As we near the half way point in the school year, things are no quieter in school – still as busy as ever!
There have been quite a few important meetings which I have had to attend over the last week or so; the first of these was the first Strategic Board meeting for Noctua – the Teaching School Alliance of which Tranmere Park is a ‘strategic partner’ or key member. We reflected on our progress so far – we’ve done a lot since we were accredited in September last year. One of the key things we’ve accomplished is winning the contract for supporting new Leeds Headteachers from Leeds City Council. This is my main area of responsibility and it’s been great to work with over 20 new Heads from across the city – one of whom is Ms Lowry, our old Deputy Head! We’ve also just been awarded a £10,000 contract for supporting 3 schools who are judged to be ‘requiring improvement’ by Ofsted. Mrs Hodgson and Miss Marsden will be working with one of the schools to help them with their Reception and Key Stage 1 provision.
The next big meeting was our full Governing Body meeting on Tuesday. Governors had to make a key decision about class organisation for next year as our 2 ‘bulge’ cohorts move through the school and look at how this affected our budget. Governors voted to keep the current Reception cohort as 2 small classes of 22/23 instead and the Year 4 classes as 2 small classes of 22/23 rather than having a mixed Reception/Y1 class and a mixed Y4/Y5 class, despite the fact that this would be a hit on our budget. We felt it was the most educationally beneficial solution to the bulge cohorts – despite being an expensive one!
We also hosted a moderation meeting for Y2 teachers from across the city to look at reading and discuss how they assessed children’s progress in reading.
Finally, Tranmere Park teachers had an ‘away day’ for our staff meeting this week and travelled to Holbeck to visit a service called ‘Artemis’ which lends artefacts to schools to support their teaching. It was really interesting; the place was like an Aladdin’s Cave of exciting resources. All the teachers came back with great ideas and very inspired. My favourite section was the costume department where they had lots of beautiful vintage clothing – although I wasn’t so keen on the Victorian fox fur wraps which still had their heads and legs attached!
Another week before half term – it seems the year is whizzing past..