Headlines By James Saunders 26th March 2021
Testing volunteers As the term draws to close I would like to thank our parent, community and staff volunteers who have made the demands of returning to school possible. When we were told at Christmas that we would be setting up and running a testing centre at school I was left with a feeling of panic at the thought of attempting to pull such a thing off. It was only made possible by our community pulling together to support us. We have been testing regularly all term but these last few weeks have really put us to the test. After nearly three weeks of solid testing of our learners (three tests each) we found only one positive result. That is one more result than we would have found had we not been testing and I hope that it has helped to reduce transmission that otherwise may have gone unchecked. The lateral flow testing has been a huge effort and I would like to say thank you to those that made it happen: Carol Arthur, Sara Brady, Carol Buick, Maddy Butcher, Michelle Catley, Scott Caygill, Wendy Chandler, Jo Dixon, Mel Fairbairn, Karen Farrell, Tayrina Ferguson, Rebecca Golbourn, Lisa Harvey, Louise Hazell-Young, Andrea Higgon, Joanne Hill, Victoria Hill, Sharon Hull, Anne-Marie Ketteridge, Amanda Loydall, Emily McKeown, James Munro, Lena Putter, Lisa Pyatt, Matt Ramsay, Lorraine Richell, Lisa Rushton, Kathyrn Scherer, Clay Stayt, Jill Ward. I wish you all a safe, warm and happy Easter break. James Saunders Quality of education theme It feels as though we are able to start looking forward now; that there is hope we are able to achieve some semblance of normality. I for one will be glad to get our strategic mission back on track. COVID has forced us to redirect our focus on many things. It will be nice to finally be able to direct our efforts to what we value most - the quality of the education at Honywood. I came across the following this week - ‘What You Teach Matters: How we teach should be decided once we determine what to teach’.
The work on our capital enhancing curriculum will continue to underpin our vision and plans going forward and is just as much about developing what we teach our learners as it is, how we teach them. Building character and achieving success will continue to be a part of what we do. Our aim is for learners to leave us happy as well as successful. I would like to take this opportunity to remind you of our six capitals (Moral, Social, Cultural, Knowledge, Organisational and Professional) and highlight our curriculum principles. Honywood Curriculum Principles Our capital enhancing curriculum should: Foster a love for learning Be challenging, rigorous and personalised Offer breadth and depth of learning Be knowledge rich and culturally enhancing Recognise the importance of connecting with prior learning 6. Be rich in literacy, numeracy and oracy 7. Require learners to showcase their learning effectively 8. Be transparent and demonstrate progress 9. Allow learners to acquire and develop their knowledge, skills and attributes 10. Model success and aspire for excellence 11. Require learners to build and demonstrate a strong set of shared values 12. Enable learners to leave us resilient, confident and successful so they can embrace their future
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These curriculum principles can be mapped across our six capitals. It won’t surprise you to know that they are mostly concentrated in the development of Knowledge capital. The thing that will make the most difference to success in this area is ensuring we have built a challenging and aspirational learning experience that progresses over the five years learners study with us. And the thing that ensures optimum execution of this curriculum content: great teaching and learning and great teachers. These are the things we will continue to develop into next year.
Continued….