Category: Brilliant Learning

We’ve been talking a lot to schools and health professionals recently about pupil absence due to illness and medical conditions. This features prominently in the Department for Education’s (DfE’s) statutory guidance on Working Together to Improve School Attendance. 

Illness is the largest reason for pupil absence year-on-year both in Wandsworth and nationally. Fortunately, Wandsworth usually has lower rates of absence due to illness than the rest of the country. However, pupil absence due to medical appointments taken during school time appears to be on the rise. Here, it is important parents consider making appointments before or after school for their child, where possible, and if this isn’t possible, that children return to school as soon as possible after the appointment during school time so they can resume their learning.

When it comes to immunisations, Wandsworth has a low take up of MMR (mumps, measles, rubella) immunisations, which means children may not be well enough to attend school when suffering the effects of these contagious infections if they haven’t received their vaccinations.

In some cases, schools may ask for medical evidence for a child’s absence. However, the guidance advises that this should only be needed in a minority of cases and is not to be routinely requested from parents.

However, there are a few important reasons why medial evidence will prove useful to schools, for example: 

• Where a pupil’s health need means they need reasonable adjustments.
• If the illness or medical condition is complex or long term, and medical evidence will help schools better understand the needs of the pupil and to arrange suitable educational provision, where appropriate. 
• If a school needs clarification to accurately record absence in the attendance register, especially now there are new additional register codes schools need to consider.
• Or when a school has genuine and reasonable doubt about the authenticity of the illness.

It is our advice to ensure school procedures are clearly set out in the school attendance policy, and we’ve produced a content guide to help schools review their policy in line with the new expectations set out in the guidance. 

The DfE has also produced a helpful video available about how to set an effective school attendance policy on YouTube here: School Attendance Guidance Training Webinar – Setting an effective school attendance policy

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Autumn seemed to arrive very quickly this year and schools have swiftly got back in the rhythm of the new academic year.

Over the break Wandsworth City Learning Centre (CLC) were enthusiastically engaging with Apple’s Community Education Initiative (CEI) about the successful outcomes of the integration of iPad in two Battersea Primary schools – Sacred Heart and St Mary’s. With the support of CEI, the schools are tackling under-achievement through teaching digital skills to students and teachers, and have had a positive impact on skills and confidence.

The highly successful pilot technology programme has now been extended to reach additional schools this academic year. Each school will receive iPads with Apple Pencils and a storage cart, as well as engineer time to set up the new devices. These resources will help ensure that pupils and teachers can master the knowledge and understanding to become digital creatives and coders, and provide them with the skills needed to work in the technology industry.

Wandsworth City Learning Centre and Apple Distinguished Educators have been busily creating digital content and resources to support the schools throughout and beyond the programme. The team are preparing easy to use lesson plans and collaborative tasks to help teachers deliver their computing curriculum using iPad. Additionally, CLC tutors will be trained to deliver lessons and academic mentoring for staff and students.

Reaching beyond the classroom, the programme will also offer essential digital skills classes for adults and families to ensure the broader community has access to, and recognises the need and benefit of digital skills. These directed sessions can lead to volunteering and work experience opportunities in the technology field.

In September, Apple CEO Tim Cook, along with Apple’s Vice President of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives Lisa Jackson, visited St Marys and spoke with the staff and students whilst they were enjoying a morning of coding with Apples Swift Playgrounds application. The fantastic morning of programming allowed the enthusiastic learners to show-off their coding skills. The students displayed their knowledge and excitement of the use of technology through some challenging questions to Mr.Cook, who was clearly impressed by their enjoyment and fascination of the digital world, stating that he was, “Looking forward to seeing them and their fantastic ideas come to life with Apple!”

With the ending of a truly memorable experience, the positive message was that there was more opportunity and more partnerships emerging from this relationship. The success of this fantastic programme will be felt for many seasons to come, and will allow more schools and our wider community to celebrate the fruitfulness of technology in the classroom and in our Borough.

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Too often the service hears that schools are tied up with time consuming web searches and hours spent hunting for resources. Much more than a subscription, what schools say they benefit from the most is the access to a librarian’s mind. 

The benefit of a librarian run service is their ability to navigate over 120,000 items available. From picture books that challenge gender stereotypes to Asian characters in children’s fiction, a librarian’s mind will help pupils explore our world from new perspectives. And it’s much more than books – the service provides schools with artifacts which allow pupils to explore topics like history hands on.

visit resources.smartschool.services 

“It’s really important to belong to a service like the Wandsworth Learning Resources Service because class books are so expensive now. We really believe every child should be reading from their own copy. The librarians will send me a selection. I’ll take what I like and send the rest back. That’s really important, and it’s so easy. All you need to know is what you want to teach and ask their advice, and they’ll send it out to you. Every item comes with some notes on it, so you’re not left fumbling thinking, “What is that?” Every item comes with some background knowledge, so it’s really easy for everyone to use. 

As a professional, there’s no doubt that having the Learning Resources Service available to us is a great help. With our teaching hours already absolutely at the limit, we are not having to scurry around trying to find artifacts and books and class sets, which our budget wouldn’t necessarily allow us to do.

Jane Bunn, Literacy Lead, Ronal Ross Primary School

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At the end of September we uploaded Super School Profiles to the Research & Evaluation Unit (REU) website for all Wandsworth schools buying into Traded Services. Most schools will now be very familiar with these profiles – we originally launched them way back in 2010, though we continue to develop and improve each year. It’s our way of drawing together analysis from across the wide range of data we collect including attainment and progress, cohort analysis absence, exclusions, finance and workforce.

Each analysis section is visually presented with information on pupil groups, trends over time and comparisons to local authority and national averages. The profiles include analysis of Year 1, 3, 4 and 5 TA and NFER tests if you submitted them – note that schools providing data for Year 3, 4, 5 for a test other than NFER do not have analysis included in the Super School Profile as we were unable to calculate the percentage of pupils at expected or higher.

The profile this year followed the familiar format, but with some notable improvements including:

• The Vulnerable Groups Summary (Section 1j) has been updated this year and should be quicker and easier to understand. The values are still coloured vs pupils different to the England data, but we’ve moved away from using the dot to indicate cohort size, to showing the count of children in brackets. We think it really helps to pop out things like subject-specific good practices across the year groups!
• We’ve freshened up the IDACI and Absence maps – and also moved the latter to focus on persistent absentees, rather than all children.
• The Absence section now shows a five year trend – this is important as it shows how absence levels are still well above the levels pre-pandemic in Wandsworth and across England.
• The Workforce section show the ethnicity profile of your pupil cohort alongside the staff profile, so you can easily see how comparable they are

The new ethnicity comparison for school workforce:

The new vulnerable groups summary:

And remember, you will have more detailed analysis on the REU website that provides even more depth to the analysis in the profiles, for example contextual reports that break down achievement of pupil groups by individual subject, and question level analysis for year 3, 4 and 5 optional tests.

As always, please get in touch with the REU if you have any questions about the profiles or any other aspect of the REU service, and indeed if you have any suggestions for future developments – we are always keen to learn.

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As part of the Ravenstone Early Career Teachers professional learning, three new teachers, Lauren, Jack and Rory, were asked to help plan and organise a student Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) Day. Some creative discussions and stimulating ideas workshops with the energetic ECT’s and consultants from the CLC ensued to plan an exciting day of interactive labs for staff and students at the Balham school.

Educators often search for professional learning experiences that explore how STEM concepts and tools can be embedded into the classroom in meaningful, intentional and academically engaging ways. Teachers know their students want more technology in their classrooms and so are always seeking to integrate STEM into learning opportunities, but sometimes suffer a lack of confidence, resources or time to experiment with innovative interactive tools. Partnership, collaboration and sharing are all in abundance through the CLC and their tutors are on hand to come into schools to support staff in delivering and embedding engaging digital transformation into the schools’ curriculum.

Ravenstone Lead Science teacher, and brainchild of the day, Richard Ingham enthused;

“STEM day was amazing! The children had a great time exploring the Virtual Reality world of NASA and taking a trip in a helicopter. Others had the chance to ‘touch coronavirus’ and look at other viruses up close and personal. The overwhelming response was of positivity and learning across both Key Stages. Dave, the facilitator from the CLC, was great, and the day went off with smiles and laughs.”

The stimulating activities included using Artificial Intelligence to allow students to explore a galaxy in the palm of their hand. Learners could hold a 3D object, explore a DNA molecule, enabling an entirely new way to learn and interact with the digital world. Using the fully integrated VR goggles provided students with virtual and augmented reality content to explore and investigate complex scientific topics in a safe and absorbing way.

Pupil engagement and excitement was clearly evident, with the activities triggering incredible discussions and motivation for further future workshops. “I enjoyed the lesson because I don’t get to do those things normally…it was fun to have the opportunity to do different things!” stated one learner, with another adding, “We looked inside a human body through an iPad, it was cool to see the body in a different way!”

The enjoyment and interest from the pupils was matched by the eagerness of other staff wanting to incorporate the digital tools in their own curriculum areas. The exhilarated ECTs, clearly pleased with their accomplishments, chimed about their learners “They loved it…they were fascinated by the technology but it was interesting to see how familiar the

students were with the terms and use of the devices, they were constantly engaged and it was lovely to see.”

Ravenstone skilfully harnessed the energy and enthusiasm of their new teachers Lauren, Jack and Rory to deliver an inspiring and refreshing day of creative practical sessions to promote STEM, and not only motivate pupils but re-energise staff into wanting to integrate tech into their subject areas!

Wandsworth City Learning Centre can deliver specific projects in your school to enhance teaching and learning, and introduce innovative digital tools to motivate and engage staff and students, making difficult topics exciting and fun. Please do get in touch via the form below to discuss how the CLC can bring subjects alive and challenge your learners in the classroom.

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If we have piqued your interest in Smart School Services, why not meet with our head team to see how we can work together. To arrange your Head to Head, or for any other enquiry, simply fill in the contact form and we’ll be in touch shortly.