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On 27th June, the Partnership Manager attended the ROH Bridge Conference The Paths Children Take. This was a great opportunity to network with schools from other parts of London as well as with leading Arts organisations and to discuss the opportunities that the UK has for children and young people to access careers in and related to the Creative Industries. It was also a time to reflect on the value of the Arts across the curriculum and for young people’s well being. One in eleven jobs in the UK are in the Creative Industries and it is forecast as one of the most future-proofed areas in a climate where AI is likely to dominate and reduce job opportunities. The conference themes fit well with our new Paul Hamlyn Foundation funded programme Developing a Growth Mindset through the Arts.

Our annual BLC Spelling Bee, hosted by St Gabriel’s College, took place last night. As always all the children were on top form showing their exceptional spelling skills. A big thank you to the staff at St Gabriel’s for providing this opportunity for the pupils and congratulations to the winning primary team – Jessop Primary School.

69. Low Cost No Cost 30th June & 1st July (2).docx

68. Low Cost No Cost 23rd & 24th June (1).docx

We are delighted to have been chosen as one of six recipients of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Teacher Development Fund.

The Teacher Development is a new initiative that supports the delivery of effective arts-based teaching and learning opportunities in the primary classroom, and embeds learning through the arts in the curriculum.

Grants have been awarded to partnerships of schools and arts/cultural organisations and will support teachers and school leaders to develop the necessary skills, knowledge, confidence and experience to teach non-arts subjects using arts based approaches. The work is delivered over two academic years.

Schools from our cluster in partnership with the Windmill cluster, will investigate the impact of using opera and visual arts to develop Growth Mindsets amongst their pupils. The approach will explore how arts-based learning can encourage higher-order questioning, risk-taking and problem-solving skills to raise attainment for pupils experiencing disadvantage. Working with Pegasus Opera and artist Liz Atkin, the teachers will experiment and take risks alongside their pupils. This approach will embed a cycle of analysis, experimentation, reflection, refinement and application.

We very much look forward to this exciting piece of work starting in September.

Last Thursday RE leads from 4 of our schools met to moderate children’s work across a range of year groups. They also shared planning and it was very interesting to compare a church school to a non-church school’s approach with learning from both. One church school had set up a faith group of children who helped with the co-ordination of various activities in the school. These 6 children had worked with the RE lead over their time in school and it had helped them be very involved with school life. Schools were using classbooks as well as individual books to track children’s work and discussion on RE themes and ideas, as well as including trips and visits and using artifacts to stimulate lessons. In the Autumn the group will meet to work much more closely on assessment,as at the moment this is a challenge for many settings.

Yesterday 5 schools from our cluster to take part in a Maths Challenge, hosted and led by Jessop Primary School. The morning challenge was for teams from KS1, the afternoon for KS2. All the teams showed exceptional talent and enthusiasm for Maths – from presenting data on the contents of a tube of Smarties, to TV Countdown buzzer rounds. Well done to the winners, St Saviour’s Primary, but congratulations to each and every competitor for showing their skills and willingness to work as a team.

67. Low Cost No Cost 16th & 17th June (1).docx

Some very high quality football was displayed this week as we continued our girls football matches hosted by Archbishop Sumner Primary. The girls from both Loughborough and Archbishop Sumner showed a high standard of skill in their match, with a 1 – 0 win for Loughborough.
Looking forward to our next fixture – St John’s Angell Town playing St John Divine on 25th June.

June is a busy month for BLC trips and events involving many of our schools.
The first is our Maths Challenge day on 13th June, organised by Jessop Primary, where teams from across the cluster in KS1 and KS2 will come together and test their mathematical knowledge! The following week, St John’s Angell Town Primary will host a KS2 Dance event where children will learn a routine together and perform it to a school audience. On 28th June we have children in year 4 and 5 across the cluster visiting the Royal Astronomical Society, with our annual cluster Spelling Bee, hosted by St Gabriel’s College that afternoon. Meanwhile our series of friendly girls football matches continues on Monday afternoons after school and there will be a girls football tournament on Tuesday 3rd July.