A recent development at our school has been the introduction of a new teaching approach which has played a major part in improving our GCSE results further still.
Some of the key priorities for us in terms of raising achievement are tracking our children to their best possible grades, generating a collective ‘can do’ spirit, and developing our staff so the best of every teacher is shared with colleagues and the children they teach.
Over the last two years we have simply knocked down walls to build supersize classrooms. Once upon a time there would be two rooms of say 25 with a teacher each, now there is one room with 2 teachers and say 50 children.
Initially, this initiative proved successful in Maths (with a focus on Set 2 and Set 3 Maths) where we looked to push students up to Grades 6-7 and Grade 5 and we saw a marked increase in the Summer formal exams. We then rolled the scheme out to Science and targeted the same cohorts in a supersize room there, adding in new furniture and A4 ring-binger folders to bring a Sixth Former this to the approach.
This Summer walls come tumbling down in the Humanities corridor and we now have a supersize room for GCSE French targeting those children aiming for Grade 6-9. Of course, GCSE French is a challenge, students only start it in Year 7 compared to all the other subjects emerging way back in primary school, and so keeping a collective spirit and upbeat attitude is vital as they push through the grades. However, with our GCSE results already being amongst the very best in the county, we are confident that this extended approach will only further add to them.
Matt Allman, Headteacher, said: “We are not a school that stand still and are always on the look-out for how we can develop our practice, expertise and delivery. If you stand still, all too often you go backwards, and we remind one another as colleagues that we have to keep moving. The students have had to adapt to this new approach but being young people without the hang-ups of what has always been they quickly cope admirably and get over initial hurdles. We have high expectations of all of our students and one another as professionals and this approach is the latest sign that we are always looking to do better still.”
