YEAR R INFROMATION EVENING

Founded in 1675, Lady Boswell’s is reputedly the oldest primary school in Britain.

Lady Margaret Boswell, a great benefactress of Sevenoaks, left a bequest to pay a schoolmaster to educate 12 poor scholars of the town.

150 years later the first school building was built in London Road and in 1972 the school moved to its current site.

Governing Body

Three core functions:

1. Strategy - setting vision, ethos and strategic direction

2. Education - holding head teacher to account for educational performance

Board of Trustees

3. Finance - overseeing financial performance and ensuring money well spent

• Management of Lady Margaret Boswell’s trust fund

The Governors

Foundation Governors

Non-Foundation Governors

Kinvara Rogers

Chris Kangis

Parent Governor

Philip Wood Vice Chair

Hannah Blake ex officio

Sharon Saunders ex officio

John Moulton

Emma WatsonKate Phillips Chair

Parent Governor

Andrew Carpenter Diane McKenzie-Boyle

Rebecca Johnson Staff Governor

Cindy von Kaufmann

Hannah Pullen ex officio

Christ is at the centre of our School.

As a result our children will …

• Develop a positive sense of well-being, a high self esteem and become articulate and confident to make the right choices and keep themselves safe in an ever-changing society

We value every member of our community as a unique child of God and seek to demonstrate His love through our words and actions as we enable every child to achieve their full potential so that they leave us with their heads inspired and their hearts enriched.

• Try their best at all times and will have a thirst for knowledge and a love of learning, both on their own and as a member of a team

• Develop the skills for lifelong learning by being resilient, resourceful and reflective, confident to take risks and face challenges

• Forgive others readily, becoming sharing, caring and responsible citizens

• Grow in spiritual awareness and develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of the Christian faith in a multi-faith British society

• Respect diversity and become tolerant individuals who are concerned for the needs of each other, the school, the local community, the world, and the planet

Ofsted

 Pupils who attend Lady Boswell’s are rightly proud of this exceptional school. Parents describe the school as ‘kind, nurturing and caring 'and as ‘a place where teachers unlock motivation to learn’ .

 Pupils demonstrate that Christian values are at the heart of the school when they say that everyone is equal and treated in the same way.

 Pupils are extremely trusting of the staff who they say are excellent role models.

 Pupils thrive at this school. They enjoy learning and know the importance of concentrating in lessons.

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A Rich Curriculum

We want our children to be the very best that they can be. We therefore pledge to provide a rich educational experience so that every student is able to make excellent progress, whatever their starting point may be.

We strive to ensure all our children achieve their academic potential but also ensure that our curriculum supports our pupils to be resilient, courageous, effective leaders, responsible global citizens and creative. Our children develop a deep understanding of the Christian faith and a strong moral compass.

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Wellbeing, Resilience and Nurture

If children are settled and happy they will thrive and learn effectively.

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However, there may be times when children need a little additional support to achieve high levels of wellbeing. Our team are led by Mrs Harman and can offer help and support children as and when they need it. We can carry out assessments and create bespoke programmes reflecting the individual needs of your child.

Education is a Partnership

It is during this year we put in place the foundations for life long learning.

If children are settled and happy during the Reception year then the teaching of the following key skills can begin:

At Lady Boswell’s we believe that a positive Reception year is essential for our children’s progress and development

How are your children taught?

There are several different teaching and learning approaches we use every day at Lady Boswell’s

Child initiated: The action of a child choosing to extend, repeat or explore an activity. This activity may or may not have been introduced or prompted by an adult. It is the child’s innovation within or of the activity which is important and relevant to child initiation. An adult may be present and may be supportive but not directive. For example an adult may be supporting the child to realise an idea by providing necessary resources, or by engaging in thought provoking conversation. Child initiated activity and exploration

provides an important insight into the depth of a child’s learning. When learning is fully mastered the child is able and motivated to employ that learning unprompted.

Self initiated: An activity wholly decided on by the child and that is the result of an intrinsic motivation to explore a project or express an idea. In doing this the child may make use of a variety of resources and demonstrate a complex range of knowledge, skills and understanding.

Teacher directed: An input defined, structured and delivered by an adult to a child or group of children, usually whole class. It focuses on the direct teaching of skills and knowledge with a specific objective in mind.

Teacher-led: An activity defined by an adult that focuses on a specific objective that the child may complete independently or with adult support.

Sustained shared thinking: a learning activity which occurs when two or more individuals 'work together' in an intellectual way to solve a problem, clarify a concept, evaluate an activity, extend a narrative etc.

Our Timetable

Teacher Directed learning

These sessions are pre-planned activities led by a teacher . Objectives for these are taken from the development matters guidance.

A TD session begins as a whole class.

Across the week the Teacher or Teaching Assistant works with all the children in smaller targeted groups.

These sessions are designed to teach children key skills and expand their existing body of knowledge

The children have to come and have a go at the activity… but they are all lots of fun

TD sessions are planned to cover objectives from each of the Curriculum areas of learning.

Both Teachers and Teaching Assistants teach TD sessions.

Half of our adult lead sessions generally happen inside and half happen in our outside learning zones

P.E, Guided Reading, Forest School and Phonics

P.E is a whole class Teacher Directed session. Sometimes it happens in the hall and sometimes it happens outside.

We have a Forest school session once a week on a Friday. Forest school is Teacher Led, we set up and guide children to different activities but encourage self exploration and investigation

Guided Reading is a Teacher Directed session. GR happens every morning (once the children are settled into their full time routine). Across the week the children read in a group with their teacher, the other class teacher and Tas as well as support from Parent helpers.

Phonics happens everyday for 30 minutes, there is a whole class input and some fun games and activities. We use an accredited phonics scheme; Little Wandle. This is a Teacher Directed time.

A little more about Phonics…

Phonics is the method used to segment the sounds in words for spelling and blend sounds for reading.

It is the link between letters (graphemes) and the sounds (phonemes) they make.

Phonics is simply the system of relationships between letters and sounds in a language.

The Phonics Scheme

The scheme we follow is called Little Wandle and is divided into five phases taught in reception and year 1, with each phase building on the skills and knowledge of previous learning.

In phonics, reading sounds made by different letters is taught alongside writing them and children are taught to form letters correctly. The sessions are fun and interactive with lots of games to keep the children motivated and engaged. Children are constantly encouraged to apply their phonics learning to their reading and writing in a variety of contexts throughout the day.

Alongside

Tricky Words

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made by

Alien Words shog feen joil meck

Helping at home

Enjoy a whole range of stories together.

Let your child see you reading.

Follow your child’s lead and find a quiet place.

Enjoyable shared experience – find the right time.

Play lots of games – spot the letter in stories, on signs, in shops.

Encourage your child to decode independently – if this is tricky, carry on reading to keep flow of story going.

Talk about the story as you read it (comprehension).

Helping at home

Sound buttons- when sounding out unfamiliarwords put sound buttons beneath the individual letter sounds and for digraphs and trigraphsuse sound sausages.

Independent Learning

This is our child initiated learning time

Independent Learning is a time for hands on exploration, investigation, collaboration and learning through play

Our Teachers work alongside our children as partners in play, skilfully developing the children’s next steps for learning

The children can learn wherever they want in the Reception unit, this means they can use any of the inside or outside areas in the EYFS area.

We provide a wealth of resources and provocations for our children to use in Independent Learning, to inspire and motivate their development.

We encourage children to collaborate with each other to evolve their own learning opportunities

During Independent Learning we take time to work closely alongside our children to assess them, working out how to help them make progress and grow

CONTINUOUS PROVISION

In Independent Learning, there are a number of resources available all the time for children to use whenever and for whatever they like. We are always adding to our resources.

Remember children are creative genius’ and what looks like junk is treasure to them; a cardboard box can be a million things if you open your mind

ENHANCED PROVISION

Sometimes our children struggle to find something to learn all on their own

Enhanced provisions provide topic based starting points and challenges for different subject areas from which the children can build their own learning experiences. The children have access to enhanced provision in both the inside and outside environments.

How will we assess the children’s progress?

We use a document called ‘Development Matters’ to help us to understand whether your child is making good progress throughout the year in each of the 7 areas of the curriculum

When your child learns, explores or experiences something new we will record it in a Learning Journal. This will be either a physical learning journal or via their online learning journal.

Getting Started- website

Website address:

You should be receiving log in details over the next few days.

How will we assess the children’s progress?

Each term we will look at the all the evidence we have collected, including special moments shared from home and decide as an overall best fit judgement whether your child is

• Meeting the expectations (doing everything as expected)

• Needing a bit more support or guidance in this area, or

• Doing more than is expected at this stage

term

How will we inform you?

keep

up to date with the

child is making.