INSPIRATION TRUST WINS BID TO OPEN NEW FREE SCHOOL IN CRINGLEFORD

We are extremely pleased to announce that Inspiration Trust has been successful in its bid to open the new Free School in Cringleford.

The school, situated off Colney Lane on the edge of Norwich, will be the second primary school in the area and will cater for children aged 4-11 years.

With a focus on academic excellence, sport, music, outdoor learning and the arts, the primary school will be the 18th school to join our trust and will be located in the catchment area of the county’s best secondary school - the Ofsted Outstanding, Hethersett Academy - also part of Inspiration Trust.

Proudly committed to improving the standards of education in the East of England, we have recently seen our current group of primary schools buck national trends, with outcomes in Reading, Writing and Maths all increasing, despite a UK-wide decline.

Our nationally-recognised curriculum will continue to be offered alongside quality enrichment opportunities that include trust-wide sports competitions, a pledge to provide every child with the chance to play an instrument, and a plethora of trips and out-of-classroom activities that span arts and culture.

Our new school in Cringleford will have a commitment to the pursuit of academic excellence, offering primary school pupils opportunities that match those afforded to those attending the very best establishments in the country.

Children will be able to shine! They will grow with confidence and resilience as they embrace new challenges. Wellbeing will be fundamental to the provision, ensuring all pupils feel safe, secure and valued as individuals. The school day will include a wealth of opportunities for sports, outdoor learning, music and the arts. There will also be an extensive extra-curricular offer to harness children’s interests and curiosity and provide wraparound care for parents.

This school is being built to support the growing Cringleford village which is currently in the midst of seeing around 1,300 new homes being erected. It will span two storeys and cater for up to 420 children. The school will have external hard and soft surfaced outdoor play areas allowing the pupils and teachers to embrace outdoor learning.

The new school is being funded and built as part of the county council’s Schools’ Capital Programme, which ensures sufficiency of school places in growing communities across Norfolk. The school aims to open in September 2024 and we are so excited to be able to contribute towards the brilliant Cringleford community.

The Angles Maths Hub, headed up and led by our Director of Maths, Nicola Coe, has been running a collaborative Work Group for Maths and Science teachers across Norfolk and Suffolk for the last four years.

It has been highly successful and has generated interest nationwide across twelve additional Maths Hubs, with approximately 200 participants joining in one year alone!

It has been an honour to lead likeminded teachers, on behalf of the NCETM, to investigate the benefits of working alongside crosscurricular partners. Upskilling teachers’ subject knowledge has a significant impact on their work in the classroom, ultimately improving the learning outcomes and life chances of pupils.

NICOLA COE, DIRECTOR OF MATHS

With the aim of inspiring the next generation of mathematicians and scientists, our Outreach Team came together to put on a stellar space-themed event that was open to students across all of Norfolk.

In honour of Maths Week 2022, our incredible Outreach Team wanted to do something big and brilliant to help all the children of Norfolk celebrate their love of Maths, Science and all things space.

As hosts of a monumental two-day event, we saw children and families from more than 20 different Norfolk schools attend to take part in a range of themed activities that included origami master-classes, alien times-table games, maths challenges and life-sized space battleships. There was even a talk on planets from real-life astronauts!

Aligning with Angles Maths Hub’s core value of ‘sharing excellent practice for the benefit of all teachers and pupils, the programme is designed to promote cross-curricular collaboration, a key element in developing a coherent approach to the teaching and learning of Mathematics. Developed from an idea that emerged within a single classroom of 30 pupils, the programme has been refined and developed and has positively impacted more than 1500 pupils across England!

Current and previous course participants have highlighted the importance of “seeing Maths in the context of the wider curriculum”, particularly from a student’s perspective. The Work Group’s content has developed teachers’ Maths and Science subject knowledge through mutual understanding of different curricular areas.

This has enabled teachers to codevelop learning approaches and schemes of work that consider the coherence of Mathematical concepts between subjects - in turn improving pupil understanding.

Evidence of the programme’s success is evident in the collaborative links developed between individual Maths Hubs and their respective Science Learning Partnerships (who jointly run the Work Groups), in addition to feedback from attending teachers.

The success of the Angles Maths Hub‘s Maths and Science Programme has been recognised by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM), and a national version has been available since September 2022 for all interested schools in England that follow a Mastery Programme with the NCETM.