It’s good news for all!  Despite the pandemic pupils are learning and remembering more. This time last year school was closed to most pupils and had been for a while. After returning to school in September and getting off to a good start to the school year, bubbles started closing and then we all went into lockdown, but this time we were more prepared and delivered our stronger offer for remote learning. What a journey! Despite this, your children have shown us just how resilient they are. This has been shown through their effort and thirst for learning in class. We are proud of each and every one of them.

 

Your child's teacher has used the last few weeks of the summer term to find out what your child knows and remembers in the core areas of the National Curriculum, reading, writing and maths, and to establish any gaps in learning they might still have due to periods of school closure.

 

This is what our assessment information tells us:

The upward trend identified in the spring term of the number pupils on track to meet age-related expectations (ARE) continued. For most pupils any gaps in learning that occurred as a result of school closure have closed. 

• In mathematics 93% of non-SEND pupils have met the standards expected for their age group, 90% in reading.
• 50% of pupils are working above the expected standard in reading and maths, and 36% in writing. 
• 90% of pupils, including those from a disadvantaged background and those with a special educational need and/or disability (SEND) have made expected progress in reading and writing and 93% in maths.
• Around 30% of pupils have made more than expected progress in reading and maths and 23% have made more than expected progress in writing. 
• Children in Nursery and Reception have made expected progress from their baseline in most areas of learning, with many children making more than expected progress.

 

There is some variance across subjects and across year groups, especially in key stage 1 and Year 3. To get ready for the autumn term, so that no time is lost when the children come back to school, teachers have looked at assessment information for pupils in their new classes in detail.

 

We’ve still got some work to do in the teaching of writing, especially with spelling, grammar and punctuation and getting children to practice what they want to write by speaking out loud before attempting to write it down.

 

We’ll also be teaching reading in a slightly new way. Read Miss Whaley’s news article here to find out more.

 

To  find out more about our assessment outcomes for this year, click below for our detailed analysis.

• End of year headlines and evaluation

 

So what did we do to help children know and remember more?

• invested in additional reading books for our reading lessons and for take home reading books, especially at the higher levels;
• increased the amount of time spent on teaching phonics in Reception, Year 1 and 2;
• teachers used the knowledge they had about pupils’ gaps to tailor their teaching. This meant in some year groups more time was spent on teaching reading, writing and maths. Teachers also used opportunities in the FLCC for pupils to apply their knowledge in different ways.
• we provided support for teachers at early stages of their career to provide ‘quality first teaching’ (mentoring and coaching);
• we provided teachers with the devices and applications to be able to teach in school and from home so that time wasn’t lost during school closure periods.

Some pupils also had

• additional daily reading sessions in school;
• 1:1 maths tutoring, through ‘Third Space Maths’;
• small group teaching focused on writing skills;
• online vocabulary development.

 

Your child’s assessments outcomes are now available for you to view on MCAS. Their annual report has also been published to the ‘report’ section of MCAS

• Your child's progress live on MCAS

Find out more about our assessment at Fielding here.