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St James’ C of E Infant and Nursery School predominantly serves the catchment of central Whitehaven and falls under the Local Authority of Cumberland. As a church school, there are close links with St James’ Parish Church.
The number on roll is 134, with the majority of our pupils being of White British heritage, although we have an increasing number of pupils with EAL (16- 12%) There are 5 classes: Nursery, Reception and 3 mixed Year 1 and 2 classes.
Our curriculum drivers, linked to our school context, are to develop Oracy to enrich children’s language skills, further improve on outcomes in English and maths, enhance cultural capital, and develop personal and social skills – improving life-chances for all.
We offer an engaging, meaningful, memorable and magical curriculum, which is underpinned by our Christian ethos.
We offer a safe, nurturing, caring, fun and inspiring learning environment.
We strive for all children to have childhood experiences that broaden their horizons so they view themselves as global citizens.
Our Unique Selling Points are STEM learning experiences (through our bespoke STEAM pathway) and embedding teaching outdoors into our practice even more (we would like to develop our own Forest School area) so that our children develop into confident and responsible citizens who value and appreciate the natural environment around them. Both points will enable children to manage risk and contribute to SMSC and emotional well-being.
Overall impact
We believe that the programme has had a strong impact accelerated by the involvement of the STEM ambassadors. As the sessions in the STEAM pathway have been regular the children have developed a consistent language of essential skills and they have had many opportunities to apply them to different contexts. We have liked the act that the whole school have been involved in a mutual beneficial programme. The staff have benefited from tailored CPD linked to STEM and they have recognised the difference in the children and its positive impact. One of the main highlights has been for the school to offer woodwork opportunities where the children have been able to learn how to use tools such as a hammer, saw and vice for their creations.
Keep it simple
We have developed awareness of the essential skills through three strands in school. The first approach we have taken was to implement the language of the essential skills through our bespoke stem pathway. Another approach we have taken has been to have a focus skill per half term to embed the meaning behind the skill at an age appropriate level for the children. The third way has been in response to situations that have arisen in school. The staff have used the materials from the hub on a flexible basis to respond to need in school.
We have demonstrated the value of the skills by raising their profile throughout the school. There is a visible display in each classroom of the icons and also they are displayed prominently on our stem pathway display in our school hall for children to reference.
Start early, keep going
The whole school has been involved in securing the essential skills. We have achieved this by ensuring that each child has taken part in a broad range of lessons linked to our STEAM pathway. Within the STEAM pathway, the essential skills have been identified and they have been taught explicitly within a number of different contexts. STEM ambassadors have worked with the children to model the behaviours expected and teach them explicitly. Parents have volunteered to attend these events therefore they have been exposed to the vocabulary and our vision for the programme.
Measure it
All teachers have been trained in using the tracking materials to assess the children at different points throughout the programme. This ensures that the staff can monitor attainment and progression of the pupils linked to the essential skills. The hub tool has been particularly useful to inform teachers of their next step in their teaching. We have also looked at individual successes by awarding the skills builder certificates as part of our weekly celebration assembly. We have shared the successes through social media and our newsletter to keep our parents abreast of the incentive.
Focus tightly
Step levels are added to our planning. The children build on their skills during the sessions in a range of meaningful contexts. The children have also been able to exercise these skills on external visits to the local science fayre and the local cluster STEM event. These have act as additional opportunities for the children to practise these skills. All relevant school policies are aligned to skills builder.
Keep practising
We focus the children by using the icons. If the children are practising these skills in other subjects, staff refer to these essential skills to keep them prominent and the language consistent. In early years, the children have learnt how to identify the images to practise these skills at the earliest opportunity. In our after school sports provision, our specialist sports coaches explicitly model skills such as teamwork and listening which helps to reinforce and consolidate the learning for the pupils.
Bring it to life
Our STEM pathway has been developed in conjunction with the Sellafield education outreach team who are experts in their field. Each year group has been assigned half termly STEM lessons linked to the national curriculum and the Gatsby matrix as well as the skills builder essential skills. Each lesson is delivered by STEM ambassadors from a range of different local industries. This means that the children's aspiration is developed and they get the opportunity to engage in real life challenges and projects. An example of this is where the children were set the challenge to design PPE for a teddy-bear related to a job specification. They had to carefully consider which materials would be most suitable linked to their properties. Afterwards they had lots of fun putting the PPE materials to the test and find out if the offered sufficient protection.
Our reception children have a dedicated weekly forest school session where they can practise their essential skills in a real life context out of school.
When the children were out of school on their outdoor adventure residential, the children had the opportunity to reflect on these skills through activities such as canoeing, archery and ghyll scrambling.
What's next
Next year we will continue to embed this approach which will ensure that our children get to experience and embed the essential skills whilst revisiting and recalling the learning from this year. Next year we will refine our planning and keep raising the profile of the skills through new learning opportunities.
