Patrick Leigh Fermor’s journey on a map of Europe?

And what do you think about the environmentalist and writer John Francis who travelled everywhere by foot for 22 years and pledged not to speak for 17 years!

You can read about more famous walkers in the BBC article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27186709

The article made me think about how lucky we are to live and study in such beautiful countryside. This academic year the school is focusing on improving writing, and I have seen some great examples of creative writing from the pupils. Our beautiful surroundings can certainly provide inspiration for children and adults alike. The water meadows next to school are home to swans, heron and coots; and the nearby woods are blooming with bluebells and wild garlic at the moment.

Why don’t you take an ‘aimless’ walk in May? Let me know if you find inspiration in our beautiful Great Gaddesden countryside.

Post by Alison Wilkinson

Family and Friends

I always think that it is a great strength of our school that children work and play with children from other classes. It creates a real family atmosphere that is a special feature of small village schools, and particularly our school.

In many playgrounds it seems as if girls only play with girls, or Year 3s only play with Year 3s.

The Nursery Reception blog about the Easter Egg Hunt really highlighted this:

“After that we had our Easter egg hunt in the playground and bark area - the children all had a great time looking for the eggs and as always the bigger children were terrific at taking care of the younger ones. “

So it was with interest that I read the attached article from the BBC website about when younger siblings join their older brothers and sisters at school:

“Younger children may think starting school will enable them to spend more time with their big brother or sister.

But new research from Australia suggests that hope is not shared by the older sibling.

The study, quoted in the Times Educational Supplement (TES), found younger children looked on older siblings as heroes.

But it seems the older children often prefer to hang around with anyone but their younger family member.”

You can read the full article at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26785406

I think this confirms that our family atmosphere is something really special, not only in our country but across the world. What are your thoughts on having your brothers, sisters and cousins at school?!

Post by Alison Wilkinson

Upgrading IT Systems

This week, some of the Governors met to continue our improvements being made in IT across the school. The project of upgrading all of the school's IT systems which has been underway for some time is now moving towards the final implementation stages.

The Governor's have been working with staff and pupils, and with outside professional agencies to decide how to best upgrade the systems in a forward thinking and future proofing way. We have also visited other school's (some similar and some vastly different) to learn from them and to see how they are making the use of IT in the classroom exciting for the pupils.

The addition of the school blogs and the IPad's have transformed learning considerably this year, and there are further plans in place to improve the provision of IT across the school for staff and pupils.

With the national implementation of the new primary curriculum starting in Sept 2014, including a new computing curriculum, the governors hope that the introduction of a new School IT system will help to meet the needs which the new modules of work require. The new primary computing curriculum is far more exciting than the limited use of computers I personally remember from primary school (wheeling the one old clunky BBC computer around the school from classroom to classroom and waiting half an hour for it boot up in order to play a 5 minute game!). The learning planned still includes the traditional proficiency in creating documents and spreadsheets, but also explores more interesting aspects of online IT which will hopefully be more exciting to the pupils. There will be units across the curriculum which include coding, programming adventure games, creating digital music, movies, and photography, creating ebooks, and cyber safety.

With these units in mind, it is essential to have the right equipment to be able to make learning innovative and productive, and so along with a new school server, we hope to provide some new IT equipment for the children to use in their learning going forward into the new school year to provide them with an interesting and valuable experience with using IT.

Watch this space for developments coming in the summer term!

Written by Clare Rudd

Getting to Good Seminar

We were delighted that our recent HMI inspection recognized the rapid improvements that are being made in our school: 'The action plan provides you, staff and Governors with an effective structure to accelerate the rate of improvement.'

As a further step in our School's improvement journey, Miss Worsley and I attended an HMI Getting to Good Seminar this week.

Each seminar provides an opportunity for schools to:

• explore and discuss key issues around improvement, looking at Ofsted's evidence about schools that improve and those that don't
• identify, using case study examples, the key drivers for school improvement
• apply learning to plan for improvement in your own school alongside experienced HMI

There were primary, junior and secondary schools from across the East of England at the Seminar. Miss Worsley and I gained some very useful insights from the event.

Post by Alison Wilkinson

Joint Meeting of Staff and Governors

This week we held a joint meeting of Staff and Governors.

We started the evening with a celebration of everything that has been achieved over the last three years; to reflect on what has changed and what remarkable improvements have been made in so many areas of school life.  I made a brief speech to celebrate the contributions of staff and governors, and then we watched a slide show which highlighted some of the school’s recent achievements. These are too numerous to detail here but include:

·         introducing Whole School Values;

·         rigorous assessment of pupil progress;

·         playing competitive sport;

·         new website, class blogs, iPads, interactive whiteboards and visualisers;  

·         refurbishing the Early Years’ Classroom;

·         Collective Worship in Church every Friday;

·         teaching French across the school;

·         doing residential trips for all Key Stage 2 pupils;

·         whole school focus on maths (2012/13) and writing (2013/14) showing real impact on pupils’ progress;

·         setting up of Breakfast Club;

·         many enrichment opportunities like singing at the Royal Albert Hall, visiting museums, learning musical instruments;

·         a huge range of extra-curricular clubs (Art, Knitting, Tennis, Creative Writing etc)

 

However, the main focus of our meeting was to look forward:  to think about how we can make the school even better over the next three years and achieve our shared Vision.

A lot of change is about improving on what you are already doing, but some change is about doing things in a different way, or doing something new. Our meeting was not about ten more things on our 'to do' list but some thinking time about changes we could make that would really help us to TRANSFORM to an outstanding school.

So our question to ourselves was:

 

How do we ensure that Great Gaddesden School is special and outstanding in a unique way?

 

Having looked at research from other schools, we concentrated on two areas:

·         School Climate:  what does the school feel like? Striking the balance between nurturing and challenging. Broadening the pupils’ experiences.

·         Parental involvement and Community Outreach

We worked in small groups to try and think creatively about what we would like to do differently. There was a lot of positive, creative discussion and many good ideas. Miss Worsley and the staff will be looking at these ideas and seeing how they can be a part of the future of Great Gaddesden School.

I feel that we are very fortunate to have an enthusiastic, professional and supportive team of Staff and Governors. The meeting was very positive and productive, and follows a similar meeting in March 2013 when the same group developed the School’s Vision. I would like to particularly thank Kerry Jones, one of our Foundation Governors, who has been instrumental in helping the leadership team to think about the longer term challenges and opportunities for our school.

 Post by Alison Wilkinson