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Last week the teachers and children at St Saviour’s had their first visit from Liz Atkin, visual artist, as part of our Paul Hamlyn Foundation funded project Confident Creators. During the visit Liz and the teachers had time to plan the lesson together, then the teacher led the activity with Liz giving support and finally, but crucially the teachers and Liz reflected on how the lesson had gone. These art lessons are all about giving children time and space to experiment with art, to learn new techniques, to work together and to take risks with their drawings. In the morning year 2 experimented with paper cutting – building pictures using just coloured paper and scissors (no pencils!). The children gradually built up a range of materials to use in their final pieces and the pictures they produced were all different, but with children able to talk about their work and sometimes build narratives from them. In the afternoon year 3 explored cave paintings through producing their own collaborative pieces. They experimented with mark making using charcoal and chalk, with texture through crumpling their paper canvases and experimenting with drawing outside on the tarmac playground, and with paint outlining animals and shapes having looked at some cave painting examples. In their groups the children started to build a narrative about their paintings. Teachers commented on how helpful it was to concentrate on process rather than worrying about a finished product that needed to adhere to a uniform piece. We are really looking forward to exploring more media, working together and developing their creativity.

On Thursday teachers from year 1 and year 2 across the cluster gathered at Christ Church Primary SW9 to share planning, look at books across a range of subjects for the first few weeks of term and also review together some of the year 1 and year 2 moderation done in writing for those classes earlier this year. There was plenty of discussion and sharing of teaching and we hope this will form a really good basis for professional development when we come to meet and moderate together as a cluster in the Spring term.

Year 5 children are working with choir director Allyson Devenish to prepare for 2 events later this month, celebrating Windrush.

On Friday drama practitioner Simon Bachelor from Pegasus Opera visited 2 teachers in St John’s Angell Town Primary to work with them on delivering drama in the classroom. The teachers had already tried out a few drama activities with their children, following the training they did last week, and were able to lead game and activities with their classes to deliver their topics – the life of Mary Seacole and Floella Benjamin’s book Coming to England. Year 4 children acted out the first chapter of Coming to England using a story square and year 3 children created TV interviews in the role of reporter and Mary Seacole. The sessions also included a number of drama warm up activities supporting children to collaborate with each other, take risks and increase their focus. The 2 St John’s teachers will now practice more drama with their classes between now and Simon’s next visit in early November. Thank you to everyone who took part and to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation for their funding to support this project.

Last week RE leads from across our cluster met to share ways they assess the subject in their primary schools. Some good practice in church schools has developed where Leads have devised statements for teachers to assess against. It was generally felt that RE was a subject where children’s knowledge and skills at demonstrating their understanding through class discussion and debate were valuable. We shall arrange another meeting after Christmas to look at children’s work together.

This morning we held our first School Business Manager forum as a cluster. It was generally agreed that this area has grown considerably over the last few years and the School Business Manager finds his/herself taking on many roles and tackling new issues (eg GDPR). There was lots of discussion and sharing of practice and providers who are providing good services. Moving forward we plan to share providers and some idea of their costs across schools so we can review them together and see if there are savings to be made through a collective approach. We also discussed sharing effective templates that have been approved by auditors. School Business Managers want to maximise opportunities for increasing income in a number of areas, including letting our premises – ideas included hiring out for children’s parties and as a film location. We look forward to meeting again as a group at the end of this month.

Our schools were well represented at the first EYFS forum of the year, hosted by Loughborough Primary School. We all enjoyed a tour of the Nursery at Loughborough and enjoyed seeing their library area where parents and children can borrow books and use the library card system. As this was our first meeting, it was a chance for teachers to talk about their topics for the term and their plans for their children. It was interesting to hear about a new topic idea from one school, to encompass some of the winter festivals – Things that Sparkle and Shine. Some schools were using some of the children’s favourite books to start the year. We discussed different software packages available to monitor the progress of children and set some topics for the year including exploring STEM activities, looking at how to encourage junk modelling, Music and ICT.

Yesterday our steering group of Senior leaders from across the cluster held their termly meeting at the Royal Festival Hall, followed by a welcome event presented by the South Bank Centre team. The Centre has a range of workshops, projects and partnerships available to schools this academic year and BLC are keen to make the most of all these opportunities in Music, Literature and Art. We were then able to access the brand new Hayward Gallery exhibition Shape Shifters – a wonderful experimental show of shapes and objects of differing materials that bring new dimensions to viewing and experimenting with space. Well worth a visit! Many thanks to the South Bank Centre team and we look forward to working with you this year.

This week our teacher training sessions with our artists got well underway for our Paul Hamlyn funded project Confident Creators. All the teachers were led through a Music, Art and Drama activity where they composed their own graphic score to a story they set to music and performed to each other. This was a great way to get the creative juices flowing! Graphic scores help children work together and problem solve to find ways they can represent meaning, as well as an excellent way for EAL children to sequence stories. The rest of the day saw teachers split into groups each working with one of our fabulous arts practitioners, experiencing a range of activities to explore the art form, learn new techniques and experiment with ideas. This Monday we will continue the work together leading towards trialling ideas in the classroom.