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Will It Rain?
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Headteacher: Mr. Joe White
Vision For The School:It is time to share the "Vision that we have been working towards as a staff. The vision for the school influences the direction we move in and the details of our School Development Plan (which has also been updated recently on the website.) Mission Statement:
Loving God in all we do
Implications of our aim to love God in all we do:
This message was originally set out for children but is broadly equally relevant to adults. These are the words that surround the silhouette of Jesus on our poster.
Vision:
To provide the best possible educational and pastoral experiences (as a Catholic, Christian School, seamlessly working with our parish community to be a beacon of Christianity,) for the children of our school to ensure the greatest standards of self-esteem and educational progress possible.
We seek to become a world-class school. We recognise outside agencies such as OFSTED will make judgements about us, and that those judgements are more complex since September 2009, with the introduction of the new OFSTED framework. Nevertheless whilst mindful of OFSTED and its work, we wish to become a world-class school not so that we would become outstanding at OFSTED again (bearing in mind that OFSTED have "raised the bar" with effect from September 2009 for the judgement outstanding) but rather because it's the right thing to do and what we wish to achieve for our children.
We seek to support and care for:
We will make St Anne's a wonderfully enjoyable, stimulating, fulfilling and happy place to come to work for all of us: children and adults; everyday.
To provide the warmest welcome for all of our stakeholders using the highest standards of courtesy and helpfulness.
This is how we will achieve our vision:
Using appropriate;
Attitudes (or issues impacting on our attitudes):
Parish:
We will work more closely with the parish as a logical and natural development of our aim to ensure a truly Christian Catholic school. We will work with the parish mission and its aims. The clergy and school are closely linked and we hope to have opportunities for liturgies both in school and in church with and without parental involvement.
When we have school masses, it is hoped that staff will be able to support these. However, it is not thought necessary that all staff should attend all masses taking place at a weekend. If a rota of staff is used then the burden is shared reasonably between a number of people.
Welcome:
St Anne's is already a very welcoming school. We need to consolidate that welcoming environment and ensure that everyone who visits our school leaves with a sense of contentment at the quality of welcome they have received. Whilst there is an obvious role for staff in the office, any member of staff could be called upon at any time to welcome visitors to our school.
As part of the process by which we welcome people, new signage will be introduced which helps visitors identify where they need to go when on-site.
Relentless Positivity:
Anyone experiencing St Anne's Catholic primary school should leave with a sense that this is a "can do" school! Expressions such as "good girl", "good boy" and "well done!" will be frequently heard around the school buildings.
Children will experience encouragement from every quarter of the school, leading them to conclude that they will be able to manage, be able to do, be able to achieve.
Awards:
We will improve the quality of award certification given to children. Awards will be printed in a pristine manner on good quality card. We need to give children the message that their good work and behaviour is appropriately recognised and that we reflect that in a meaningful way.
Relationship With Parents:
We will try to ensure that parents are very well-informed first and foremost about the progress and development taking place of their children. Secondly communication about school life will be second to none and parents will be clear about how they can contribute to their child's progress, development, happiness and positive experience of school matters.
We recognise that both staff and parents can sometimes "tire" and consequently the quality of relationships can be affected as a result, however we would wish to minimise this is much as possible by taking sensible steps to reduce the amount of friction that potentially could crop up.
St Anne's United:
We are one school. Our school includes the components Preschool Group, After-School Club, Breakfast Club, Parish, and School. We all contribute to the children's experience of St Anne's. The input from each of these groups has to be excellent/outstanding and we all support each other.
Methods:
Learning Mentors:
We have two new Learning Mentors. These roles will develop over the next 12 months, however they are both greatly looking forward to providing direct support for children. We need to ensure that we strategically identify which children are most in need of additional support. This will take account of support already available to children (for example children with statements) and those children who are most vulnerable. An audit of children and their particular needs in this area will be taken in September. This will help to identify which children would benefit most and to prioritise the individuals the Learning Mentors would wish to work with.
Networking:
As a school, we will work closely with our geographical neighbours and also the Catholic feeder schools of St Bede's Catholic secondary school. We will support each other and help each other to become better institutions providing better quality experiences for children.
Safeguarding:
It is critical that we get safeguarding right. We will have training for staff and governors with regards to safeguarding and will ensure that our practices keep children safe to the highest level. This includes the management of movement of children and also start and end of day routines. It also includes other sensible procedures to keep children safe including management of doors and locks.
Efficiency:
All staff responsible for producing a great deal of text for example wordprocessing will be given the opportunity to experience dictation software that dramatically improves efficiency in terms of text generation.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a program which allows you to speak and convert your spoken word into editable text. It takes a short while to set up but is a very efficient process. It won't suit everybody, but for many, hours of typing can be saved.
Safety:
A number of new safety processes have been brought into school already. This includes the new pedestrian access way, allowing parents and children to reach, for example, preschool group without having to walk down the main road.
A further safety device will be fitted. This will be a vehicle barrier at the entrance to the school. This will ensure that only vehicles with permission enter the school premises.
Additionally staff parking areas have been improved and it's important that we identify the best use of this available space.
Parents' Communication:
It is intended in 2010/11 that the vast majority of our communications to parents will be done electronically. Teachers who wish to send out communications to parents should use the messageboard system, and inform parents by text to look in that area. Further training will be given for both methods. Parents who wish to receive paper copies of communication will need to declare that, and we will then need to ensure that the small number of paper copies reached the right destination when necessary.
One of the biggest frustrations for parents is the feeling (rightly or wrongly) that they have not been informed about school issues. This should remove the vast majority of that frustration.
Bell System:
As you will be aware, the Bell system was introduced last term. The intention is to ensure that staff and children are reminded when different point in the school day are approaching and indeed have arrived.
The melodies used for infant and junior buildings are different. For each building one melody is used 5 min before an event as a reminder that the event is approaching. When, for example break time arrives, a separate melody is used to indicate that.
The Bell system close to the staff room includes both Infant and Junior warnings, identifiable by their unique melody.
After-School Club Safety:
When children are attending after-school club but also attending an extracurricular activity after-school, we need to devise a system that keeps The After School Club Manager informed. If a child has not attended after-school club, she might quite reasonably expect that by for example 3:50 PM, that the child is not coming. If subsequently the child arrives at 4:30 PM having attended an extracurricular activity, there is a safeguarding risk that the child may not be accounted for should something untoward happen at after-school club.
Therefore we must find a way of ensuring that children who attend extracurricular activities but also after-school club have their names forwarded to the After-School Club Manager.
The system introduced last term, whereby Junior children attending after-school club are carefully grouped in the hall before being taken across the road to after-school club will continue. We need to ensure that all children in the Junior Department who are going to after-school club go straight to the hall rather than walking round the school site first. Otherwise again, safeguarding risk is introduced unnecessarily.
Breakfast Club:
This commences imminently. Again we need to ensure that appropriate safety takes place in moving the children from breakfast club to for example, the junior building at the start of the school day. Breakfast club staff will need to ensure that children are crossed over the road carefully and safely and lined up with their classmates at 8:50 AM.
Lining Up:
Now that the staff room has changed location, it will be helpful when children are lining up at the start of the day and at the end of break times for the lining up process to be facilitated by staff being present to quieten their classes before moving back to the room. This allows children to be settled before moving into the classrooms, which sets a positive air to the session.
Curriculum:
Planning:
Planning will be collected on a half termly basis. The plans will be posted onto the staff website. This will make them available should a member of staff become unwell and be unable to attend school.
Every half term, a summary flyer will be created for parents identifying the curriculum for the children across the period of time. Additionally expectations for homework will be outlined, including reading, spellings, times tables.
The flyer and homework expectations will then be posted onto the school website in a section dedicated to your class. This will make it available to all parents and children who will be able to contribute to the learning process of the children as a result.
Teaching and Learning:
Identify the means by which the quality of teaching and learning will be universally outstanding, particularly when being observed by outside judges. Ensure that every chance progress is carefully tracked, identified and reflected upon, ensuring that each child maximises their progress across each term. Where children are failing to make adequate progress, then appropriate intervention takes place which may include the use of the Learning Mentor and/or involvement of parents.
Self Evaluation Form:
We will ensure that the self-evaluation form is completed in keeping with the requirements of the OFSTED framework from September 2009. In the first instance, the form will be filled and completed in a brief summative manner. Upon completion in this way, the form will be re-examined and section by section, will be completed in greater detail.
The initial work will be completed by the Headteacher and senior leadership group, though all staff will be requested to contribute their thoughts and reflections upon school life into the form.
(Feb 2011: N.B. The Department For Education has announced that the SEF form is no longer necessary in school - though we still wish to use this kind of evaluation.)
Assessment:
We need to update our assessment policy, including the way we collect assessment information across the whole school and how we manipulate that information to track children's progress. Through micro-examination of assessment information we can really stay on top of which children are progressing well and those that need additional support.
As part of our update, we can identify which materials we use to inform our teacher assessments and which tests we use.
RE Coordinator:
Religious education is a central subject to St Anne's as a Catholic, Christian school. Therefore all classrooms will have an area identifying the current RE topic with appropriate display giving children the clear message that this is important to us as staff. If we give the message to children, then they will take that message away, therefore our message about the importance of RE has to be sincere and robust.
Assemblies:
We will be changing the way in which is assemblies are delivered by the Headteacher / senior staff. Separate assemblies for infant/reception children and Junior children will be held narrowing focal point of the assembly and giving more room for delivery.
In order to maintain the whole school feel, every half term a whole school award assembly will be held to celebrate the achievements of the half term.
French Teaching:
We have brought to a close Spanish teaching at St Anne's school. That is not because we don't value Spanish as a language, since we do. Rather we understand that our children will broadly move on to St Bede's secondary school. At St Bede's, French is the main language taught, with German a secondary language. By moving to teaching French across the school, our children will be on terms with the other feeder primary school children who already study this language.
In the past Spanish teaching has also provided PPA time, though PPA time is now sorted differently. Therefore it's likely that we will be asking teachers to provide statutory French lessons for their own classes. We recognise that some staff may feel slightly vulnerable with regards to this and would like to reassure you that support, especially in the form of excellent resources, will be forthcoming.
We hope to ensure that our children leave St Anne school equally well equipped (or better) to deal with French lessons of St Bede's as children from other feeder primary schools.
Leadership and Management of the School
Senior Leadership Group and Senior Management Team:
These two groups have different focal purposes. The Senior Leadership Group will be responsible for developing the vision of the school. It will also oversee all matters relating to the curriculum. The Senior Management Team will be responsible for overseeing staffing and school resources.
The two groups are extremely important to the development of the school and to ensuring the school moves forward as an outstanding plus school. The membership of the teams will be as follows:
Senior Leadership Group: Joe White Headteacher Eileen Smith Deputy Headteacher. Kathryn Berry Assistant Headteacher Foundation Stage / Key Stage 1 Gaynor Cleary Assistant Headteacher Key Stage 2. (Appointment made for January 2011.) (Feb 2011 update)
Senior Management Team: Joe White Headteacher. Eileen Smith Deputy Headteacher. Kathryn Berry Assistant Headteacher Foundation Stage/Key Stage 1 Gaynor Cleary Assistant Headteacher Key Stage 2 Sue Longbottom Business Manager Anita Disley Special Needs Coordinator.
The vision of the school including the School Development Plan will be a collaborative process involving both groups but mainly driven by the senior leadership group. The senior leadership group will establish what we wish to do as a school, the senior management team will examine how we achieve that and which resources are required to bring this about.
These two groups are critical to the long-term success of the school and its essential at all staff support the membership of the teams in order to help us drive forward.
PPA Time:
PPA time was introduced for teachers as a statutory requirement as part of the workforce development process. That means that we are schools are obliged by law to find PPA time for the teaching staff specifically.
PPA time is provided in order to provide teachers with an opportunity to plan, prepare and assess children's progress.
In 2010/11 we hope to reach a point very soon where teachers who are taking up PPA time can do so either at school or at home according to personal preference. Experience dictates that different staff have different preferences with regards to this, though experience also dictates that the opportunity to work at home can sometimes pay huge dividends in terms of productivity.
Staff Responsibilities:
We intend to ensure that every subject area has a clearly identified member of staff responsible for ensuring its development and equipping the resources of that subject to a high standard.
It's really important for staff to know who to turn to should they experience problems delivering particular subjects or school areas. Therefore the staff responsibility identification process will help solve that problem.
Staff Handbook:
A staff handbook will be created which will identify how the school operates. It is hoped that new members of staff will find the handbook very helpful as they come to terms with our processes and protocols.
Assistant Headteacher for Key Stage Two:
A new Assistant Headteacher will be appointed to commence January 2011. The role of Assistant Headteacher is going to be critical within our school. Essentially the Assistant Headteacher will be responsibility for managing learning in their Department. This includes overseeing the performance of staff and children to ensure that the maximum amount of progress is made by all of our children.
Staff Communication:
New staff communication systems will be introduced as we move into the new staff room. A pigeonhole system will be used for internal mail and staff will be asked to ensure that they collect an empty their mail daily.
Additionally, a new staff website will be created. This will include our essential documents and policies. It will also include opportunities for staff to request for example funerals etc.
The morning briefing system that we currently have will continue to ensure that all staff are clear about the events of the day and the impact on the school's resources, including use of rooms, halls and other essential equipment.
The staff room has a large whiteboard area which will be used to write up and notify forthcoming events. That will allow colleagues to prepare ahead when for example a particular room has to be used for a specific purpose. |
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