Preparing to take risks

Posted on: 25 Apr 2018 by Weston Green School

Term has begun - with glorious sunshine in the first few days, which added that real sense of it being the summer term and with all the promise and excitement it always brings.

It looks to be another vibrantly busy term with so much to challenge the children and so much to enjoy. It will be another fast-paced term, the sort we have become accustomed to at Weston Green and one of the reasons why it is such a special place to be: it seems we do so much, and do it all so well, thanks to the wonderful commitment of the exceptional team here, which continues to ignite the children’s enthusiasm daily.

Crucially, that excitement is focussed on the core business of learning. Each week, the teaching team reflects on how we are meeting the children’s needs and how we can inspire great learning. We want them to be (indeed, insist that they are) enthused, interested, active learners - thinking, talking, doing, all within that nurturing, secure learning space, leading to significant progress and achievement.

This half term, we are focussing upon risk-taking (the squirrel in our Learner Profile animals) and celebrating with the children, times when we have seen this; in this way, their learning develops more quickly.

The now well-established ‘WALT’ (“we are learning to...”) and ‘WILF’ (“what I’m looking for...”) provide a framework for the flow of each lesson. With the teachers’ help and the green and pink marking of work, children are able to check their progress against their success criteria and see how they could improve their work. Children are now responding to teacher comments with ‘purple pen power’ whereby they can go back over their work and edit, change, review and improve, and they are regularly given opportunities to comment on each other’s work using a clear and constructive approach. In this way, each child’s own learning journey evolves and they move ever upwards.

As each week passes this term, so we shall see the children continue to grow, taking risks and pushing on with their learning, so ‘hold on’ - it’s going to be another exhilarating ride through another great term!