The Hundred of Hoo Academy

Welcome Back

It is my absolute pleasure to welcome back the pupils, parents, carers and all stakeholders of Hundred of Hoo Primary Academy to the academy. It has been a very successful start to the year with some excellent learning taking place across the school already - some examples of the work your children have been involved with are able to be seen in the Digital Floorbooks on the Curriculum Pages section of this bulletin.

Where we are at the very start on the academic year, the amount work seen on the floorbooks will not be a huge amount right now; however, as the year progresses, you will see more and more appear and we would encourage you to speak to your children about what they have been learning in school.

This is a very exciting year for The Hundred of Hoo Academy as it is the first year we are able to welcome two classes of year R pupils into the school. The expansion of the Primary phase at the school was always planned and I feel genuinely priveleged and excited to see our amazing community grow.

Our school's vision is "To combine good manners and etiquette with 21st Century innovation and creativity to ensure our pupils are more than just educated, they become globally minded citizens who will be empowered to change their own lives and the lives of those around them."  and, as such, everything we do at The Hundred of Hoo Academy is with the aim of providing children with the opportunities to become the very best versions of themselves and to give them the knowledge and skills to help others do the same.

I know I speak for all staff when I say we are very much looking forward to another very successful year at the academy!

New Build

Since October last year, you will not have failed to notice the fact that part of the school has been a literal building site. Throughout the whole of the project, the contractors assured me that the building would be complete and ready for a September opening. Not having a huge amount experience in the building industry myself, I was very much reliant on Medway Council, Perfect Homes and Leigh Academies Trust in ensuring the building work ran smoothly and that these assurances were realised.

I am so pleased to be able to finally share some pictures of the new year R classrooms and outdoor area and look forward to being able to share more photographs of other areas of the new building as they become populated.

I have also included some pictures of the building work as it progressed to remind you of just how far the project has come. 

In the next week or so, the field will be returned to its original state. The only outstanding work to take place will be the conversion of the hard-standing outside the front of the school to provide additional car-parking space for staff and some works to the existing drop off and parking zone which is planned to take place during the October half-term.

You Said, We Did

Over the course of the last academic year, I spoke to a wide number of parents with regards to things in the school which were working really well as well as taking on feedback from parents about what could be done differently.

Some parents explained that they were not sure about how well their children were doing in school outside of the regular parents' evenings. To help with this, we have opened the "assessment" module all-year-round on My Child At School (MCAS) so you are able to see the most up-to-date data as and when it is submitted by class teachers. Additionally, we introduced regular 'book-looks' for you to be able to gain insight into the work your children complete in class.

We were asked to provide more parent workshops around how to help children's wellbeing outside of school and put into place three sessions with Paula Johnson, our school counsellour around sleep, self-esteem and anxiety. Additionally, some parents have asked for some workshops around Google Classroom which you will see on the events overview, shared with parents this week, has been organised for Monday 2nd October at 3.20pm. 

A small proportion of parents shared that it would be nice to hear more of the positives when they take place in school, so we introduced the 'Positive Postcards' which I know many children received in modules 5 and 6 and I have seen plenty being shared already this module too. Another suggestion was to reintroduce the 'positive point' badges for pupils for when they hit milestones of positive points and I am pleased to share that this will also be going ahead this year.

As a leadership team, it truly is valuable to hear the thoughts and suggestions from parents and carers, as well as hearing the positives that are often shared too, and these are just a few examples of how we have acted on the voice of our wider community. 

To give parents and carers even more of an opportunity to share ideas and feedback, we will be holding 'Meet the Leaders' events every two modules as an open forum. The first of these for this academic year will be on Tuesday 3rd October in the primary hall from 3.20pm to 3.50pm.

Home Learning

Home Learning or homework is often a contentious subject in schools but there is evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) which suggests that the regular completion of appropriate homework, linked to what is being taught in lessons, can have a positive impact on children's attainment with up to an additional 3 months of progress being made through this alone. 

Over the past two years, the academy has reviewed the way in which homework is set, assessed, completed and, possibly most importantly, has appropriate and quick feedback given to students and parents. 

After spending quite some time investigating ways to make homework most impactful, we have decided to purchase two pieces of software to support teachers to set appropriate homework: MyMaths for Maths homework and Cracking Comprehension for Reading homework. 

Both of these pieces of software comply with GDPR requirements and provide immediate feedback to pupils about whether their answers were correct or not; we are currently waiting for accounts to be created before rolling this out across Key Stage 1 and 2. Both of these platforms are able to be accessed on mobile phones, tablets, laptops and chromebooks.

We have outlined our homework expectations in the documents below, taking into account the new systems. 

Year R Homework Expectations

Year 1 Homework Expectations

Year 2 Homework Expectations

Year 3 and 4 Homework Expectations

Year 5 and 6 Homework Expectations

You will notice that as pupils move throughout the school, there is an increase in the amount of homework they are expected to complete in preparation for their transition to secondary school.

There is an expectation that pupils will complete all homework marked 'compulsory' on the overviews. If children fail to complete their homework, they will be expected to attend a lunchtime catch-up club in order to complete the compulsory work which has been set.

There will also be 'voluntary' homework tasks set for children related to their inquiry learning.

All homework completed, both compulsory and voluntary, without having to attend the lunchtime catch-up club will be rewarded with positive points.

We do know that some children might not have access to a device or prefer to have some help with their homework and to support this we will also be running an after-school homework club. This will provide children with a quiet place to complete their homework after school. This club will be open to all year groups from year 1 to year 6.

Theme of The Fortnight

The theme of the fortnight for the past week has been "Our Community" and we have delved into what makes a community, who is part of our community at The Hundred of Hoo, how communities work best together (including making and following rules) and how we are all part of not just our local community but also part of a global community.

The theme for the upcoming two weeks is "Hoo Leaders" and we will be exploring what leadership is, what leadership opportunities there are for pupils at Hoo and what qualities really effective leaders have. It would be great for you to talk to your children about different leaders that you find inspirational (football managers, politicians, leaders in your field of work) to enrich our conversations going forward  in school.