Dear All,
Welcome to the new ‘Rising Three’ pupils who joined us in the Nursery last week! They are settling in very well.
Welcome back also to Mrs Abbas who has returned to the Nursery after a period of ill health. It’s lovely to see her back.
The second week of the Year 5 Swimming Course runs this week and children are already making really good progress and gaining confidence in the water.
The Transition Project with some Year 6 pupils begins this week on Wednesday.
On Thursday morning PC Amy is visiting Year 6 as part of her school education programme and she will be talking to them about the dangers of alcohol. She will stay after break and talk to the Y5/6 classes about her job as a police officer, as part of our Aspirations Project.
Also on Thursday, the ‘St Woolos Thinkers’, who were recently involved in a project with the Handpost Cwtch, are vising the University of South Wales, at Caerleon, to deliver a presentation to students taking a research module. They will be talking about some of the things they have been learning with Kate Harwood, who works on a Thursday with them and is also a part-time lecturer at the University.
Family Learning
It was good to have so many parents and grandparents joining us for our special presentation last week. The funding of the Family Learning Service within Newport is changing but as a school we want to continue to provide as much support for your child’s learning as possible.
To start this process, Mrs Couch will be running a series of Junior Parent Numeracy Workshops this term (see the Diary Dates sheet). These workshops will give you the chance to find out more about what your child is learning in Maths and the ways it is taught in school.
Inspection
Staff, Governors and the Local Authority were really pleased with our recent inspection report which is now available at www.estyn.gov.uk/english/provider/6802027
The category descriptions have changed significantly since the last inspection and they are now:
Excellent– Many strengths, including significant examples of sector-leading practice
Good – Many strengths and no important areas requiring significant improvement
Adequate – Strengths outweigh areas for improvement
Unsatisfactory – Important areas for improvement outweigh strengths
We are very pleased to say that we have got the following grading:
The overall grading is made up of judgements of sub-sections and none of these sub-sections were found to be Adequate or Unsatisfactory (i.e. they were all Good or Excellent).
The area of Care, Support and Guidance was judged to be Excellent (Sector Leading) and as a result, the school has been asked to write a case study for Estyn (the Schools’ Inspectorate in Wales). This area refers to all the innovative programmes we run to support pupils with additional learning needs (less and more able), the care and guidance we provide for pupils and families in a range of situations and also the wide-ranging enrichment opportunities that we provide.
If you look at our website, you will see that we have already previously been asked to produce an additional presentation and a report for Estyn.
You may also be interested to know that out of over two hundred schools that our Reporting Inspector had inspected, ours was only the second Excellent that he had ever given to any school.
The recommendations to work on are:
- Improve standards of numeracy across the curriculum
- Improve the punctuality of persistent latecomers
- Ensure that the quality of teaching is consistent across the school
- Improve the consistency of marking and assessment for learning strategies
We will be writing an action plan to support these and parents will be given the opportunity to contribute to them in the next few weeks.
Mr James Harris, the Chief Education Officer, has congratulated the school on our performance and he is visiting the next Governors’ meeting on Wednesday 29th April to personally congratulate the school.
Punctuality and Attendance
Thank you for helping this to improve.
Last week there were 75 pupil latenesses. I will report on these every week to keep you informed. Your half-termly attendance figures will come out the week after next.
Diary Dates and Topic Letters
These accompany today’s newsletter. Additional copies are available from the office. Please see our website also: www.stwoolosprimary.org.uk
Bonus Ball
Congratulations to our winner- Mrs Lord.
Yours faithfully,
H Vaughan
Headteacher