Mrs Helen Power

Lodge Hill Primary School

Lodge Hill

Caerleon

Newport

NP18 3BY

Tel:01633 422322 (Juniors)

Tel:01633 421735 (Infants)

email:

27 January 2016

Dear Parents/ Carers,

Today the Categorisation of schools has been published in the national press. Caerleon Lodge Hill Primary School has been judged to be “Yellow”. The gradings for schools are based on the amount of EAS support the school is deemed to need, Red meaning a school would need considerable support to improve. As part of the Yellow grading, the EAS has decided that our school is needing “low” support as opposed to high or medium. This is good news as it shows we have strong capacity within our school to keep on improving without needing much external support. The “low” support will consist of just 2 days support during the year from our challenge advisor to work on our School Development Priorities.

We are delighted that our school performance data was judged to be “Green”. Performance data consists of the actual results your children achieve by the time they reach the end of Foundation Phase and KS2. “Green” is the highest grading we can get and this shows how the excellent teaching and learning combined with your support at home results in the best possible outcomes for the children.

The main reason why the school is “Yellow” and not “Green” is that following on from amalgamation, we are still developing the role of middle leader monitoring of subjects such as History and Art throughout the school. (Our first priority after amalgamation was to develop the role of English and Maths Coordinators-as it should be) EAS advisors recognise that we have made great headway with this, particularly when our teachers have to liaise and work together across a field. However, the work is not yet embedded-it is a priority in our school development plan and something we are focusing on during our next INSET Day.

Recently the Managing Directors of the EAS, Ms Debbie Harteveld and Ms Kirsy Bevan visited our school and reinforced the message that this is a successful school, needing very little support from outside to further improve. In fact we are already linking with other schools to help them to improve and Mr Smith has been invited by the EAS to be a Lead Practitioner for ICT in the EAS, one of only 4 teachers in the whole of the 5 authorities. He will remain here as Y6 teacher but will be involved with the leading of ICT across the consortia and be integral to sharing excellent practice in teaching and learning.

Thank you to your support as parents and carers in enabling us to be a happy and successful school. If you have any queries about any points in this letter or about Categorisation, please do not hesitate to see me.

Yours sincerely

Helen Power

Headteacher