LARWOOD LOWDOWN VOLUME 7 ISSUE 1: NEW ACADEMIC YEAR!
The start of a new academic year always promises so much! New pupils have been welcomed, and changes have been made during the summer term and holidays. There are clear examples of new plans continuing to use and improve upon old strategies, but also new ventures are part of our future plans. This includes the following:
- A new curriculum - which is the Chris Quigley model. Please see our website for more information and information shared by Mrs Osobu: Assistant Headteacher
- The end of the residential consultation process in September. This now proceeds to a governing body vote and sharing information with the DFE.
- Increasing work with another SEMH school (secondary) - Brandles in Baldock. This is one of our main feeder schools for our pupils and we are considering ways of formalising this approach in the future, if possible.
During the summer term, we spent much time evaluating many areas of school life. As in previous years, all of this information is on our website. The relevant section can be found in the following way:
- www.larwood.herts.sch.uk
- See section tab-‘How Effective Are We?’
Within this area, you can see other sections titled ‘What Others Think of Us’, ‘What Pupils and Parents Think About us’ and ‘What We Know About Ourselves’. The website is always under review and being changed. Have you seen the video about Frank?
Please do let me know what you think about our website, if you can spare the time.
Our new School Development Plan highlights the continued need to make improvements in the areas of Progress, Well-Being and Sustainability. We have various plans involving the curriculum, assessment, outreach, well-being, mental health training for staff, governance, teaching and learning and developing our work with pupils who have autism. Your support is essential as we move forwards. There were many areas of our plans that were successful last year. However, we have also identified areas that we want to make improvements with. For example, the new curriculum has been adopted to promote even better engagement from pupils building on last year’s practice, where pupils were leading themes with their own ideas in writing.
Please do not forget that our half term break starts today and pupils are not expected back until Monday 5th November at the normal time.
S D Trimble - Headteacher