Morning everyone,

This week, I set every crew at CPS a challenge. I wanted each crew to really think about what ‘Working Hard’ at Carcroft Primary looks like. It’s one of those areas that people have different perceptions of what it looks like and I really want to be able to clarify this so that we all have the same understanding.

I asked the children to share their understanding during their phase assembly next week, in the hope that as a whole school, we can create a little video showing everyone what ‘working hard’ looks like for us at CPS and this can be shared with both Parents, Governors and the community so that we all understand.

In order to help the staff and children to work hard, leaders have put together a document which breaks down ‘working hard’ for each stage of the lesson.

Last year, I felt that sometimes, both Teachers and Pupils were not always doing what I would expect them to do at each stage of the lesson and this sometimes meant that the teaching and learning was not always as great as it could have been.

We have changed the structure of our Maths and Writing lessons (The Write Stuff) to fit in with this criteria and I am hoping that the children can see that by following these new structures, everyone can achieve and everyone can be the best they can be!

You can view our expectations for working hard by clinking on this link below.

Supporting Children to work hard and get smart

For 99% of our pupils, I have been blown away by their attitude towards learning since returning, we have a few pupils who still need to keep thinking about our expectations so that they don’t let their crew down.

Keep up the great work CPS!

Miss Laing

Today was our first Learning Legends Assembly via Google Meet. We had a few technical issues but these can all be resolved for next week- I’m sure.

However, I have to say I loved seeing so many of the children all on one screen. It made my day!!!!! I think the children enjoyed it too. That’s what it’s all about! ❤️

Hopefully your child will have brought their certificate home if they were the achiever.

They make us so proud and you should be too 🤩🌟🤩

Well done Frankie, Sienna and Ray in Crew Elmer. Your fabulous ideas made it onto your sentence stacking wall. Mrs Elmer must’ve loved your ideas. Keep up the fab work 🙌🤩

During lockdown, I kept the Teachers busy…today I feel so proud of their hard work and I want to share some fabulous work which has been produced as a result of some great teaching.

I wanted us to develop our teaching of Writing when we returned. After speaking with some Key Stage 2 children back in January, they shared that Writing was the hardest subject as there was so much to remember. I wanted to do something to make Writing easier to access, making it more enjoyable for our children.

During lockdown, we found a strategy called The Write Stuff which we are hoping will support our pupils to feel confident when writing. Teachers watched over 10 hours worth of training and have spent lots of time thinking about how to deliver writing lessons so children don’t feel overwhelmed. We are pleased to announce that we are seeing a huge impact in the quality of writing being produced. The main difference with The Write Stuff is that the lesson is broken into three small chunks and within every chunk, the Teacher models and then the children have a go.Nobody is ever going to be ‘stuck’ or ‘won’t know what to write’.

I had a visitor today… Harley Mullins in Y4 has blown me away with the progress made since Monday. Harley would openly admit that Writing was not his favourite subject last year, but today we agreed he needed to give himself a ‘4’ for working hard and getting smart. Keep up the amazing work Harley.

We will begin to share more work next week on class blogs. This is just a sneak peak. 🤩

Connect NOT content…

This time last week, the staff had just finished our first INSET day this academic year. I asked staff to think about this phrase: connect NOT content….

These are some of the things they came up with….

From spending time in and around school over the last week, I’m pleased to share that staff are really focussing on building positive relationships with the pupils in their crew and getting to know them as individuals. It’s only when children feel settled and safe that we can the really begin to plug the gaps in academic knowledge.

I hope that your child is starting to feel welcome, happy and safe in their new crew and they are beginning to get used to their new Teachers after many months away for most. Keep on making us proud CPS! You have embraced the return to school and we are feeling excited  🤩