Author: blcadmin
Pegasus Opera project with Hill Mead
Children at Hill Mead Primary School have been working with workshop leaders from Pegasus Opera to write their own music theatre piece on the life of Nelson Mandela. The workshops are full of activities – singing (not shouting!), physical warm-ups, lyric writing, creating melodies and lots of team work. The children have a wealth of knowledge about Nelson Mandela and their piece will be in 2 sections, from boyhood to prison, from freedom to presidency and the legacy left to the world. Final performances will be on Friday 10th February, when they will share the platform with Richard Atkins’ Primary who are working on the life of another Black Hero: Ouladah Equiano.
Looking forward to a busy New Year at BLC
As this term draws to a close, we look forward to a busy New Year for our cluster of schools. Hill Mead Primary will be working with Pegasus Opera on a project to celebrate the life of Nelson Mandela and classes from Stockwell and St John Divine Primaries will be learning Maths through Photography with Fotosynthesis. Reception classes across the cluster will embark on programme of Maths learning movement.
Loughborough, St John Divine, Christ Church SW9 and Archbishop Sumner Primaries will be planning and working up Science investigations with St Gabriel’s College staff and students to present at a Science Fair in March.
We shall be holding writing moderations for year 1 through to year 6, with secondary teachers attending the upper key stage 2 meetings, as well as Science INSET, EYFS forum and SEND forum meetings.
Towards the end of January our School Councils will come together to work with the team of facilitators from the WE day team, and attend their big event in Wembley Arena in March.
As always our Heads and Senior Management groups will be meeting and shaping the future of our work together.
Looking forward to a very production 2017 for Brixton Learning Collaborative.
Low Cost No Cost activities for 10th and 11th December
EYFS Forum – Active Learners in Numeracy
Last night our EYFS forum met to hear and discuss a new project that Reception teachers from St John’s Angell Town and Steiner teacher Kevin Campbell Davidson have successfully bid for funding to develop and roll out to Brixton Learning Collaborative Reception classes who would like to participate. The project was devised after the teachers looked into evidence of links between neuro-motor development and the necesssary capabilities for academic learning as children go through school. There is strong research evidence that shows that physical development is important for all areas of learning. In addition the team felt concerned about the long periods they were asking children to sit on the carpet to learn and the increasingly long periods children spend doing sedentary activities. The team decided to focus on how Maths could be supported through Physical activity as there is evidence that children can develop many mathematical skills early to the benefit of their long-term learning. The programme on offer consists of a 10 minute song based warm-up of physical activities that teachers can lead indoors, and an obstacle course outdoors for children involving number work. The teachers have piloted the programme at St John’s Angell Town. We look forward to seeing how the programme develops in our schools over the coming months. Thanks to SHINE Trust, Goldsmiths’ College, Greenwich Steiner School and St John’s Angell Town Primary for their partnership in the project.
No Cost Low Cost activities this weekend
what makes us cutting edge and creative – a new teacher working party
We have just started up a small working party of 4 teachers from our primary schools who met for the first time yesterday.
In the BLC we recognise that our schools are doing some fantastic creative work bringing lessons to life, making learning relevant and bringing about an excitement and understanding of learning in pupils. We want to capture this, examine how this is happening and build upon it.
Over the next term, our working party will visit each other’s schools and talk to children about their learning and their learning environment, sharing their thoughts in words and pictures.
Thanks to Hill Mead, Archbishop Sumner, St Saviour’s and St John Divine Primaries for taking part in this interesting piece of work.
Maths Leads meet to discuss planning and Using and Applying
On Monday evening, 4 of our primary maths leads from Archbishop Sumner, St Saviour’s, Loughborough and St John Divine schools met to share their thoughts on best planning and resources in maths in their schools and to look at children’s work. There was a wealth of expertise in the room! Here are some of the resources that they found particularly useful:NRich particularly for tasks for more able pupils, perhaps stage 2 level 2 or stage 3 level 1 for more able year 6s.
Target your Maths – which provides resources through to secondary.
Test base
Convince Me cards for challenge
Concept Cartoons which can provide good class discussion in preparation for using and applying.
Loughborough Primary has seen increased attainment through using the Big Maths programme.
Archbishop Sumner KS1 teachers are using Maths Mastery to support secure learning in number.
The group advocated giving pairs of teachers some time to plan maths lessons together, then try them out and support each other with feedback to encourage trying out new things.
The group agreed the importance of children showing their working out in their books, whether on the page of the task they are doing or at the back of books.
We hope some of these ideas are useful. Please get in touch for more information.
Low Cost No Cost activities this weekend 19 and 20 November
BLC Steering group meeting
The BLC steering group met today to discuss moderations, teacher working parties, peer to peer support projects and subject leader meetings planned for the next few months. All year groups in primary are scheduled to do writing and science evidencing moderations in the Spring. Maths leads, Science leads, IT co-ordinators and SEND co-ordinators all have meetings taking place in the next few weeks. Pupils from secondary schools are working with primary and nursery schools and next term we are planning primary/secondary science fairs. In addition there are a number of opportunities being taken up by our schools: work with National Theatre, London Wildlife Trust and Pegasus Opera company. Thanks to all our teachers who take time to attend cluster meetings and work together to support our schools.
The Brixton Learning Collaborative 