week beginning 24 november 2014. - diocese of...
TRANSCRIPT
Dear Colleagues,
Derby Diocese, Derbyshire School Improvement Service and Derby City School Improvement Service
are running an ‘Outstanding Schools Week’ across Derbyshire.
For one week each half term a number of Outstanding Schools will open their doors and welcome
fellow professionals, allowing them to observe and discuss best practice, listen to success stories
(and challenges!) and receive an experience which will contribute to the CPD of any visiting
headteacher, teacher, teaching assistant or governor.
To help you decide which school may offer you or any of your staff and governors the most useful
experience, most schools have provided a pen portrait which tells you a little about their context and
strengths.
If, after looking through the dates and the pen portraits you decide you would like some of your
team to visit a particular school, please ring Netta at Derby Church House on 01332 388660 or email
her at [email protected] and book yourselves in.
The first Open Week will take place on the week beginning 24th November 2014. The following
schools will be open:
Barrow Sale & Davy’s CE (C) Primary School, Litton CE (A) Primary School, Aldecar Infant and Nursery
School, Alfreton Nursery School, Hardwick Primary School (Derby City), Pear Tree Infant School
(Derby City), Walbrook Nursery School (Derby City), Littleover Community School.
The following schools will open their doors on the week beginning 12th January 2015:
Creswell CE (C) Infant School, William Gilbert Endowed CE (A) Primary School(Duffield), Osmaston
CE (C) Primary School, Turnditch CE (A) Primary School, Curbar Primary School (Mondays and
Wednesdays only), Lea Primary School, Crich Junior School (15th&16th only), Darley Dale Primary
School, Griffield Primary School (Derby City), Melbourne Infant School, Shelton Infant School (Derby
City), Littleover Community School.
The following schools will open their doors on the week beginning 9th March 2015:
Barrow Sale & Davy’s CE (C) Primary School, Litton CE (A) Primary School, Newton Solney CE (A)
Primary School, South Darley CE (C) Primary School, Aldecar Infant and Nursery School, Alfreton
Nursery School, Hardwick Primary School (Derby City), Stonehill Nursery (Derby City), Pear Tree
Infant School (Derby City), Walbrook Nursery School (Derby City).
The following schools will open their doors on the week beginning 20th April 2015:
Creswell CE (C) Infant School, William Gilbert Endowed CE (A) Primary School(Duffield), Osmaston
CE (C) Primary School, Turnditch CE (A) Primary School, Curbar Primary School (Mondays and
Wednesdays only), Lea Primary School, Crich Junior School (15th & 16th only), Darley Dale Primary
School, Griffield Primary School (Derby City), The Park Federation (Shirebrook), Melbourne Infant
School, Morley Primary School, Shelton Infant School (Derby City), Littleover Community School.
The following schools will open their doors on the week beginning 22nd June2015:
Barrow Sale & Davy’s CE (C) Primary School, Newton Solney CE (A) Primary School, Aldecar Infant
and Nursery School, Alfreton Nursery School, Hardwick Primary School (Derby City), Pear Tree Infant
School (Derby City), Walbrook Nursery School (Derby City).
Some of the schools opening their doors are quite small, so we will be operating on a first come first
served basis. If we can’t accommodate you on the requested week, we will endeavour to offer you
an alternative school that will also meet your needs and/or offer you your preference school the
following term.
When sending your booking to Netta, could you please give us the following information:
Example:
Name of School (your school)
School we would like to visit
Staff we would like to send
What we would like to see.
Preferable Week
Learnwell Primary Creswell Infants B Smith (HT) T Abbas (DHT)
How to effectively share leadership with the ‘2 headteacher model’
12th January 2015
Litton CE (A) Primary School
J Hughes (Y3 teacher), P Brookes (Y4 teacher).
Effective next steps in marking and response tasks
24th November 2014
Stonehill Nursery P Holmes (AHT), M Green (FS1 teacher), J Peters (FS1 TA), H Bull (FS2 teacher), G Awan (FS2 TA)
Support for children at the early stages of learning English as a second language.
24th November 2014
Hardwick Primary B Smith (HT) T Abbas (DHT)
Rigorous monitoring systems, particularly the effective use of Teaching and Learning Action Plans.
24th November 2014
We will require that as a visiting schools you provide an evaluation later on in the year to measure
the impact that the visit had on your own school.
CRESWELL C OF E INFANT AND NURSERY SCHOOL (VC)
We have 250 pupils on roll with a PAN of 60. We have recently received our second
Outstanding grade from OFSTED, June 2014. The Headship is shared between two
Headteacher Partners. We have a mixed catchment but the area has a significant number of
deprived households. OFSTED praised teaching and learning and the rapid progress made
by pupils. ‘Children start school at levels that are frequently lower than expected for their age.
They go on to leave the school with standards that are higher than the national average.’
We are proud of many of the things we do but feel schools may particularly want to see our
Read, Write Inc. groups, our Foundation unit or the role of our Family Support Worker and
Nurture group.
We are looking forward to seeing other schools during ‘Outstanding Schools Week’ to
experience best practice in other schools – we are looking to improve further by ensuring
marking of pupils’ work in Key stage 1 provides specific guidance on areas for improvement
to help pupils do even better.
Amanda
ALFRETON NURSERY SCHOOL. We are a small school with 100 children aged 3 and 4 who attend part time sessions of 15 hours. Our staff are passionate advocates for children and we are a UNICEF Rights Respecting School. Respect for every child's uniqeness is core to our work. In addition to curriculum tracking and data collection, we use the child monotoring tool for ECAT (Every Child a Talker), and have recently added Professor Ferre Laevers Process-Orientated Monitoring System, which enables staff to measure every child's wellbeing and engagement in learning. We have created a stimulating learning environment both indoors and out and operate our freeflow outdoor sessions in all weathers. We have also created a Forest School on site and have 3 Forest School Leaders on the staff. Home school links are a high priority for us, and we have a number of initiatives which engage parents in supporting their child's development. We are looking forward this year to working with an Artist in Residence. We enjoy challenging ourselves and welcome visitors who are curious about our ways of working! Angela Stanton Headteacher Alfreton Nursery School Grange Street Alfreton Derbyshire DE55 7JA 01773 520031
A PROFILE OF LITTLEOVER COMMUNITY SCHOOL
Littleover is a large (1700 on roll) 11-18 community comprehensive school in the outer suburbs
of Derby. We draw our pupils both from the surrounding areas of Littleover and Mickleover,
and from the inner city area of Normanton. Our Pupil Premium numbers are below the national
average.
We were last inspected in Autumn 2007, when the inspectors judged us to be ‘an outstanding
school’. Since then, we have maintained high academic standards and a reputation for
excellent behaviour and pastoral care. Our success is based on teamwork at all levels, and
the high quality of relationships within the school. For many years, pupils of all levels of ability
have attained very well at GCSE, and all go on to worthwhile activity after that, either in the
sixth form, college or training. The school is characterised by high aspirations on the part of
staff, pupils and parents.
Our main focus at present is to improve performance at GCSE for the current Y11 pupils,
following 2013 results which, whilst having some positive features, were not as strong as we
have come to expect. We are making many changes in order to adapt to the new curriculum
and assessment arrangements at KS4, and are keen to learn from good practice in other
schools as well as welcoming visitors who feel they may benefit from visiting us.
Mr A Venkatesh
October 2014
LITTON CE(A) PRIMARY SCHOOL
LITTON
BUXTON
DERBYSHIRE
SK17 8QU
Tel: 01298 871449
Head Teacher: Mrs Bridget Hanley BA
LITTON CE VA PRIMARY SCHOOL
We are a small school in a small village in the Derbyshire Dales. We have 51 children on roll
and the children are organised into 2 classes (infants and juniors). We have one full time
teacher and one .5 teacher with the head having a .5 teaching commitment.
I have been at the school for 6 years and in that time we have had a ‘Good’ Ofsted (2009)
followed by an Outstanding judgement (2012).
At Litton we offer a relaxed and friendly family atmosphere and pride ourselves on the close
relationships between children, staff and parents.
Our cohorts vary enormously but children typically make extremely good progress from very
average starting points. This is due to outstanding teaching and learning based on high quality
feedback to pupils and a structured approach to the way in which children respond to marking.
We also promote music heavily within the school, encouraging all the children to take up
instruments and participate in the choir and band etc. wherever possible.
We try to engage our children with the beautiful landscape around us, making use of our bird
hide, pond and woodland. Our reception group spend one half a day each week on an
‘adventure’ when they set off with their backpacks and wellies to explore the local area.
I think our school would be of particular interest to colleagues who would like to look at marking
and feedback and also at mixed age teaching, especially in the junior class.
Bridget Hanley
STONEHILL NURSERY SCHOOL
We are a 40 FTE place nursery school offering 15 hours funded places. We are the on edge
of inner city Derby with the vast majority of pupils learning English as an additional language.
The majority of pupils are from a Pakistani Muslim heritage with an increasing number from
an Eastern European background.
Our environment provides a calm, natural space both outside and indoors with areas for
investigation, reflection and creativity.
We achieved our Outstanding judgement in March of this year following 3 previous Good
judgements. The strength of the team working together very closely on all aspects was
paramount to achieving our latest judgement. Assessment has always been a strength of the
school as it is detailed, rigorous and
discussed between the whole team to ensure all areas of a child’s learning is captured.
Following the Head teachers visit to Reggio Emilia last year we began to introduce changes
to our documentation, planning and displays linking them more closely together – this has
produced a more cohesive approach which again supports our assessment, tracking and
monitoring processes.
Ofsted acknowledged our outstanding support for children who are at the early stages of
learning English as a second language. We embrace the opportunity to maximise effective
speech, language and communication for all children within our school. We acknowledged
that to achieve this we needed to access high quality CPD for all and refine our existing good
practice. We worked with a language consultancy team to achieve this and recently were
awarded an Enhanced Accreditation for Early Talk by the ICAN Communication Trust.
We know we are not perfect but we have a drive and passion for Early Years education and
we would be delighted to welcome you and share our story.
WILLIAM GILBERT CE/END. VA PRIMARY SCHOOL
William Gilbert is a larger than average Voluntary Aided Primary School, set in the heart of the
Derwent Valley. Rather than ‘outstanding’, we prefer to say, ‘We strive for excellence in
everything that we do’.
Our school is driven by distinctively Christian values which are deeply embedded in the daily
life of the school and impact on the exemplary behaviour, attitudes, aspirations and
achievements of the whole school community. Religious Education is high profile within the
school and treated as a core subject. It has a significant impact on the spiritual, moral, social
and cultural development of the children, which creates a positive climate for learning that
allows for effective teaching and learning. This in turn enhances the children’s academic
achievement in all areas of the curriculum.
Every child is embraced as a unique child of God and given exceptional care, nurture, support
and challenge in order to flourish. Our staff and pupils speak openly about the positive impact
of Collective Worship and how it influences their thinking and day to day actions.
It is hard to evidence the impact of the school ethos but visitors regularly comment, “There is
something intangibly special here”. You have to experience it, to understand its existence and
effect. We wish we could bottle it!
If you would like to visit and experience our school and ask any questions we will extend a
very warm welcome to you.
HARDWICK PRIMARY SCHOOL
Our Vision
“We want everyone who is part of this school and its community to care about each other and
help us to be better than our previous best, so that we can all achieve our potential. We want
it to be a place where everyone is respected and included and where we all share a love of
learning, full of exciting experiences.”
Our Values
We want everyone involved with our school to CARE and make it a place that is;
Caring where everyone cares about each other and our school
Achieving where everyone always does better than their previous best
Respectful where everyone remembers their manners and respects one another
Exciting where everyone enjoys learning and experiencing new challenges
Hardwick Primary School is a rich, vibrant, multicultural inner city school situated within the
Peartree/Normanton suburb of Derby. The school was opened in 2006 following the
amalgamation of separate Infant and Junior schools in a modern PFI building offering an
outstanding learning environment.
There are currently 590 children on role divided between 3 Foundation Stage classes, 4 Infant
classes and 12 Junior classes. English is the second language for the majority of our pupils
and with 40% of receiving Pupil Premium funding.
Our children are nurtured by a friendly, enthusiastic and supportive school team who believe
our pupils deserve the best and who have made great strides during the last three years to
improve our school, coming out of Special Measures within a year and being graded as
Outstanding in May 2014.
Much of our success was due to our rigorous systems and procedures including:
Performance Management. All staff have teaching and learning action plans supported by rigorous monitoring and development systems.
Assessment and Marking. This includes effective next steps marking and response tasks and termly mentoring meetings with every child to discuss their progress and targets for improvement.
Inclusion and Intervention. Our provision includes excellent nurture support, precision teaching and detailed induction and intervention programmes.
Curriculum. Through engaging enquiry led cross curricular themes children are encouraged to become creative, critical and caring thinkers and to plan their own investigations within each theme using the knowledge and skills they have developed. SMSC features strongly throughout all that we do.
We are proud of our school, our pupils, our team and our achievements and have exciting
plans for the future.
This year we are focusing our efforts on improving the quality of talk and dialogue to support
learning as well as developing a whole school approach to improving children’s learning to
learn skills and understanding.
We by no means feel that our way is the only way – and indeed we are looking forward to
sending our staff out during ‘Outstanding Schools Week’ to experience best practice in other
schools – however, if you are interested in finding out more, then we are very happy to share
this with you.
Notes for organisation:
We plan to run our Open Week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays, with think we can
cater for up to 25 people a day and are happy to provide lunch for £3:00.
Our intention is to arrange the day as follows:
9:00 – 9:45 Welcome and explaining our context and journey
10:00 – 10:30 Tour of the school
10:45 – 12:30 Free access to the school
12:30 – 1:00 Lunch
1:00 – 2:15 Free access to the school
2:15 – 3:00 A choice of three workshops with school leaders with Q and A
In order to help organise the days it would be good to know how many lunches and what areas
of school development visitors are interested in.
I am also planning to put an evaluation form together to help capture the value of and ways to
improve the sessions.
Thanks
Jonathan
MELBOURNE INFANT SCHOOL
Open Schools Pen Portrait
School Name MELBOURNE INFANT SCHOOL
Locality MELBOURNE DERBYSHIRE
Lead Person JO SADLER - HEADTEACHER
Telephone No. 01332 862325
Email [email protected]
Date(s) Week A
First half term (Autumn) No date
First half term (Spring) W/C 12th January
First half term (Summer) W/C 20th April
Additional information
(focus, content,
organisation of the
event, contextual
information,
accessibility,
expectations etc…)
The school is an Infant school with no nursery, admitting pupils full time in September as one intake.
There are 206 children on roll from September 2014 resulting in 7 classes.
The school's most recent local deprivation index ranking was 273/298 (below national average)
The percentage of children taking free school meals during 20013/14 was 7%.
The majority of the children have had some form of pre-school education.
Attainment on entry in the Foundation is in line with County expectations. The school has developed an excellent transition procedure with the local preschools and also uses the information passed on to make baseline judgments. Assessment in all EYFS areas are completed within half term of entering school. This is used as the school's baseline benchmark for all progress, value added and from which future targets are set.
Pupils attainment is consistently high throughout and well above National and Local averages in both EYFS and KS1.
The last full OFSTED inspection was in March 2007 in which the school was graded ‘Outstanding’. In May 2011 the school had an Inspection Report and Risk Assessment that verified the school maintained their ‘Outstanding’ grading.
The school now has a range of single age and mixed age classes ranging from Reception to Year 2.
Involvement in Quality Initiatives: Active mark, Basic Skills Quality Mark, Derbyshire
Personalised Learning Award, ECO Green Flag Award,
Healthy School’s Status, Sports England award, International
Schools Award, STOP The Anti-Bullying Commitment Award,
Derbyshire Programmes include; Assessment for Learning
(Lead School), ‘Building Foundations’ (EYFS initiative for pre-
school’s and Schools), Peer Leadership, Derbyshire Open
Schools (Assessment/EYFS).
The Headteacher is an LLE and has supported school’s in RI
with successful outcomes and has mentored new
Headteachers.
100% of teaching is at least Good and 70% is outstanding
Areas for sharing good
practice.
Assessment for Learning, EYFS, High quality Teaching and Learning
(Teachers and Teaching Assistants), Mixed age classes, PE, ICT
(KS1), Leadership and management.
AFL
EYFS
High Quality Teaching
and Learning/Mixed age
classes
PE
Computing (KS1)
How assessment for learning is used throughout the school, with
particular reference to Literacy. Looking at observing assessment
procedures within the classroom, making links with marking, layered
targets, peer/self assessment, target setting, APP grids, planning.
Observe the effective running of the Foundation Stage environment,
providing a free flow indoor and outdoor curriculum. How all 7 areas
of learning are facilitated through adult led and child initiated
activities – enabling environments. To share strategies and
procedures developed to enable children to become motivated and
resilient learners.
Incorporating the curriculum to cater effectively for mixed age classes
– including Reception and Y1. Ensuring that all needs are met within
curriculum expectations, utilising support staff effectively and
maintaining high quality teaching and learning for all.
High quality delivery of lessons (Used to be an AST) with regard to
planning organisation and assessment. Information regarding the use
of Sport funding and recording outcomes.
Using IPADs for computing skills and across the curriculum using a
range of programmes. Daily use of SMART boards to enhance high
quality teaching and learning.
OSMASTON CE VC PRIMARY SCHOOL
Osmaston is a small school (125) serving a catchment to the east of the town of Ashbourne;
a village school housed largely in traditional buildings in the picturesque village of Osmaston.
It is a Voluntary Controlled Church School that maintains contact with St Martins Church and
regularly observes Church of England ceremony and occasion.
“Osmaston is a fantastic school delivering an excellent all round education” This parent
comment was reproduced in the OFSTED report 2012 presenting quite a departure from your
normal inspector speak. OFSTED went on to observe that: “Most pupils make outstanding
progress.” “Behaviour around the school is excellent and attendance is high.” Lessons involve
a rapid pace of learning” and “Rapid progress is seen in all subjects”.
Over the last ten years there has been a journey that has taken it from being regarded as
“effective” by OFSTED to achieving the ringing accolade of being judged as outstanding on
every parameter. The fact that this has been achieved OFSTED attributed to the leadership
of the Head and the excellence of the staff, supported by a rigorous and challenging governing
body.
The school continues to strive for excellence in all fields. It is totally committed to the
achievement of the highest levels of attainment whilst maintaining breadth of experience
through the taught curriculum and beyond. This means that some learning is often outside
the classroom and frequently takes place well away from school during carefully planned
educational visits. Sport plays a leading part in the life of the school and despite its relatively
small size the school's achievement across the range of team games has brought it success
at county, regional and national levels. Music is also given a high priority.
The children are visibly happy, confident and well presented in traditional uniforms. They
interact well with each other and are courteous and friendly to visitors. Behaviour is
outstanding. In lessons they are bright and confident, displaying eagerness to learn and a
willingness to co-operate and share. Relations with their teachers and other members of staff
are characterised by good humour and mutual respect. A strongly underpinned school wide
rewards system provides high levels of motivation for the pupils as witnessed by the weight of
badges that most of them are happy to carry round on their blazers.
The major part of this outstanding activity takes place in a school environment the
effectiveness of which has been optimised by carefully planned development. The library, the
play areas, the infants' outside area and the garden have all been developed under the current
regime. The school took on the responsibility for managing the underused village hall in order
to provide further activity space. Just across the road is St Martins which provides even more
opportunities for inspiration and learning.
Osmaston CE Primary School continues to be an outstanding school because it never ceases
striving for the very best for the children who are fortunate enough to spend the earliest years
of their statutory education within its community. The experience enriches their lives and
provides the most secure foundations for their future learning.
Outstanding Practice at Turnditch School
Here at Turnditch School we have a range of strengths which we would like to communicate. Our
school is a small rural village school with 85 children on role. We have four classes of which three are
mixed age group classes of Yr 1/2, Yr 3/4 and Yr 5/6. We have a dedicated foundation stage.
We are extremely proud of our school and would love to share some of our successes with other
practitioners.
One of our key strengths is mixed age planning and delivery especially in the subject areas of literacy
and numeracy. Our teachers have an in depth understanding of how to support all children with
their learning journey, supported through in-depth planning and creative lesson delivery. This
planning and delivery is robustly supported through effective marking and supporting assessment.
Key to our children’s learning development is our effective targeting which the children are central
to through the use of group and one to one feedback. The children and staff discuss (both during
and after lessons) on a regular basis development points with the understanding these will be
implemented into future pieces of work.
We have within the school two science and one PE specialist. Our Ks 1 teacher was an AST for
science across Derbyshire and our Ks 2 science teacher has a specialist knowledge of how to
differentiate and effectively deliver in mixed aged groups from Year 3 to Year 6. Our science
curriculum is based on a practical, investigative approach with hands on sessions being key to
children’s skill based and knowledge development.
In PE we are fortunate to have a specialist teacher who’s training at university was based around this
subject. It is because of this teacher we have been able to (in conjunction with advice from PE
specialists within Derbyshire) develop a robust scheme of work which ensures key skill development
with children of all ages from foundation to year 6.
Finally our foundation practitioners would like to share good practice with others. They have over
the last two years developed effective planning (based around learning through exploration,
investigation and play) enabling children to at least reach expected standards in EYFS assessments
with a number of children exceeding expectations. Planning is extensive but used daily as a working
document demonstrating how interchangeable a day can be. They are currently using effectively a
computer based assessment tool which is a valuable asset for instant recording so that snapshot
actions (demonstrated by children) observed by each practitioner can quickly be recorded.
We are really looking forward to getting into other schools to observe good practice during these
good practice weeks and extend our hand of support and friendship for those wishing to observe
any of the above.
ALDERCAR INFANT AND NURSERY SCHOOL
Number on roll 168
Including 26 place Nursery (26 am 26pm)
8 Place Enhanced Resource Provision for Deaf and Hearing Impaired children (fully included
in mainstream classes)
Class structure and teaching staffing
Nursery – Super Saplings Shared class Foundation stage Leader (Mon,
Tues ,Wed) Nursery Teacher (Thurs,Fri)
Reception Class – Amazing Ash Shared Class (UPS Teachers )
Reception /Year 1 – Wonderful Willow NQT (covering maternity leave)
Year1/Year2 – Fantastic Fir Main scale teacher (4th year)
Year 2 – Marvellous Maple Shared Class UPS teacher (Mon,Tues,Wed,
Thurs) Assistant Head (Fri)
Additional Staff
ERF staff Teacher of the Deaf (TOD) two full time TAs , Deaf tutor (Fri)
HLTA’s Three
Family and children worker One (part-time)
Teaching assistants Seven
Midday Supervisors Five
Midday Play worker One
Context
Last Ofsted May 2013
We are set in an area of recognised deprivation. Free school meals approximately 1/3 of
each class
We are a fully inclusive school that puts the children at the centre of everything we do. We
work effectively with parents. We have an active PTA. Governors play an active role in
monitoring and evaluating school improvements. We run a parent and toddler group
(Aldercar Acorns Thursday am). Our deaf children access Deaf Club (Friday pm). Forest
Schools is part of our provision (Thursday pm). We work closely with our junior school and
local cluster schools. We have nurture and positive play provision, termly interventions with
(targeted) parents and children. The Headteacher works as an Associate School
Improvement Adviser.
Current Developments
Forest schools for our nursery children
Language developments - “Talk Boost”, REAL project with the Educational Psychologist
Strengthening parental involvement
Mathematical Development – Numicon
Child friendly (parent friendly) marking and feedback
Curriculum enrichment – new National Curriculum
MORLEY PRIMARY PEN PORTRAIT
Morley is a small village primary school with around 80 pupils on roll. We have 3 mixed-age
classes. Standards are high and we set ourselves demanding targets. We are very proud that
all our children state that they love coming to school. This is due to the electric atmosphere
in classrooms, the outstanding teaching by our staff, and our exciting curriculum and
enrichment activities – all of which were identified by OfSTED. We were thrilled to be judged
as Outstanding again at our last inspection. We feel that we have strengths in the teaching of
writing; in the developing use of technology within lessons; in marking and feedback to pupils;
and in tracking and monitoring progress. Our pupils both write and live our vision and aims.
The pupils are involved in every aspect of school – they plan and run some of our charity
events and theme weeks. We are a founder member of the Nottingham University SCITT
scheme, and of the Opengate sports development programme. We do believe in continuously
striving to improve ourselves and would welcome the opportunity to visit other schools to see
new ideas, as well as sharing what we do.
CURBAR PRIMARY SCHOOL
We are a small, village Community Primary School with 70 children on roll. We are divided
into three classes: Class 1 (Rec, Y1&Y2); Class 2 (Y3&4) and Class 3 (Y5&6). We were
judged to be ‘outstanding’ in 2008 and the current Headteacher, who has a 0.3 teaching
commitment, was appointed in September 2012.
We have strengths in our use of assessment data to provide information for both teaching and
learning and the development of areas of the curriculum. Our staff have a wide-range of roles
in school and each teacher leads an area/s of the School Improvement Plan via an annual
action plan. We operate some flexibility within our teaching groups in order to maximise the
learning opportunities for individual children. For example, some of the Y4 children are taught
with Y5/6 for literacy and/or maths. We are currently developing our teaching and learning
and academically more able policies and practice and we are also developing our use of
outdoor learning areas.
We are very interested in sharing good practice and welcome visitors to our school as we also
welcome opportunities for our staff to visit other schools. We are very open and take the view
that there is no one correct way of teaching - we are open to many possible styles and
approaches. Due to the size and nature of our school, we are only able to accommodate a
maximum of three visiting colleagues at any one time. We are able to offer visits on Mondays
and Wednesdays.
Anthony
GRIFFE FIELD PRIMARY SCHOOL Griffe Field Primary School is a larger than average primary school with 474 pupils on roll (including our Nursery). Our school community is economically polarised which brings distinct challenges and is supported by our well established and strong ethos. A wide ethnic mix brings diversity which we celebrate and is valued by the community. As a relatively new school we have been ‘uncluttered’ by past practice and our vibrant, imaginative school team embrace change and strive to ensure high standards are underpinned by quality, memorable first hand experiences. Our school ethos and strong PSHE are the building blocks of all we do at Griffe Field. We are very proud of our curriculum which is planned around pupils’ interests and questions - our children are active participants in their learning. As a large school quality whole school theme weeks including our Take One Picture transition project and Derby project, to name just two, are exciting, creative and innovative. We value parental involvement in school life and parent helpers in school are an everyday occurrence, we also run a range of activities for our families. Literacy and Numeracy workshops are key in supporting their understanding of learning, as well as, Open Mornings, Open Evenings, Stay and Play and numerous social events run in partnership with our PTA. We are excited to be part of the Outstanding Schools Week. We are always happy to share our school with colleagues. We are equally excited about visiting other schools and learning from you all too.
School Lane Crich Matlock Derbyshire DE4 5DF
01773 852384
22 October 2014
Crich Junior Community School is a small rural school with approximately 60 pupils on
roll. There is a well-established staff team and a very supportive Governing Body.
Our latest Ofsted in May 2013 graded the school as Outstanding. As a school community we were particularly pleased that Ofsted highlighted how our “pupils speak very highly of their teachers, saying that teaching is outstanding and inspires them to succeed!”
The school team strive hard to provide exciting, educational experiences, so that our pupils develop as confident, caring and accomplished individuals to meet the demands of an ever changing and diverse world.
We would like to share with you our ongoing work on:
Specialist teaching & support
The creative curriculum
Our pupil leadership programmes
Developing resilience for both pupils and staff
As a staff, just before our last Ofsted, we visited 2012/13 schools on the Open Schools Programme. We were inspired, learnt lots and the visits also had the added bonus of increasing our own confidence when Ofsted did come knocking on the door. Cheryl Julian Headteacher
SHELTON INFANT SCHOOL
We are an infant school with 208 pupils on roll and a 26 place nursery located in the southern
suburbs of Derby. The proportion of pupils in receipt of the pupil premium is steadily increasing
and currently stands at 28%. Over half of our pupils live outside the normal catchment area of
the school; 61% of our pupils live in the 20% most deprived wards nationally. Our last Ofsted
Inspection was in 2007(!) and we have strived to maintain standards since then.
Our pupils enter school with attainment below national expectations; by the end of their time
in Year 2 their attainment is in line with, or above, national averages. Rigorous pupil progress
meetings and analysis of progress and achievement are one of the strengths of the school
highlighted by our School Improvement Officers.
We adopt a creative approach to the curriculum enhanced by many themed weeks to address
the priorities of the school and the needs of the children. Staff also write their own ‘Learning
to Learn’ adventures which immerse the pupils in imaginary adventures particularly tailored to
their interests and needs. The impact of these adventures has been seen in the development
of children’s speaking and listening skills and in their creative writing.
Boys’ attainment in writing has been a priority for our school and we have been successful in
raising achievement through the adoption of many different (and fun!) approaches including a
rigorous physical literacy programme, the involvement of male members of families and the
visit of an ‘Inspector’.
We are proud to have a very high degree of parental involvement in the school and we feel
we have been successful in engaging with many ‘hard to reach’ families through family
learning events, the work of our learning mentor and our pupil premium teacher.
We offer pupils a very wide range of lunch-time clubs, all of which have modules and are
affiliated to the Children’s University. All children have ‘Learning Passports’ to record their
achievements. This scheme has had a very positive impact upon children’s self-esteem and
confidence, and is highly regarded by our parents.
The aims of our school are very simple – ‘Have Fun, Aim High and Achieve Well’. If you are
interested in finding out more, please come and see us!