- To develop pupils’ thinking skills:
Over the years teaching became about getting children ready to sit tests. Now that the curriculum has developed we are able to focus on providing our pupils with life long skills that will allow them to learn beyond school.
Staff will use the language of thinking skills with pupils and look for opportunities for pupils to use and develop their thinking skills in different learning experiences. Pupils will follow the pattern of remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate and create. This will give the pupils a deeper understanding of what they are learning and make connections across the curriculum.
These skills will be valuable in the work place and in day to day life.
- To ensure pupils with Additional Learning Needs make effective progress:
Some pupils need extra help with their learning. this does not mean that they should simply be given easier work but rather the tools and support to achieve as high as they can.
Staff will provide opportunities for pupils with additional learning needs to play an active role in the classroom; leading learning, contributing to the learning of others and making visible progress.
- To improve pupils’ standards in Welsh speaking and reading across the school:
The Welsh language is incredibly important to us and can be seen and heard across the whole school. We want our pupils to enjoy speaking Welsh and to appreciate the language, teaching their family what they know.
Our challenge is to promote a language that is not spoken widely in our community, to do this we will work with other experts to improve the Welsh skills of our teaching staff and look for opportunities to celebrate our language.
- To develop parental engagement in Nursery and Reception:
Families are the most important teachers in a child’s life. We want to work closely with our families to ensure that we understand and know our pupils to the best levels we can. Families hold lots of important information about their children and by sharing this knowledge we can create a school experience that will give the right support at the right time.
We will meet with families before their children start nursery and make sure that everyone gets to visit the school. There will also be lots of opportunities to come into school and work alongside your children and staff.
We have our own Family Engagement Officer who’s job it is to support our families in their child’s journey through school. Gemma will plan lots of events that you or other family members can attend, they will allow you to see your child in school but also give you a better understanding of how we work and what we can do together to make school even more successful for your child.
- To develop a shared understanding of progress:
Now that the curriculum has changed schools need to understand and identify a child’s progress across the curriculum. It is important that progress is measured on an individual level and not in comparison to others.
As a staff we will be looking at and testing a few different approaches that will help us understand how to best support an individual. We will also be looking at how we can make sure that families are involved in this too, as we will achieve more by working together.
It is also important that are older pupils develop an understanding of how well they are doing and the best ways in which they learn, so that they can develop independence in their learning.
We will also be working with other schools in our area to ensure that we support all our pupils making the move to secondary school.