Child’s Oral Health meeting
Hello Parents of Solebay Primary!
We shall be hosting a parents information session on how you can improve your child’s oral health and prevent dental disease to help keep your child healthy and pain free! There will also be time for questions at the end.
Please join us at 4pm on Tuesday 22nd March (by clicking on blue link below)
Click here to join the meeting
Note: if you are joining on a smart phone you may not be able to see the presentation slides, therefore joining via to a desktop/laptop is preferable.
World Book Day Tokens
For information on how to access Tokens for World Book Day, please click here.
Learning Through Lockdown
Despite the current challenges around the majority of our pupils learning from home, we have started the term on a high by ensuring children both at home and in school experience the same quality-first teaching and learning they would get in the classroom.
This is as a result of the extensive planning and preparation we had done before the start of the year. We took the findings and insights we gained during the first period of lockdown last spring and summer, and with other Paradigm Trust schools built a robust plan of action which we could apply should we need to close and engage in remote learning again.
Our preparation continued when children returned to school in the autumn. This included training staff on how to use Google Classroom, discussing a remote learning pedagogy with other Paradigm schools and planning the logistics that were necessary to be able to deliver effective teaching online to all its pupils.
So when, with barely twelve hours’ notice, the official notification that schools would be closed to all children (apart from vulnerable and key worker children) was received, we were able to move swiftly to remote learning with a minimum of disruption.
Now we are delivering a full and engaging timetable which comprises recorded lessons made by Paradigm teachers and live lessons which follow the same structure as an in-school lesson. We also provide online activities which support the children’s learning.
One of the major challenges during the first lockdown was the digital divide, with many families unable to access the online resources available due to a lack of appropriate devices and/or a reliable internet connection with sufficient data allowance. To overcome this challenge we have issued school laptops to any children who are learning from home and don’t have suitable access to technology. Where families don’t have access to WiFi, we’ve purchased dongles and data for them. Non-digital resources, such as exercise books, are also issued to pupils and we have stocked up on extra resources such as glue, paint and materials for Art which can be picked up from school for pupils working from home.
It’s extremely important to us that all our pupils continue to get the support they need, so teachers and teaching assistants work together as they would normally to provide bespoke support to small groups of children, using virtual breakout rooms via Google Hangouts as lessons are being taught. Where needed, pupils also receive one to one support.
We are also reaching out to families with phone calls and house visits where necessary, and we offer the voucher scheme for families eligible for free school meals.
Lockdown is undoubtedly a challenge, but one we are meeting head-on. It is an opportunity to adapt and improve our teaching and learning, both in the classroom and remotely online. As we would do in normal circumstances we are seeking the most effective ways to teach, testing different innovations and then sharing those that have been proven to be effective with the rest of the school and the entire Trust. It is our goal to always deliver an effective, challenging and interesting remote learning experience for our pupils, so they can all achieve their best.
Art resources
Please come along to the school on the dates below between 9.30am to 2.30pm to collect art resources for your child/ren.
Please note due to social distancing guidelines and to limit numbers in school at one time, we are only able to accommodate the timetable below.Therefore if you have children in different year groups, you will still need to come in on only the dates allocated to your child’s year group.
Years 1 & 2: Collection days: 1st or 2nd February
Resources to collect:
- x1 glue stick
- x 1 coloured card
- x 2 paper
Year 3 & 4: Collection days: 3rd, 4th or 5th February
Resources to collect:
- x 5 split pins
- x 1 card
- x 1 scissors
Years 5 & 6: Collection days: 3rd, 4th or 5th February
Resources to collect:
- x 1 paint palette and brush
- x 3 cartridge paper
How a shared Pedagogy improves our pupils’ prospects.
Pedagogy is the science and art of teaching. Having a well-thought-out pedagogy improves the quality of our teaching and the way students learn, helping them gain a deeper grasp of fundamental material. Being mindful of the way we teach also helps us better understand how to help children achieve deeper learning.
At Solebay Primary Academy, and in every other school in Paradigm Trust, our pedagogy is about using research-based methods to teach the right things effectively while at the same time recognising the needs of our pupils. With children only having a finite number of hours in school, the time we have to educate them is limited. This is why it is absolutely crucial to optimise those precious hours, using the correct strategy to ensure children make the most progress. It must challenge the highest attaining pupils and close learning gaps when they appear.
We do this through thoughtfully crafted teacher-centric lessons as these have been shown to be the most effective. We then support this approach with pupil-centred learning when learners are ready to take advantage of it. Solebay children get great satisfaction from learning knowledge and skills which they know is important and which they find stimulating and exciting. They are guided through step by step, so they experience success at each stage and at the end are able to produce work that they are proud of.
Our research-based methods are mainly taken from two titles – the first is Teach Like a Champion, a collection of techniques which combine to deliver incredibly effective learning to the children. Over the last three years we have added Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction, which establishes ten different strategies for teaching and assessing. The two works complement each other, providing a well-rounded base on which to build our pedagogy.
By using the same pedagogy across Solebay there is consistency in the way we teach, in the way we behave and in the way we apply our rules, from Early Years right through to Year Six which hugely benefits both pupils and staff. However, we understand every class and every child is different, so our pedagogy is flexible, giving our teachers the tools for each individual situation and can adapt the strategies to fit their circumstances, while still retaining the underlying rationale.
It also enables us to make continuous improvements to our teaching. When one teacher makes a small adaptation to the shared pedagogy which proves successful, it is then easily put into practice across every Solebay class and at the other Paradigm Trust schools too. In the same way we benefit from improvements made elsewhere in the Trust, so we can be sure we are doing the best for every child at Solebay Primary Academy, ensuring at the end of a child’s school career s/he will be well prepared to flourish and lead a positive, fulfilling life.