School Focus 2022 2023
Plans for 2022 2023
Every year, we hook onto a focus that underpins our new school year which is founded in current educational research and fixed on the needs identified of how we can improve our offer for our children.
This year at Bretherton we will be looking carefully at the process known as novice to expert. This can be unpicked in many ways. From the perspective of children, what do they know in relation to the subject that we are teaching? Do they have the building blocks of learning already in place and embedded inorder to build on it with new content? To ensure that our curriculum is sequenced in a way that is progressive and links learning in and between subjects? From the perspective of teachers, what do they need in order to be highly effective in their role and we aim to promote professional development specific to each person, driven through coaching and the desire to always do better. For subject leaders and at our school, our leaders have to lead 2-3 subjects, to audit our knowledge and understanding of our subject, it’s progression and core concepts and big ideas so that we can ensure that our curriculum is rooted in them. Everyone, pupils and staff will all be at different starting points but the fluid progression from novice to expert in small focus areas and on the larger whole school focus areas will ensure we are all on a journey towards becoming experts. It is believed that we don’t become experts in a subject until we get a PHD in it. This is not what we are striving for! We are merely ensuring that we can all be the best we can be. A quote from Maya Angelou, that resonates for us this year 'Do the best you can until you know better. then when you know better, do better'. This is our journey and will keep us focused on improvements for all.
Our curriculum will benefit from this focus too as much work has taken place in 2021 to sequence every subject and outline the key learning. A curriculum is never finished, and this work will be built upon this year to focus on ensuring that vocabulary is identified for each subject for each year and this is taught explicitly in order for children to be able to know, understand and apply what they have learned. As I have indicated, language is key and the knowledge of vocabulary across the curriculum subjects drives our ambition. These powerful words, need to be taught explicitly and the entomology ( origins) . Douglas Bares in 1976 said that ‘ Learning floats on a sea of talk’. At Bretherton we intend that children will learn words- vocabulary so that they know the meaning, link them to other words and subjects, how they are spelt and ultimately how to apply it, so that children can ‘talk’ their learning. Over the year we will refine the vocabulary linked to each of our subjects/topics and so that we have a balance of taught words and words that are ‘encountered’ . This is what learning is at its heart. It is the ability for children to be able to have knowledge, articulate learning, and apply it in a variety of sophisticated ways. Through using key pieces of upto date educational research, Bretherton Endowed will place a spotlight on what children are remembering and ensuring that the hard work all our staff put in each day is resulting in children knowing more and remembering more. Knowledge isn’t just information or a collection of facts but a series of well planned key facts that are linked well together and we know that learning doesn't just happen in the classroom but through the outdoors, through experiences, visitors and visits.
We know that as human beings, we remember best through a narrative, a story. So we will access high quality, diverse, texts that link to all subject areas, aswell as in English lessons. We will work to ensure that our curriculum unfolds like a story as this helps children remember more – so learning sticks rather than acts as a series of separate facts, topics or subjects that can easily be forgotten. We have invested over £3500 on a new phonics scheme, literacy planning and texts for each class and guided reading and library books. We are excited to see the impact on children's progress.
This leads me to outline our desire to enrich further our cultural capital. This is not merely more visits to theatres or inclusion of more arts, but an overwhelming desire that all children at Bretherton will be afforded the varied and extensive knowledge that a breadth curriculum offers, that enables everyone equal access to more opportunities. Through this we can close any gaps in learning some children may have. In partnership with the experiences and knowledge children receive at home, we will support their understanding of equality, diversity and the arts.
So as we commence our new term, we are excited to really focus on high quality teaching and efficient routines. Praising and encouraging the key basic skills of handwriting, rapid recall of number facts, spellings and the entomology of words, good presentation of work, good learning behaviours and good manners and kindness that are seen through our Christian Values.
Each class will look at a value over the whole year in their class worship so that they learn about where the bible teaches it, how people in the past and present have been recognised for living it and how we can walk in their footsteps today. We will share more in the weeks to come.
We look forward to sharing the impact of our journey through your children's work over the year.
I will upload our IT strategic plan and our whole school action plan very soon
Plans for 2021 2022
After experiencing an unprecidented year due to Covid-19, we have relected on our school's needs in both school development and as Covid catch up for our children and staff.
We started 2020 with a school theme but it was overshadowed by Covid. It still feels as important today, so we will relaunch it as a focus for the 2021 2022 school year. The theme is
‘Hakuna Matata' which many of you who are familiar with the Lion King would recognise. Hakuna Matata roughly translates to "there are no troubles" in Swahili and we will resume our whole school trip plans and lots of work linked to the themes within. It doesn’t mean that we have ‘no worries’ but as a school we will continue to teach children how to understand and manage their emotions, look at things within their control and those we cannot change and how we set goals and flourish as a result. So watch out for these themes emerging over the year.
Our whole school development plan looks:
- To continue to foster and develop our children’s love of writing. To find their author’s voice and be able to confidently write to a variety of audiences, in a creative and technically accurate way.
- To further develop our staff, families and children in the world of online safety through the National Online Safety platform. Through the use of CPD, lesson plans, parental app we hope to equip all our stakeholders with the knowledge, understanding and skills to thrive and be safe in our virtual world.
- To embed further, our work on learning behaviours so that children leave Bretherton with all the tools to be self motivated, independent, learners who will succeed in their education and beyond.
- To widen the reach of Bretherton to making connections with other schools in the UK and the world to extend our children’s appreciation of diversity and equality.
- To foster the creative arts so that our children have the opportunity to see their talents in all aspects of school life. From drama, public speaking, debating, arts, design, and music by working towards the National Arts Mark, we aim to offer our children a diverse spectrum of opportunities to excel.
In addition to these areas, our staff as subject leaders are developing their roles further into being experts in their field despite the responsibility of having a number of subjects to lead. We aim to revive our pupil voice groups as this was a particular strength of school and our staff and children have missed the opportunity to inveract and plan collaboratively.
We will also be reflecting on the Government document: The Reading Framework and looking at what we need to change and improve as a result of the recent research into early reading, phonics and reading through school.