North West London

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW Highlighting best practice

for year 6 children graduating in the national Key Stage 2 SATs. The second stage of the plan was stabilising the teaching force, including the leadership team. The previous years had seen high teacher turnover with most staff coming in on a short-term basis. We introduced a phased system with phase leaders at each stage and recruited a permanent leadership team. The phase leaders acted as support and coaches for teachers. We now have a more settled teaching staff with clear professional targets and an understanding that data claims of successful child assessments must be corroborated with evidence from the children’s work. Ofsted are now more interested in the books of children than the internal data of the schools, and our mode of student assessment must reflect this. The third stage of the plan is to develop a tailor-made curriculum which supports our vision for our children. We want to provide more opportunities for developing student leadership skills and experiencing success through teamwork and participation in challenges, building confidence and breaking the cycle of disadvantage. Sports tournament participation and art competitions are key parts of this and we’re about to introduce a system of pupil volunteers to give students the opportunity to contribute and see the positive outcomes of their efforts. We want to provide our children with the opportunity to be leaders who can manifest real change. Finances are a challenge for us, with a deficit compounded by falling rolls due to a regional surplus of schools. We will, however, continue to work hard, promoting our school within the wider community. As our pupils say: “We never give up; Earlham Forever!”

Teaching children to make choices that benefit their development

A three-step plan

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We used a three-step plan in revolutionising the school; a plan which is currently entering its third stage. The first stage was to give everybody a common language of assessment so that we were using the same terms to track our progress and knew what we were aiming for. We put in place training for staff and rewrote our assessment policy with a one-page Earlham assessment strategy to help teachers plan their lessons, track their children and report to leadership, and for myself to report progress to governors and identify where we needed to intervene and support. We are hoping for a third successive year of raised outcomes

The first stage was to give everybody a common language of assessment so that we were using the same terms to track our progress

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42 | EARLHAM PRIMARY SCHOOL