Keep up to date with all the news happening in the school at the moment. Articles are added during the week. Parents are encouraged to check regularly. Our weekly bulletin, emailed directly to parents, summarises content for the week.

• October Value of the Month - Unity

  Tue 29 Sep 2015

  Staff and pupils focus on working together

  During the month of October staff and pupils will be exploring the value of unity. Pupils will discuss the meaning behind this value in assemblies and have the opportunity to experience real-life examples of unity in lessons. One year 3 pupil explained, “Our school values help us to be the best people we can be.”

  Find this month’s values newsletter on our Values-based Education page.  

• Year 6 Star Leaders

  Mon 28 Sep 2015

  Assemblies taken over by pupils

  Staff and pupils were treated to fabulous presentations by our Year 6 Star Leaders on Monday.  Pupil leaders from Year 6 prepared an assembly to inspire and motivate their 'star' constellation teams.  They have been busily preparing in their own time, showing expert co-operation and determination.

  “We were so impressed with the level of maturity and commitment the Star Leaders showed today and we’re looking forward to next half term when they will get a chance to do it again,” explained Mrs. Tate, Assistant Head teacher.

  Key messages were around how to earn extra stars for your constellation team and tips for showing respect.

  “Assembly halls were full of energy.  The Year 6 pupils were fantastic and very well organised,” added Peter Dunmall, Head. 

• Playground Friends and Peer Mediators

  Fri 25 Sep 2015

  Friendly playtimes

  Last week over 70 pupils were trained to be either a Playground Friend, Years 3-5, or Peer Mediator, Year 6.  The children selected applied for the positions demonstrating their enthusiasm  and dedication to the role. 

  This is a message from them....

  Playground Friends

  We are in years 2-5, and we help children in the playground, by playing games with them if they are lonely, bored or have no one to play with. We trained how to become Playground Friends, and how to be friendly and look after other children. We help children have a fun playtime, be happy and have friends. Children know who we are as we wear blue hats with “Playground Friend” written on them.

   Peer Mediators

  Our team has children from year 6 in it. We patrol the Key stage 1 and Key stage 2 playgrounds. Our job is to solve friendship problems, and we were specially trained to do this. We wear yellow hats when we are on duty, so we are very visible. We will stop arguments and help children to have more fun. They are also welcome to join in with games we play.

  We hope everyone has a happy and safe playtime thanks to us!

• Learning Mentor drop-ins

  Thu 24 Sep 2015

  Our Learning Mentor, Mrs Reehal, is now running Drop-In Clinics for children in Key Stage 2. These clinics are for children who need someone to talk to, maybe because they are feeling a bit worried, upset or angry or may just need some advice or guidance.

  The clinics run on Mondays and Wednesdays for all children from Key Stage 2, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays for trained Playground Friends and Peer Mediators. They will be held in the group room, opposite Mr Mappin’s music room, between 12.30-1.30pm. Drop-in’s are based on a first come, first seen basis.

  A child experiencing friendship issues, requiring mediation, recently commented, “It helps to speak to the other person with an adult that I know.”

  Please encourage your child/ren to drop-in, if you feel they would benefit from this service.

• School improvement

  Thu 24 Sep 2015

  Governors and school leaders set priorities.

  School leaders and the Governing Body have worked together to evaluate the performance of the school and set key improvement priorities for this school year, including:

  1. Improve pupil outcomes so that Fielding’s pupils perform much better than others national by:
     1. increasing challenge and expectations from starting points
     2. narrowing the gap for disadvantaged pupils in school and between other pupils nationally, especially in maths
     3. raising pupil outcomes in maths
     4. increasing success in phonics and spelling
     5. reducing variance between reading, writing and maths outcomes at the end of Early Years.
  2. All teachers consistently use teaching and assessment strategies which have the biggest impact on learning, implementing a Visible Learning approach.
  3. All adults consistently reinforce and promote highest expectations and manage behaviour highly effectively.
  4. Developing the ‘whole child’ through a broad and balanced curriculum, promoting core skills, science, music and sport.
  5. Looking after our staff team, recruiting, developing and retaining the highest quality team.
  6. Improving our indoor and outdoor environment to promote teaching, learning and pupil outcome priorities.
  7. Increasing the impact of governance on all aspects of school improvement.

  The Governing Body regularly monitors progress towards our priorities by meeting every half-term in committees, receiving reports from school leaders and visiting the school to see and hear from teachers and children first-hand.

• Governing Body vacancies

  Thu 24 Sep 2015

  Parent governor needed

  Elaine Wong, Parent governor, has resigned from our Governing Body.  Elaine has been a very active governor for over 3 years, including chairing our Pupils & Achievement Committee.  Governors play a vital role in shaping the education of young people by helping to set the ethos, vision and strategy for schools.

  The school will shortly be making arrangements to find a new parent governor.  Nominations will be sought over the next few weeks.  It is likely that more than one nomination will be received which will result in a ballot for parents to select their choice of governor.  Further details will be published to all parents around half-term, enabling the election process to be completed before the next full governing body meeting in December.

  New co-opted governor

  Helena Coles, Co-opted governor has also resigned as a governor.  Co-opted Governors are appointed by the Governing Body often to meet the need for a specific set of skills, knowledge or experience.  Co-opted Governors can be people who live or work in the community served by the school, or people who do not work or live close to the school, but are committed to the good governance and success of the school.  The Governing Body is currently considering skills required and details of people interested in being a co-opted governor.

  Find out more above school governance:

  • Fielding's Governors
  • National Governors' Association

   

• Starting School - Reception September 2016

  Wed 23 Sep 2015

  'Catchment' areas removed

  Children born between 1 September 2011 and 31 August 2012 are due to start the first year of primary school (Reception class) in September 2016.

  Admission arrangements to Ealing's primary schools have changed.  Priority Admission Areas, also commonly known as 'catchment areas' have been removed with priority being given to siblings in school followed by distance to school.

  Transfer from Fielding's Nursery to Reception at Fielding is not automatic - an application for a primary school place must be made.

  A series of open mornings and one evening session at Fielding have been planned to help parents make an informed choice of school.  Book your place on one of our tours:

  • Fielding Admissions, Starting School 2016 

  Read more about school admissions in Ealing, including links to the on-line application form:

  • Fielding Admissions information
  • Ealing Primary School Admissions
  • Deadline for applying, Friday 15th January 2016

• Visible Learning

  Wed 23 Sep 2015

  What makes a difference to learning?

  Fielding's teachers have been challenged to think about what really makes a difference to pupils' learning.  Visible Learning is based on 15 years of research into what really works best in education.

  "We've spent too long in education trying to find the next best thing for our pupils.  This research based programme makes us stop and think about the things that do make a difference to learning, based on evidence from around the world," explained Peter Dunmall, Head.

  Professor John Hattie's research has used effect sizes to order influences that can impact on pupils' learning, enabling us to see those that have the greatest impact.  Hattie's research uses a meta-analysis of meta-analyses to combine the results of several studies that address a set of related research theories.

  "Thankfully, over 95% of what teachers do is positive and learning occurs but we need to know how best to spend our time and energy to maximise the impact of our teaching, " added Laura Stabler, Assistant Head for Learning & Teaching.

  Education debate and popular discussion often do not focus on the things that have a significant impact on pupils' learning.

  Join the debate

  Hattie's research has currently identified 150 different influences, 12 of which are shown below.  Which of these influences do you think has the biggest impact on learning?  Try sorting into order from one (most effective) to twelve (least effective): Answers below

  • Student expectations
  • Classroom discussion
  • Feedback
  • Study skills
  • Reading recovery
  • Co-operative learning
  • Homework
  • Individualised instruction
  • Ability grouping
  • Open vs traditional spaces
  • Holding back a year
  • Changing school

  Next steps

  Fielding's teachers are working with Cognition Education on a two year programme to further improve the impact of our teaching.  The structured programme includes action research and gathering evidence to know our impact.  Up until half-term, teachers are working in groups to explore something new based on Hattie's research and to gather evidence to help us judge our starting point to inform next steps.

  Find out more:

  • Visible Learning plus

  (Answer: they are listed in order from most to least impact with Changing school in 150th place)

• School meal debt

  Wed 23 Sep 2015

  Meals stopped if debts reach £34.50

  Ealing School's Catering Consortium have changed school meal debt arrangements.  Individual schools must now cease serving meals to pupils with 3 weeks of debt (£34.50) or pay off the debt for parents from the school's education budget.  Previously schools in the consortium were expected to pay 50% of any debt at the end of the year.

  "School meal debts at Fielding are very low with the overwhelming majority of families paying for school meals.  I am pleased that where debts are higher in other consortium schools, those schools will now be responsible for their debt without this burden being shared across all schools.

  "However, so that we are consistent with other schools in the consortium, we will stop serving meals to pupils with 3 weeks of debt," explained Peter Dunmall, Head teacher.

  "We have contacted families directly who are affected by this change so that they can make other meal arrangements or pay," added Sandra Read, Finance Officer.

• Improving communication with parents

  Thu 17 Sep 2015

  Publishing to our web-site

  School leaders have reviewed the way that we use of web-site and how we publish information to parents.  From September we are aiming to improve our communication by publishing more details, more often directly to the school web-site.

  Key improvements include:

  • steadily adding more information and pages to our web-site so that it becomes a key point of reference for parents and pupils.
  • replacing Newsletters with 'Latest News' articles published directly to the Parents section of our web-site written by a wider range of school authors.
  • using Twitter and Facebook to notify followers of our news updates.
  • publishing letters directly to the Parents, Letters section of our web-site.
  • publishing a weekly bulletin every Friday by ParentMail, summarising and linking letters and news articles added to the web-site during the week, along with forthcoming dates.

  Parents are encouraged to check the Letters section of the school web-site daily to remain up-to-date and to follow us on Twitter (@fieldingprimary) and/or Facebook (/fieldingprimary) to receive latest news updates.

  We will continue to use ParentMail for individual letters, including 'bumped head' notifications.