Pedagogical newsletter issue 1 feb 12

Hill West Primary School Issue 1, February 2012

In this issue: Pupil Learning Profiles

Pedagogical Newsletter – February 2012 I am excited to send home the first issue of our brand new Pedagogical newsletter which will be issued every half term to update you specifically on teaching and learning practices

Year 1 Phonics Screening Check Reading – policy and practice Spelling Homework What does our data tell us?

Reminders: Changed Teacher Days 2012 29th October 2012 not 19th October 2012

Learning Profiles Thank you for recently completing the learning profile with your child and returning it to school. We want to involve you in the setting and checking on your child’s learning targets so that we work in partnership to ensure rapid progress across the curriculum.

Year 1 Phonics Screening As you are probably aware the new Coalition Government have introduced a compulsory phonics screening check for all pupils in Year One. This screening check is designed as a short, light-touch assessment to confirm whether individual pupils have learnt to sound out words including nonsense words to an appropriate standard. It will identify those children who need extra help and these children will then be

supported to improve their reading skills. At a later stage the children will re-take the check so that we can track their progress. The phonics screening check will take place between 18 and 22 June 2012.Further information can be found at http://www.education.gov.uk Sample words include; thazz, chill, starling, dentist, jound newt.

Homework As you know we currently set homework for our pupils on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Hopefully this consistency in practice between year groups makes things a little easier for you at home. We were really pleased with our parent questionnaire responses this year where 86% of you said that you believed that regular homework contributed to the learning and progress of your children.

We realize however from questionnaire responses and feedback at parent council that there is still some inconsistency concerning the marking of children’s homework. We are therefore undergoing a review of our homework policy. In our view the most important thing is that children complete their homework to consolidate their learning in school. Pleased be aware, even if homework is not returned, that it is collected in and valued.

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Glossary of Terms Phonics – letter sounds DES – Department for Education and Skills IFST – Integrated Family Support Teams SEN – Special Educational Needs FSM – Free School Meals Parentview – Ofsted Website to ascertain your views of our school Inference and deducation – making factual conclusions or reasoning Decodable – can be sounded out Segmenting – to sound letters or combinations of letters our individually Blending – to sound letters or combinations of letters out together Pedagogy – the craft of teaching

Teaching of Spelling Letters and Sounds Letters and Sounds is a phonics resource published by the DES in 2007. It aims to build children's speaking and listening skills in their own right as well as to prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic (sound) knowledge and skills. It sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonic skills for children with the aim of them becoming fluent readers by age seven. The teaching of spelling at school is part of this programme and when children complete all of the phases they progress onto reading and spelling more complex words. These are taught as part of your child’s literacy lessons in school. Long lists of spellings are no longer sent home for the children to learn as research has shown that these spellings are not often transferred into pupil’s independent writing and are often forgotten once initially learnt. Our spelling programme is therefore integrated into our teaching of reading and writing.

Our Data – what does it tell us about pupil progress Having analysed our pupil data this year, based on the results of children at the end of Key Stage One and the end of KS2 last summer we are able to tell you that the achievement of pupils is outstanding with children at the end of key stage two attaining significantly higher than children nationally. Our percentage of Level 5

children is significantly above national average meaning our highest performing students do best through significant challenge. Our underperforming groups are currently; Black Caribbean children, Free School Meal children and SEN children.

We are now working hard with these groups of children to accelerate their rate of learning.

New Ofsted Framework As of this January the Government have introduced a new framework for the inspection of schools. This framework makes judgments about schools against 5 key indicators.

Achievement and progress; Teaching and Learning; Behaviour and Safety; Leadership and Management and Overall Effectiveness The new framework has increased expectations on schools with the result that

far fewer schools are now likely to be graded ‘Outstanding’.

Despite this however we are still working hard to prove when we are next inspected that the quality of education at Hill West is Outstanding. Further information including directions to parentview website that allows you to register your opinion of the school with Ofsted can be found on the Ofsted

Website. www.ofsted.gov.uk

The Teaching of Reading

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THE CLUSTER HUB A wide range of services currently make use of the Cluster Hub located next to Mere Green Library. The Hub is a small building with three meeting rooms that is shared by all the schools and preschool settings in the Four Oaks Cluster.

Community Services at the Hub include: Breastfeeding Network Relate Counseling Malachai Counseling Children’s Centre Stay and Play Young Parent’s Group Grandparent’s Group Childminder Committee and Network Autism Support Group for parents Baby massage Baby signing Parenting courses

After a review of our reading policy and practice we now approach the teaching of reading through the whole curriculum.

Children will be issued with one Oxford Reading Tree book a week. We expect the children to read this book with you at home.

They will also read it with an adult in school during that week.

This may not be the Class Teacher. We expect parents to make at least one comment in the reading record book before we will issue the next book.

Adults in school will also make a comment on a weekly basis in the child’s reading record. As you will know listening to children read individually is very time consuming and research shows that it doesn’t lead to rapid progress. Therefore we teach reading through a guided group session where the strategies of decoding, blending, segmenting, inferring and deducing are taught. As well as Oxford Reading Tree books the children should also be sharing or reading a free choice book and a library book from school each week. This ensures a breadth to their reading and helps them to foster a love of books. If children only ever read and progress through the Oxford Reading Tree Stages they sometimes find it difficult to read and interpret other texts. If you want to find out more about reading feel free to contact Mrs Bakewell our School Librarian. If your child is an avid reader, Mere Green Library has some super resources - 0121 464 4592 mere.green.library@birmingham.gov.uk

Hot-desk and drop in

IFST – Integrated Family Support Teams are now working to support families across Birmingham. They can work with families for as little as 6 weeks or as long as 6 months to support you through a range of difficulties or challenges.

Building Learning Power We are currently working in partnership with Arthur Terry School on an initative called Building Learning Power. Building learning power is about helping young people to become better learners, both in school and out. It is about creating a culture in classrooms and in the school more widely - that systematically cultivates habits and attitudes that enable young people to face difficulty and uncertainty calmly, confidently and creatively.

Find out more at www.buildinglearnin gpower.co.uk

Is this newsletter helpful, user friendly? Do you have any topics you would like to see included in future issues? Please email your responses or suggestions to enquiry@hillwest.bham.sch.uk