Our parent pledge

Gearies Primary school

Our Parent Pledge 2022

Each child is a unique learner with strengths and needs in all subjects.  Each teacher is committed to planning a responsive learning experience in their class that meets each child’s needs, and that is both challenging and inspiring.  Our teaching aims to always be of high quality, in all subjects. 

Children’s attainment and progress is recorded and monitored regularly throughout the year.  Teachers are aware of any child who has not met our expected standard at year end.  Teachers create detailed learning plans for all children who do not meet the expected standard in Reading, Writing or Mathematics.  Progress against these plans is monitored by SLT throughout the year.  These plans detail additional support outside of the usual learning experiences in the classroom.  They are informed by relevant educational research, realistic, and likely to support the child to catch up to the expected standard within the school year. 

Progress is reported at our autumn and spring term parent consultation meetings.  Standards are also reported at the end of the year.  Parents and carers can also request to meet with class teachers at a mutually convenient time at any point in the school year to discuss the child’s progress.

Standardised strategies and programmes of support:

Nursery Inclusion Project - NIPA – Early Years - NIPA has allowed us to improve our capacity to better support our community. We have, and will continue to build, sustainable solutions to mitigate and prevent inequalities, such as access to Speech and Language Therapy, Play Therapy and vital NHS-funded community mental health services. NIPA provision provides solutions to mitigate and prevent inequalities impacting on the health and wellbeing of communities.

•  to sufficiently reach target groups of children and parents
•  to identify gaps in current provision and design projects to address these gaps
•  to work with those in our community that face health inequalities.

This work ensures all children experience the highest quality of services focussed on Education and Care, services which have enduring effects on the health and life chances outcomes for both our children and their families. Through a controlled review of the projects impacts it has been identified that this provision has a positive impact of six months’ plus additional progress. Our children’s Good Level of Development at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage is significantly above National averages and within the highest 20% of all schools.

The Nuffield Early Language Intervention – NELI - Early Years and Year One- This is an evidence-based oral language intervention for children who need support with their oral language skills and who are therefore at risk of experiencing difficulty with reading. It is delivered over 30 weeks by teaching assistants in groups of 3-4 children.  Through a controlled review of the intervention impacts, it has been identified that this intervention has a positive impact of between four and six months’ additional progress. These impacts on language skills were still seen after the intervention and within the children’s progress into Year Two. Our children’s attainment at the end of Key Stage One is significantly above National averages, across all areas of learning, and within the highest 20% of all schools.

Pupil Premium action plans –  Grow Models - All children – Our strategy aims to ensure our children and families can access a range of support. Raising families’ awareness of what they are eligible for in terms of support, ensuring those not eligible for recognised status are supported. Our approach raises teacher’s expectations of children’s potential. Building challenge for all children. Our strategies build on the support provided for our EAL children, establishing long-term structures to ensure sustainable relationships, cultures and improvement. Our work focusses on embedding effective strategies into all classroom practice. Our strategy adopts a tiered approach: Teaching, targeted academic support and wider strategies. Our approach ensures teachers use real, new knowledge in their own practice- leading to real improvement. This ensures all staff have a clear understanding of our strategy, ensuring all staff are empowered by our approaches. Our work is driven by pupil and community needs. Our work is focused on achievement and inclusive classroom practices. Our work includes an evaluation of impact of improvement, not accountability. We embed success. Across all phases, Early Years Foundation Stage, Key Stage One, Key Stage Two – our Pupil Premium children’s attainment is significantly above National averages, across all areas of learning, and within the highest 20% of all schools.

Focus Learner action plans - All children – The term, “Focus Children” relates to those children we have identified as being at risk of not meeting their full potential. Some of these children will have their needs met through structured support, for example those who have an EHCP, those for whom English is an additional language or those who have only recently arrived from abroad. For other children in this focus group it is the schools expectations that their needs are best met through “effective” and “affective” teaching practices. We believe professional development for teachers needs to be focused on developing their ability to exercise, “informed choice” to develop the, “flexibility” to analyse quality assured sources of guidance and adapt the implications to their work in their own classrooms. We believe this is the most effective way of supporting our Focus children: increasing teacher’s professional knowledge, skills and understanding so they are better placed to make informed decisions on how to improve their teaching and learning provision for these children - professional development for teachers so they can identify most effective elements of inclusive practices. Effective strategies are shared with teaching teams; encouraging discussions on how they could be used to inform choice and support flexibility. Improvement is developed through action planning and dialogic processes. Agreed action plans are established; teachers then begin using these strategies to support informed professional choices on improving provision to better meet the children’s needs. An interim evaluation of improvement is conducted to ensure success, or to inform further needed improvement and professional support to better meet the needs of the children. The impact of this work is evidenced through the progress of our middle prior attainers – by Key Stage Two their progress and attainment is significantly higher than National averages and in the highest 20% of all schools.

Tutoring – Years Two, Three, Four, Five and Six - Tuition involves a teacher, teaching assistant or other adult giving a pupil, or group of pupils intensive support. It may happen outside of normal lessons as additional teaching – for example as part of extending school time or as a replacement for other lessons. Tuition is an effective strategy for providing targeted support for pupils that are identified as having low prior attainment or are struggling in particular areas. To ensure impact, Tuition is additional to and explicitly linked with normal lessons. All adults are fully trained in delivering our structured programmes. The impact of this work is evidenced through the progress of our Pupil Premium Children, Vulnerable Children, Focus Children and whole school outcomes  – by the end of Key Stage Two  progress and attainment is significantly higher than National averages and in the highest 20% of all schools.

Accelerated Reader – Years Five and Six-Accelerated Reader is a computer-based program that our school uses to support teachers monitor reading practice and progress.  Personalized goals help our children stay focused on the factors that matter most for reading growth – supporting our teachers in monitoring their progress and ways to provide feedback to keep learners on track. Individual reading recommendations use children’s’ interests and reading levels to suggest “just-right” titles, supporting our teachers in providing high-quality reading practice that fuels growth. Reading quizzes monitor comprehension, while literacy skills and vocabulary quizzes extend children’s learning and build skills. Detailed reports provide insights into children’s’ progress and supports teachers to track students’ mastery of focus skills aligned to state-specific learning standards. The impact of this work is evidenced through the progress of our Upper Key Stage Two children. Their attainment in Reading is significantly higher than National averages and in the highest 20% of all schools.

Setting for Mathematics – Years Five and Six- ‘Setting’ refers to a variety of approaches by which pupils with similar levels of current attainment are consistently grouped together for lessons. This involves grouping pupils in a given year group into classes for specific subjects, such as mathematics, but not across the whole curriculum. The aim of setting approaches is to enable more effective and efficient teaching by narrowing the range of pupil attainment in a set. We use measures of current performance, rather than measures of ability, to group pupils. We have made carful considerations on how the approach will enable more effective teaching for all pupils, including lower attaining pupils. For example, carefully considering how to allocate teachers appropriately to different sets. It is important to ensure that all pupils follow a challenging curriculum, including lower attaining pupils through regular monitoring of learning we make informed choices about the allocation of pupils to groups. The impact of this work is evidenced through the progress of our Upper Key Stage Two children. Their attainment in Mathematics is significantly higher than National averages and in the highest 20% of all schools.