Primary Matters - Spring 2022

A celebration of the amazing achievements, special events and competitions in our primary schools during the Spring term.

INSPIRATION TRUST’S PRIMARY MATTERS

Spring 2022

Celebrating exceptional times An introduction from our Primary Director, Alison Hughes.

Welcome to the first addition of our Primary Matters Inspiration Trust Magazine. We plan to publish termly editions to showcase and share some of the fantastic work going on in our Primary Schools.

provides a framework for children and staff to celebrate and understand the importance of childhood and have a voice in important issues they face in school, at home and as a global citizen.

I joined the Trust in May last year and feel proud to support and represent our Primaires within and beyond the Trust. From the first visit to each school I have been impressed by the professionalism and dedication of staff. There is definitely a Trust feel to each school coupled with an undeniable individual identity strongly led by the senior leaders. Running through each school is a strong commitment to our children and their communities.

There have been significant barriers to overcome in the past couple of years with staff having to adapt and work in an agile way to ensure continuity of teaching and learning. Those of us who have been in the profession for a while realise that change is here to stay and having a strong moral and pedagogical imperative are central to making decisions for our schools. The articles in this magazine illustrate that schools celebrate and involve themselves in matters much wider than the National Curriculum requirements and enrich children’s experiences that foster belonging, care and enjoyment.

There is an unrelenting focus on children learning every lesson, every day, every week with high expectations, supported by valuable resources and expertise. This is carefully coupled with a strong sense of care and support for individuals and their families. The decision this year to introduce the UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools Programme

If you have an article or idea for our next edition please let me know.

Our Schools The map below shows the location of all of the Primary schools in our Trust.

Norwich

Charles Darwin Primary Norwich Primary Academy

Great Yarmouth

Cobholm Primary Academy Stradbroke Primary Academy Great Yarmouth Primary Academy

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Larking Gowen is proud to sponsor the Inspiration Trust Academy kit for all the children at Cobholm, Charles Darwin, Great Yarmouth Primary, Norwich Primary and Stradbroke. The kits look great and it was an honour to be able to be part of a fantastic day where the children could all get together and enjoy some sport and healthy competition. It has been a tough couple of years and it was great to see everyone back together enjoying themselves.

Julie - Managing Director of Larking Gowen

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It was fantastic seeing lots of happy and energetic children having an opportunity to represent their school in a competitive tournament. For many this was their first experience of an Inter-school match and we are looking forward to our next athletics tournament in July to be held at Norwich Primary Academy. My thanks go to the Year 12 Sports Leaders from King Edward VII Academy, Kings Lynn who helped with the results collation and refereeing.

They were excellent!

”

Steve Adams - Whole Trust Sports Coordinator

Inspiration Trust kicks off their first Primary School Trust sports event!

On Friday 25th March Inspiration Trust hosted their first inaugural Primary 6-a-side football tournament in the beautiful sunshine at GOALS, Norwich. This was the first instalment of our cross-Trust sports competition programme for the academic year involving all five of our Primary Academies: Charles Darwin Primary, Cobholm Primary Academy, Great Yarmouth Primary, Norwich Primary and Stradbroke Primary.

The tournament involved over 100 players from Year 4 - 6 with teams playing on the six pitches in a roundrobin tournament to ensure plenty of competition and exciting matches. The games were played in great spirit and all competitors were a credit to their school in terms of performance, effort and sportsmanship.

Inspiration Trust sends their extended thanks and appreciation to Larking Gowen, who kindly sponsored the competition, allowing the children to compete in brand new school sports tops. The children were full of enthusiasm and pride, and will continue to represent their schools in their shirts throughout the programme of competitions.

Charles Darwin Primary Charles Darwin Primary, located in the heart of Norwich city centre.

Current Affairs: Ukraine We were incredibly proud of Ava and Lucy in year 5 who independently chose to write a song about the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. They were then extremely confident to sing this song in our assembly on Monday. Well done girls - a super example of or core values: independent, confident, valued and engaged!

We have set up a donation box in our school for families to drop items off which will then be delivered to Morrisons. We have been overwhelmed with the support that our families are showing, and would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has donated so far!

A group of our year 4 pupils have also set up a badge making stall in order to sell badges. All of the money raised will be donated to charities to support the ongoing Ukraine crisis. This project was their own idea; they have organised a badge making team to supply the badges and will be running the stall by themselves to sell them. We are incredibly proud of their initiative.

Diddy Darwins: Diddy Darwins is a stay and play held at Charles Darwin Primary School and Nursery. These sessions are open for all families with children under school age and run every Monday within the school from 10:00 - 11:15. Snacks are provided for all the children as well as teas and coffees for the adults. Diddy Darwins is set up to support the children with their learning and development, linking in to the EYFS curriculum.

The activities that are available are planned through the child’s voice and interests and can range from painting, messy play, number puzzles, stories and imaginative play.

The last 2 years have been extremely tricky for not only us adults, but also our children, so let’s get ourselves and our children back out socialising again, making friends and developing our children’s confidence and our children back out socialising again, making friends and developing our children’s confidence and independence in a safe, happy environment.

Cobholm Primary Academy Cobholm Primary Academy, serving the community surrounding Cobholm in Great Yarmouth.

Fantastic Fun at Football Club Football Club has continued to be a resounding success this term.

Miss Bower has been putting the pupils through their paces in preparation for the upcoming Inspiration Trust football tournament. Pupils have enjoyed learning a variety of skills and techniques to help them play their best match yet and have showcased some admirable teamwork and sportsmanship.

We Know Our Rights Cobholm Primary Academy was so proud to receive our Rights Respecting Bronze Award. The rights respecting school’s award supports schools to embed the Convention of the Rights of the Child in their practice to improve wellbeing and help all children and young people to realise their potential. Our steering group has worked hard to ensure that pupil voices across the school are heard and we enjoy our weekly assemblies learning about the Article of the Week. Watch this space for our Silver Award!

Cobholm brings back the 90’s with Mr Wilson’s Second Liners band Freshly Grated and Cobholm Primary Academy once again brought the party to Cobholm. The staff and pupils enjoyed an interactive and very loud assembly during which Mr Wilson’s Second Liners played some of the best dance hits from the 90’s.

Later that evening, the band led an amazing procession from the school playground through the streets of Cobholm.

The community did not disappoint as they donned their best bucket hats and danced the night away!

A big thank you to Mr Wilson’s Second Liners for their fantastic performance.

Music at GYPA Music has been a focus at GYPA this term. We have had a number of external music visitors who have created amazing opportunities that have immersed children in learning about different genres of music, different musical instruments as well as offering opportunities to get involved in responding to music through movement.

We have had Mr Wilson’s Second Liners and the BBC Orchestra.

We have also held whole school singing assemblies which have been a huge success. Our music event with Mr Wilson’s Second Liners continued after school with many of our families joining us for performances on the streets of the local areas - even the Mayor of Great Yarmouth joined in with the parade!

World Book Day 2022 At GYPA we celebrated World Book Day with the majority of our staff and children getting involved in dressing up as their favourite characters from books.

Our fantastic catering team provided Matilda’s Chocolate Cake which was a huge success with the children and staff! We also worked with WH Smiths, who ensured each child had a book to take home with them on World Book Day!

Science at GYPA At GYPA we have been focusing on developing our practical science lessons. Our Year 3 children have been making Fossils and loved learning about the process of fossil formation. Each child was able to create their own fossil as part of their learning.

Great Yarmouth Primary Academy Great Yarmouth Primary, one of our many brilliant coastal schools.

Great Yarmouth Primary Academy have welcomed new Principal, Georgia Guy!

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It has been an amazing first term at GYPA which has flown by! I feel very lucky to have become part of such a special school, and to work with a fantastic team, both within school and within the wider trust. I have welcomed professional challenge from the trust as well as my own team and wholeheartedly believe I am already becoming a better practitioner as a result - I feel immensely lucky and grateful to be in this position.

Across this term we have focused on ensuring new leaders are inducted into their roles, and that the school continues to grow and develop, adding further opportunities for children both academically and in terms of their personal development. Looking ahead to next term it will be exciting to see some of the new initiatives, particularly around the community support school offers in the local area as well as adding a school library and developing science and maths areas within school. This will be alongside the relentless continued work of all staff at GYPA around raising standards - ensuring that Yarmouth kids can!

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Norwich Primary Academy Norwich Primary Academy, situated in the Wensum area of Norwich.

Connecting Cultures Norwich Primary Academy took part in Connecting Cultures in March. Connecting Cultures is a multicultural performance and education programme developed by Music Worldwide.

Norwich Primary Academy (NPA) performed at St Andrews Hall on the 7th March, as part of Anna Mudeka & The African Choir of Norfolk’s performance.

According to Music Worldwide: the project will deliver a series of schools learning activity and performance events exploring the music, rhythms and voices of different faith communities and cultures that have settled across the county of Norfolk.

The pupils of NPA were very excited about their performance and had a lot of fun rehearsing!

Rebecca Handley-Kirk, Executive Principal of Norwich Primary Academy, said: “I am very proud of all of the students who are taking part. They have been rehearsing and are extremely excited about the final performance. All of the children have thoroughly enjoyed themselves throughout. It is a great opportunity and I am grateful that we were chosen to participate in this exciting project.”

GoGo Discover UEA are sponsoring a BREAK GoGo Discover Mammoth for 2022 and the UEA outreach team have teamed up with The Sainsbury Centre & the UEA Science department to run a series of activities alongside this exciting project.

They are in the process of appointing an artist to paint the Mammoth and Norwich Primary Academy have been chosen as an ‘Outreach primary school’ through a bid process to be involved with the project.

Our year 5 pupils have already attended a visit to the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts to engage with a workshop based on wider themes of climate change, extinction, evolution etc. The UEA Outreach/Artist will also be running an in-school workshop/activity/ resource around the theme that influenced the design later this year.

We thought it would be an honour for NPA to be able to be part of such an important celebration of our ‘Deep History Coast’ heritage and enable our pupils to discover more about our fascinating coastline which is steeped in millions of years worth of history and world famous geology.

GoGo Discover is Break’s latest county-wide art trail, delivered in partnership with Wild in Art. This prehistoric trail will run from Monday 27th June until Saturday 10th September 2022 and will feature not one, not two, but three prehistoric creatures to discover!

Norfolk & Norwich Festival

Attendance Afternoon Tea

NPA have been lucky enough to be offered an opportunity to take part in an art project delivered by a musician Alan Southgate in collaboration with Norfolk & Norwich Festival. Alan Southgate is a songwriter, producer, guitarist and teacher who has been involved in a diverse range of community music making projects over the last twenty years.

Children who have 100% attendance for the year so far have been invited to a special afternoon tea with our attendance lead, Ms O’Connell. The children were thrilled to have been chosen for such a lovely event and it has really spurred on those children with lower attendance to improve for the summer term.

The project involves working with Alan to compose and create some music and a short film in which the children create the music, art and engage in performing arts. The music workshops were running for 6 weeks before Christmas and the finished film will be given to the school shortly as well as be hosted online on the artists’ and Norfolk & Norwich Festival’s websites.

Lego Workshop

Fundraising Three members of staff are taking part in the Tour De Broads fundraiser for Nelson’s Journey.

Tour De Broads is organised by TPR Events. It’s the region’s biggest cycling event with over 2000 participants of all abilities and ages, who come together to ride all types of bikes, trikes, tandems and e-bikes through the beautiful countryside of Norfolk. There are a number of routes ranging from short family friendly ones to a 100 mile round trip.

There’s something for everyone and whichever route you choose, you’ll be spoilt with the beautiful Norfolk countryside views.

The event will be taking place in the beautiful grounds of our office on Sunday 21st August Octagon Park, in Little Plumstead.

East Norfolk Sixth Form College visited Stradbroke to lead an exciting ‘Lego STEM Education’ workshop.

Pupils worked together to develop teamwork skills to build a ferris wheel. They also learnt how to programme their ferris wheel using a ‘hub’ and ‘motor’ so that it lit up and moved at different speeds, rotations and directions. Everyone had a brilliant time and enjoyed learning through playful problem solving and coding. A great afternoon for all!

Pupils’ comments: “I enjoyed working as a team it was fun to build something.”

“I liked how we used a ‘hub’ and ‘motor’ to make the ride move.”

“It was fun and enjoyable because we learnt how to programme and instruct the ferris wheel to turn around.”

“I thought it was really exciting to build a ferris wheel out of lego.”

Stradbroke Primary Academy Art projects At Stradbroke, all of our children have participated in some amazing, enriching opportunities; developing their love for art and creative licence, becoming young artists themselves.

The Dot: For International Dot Day, all classes read the picture book, ‘The Dot’ by Peter Reynolds, using this as a platform to inspire their imagination. The children experimented with various techniques through the formal elements of tone, colour and line in the form of mark-making. Just by making a single mark every child was free to let their imagination and creativity flow from the moment a paintbrush or oil pastel touched the paper. This collaborative display showcasing a beautiful, vibrant burst of colour, is a constant reminder of the children’s love for art and a celebration of diversity, showing that everyone is unique and different - not one dot is alike.

Discovery Arts Award: At Stradbroke, all of our year 3 and 4 children participated in the ‘Discovery Arts Award’ at the Time and Tide Museum. Over the course of the day, each child worked with four local artists, engaging in different art forms: music, drawing, drama and textiles. Each workshop offered the children a different skill, helping them to develop their own art knowledge, history and skillset, expanding their repertoire of art.

The drawing workshop focused on using sound to influence mark-making; expressing how they felt and reflecting this through their marks. Building on this further, the music workshop presented the children with a picture in which they had to use musical instruments to bring the still-image to life, just through the sound (like in a film). A more handson, creative workshop; for textiles, the children learnt about upcycling and reusing fabric scraps to create their own fabric collage. This was certainly a favourite for many! Lastly, a very lively and exciting drama session, saw many of the children come to life, having lots of fun, acting and playing games.

It was a wonderful day seeing all of the children share a love for the art world whilst also receiving their very own Art Award.

Stradbroke Primary Academy, located in the coastal community of Gorleston.

Remembrance Day For Remembrance Day, we decided to explore the significance of the poppies, discovering that they are a symbol of remembering those who fought in war and their sacrifice for our country as well as to show hope for a peaceful future.

Most classes engaged in different art activities, encouraging the children to focus on the importance of Remembrance Day. In Reception, the children merged photography with painting, creating a mixedmedia collage of hands holding a poppy.

Both year 1 and 2 used watercolours to create their own poppy field, depicting the scene after the war with hundreds of poppies as a symbol of hope for a peaceful future.

In year 3, children solely focused on the poppy itself, creating an oil pastel drawing, whilst year 5 and 6 created a scene of a soldier in the poppy field, capturing the pain of the war.

All of the children enjoyed being able to develop their knowledge of the war whilst exploring this through their creativity.

A focus on our knowledge rich curriculum The role of disciplinary knowledge in a primary curriculum When the Inspiration Trust first invested in our wider curriculum offer back in 2018, the main focus was to teach ‘knowledge’ in order to improve KS2 reading outcomes.

The teaching techniques which started with the SSIF project are still used in our classrooms today - they are informed by evidence and are aimed at securing both pupil engagement and long term retention.

It is undeniable how important reading is. Reading is everything to a child’s life chances. I am incredibly proud of the wider curriculum offer that we have in our primary schools. It is a brilliant starting point which supports teacher workload and subject knowledge. However, the question to consider is what else should a curriculum offer our children?

Although the primary curriculum is provided centrally by the trust, it needs to be owned at a school level.

So, what should your school curriculum provide your children with, in addition to reading? Getting children to be ‘secondary ready’ might be part of a school vision. Giving children the chance to experience the curriculum through trips and guest speakers is vital.

Encompassing all of this is the role of disciplinary knowledge within the curriculum. It is important to note that when I say disciplinary knowledge, I am not expecting primary teachers to take on the role of secondary specialists. I simply mean that there are distinctions between subjects and traditions within them that we could be more explicit with. When our children leave us in Year 6, they have at least another three years of learning in their subjects, perhaps more. What we can do is set them on their journey to secondary by giving them some really clear disciplinary examples in primary classrooms.

In my role as a curriculum leader at Great Yarmouth Primary Academy, I saw teachers here adapting trust resources brilliantly, as well as expertly using choral response and Ask 5 Not 1. This is mirrored across our schools. However, each lesson, particularly in humanities subjects, felt quite similar. What was missing at GYPA was the disciplinary aspects of each subject. Children could vaguely tell me that history was ‘to do with the past’ and in geography they ‘use maps’. They were absolutely correct, but we as teachers should be deliberately planning more of these explicit disciplinary distinctions.

Ofsted have recently released a series of articles, with both history and geography having a specific primary focus. I have used these with our teachers to reflect on current practice and inform future planning.

Chelsea works in year 6 at Great Yarmouth Primary Academy and has played a leading role in Primary Curriculum Development as a Primary Curriculum Associate.

Case study: Geography The research article can be found here.

Locational knowledge:

We have been developing the use of disciplinary ‘do nows’ at the start of every lesson. For example, this could be labelling the oceans, continents or using compass directions. This is a recall of prior knowledge taught in earlier key stages.

Place knowledge:

Using these questions within lesson plans: • How is this place similar or different to somewhere we have studied before?

• What is unique about this place?

Similarities/differences could include: Continent, climate, size, tourism

Interaction between human and physical geography:

Our brand new KS1 curriculum uses the vocabulary human and physical, however this is not always made explicit in the KS2 booklets.

An example of an opportunity in Year 4: Mount Etna is a physical feature of Italy A result of this is human features such as tourism

Opportunities for enquiry and fieldwork:

Currently within our curriculum, there are entire units of fieldwork at the end of both Year 2 and Year 6.

However, this means that there is a gap across the rest of KS2, which does not align with our principles of regular retrieval.

Chris Moon, Geography SSL, is working on some enquiry tasks for Y3-Y5 during Summer Term, which will be shared with subject leaders before Easter.

1) Which continent does this map show? ___________________________________ 2) Name the capital of Germany ___________________________________ 3) Name three islands you can identify ___________________________________ 4) Which is the biggest country on the map? ___________________________________ 5) List all of the seas on this map ____________________________________

Inspiration Teaching School Hub

Events: Developing a rigorous and diverse knowledge rich curriculum Wednesday 27th April 2022 - 15:30

The Inspiration Teaching School Hub provides a one-stop service for everything teaching related in our region.

Developing a truly rich inclusive curriculum

Designated by the Department of Education, we support over 228 schools within Norfolk and Suffolk.

Our remit is to focus on the recruitment, support, retention and development of colleagues within our region. We are here from the moment teachers join the profession and throughout their career.

We create a community that connects colleagues, schools, MATs, Trusts and education partners across our region, supporting their work to improve student outcomes and deliver the best educational experience to our young people.

Wednesday 25th May 2022 - 15:30

Specifically, we: • • • • • • •

Play a significant role in school-based teacher training through our SCITT. Deliver and support the delivery of the Early Career Framework (ECF).

Deliver the new specialist National Professional Qualifications (NPQ).

Deliver the new leadership National Professional Qualifications (NPQ).

Seek, create and promote development opportunities for all (CPD).

Deliver high-quality evidence-based professional development (CPD).

Showcase the amazing work, initiatives and research taking place in our region’s schools.

Wednesday 11th May 2022 - 15:30

Creating a culture of meaningful staff wellbeing and courgeous conversations These events are all free using the code ‘inspirEd’

Inspiration Teacher Training Inspiration Teacher Training is our School Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) based at the Inspiration Teaching School Hub. Reflecting the Trust’s same emphasis on knowledge-rich and subject specificity, Inspiration Teacher Training delivers high quality training which is focused on developing expert practitioners in the classroom.

Applications for a September 2022 start are open for fee paying trainees, with bursaries being available for some secondary subjects: • • • • • • • • • •

Secondary biology with science Secondary chemistry with science Secondary physics with science Secondary English Secondary geography Secondary history Secondary maths Secondary modern foreign languages Secondary religious education Primary general

If you know of anyone that might be interested in training to teach, please encourage them to explore our offer. If you have any questions or would like to discuss a potential application further, please contact inspirationteachertraining@ inspirationtrust.org.

Visit www. inspirationteachertraining .org to find out more.