Sacred HeartCatholicPrimary School

Teaching for Learning

Policy

Sacred HeartCatholicPrimary School

At SacredHeartCatholicSchool, we strive for

excellence in all we do by following the

teachings of Jesus in our worship, learning and play.

At Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School, we aim:

  • To encourage all members of our community to deepen their knowledge, understanding and love of God and His creation through a varied and meaningful liturgical life;
  • To foster in our children, a sense of mission: to understand, respect and serve the wider world and its peoples through all the challenges they might face;
  • To provide an environment where each person is valued as an individual and has the opportunity to develop their full potential in all areas;
  • To develop a sense of ‘enjoyment of learning’ in all;
  • To provide a high quality, wide and balanced curriculum appropriate to individual needs and fulfilling the requirements of the National Curriculum and Diocesan requirements which will give everybody the opportunity to:
  • Develop enquiring minds with the ability to question, argue and think rationally and independently;
  • Use language, number and ICT effectively;
  • Develop physical abilities and aesthetic appreciation;
  • Acquire knowledge and skills relevant to adult life, society and employment in a fast changing world;
  • To engage children and adults in new technologies such as e-learning, which are changing how we lead our lives and the ways we work at school.
    This will:
  • Increase awareness of God’s creation of the world and our place in it, including opportunities to experience AWE and WONDER;
  • Encourage children and adults to have a sense of belonging and a sense of pride in our school;
  • Open up opportunities, promote independence in learning and thinking;
  • Assist in the formation of forward thinking, flexible, spontaneous and appreciative learners with lots of motivation and a high self esteem;
  • Maintain staff knowledge, e.g. by providing regular opportunities for staff INSET;
  • To create a strong and valued working partnership between governors, staff, parents, children of the school and the local parish communities.

Reviewed in September 2007

What are the fundamental characteristics of Catholic schools?

‘A mission in education as a work of love’

The CatholicSchool, Congregation for Catholic education, 1977, ξ33-37 & The CatholicSchool on the Threshold of the Third Millennium, Congregation for Catholic Education, 1997, ξ4.

In its ‘mission in education’, provide an excellent broad and balanced education to help children and young people grow to their full potential and pay regard to the formation of the whole person, so ‘that all may attain their eternal destiny and at the same time promote the common good of society’.

Code of Canon Law, Can. 795.

Teaching, as a ‘work of love’, requires a radical commitment and service: ‘The Church looks upon you as co-workers with an important measure of shared responsibility…To you it is given to create the future and give it direction by offering to your students a set of values with which to assess their newly discovered knowledge…

[The changing times] demand that educators be open to new cultural influences and interpret them for young pupils in the light of Christian faith. You are called to bring professional competence and a high standard of excellence to your teaching…But your responsibilities make demands on you that go far beyond the need for professional skills and competence…Through you, as through a clear window on a sunny day, students must come to see and know the richness and joy of a life lived in accordance with Christ’s teaching, in response to his challenging demands. To teach means not only to impart what we know, but also to reveal who we are by living what we believe. It is this latter lesson which tends to last the longest’.

Address to Catholic Educators, Pope John Paul II, September 12, 1984.

LEICESTERSHIRE VISION, VALUES & DIRECTION

Leicestershire Education Service is an organisation where outcomes for children and young people are at the centre of all activity and which measures success through:

  • High levels of pupil attainment and progress;
  • Making learning fun;
  • The inclusion of all children and young people.

The Goals for 2010

  • Children and young people in Leicestershire schools make better progress than in schools in any other part of England.
  • Teaching and learning in Leicestershire schools is always found to be imaginative, engaging and motivating.
  • The leaders and managers are recognised as excellent practitioners and contribute to the national agenda.

In addition, the Strategy contains a number of other commitments for service improvement directly relating to children and young people including to:

  • Be in the top 25% of authorities for achievement at key Stages 2 and 4 and top 10% at Key Stage 3;
  • Increase support and challenge for underachieving schools and ensure that teaching and learning is always found to be imaginative, engaging and motivating and that all schools achieve Grade 2 or above for teaching and learning when OfSTED inspections take place;
  • Improve educational achievement of pupils with special educational needs and underachieving groups such as looked after children, boys, pupils excluded from school and those in the lowest quartile of attainment.

TEACHING FOR LEARNING POLICY

1. INTRODUCTION

This document sets out the aims, principles and strategies applied in order to bring about effective teaching for learning at SacredHeartCatholicPrimary School. It offers a framework to help Governors, staff and parents to work towards achieving the aims set out in the school’s Mission Statement. The ethos of the school is Christian and it reflects both Gospel values and the traditions of the Catholic Church. Teaching and learning are seen as ways of helping all in the school to achieve God’s aims for his people on earth.

Teaching and learning are separate but often related and interdependent processes. This policy identifies links between effective teaching and lasting learning and ways by which Governors, staff and parents may strengthen these links to enhance the quality of pupils’ learning. This policy will hopefully help all associated with SacredHeartCatholicPrimary Schoolto work together to achieve excellence in teaching and learning.

Learning is a lifelong process. The meaningfulness of new learning reflects the prior learning on which it is based. Learning is a developmental process and involves acquiring knowledge and understanding, thinking techniques and the ability to make sense of the world around us. Learning in the primary school involves acquiring knowledge and understanding, information and processes set out in the schemes of work in the school and establishing a firm foundation for later learning.

2. AIMS

This policy aims to achieve the facilitation of effective teaching and learning at SacredHeartCatholicPrimary School. Its impact will be reflected in the extent to which teaching is successful in enabling pupils with diverse needs to learn effectively. The policy also aims to help everyone working in the education of SacredHeartCatholicPrimary School’s pupils to conform to principles and practices that will help in the consolidation and strengthening of pupils’ learning.

The policy addresses a number of the school’s specific aims including:

  • Creating a strong and valued working relationship between Governors, staff, parents and children of the school.
  • Providing a broad and balanced curriculum working within the guidelines of the National Curriculum and adhering to the Religious Education programme of the Diocese of Nottingham.
  • Ensuring that each child’s experience of the school is rewarding, happy and successful so that their individual abilities reach their full potential.
  • Teaching flexibility in styles that have a positive and lasting impact on pupils’ learning.

At the initial INSET day on Teaching and Learning held in August 2005, teaching staff and support staff were asked to share their ideas on three key questions. A summary of this can be found in Appendix 1.

3 VALUES, PRINCIPLES AND AIMS OF THE CURRICULUM

Each school is a unique context and planning will reflect this but the values and principles for learning and teaching are fundamental in shaping the school’s curriculum. These values, principles and aims include beliefs about the curriculum and the ways in which children learn.

At SacredHeartCatholicPrimary School, we espouse the following guidelines:

3.1 PRINCIPLES FOR EARLY YEARS EDUCATION

  • Effective education requires both a relevant curriculum and practitioners who understand and are able to implement the curriculum requirements.
  • Effective education requires practitioners who understand that children develop rapidly during the early years – physically, intellectually, emotionally and socially.
  • Practitioners should ensure that all children feel included, secure and valued.
  • Early years experience should build on what children already know and can do.
  • No child should be excluded or disadvantaged.
  • Parents and practitioners should work together.
  • To be effective, an early years curriculum should be carefully structured.
  • There should be opportunities for children to engage in activities planned by adults and also those that they plan or initiate themselves.
  • Practitioners must be able to observe and respond appropriately to children.
  • Well-planned, purposeful activity and appropriate intervention by practitioners will engage children in the learning process.
  • For children to have rich and stimulating experiences, the learning environment should be well planned and well organised.
  • Above all, effective learning and development for young children requires high-quality care and education by practitioners.

Taken from Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage pp. 11-12.

3.2 THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM

VALUES AND PURPOSES UNDERPINNING THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

Education influences and reflects the values of society, and the kind of society we want to be. It is important, therefore, to recognise a broad set of common values and purposes that underpin the school curriculum and the work of schools.

Foremost is a belief in education, at home and at school, as a route to the spiritual, moral, social, physical and mental development, and thus the well-being, of the individual.

Education is also a route to equality of opportunity for all, a healthy and just democracy, a productive economy, and sustainable development. Education should reflect the enduring values that contribute to these ends. These include valuing ourselves, our families and other relationships, the wider groups to which we belong, the diversity in our society and the environment in which we live. Education should also reaffirm our commitment to the virtues of truth, justice, honesty, trust and a sense of duty.

At the same time, education must enable us to respond positively to the opportunities and challenges of the rapidly changing world in which we live and work. In particular, we need to be prepared to engage as individuals, parents, workers and citizens with economic, social and cultural change, including the continued globalisation of the economy and society, with new work and leisure patterns and with the rapid expansion of communication technologies.

Taken from The National Curriculum, p.10.

3.3 PRINCIPLES FOR LEARNING AND TEACHING

Set high expectations and give every learner confidence they can succeed.

This includes:

  • Demonstrating a commitment to every learner’s success, making them feel included, valued and secure;
  • Raising learners’ aspirations and the effort they put into learning, engaging, where appropriate, the active support of parents and carers.

Establish what learners already know and build on it.

This includes:

  • Setting clear and appropriate learning goals, explaining them, and making every learning experience count;
  • Creating secure foundations for subsequent learning.

Structure and pace the learning experience to make it challenging and enjoyable.

This includes:

  • Using teaching methods that reflect the material to be learned, matching the maturity of the learners and their learning preferences, and involving high levels of time on task;
  • Making creative use of the range of learning opportunities available, within and beyond the classroom, including ICT.

Inspire learning through passion for the subject.

This includes:

  • Bringing the subject alive;
  • Making it relevant to learners’ wider goals and concerns.

Make individuals active partners in their learning.

This includes:

  • Building respectful teacher-learner relationships that take learners’ views and experience fully into account, as well as data on their performance;
  • Using assessment for learning to help learners to assess their work, reflect on how they learn, and inform subsequent planning and practice.

Develop learning skills and personal qualities.

This includes:

  • Developing the ability to think systematically, manage information, learn from others and help others learn;
  • Developing confidence, self-discipline and an understanding of the learning process.

Taken from Excellence & Enjoyment: Learning and Teaching in the Primary Years.

3.4 GOSPEL VALUES

The use of the term values has been absorbed into the vocabulary of modern society. In this context, values are often subjective, regarded as a question of personal preferences – what is right for ‘me’ or the community to which I belong.

However, modern society still talks of, and to varying degrees promotes, a set of core human values or principles that are objective, trans-cultural, and universal, for example: responsibility, compassion, respect for others and honesty. Such core values and principles lay at the heart of the laws and ethics that govern societies and nations.

The term ‘Gospel values’ is now commonly used in Catholic schools. However, unless the term is ‘unpacked’ and a common understanding formed of what true Gospel values are, there is a danger that what should be an objective Christian foundation, will itself become a random list of subjective values.

Whilst other ‘values’ may be found within the four Gospels and New Testament writings, it is the Beatitudes which: ‘…depict the countenance of Jesus Christ and portray his charity’. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1717).

Gospel values cannot therefore be values chosen subjectively from the vast corpus body of the Old and New Testaments but are objective values revealed to us through Christ’s proclamation. Such objective values are to be found rooted in the Beatitudes.

Whilst not definitive, the core values based on the Beatitudes may be summarised as follows:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Values: Faithfulness and integrity.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Values: Dignity and compassion.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Values: Humility and gentleness.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

Values: Truth and justice.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

Values: Forgiveness and mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

Values:Purity and holiness.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”

Values: Tolerance and peace.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of slander against you because of me.”

Values: Service and sacrifice.

Rooted in the teaching of Christ, these Gospel values should constitute the targets and outcomes of the educational enterprise in every Catholic school. For this to be possible, these Gospel values need to be explicitly named, their meaning unpacked and pupils helped to understand how they relate to their lives both at school, at home and in society. This enterprise is not in addition to the quest for high academic standards and vocational excellence but integral to it.

Taken from Christ at the Centre (Archdiocese of Birmingham) pp. 8-9.

4. THE ROLE OF GOVERNORS

The Governing Body has a statutory duty to promote high standards of educational achievement in the school and must monitor the school’s performance in this area. Every term, the Governing Body receives a detailed Head Teacher’s Report which includes information about all monitoring activities which have taken place such as observation of teaching for example. The Head Teacher also provides Governors with information from the school’s SEF (Self-Evaluation Form) at regular intervals throughout the year. In addition to this, each Governor is also a ‘Link Governor’ for a specific subject or area of the school. In accordance with the school’s ‘subject review cycle’, Governors are invited to come into school and to carry out a formal visit. These visits usually include working with and speaking to children in the classroom, looking at children’s work and discussions with staff, the subject coordinator and the Head Teacher. After the visit, a ‘Governor Visit Form’ is completed which is circulated to all Governors at the next Full Board Meeting.

5. THE ROLE OF PARENTS

All parents and carers are equally valued as part of our school community. Children’s learning is improved greatly when we work in partnership with their parents or carers and their wider family. We therefore believe in close cooperation with all families and in regular consultation between the home and the school. Parents are kept informed of all school events through the Head Teacher’s weekly letter to parents which is sent out on a Monday. Each half-term, parents receive a copy of their child’s ‘curriculum grid’. This provides an overview of the curriculum for that half-term. In Key Stage 2, it also includes some ideas about homework and research activities which could be undertaken at home. Our school website also contains all of this information and includes a photographic record of some of the activities carried out in class.

In order to keep parents informed about the curriculum, each year we hold some ‘Parent Information Evenings’. Recent examples of this have included, ‘Helping your child at home with Maths’ and also ‘Reading with your child’.