Collaboration matters Excellence in everything Community first Equity for everyone Continuous growth
Embedded Files
Welcome to the latest edition of the Partnership Press!
I want to start by thanking all staff across the Partnership for your amazing work after what has been another very demanding term. We thought we had overcome the biggest of challenges after such a difficult year in 2021 but the spring term 2022 proved to be another demanding one with the continuation of staff and pupil absences. I know this has stretched capacity at school level and staff have been asked to cover a range of additional duties so that our schools continue to meet children’s needs. Thank you sincerely.
Collaboration Matters
I want pay tribute to staff across the Partnership for the way you have modelled and led through collaboration this term both within and beyond the Trust. You will see from the recent publication of the White Paper that collaboration and partnership are key themes within the recommendations and plans for building a Trust led system.
The professional development sessions focussing on best practice in Early Years as well as the recall and retention training have made a big impact and have increased expectations in schools. Similarly, the way in which staff have supported each other to implement the new Systematic Synthetic Phonics programme, really has enhanced practice in classrooms. Thank you to everyone that has contributed to this important work.
Look out for the exemplification materials being produced by a staff working group for history and art learning for each year group. Planning sessions have taken place and the work to produce example materials will begin after Easter.
Lastly, I would like to say a huge well done to everyone who has contributed to our ICT Strategy. It is great to see this work having impact in classrooms and the increase in technology being used. These projects have led to increased engagement and given rise to increased expectations. Plans are underway to evaluate this work and share the learning from the projects across the Partnership.
Have a great Easter break everyone when it arrives.
Best wishes,
Rob Carpenter
Trust Leader
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Update
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Update
The EDI working party have met twice in the Spring term alongside Angie Brown to start the planning our Trust wide and EDI strategy. The strategy will enable us champion the richness of our organisation through the nine protected characteristics and have a real focus on ‘identity’ as our golden thread.
The strategy will focus on culture and climate / HR / curriculum and EDI professional development packages across the Trust. To support our thinking we will be launching our Trust wide staff survey in summer term one. The survey will help us gain a better understanding of how staff feel within schools and the Trust about the EDI work taking place, including related strengths and areas of development.
Ofsted Success at Forest Academy
Ofsted Success at Forest Academy
Forest Academy was inspected on Tuesday 8th and Wednesday 9th of February 2022. We are pleased to share that our report has now been published and Forest Academy has been judged as a ‘Good’ school. This is a huge success for the school as our previous grade was ‘requires improvement’
This is a huge achievement for the school and the community and a clear recognition that the hard work of all members of the school community continues to impact positively on the lives of all Forest children. A copy of the school report is attached to the letter
Since the last inspection in June 2018, the school has underseen some changes to staffing and its leadership structure yet it continues to go from strength to strength. The lead inspector commented on how:
“‘Pupils like their school. They are safe, happy and enjoy learning. Staff plan exciting activities to enhance the curriculum”
“Pupils behave well. They support each other when difficulties arise – in both the classroom and playground”
“Leaders have planned a curriculum that is meaningful to pupils. Pupils learn the core knowledge from the national curriculum through global themes such as power and governance. Staff have high aspirations for all pupils. They expect them to develop core character skills such as integrity and wonder. Pupils respond to these expectations and produce good-quality work”
“Pupils have many opportunities to lead in their school. The junior leadership team members hold ‘surgeries’ to listen to the views of their peers”
“Leaders have planned and put in place a curriculum that builds knowledge logically. They have recently enhanced it by adding links to the local area and what is happening globally”
“Leaders prioritise reading. Pupils start learning the sounds letters make from the beginning of the Reception Year. Phonics ‘masterclass’ sessions are held every morning before school”
As a restless, ambitious school, naturally we will be working tirelessly to ensure that the next steps from the report form part of our school priorities for the remainder of this academic year and beyon’
Whilst we are delighted with the outcome of the inspection we recognise that it is the ongoing feedback we receive from parents and children that we truly value, which enables us to ensure we provide the children of Forest Academy with the very best education.
Rupinder Bansil
Interim Headteacher
Teaching and Learning Highlights
Teaching and Learning Highlights
Rockliffe Geography Deepdive
Rockliffe Manor hosted a Geography deep dive with Governors this half term. It was a fantastic opportunity for Governors to gain a deeper understanding of a school's curriculum and for leaders to access the quality of provision for that curriculum area. Through close inspection of the subjects we are able to access the quality of provision for the school, from the curriculum intent to what we see in the classroom, the learning looks and the pupil voice. We had a particular focus on how the knowledge organisers launched recently play a part in recall and retention and consider how learning is built upon over time. The Governor’s enjoyed being part of the process and were able to see the reality of Geography and school development priorities through the triangulation of what is said and done.
West Thornton Phonics Parental Sessions
West Thornton welcomed parents into school this week to observe the teaching of phonics in Reception and Year One. The sessions were very well attended and parents commented favourably on seeing how phonics is taught in school. We strongly value parental engagement, and these sessions are vital in continuing to develop family and community links further.
Woodside Whole School Art Project
Woodside completed a fantastic whole art school project with Art Specialist, Amy Bairstow. The abstract jigsaw installation is a celebration of diversity and uniqueness and is looking very colourful. Children across year 1-6 worked with Amy to complete the project and it was a fantastic team effort.
Foxfield Character Skills
To support our work on Character Skills and personal development of all children, Foxfield has introduced a new avenue of Pupil Leadership-Pupil Coaches. This is where children can bring an issue and work through this with the pupil coaches. Foxfield's Character Skills Lead has worked with the children to support them with finding solutions to issues that they bring. The children have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to support children from across the school.
Here is pupil voice from one of the pupil coaches:
“A vital skill with this leadership role is to make sure I am actively listening to what the person is saying and to give them clear next steps to help them work through a problem.”
Reading at Delce
At Delce, we are always looking to challenge our children in all areas of the curriculum. A mixture of high expectations, teaching strategies and plenty of opportunities to dive deep into English, will ensure that all of our children succeed. However, we all know that some of our children need a bit more support than others. Delce Academy use a range of approaches and opportunities for all children to thrive in their learning.
In every aspect of the curriculum, English can be found. We, at Delce, aspire our children to become confident listeners, readers and writers.
At Delce, we are lucky enough to be working with a local enterprise called Read With Us, who provide university students (who are studying for a teaching degree or have an experience in working with children) to read with a range of children across KS2. During these reading sessions the children discover a range of skills, such as: fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, decoding, blending, sentence construction, punctuation and all the other foundation skills needed for reading. Parents and children have thoroughly enjoyed these sessions and one parent has said “My child has come home wanting to read to me and is challenging herself to read more, all thanks to Miss Hornby and Read With Us” In addition to this, we have been extremely lucky to have three Year 11 pupils and adults volunteer to read with our children on Wednesdays too.
Furthermore, Delce have built the love for reading across the school through World Book Day. We created class novels and artwork around our chosen book and have taken part in a sponsored read at home between Friday 25th – 4th March. The project was organised in conjunction with our local Usborne Partner, Laura Nicholls, and all the money raised will go towards brand new books for our school as well as up to 60% extra free books.
We are so excited to see what next term brings!
EYFS at Maundene and West Thornton
Following on from the Whitefields visit, our EYFS teams at Maundene and West Thornton have been working hard to improve and enhance the provision for the youngest members of our school community. Over at Maundene the outside have been scaled back and additional provision created in the form of a tyre wall, which the children love and are now brave enough to climb to the very top! Their inside provision has seen the introduction of more natural materials and more focused activities to engage and motivate our children even further. The children are very excited about the changes that have been made and the team are looking forward to continuing to develop the area over the next few weeks. At West Thornton resourcing and furniture has also seen a great improvement to ensure both indoor and outdoor provision is consistently engaging and of high quality.
Enrichments at Inspire Partnership This Term
Enrichments at Inspire Partnership This Term
Elaine Enrichment Medley
This term, there have been an abundance of trips and visitors, developing the cultural capital for our children at Elaine Primary School. In EYFS, a local beekeeper came and showed the children a bee hive, explained their work and the children even had a go at trying fresh honey! In Year 4, the children live zoomed explorers in the Antarctic, where they explained their adventures and children had the opportunity to ask questions. In the EEC, some children have started going on weekly trips to Curly’s Farm and the other children have had an Olympian boxer come in and teach them boxing skills. Finally, in Upper Key Stage 2, Chartwells visited the children and phase competed in a cooking competition ‘Ready, Steady, Cook’ style.
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance at Rockliffe Manor
Trinity Laban offers schools free live musical theatre productions. Each year they take a show on tour around local primary schools, which are offered free of charge. This year Rockliffe Manor were fortunate to see the production of Suessical the Musical, special thanks to Mrs Cummings from Foxfield for the contact. This was a fantastic experience for all children, watching musical theatre coming to life before their own eyes. Children from Year 1 – 5 were immersed in the fantastical world of Dr Suess, based on the many children's stories of Dr. Seuss, with most of its plot being based on Horton Hears a Who!, Gertrude McFuzz, and Horton Hatches the Egg while incorporating many other stories. Children were in awe of the production and experience.
World Maths Day at Maundene
Maundene celebrated World Maths Day on Thursday 10th March and the children participated in a range of activities. Miss Capes and Milo were greeted in the morning by a range of Rock Stars and children dressed as numbers - we even had a visit from the newly formed group The Spice Girls! Maths activities were planned throughout the day and there were competitions between classes on Times Table Rockstars - we discovered we had lots of competitive children and competitive staff! The children thoroughly enjoyed the day and also rediscovered the importance of learning and knowing their times table facts.
Woodside Primary School Support Shirley Park Oasis
Children at Woodside Primary School made a trip to Ashburton Park with Shirley Park Oasis to help raise money for a much needed youth hub supporting Croydon’s young people. The event had a brilliant, strong community feel and the children loved getting caught in the energetic vibes led by Mr Motivator! It was lovely to see so many young people enjoying themselves whilst receiving the message of hope and positivity.
Elaine Netball
This term, Elaine has re-established a Year 5 netball team, where they have been practising their skills after school and this term, they have competed with other local schools. In 7 matches so far, they have won 4 and drew 2, including winning against Year 6 children at another school. They have harnessed their PE skills and showed great sportsmanship when competing, showcasing the school values.
World Book Day across the Inspire Partnership
On Thursday 3rd May, children across the Inspire Partnership celebrated the annual ‘World Book Day’ and what a fantastic day of celebrations were had! Many of our schools adopted the theme ‘Heroes and Villains’ this year and the children dressed up as a range of characters from stories that they have read and enjoyed during their time at school. It was fantastic to see our children continually motivated to read for pleasure at their weekly library visits and it has been great to get feedback from the librarians that they welcome lots of visitors from our families at weekends too.
Over at Foxfield they started the day with ‘Biscuits and Books’ where parents and children joined from 8.30am to enjoy a delicious homemade biscuit and their favourite story with your children. It was great to enjoy celebrating our love of reading with the parents. Parents commented:
‘”Thank you for the event. I love seeing my child get excited over the books they bring home but also the selection of books on offer today!”
“It was great to sit, relax and enjoy a biscuit whilst l listened to my child reading today.”
At Maundene Primary school the love of reading has always been high on their priorities and their children love books! They regularly read in the library snuggled up with blankets, meet up with their reading buddies from another class to share books, complete sponsored reads and invite their parents in at the end of the day to read with them. This was enhanced even further on World Book Day where the children and staff came into school dressed in the pyjamas, staff shared their favourite books in assembly, read books snuggled up whilst enjoying a cup of hot chocolate! Our Key Stage 2 children were also kept enthused and enthralled by a visiting theatre company performing a play inspired by the book ‘The Secret Garden’.
Playground and Outdoor Fun!
Playground and Outdoor Fun!
Rockliffe Playtime Leaders
This half term has seen the installation of play leaders at Rockliffe Manor. Across the Inspire Partnership, we strongly believe in children becoming active citizens in their education. At the beginning of the academic year, Rockliffe JLT members set out to create their own school development plan and identified the need for children to be supported at playtimes. From this, they advertised, selected and trained Rockliffe Manor’s new play leaders. Children from years 3 to 6 were chosen and have enjoyed themselves since the beginning. One child said, “I love being a playleader and getting to work with younger children, it makes me feel so happy”. The children are constantly creating new ideas for games that they can implement with all children and enjoy working alongside the midday meal supervisors. One child said, “I really feel like I have a voice that’s listened to”. We look forward to seeing pupil leadership develop further where new opportunities will be created.
Woodhill Trip to B&Q
The children in Woodhill Reception thoroughly enjoyed their visit to B&Q in Greenwich to buy plants linked to their learning from their core text, Omar, the Bees and Me. They bought a range of plants and flowers that they know the bees will love and planted them around their playground to help the bees on their bee highway. The reception playground looks especially beautiful at the moment.
Woodhill Gardening club has also been busy digging out the weeds and preparing the planters with fresh top soil ready to plant the radishes, carrots, daisies, alyssum and poppies that they have been growing from seed. With the bright sunshine and some careful watering, we’re keeping our fingers crossed for success! The children also planted their own little pots of succulents ‘hens and chicks’ to take home to take care of – they have told us that they’re growing well. The chilli seeds that we planted have begun to sprout but we have decided not to put them in the planters in the playground as we don’t want any burnt tongues – we will grow little chilli pots to sell instead. We now need to decide what plants and seeds to buy with the £50 voucher that we won from Food for Life.
Playground Relaunch at West Thornton
West Thornton are excited and proud to share their new playground provision. Their PE coach has zoned our outdoor spaces to help support more structured play for our pupils. Alongside physical and sports activities, a variety of nurture activities are planned to support children’s wellbeing. During assemblies we introduced the new activities to the children and modelled our high expectations.
Trustwide Highlights
Trustwide Highlights
Woodhill School Visits
On Thursday 17th March, a trio of school leaders from Italy and Slovakia visited Woodhill Primary School with a focus on EAL provision as well as inclusive practice. As part of the day, they met with a range of school leaders who shared best practice in inducting new language learners, discussed the variety of ways we resource for EAL children so that feel a real part of the classroom and discussed how we utilise bi-lingual books to engage all members of the school community. The visitors toured the school and at lunch they were joined by children from Italy and Slovakia respectively- a truly magic moment.
Forest School Trip Feedback
Forest received a lovely call this week from two people who shared a bus with Forest Academy Children whilst on a trip. They were so impressed with our Children's behaviour, they took the time to find out our school and let us know!
They both were very impressed with children’s behaviour and manners whilst travelling on public transport on Monday. They were ‘quiet and polite’, listened to the adults with them and followed instructions.
A great compliment indeed for the children at Forest Academy - well done everyone!
Challenge Partners at Elaine and Foxfield
Elaine and Foxfield hosted Challenge Partners as part of their QAR review earlier this term. The Challenge Partner reviews are a fantastic opportunity to engage with professionals from across London and reflect collectively on what is going well at the schools and how we can tweak elements of our practice to further improve provision. We have now received the finalised reports from the lead reviewers and we are pleased to share that we achieved leading in all areas at both schools! We are so proud of both school communities for such stunning reports and how positively our staff team, the children and curriculum offer has been captured and celebrated.
The full reports for both schools can be found here:
Foxfield Challenge Partners Report 2022
Elaine Challenge Partners Report 2022
Please find below a range of positive snippets which encapsulates just what wonderful communities we have at Foxfield and Elaine!
Foxfield:
"A global curriculum is embedded. This is about pupils connecting with their learning."
"Pupils demonstrate excellent attitudes to learning, owing to a range of effective teaching provision."
"In all year groups, pupils use ambitious language when articulating their understanding, for example referring to the impact of inflation and which legacies remain from invasions."
Elaine:
"The child is very much at the centre of learning."
"Adults are consistent in expecting high standards of oracy from disadvantaged children and those with additional needs."
"The inclusion team work closely with staff to make sure that the needs of children are central. They are outward facing and network with other schools, sharing best practice."
Mary Myatt CPD
Last week we had the pleasure of hosting Mary Myatt as part of the 'Headteacher's Networking for Excellence' programme. She led a really valuable and engaging session on 'A Bold And Brilliant Curriculum For All Our Pupils'.
We recorded the session, so if you'd like to watch it, please see below links to the recording and slides:
Page updated
Report abuse