Last year, Kylie Statham of Bournville Primary School fame and the school's anti-bullying ambassadors embarked on a programme to audit the provision in place regarding bullying in the school.  

 

This was a lengthy and detailed task and one that the whole school has contributed to in one way or another. Today Bournville received news that they have achieved the GOLD award for the support, strategies and provision that are in place.  

 

Congratulations team Bournville and thank you so much Kylie! You should all be incredibly proud of this achievement. What a great end to the term!

 

The Anti-bullying Alliance Team said:

 

“Firstly, thank you for all the work you’ve done on the United Against Bullying (UAB) programme. We were completely blown away by the amount of work done by schools to reduce bullying and improve wellbeing for pupils and I’m delighted to announce that we’re awarding you United Against Bullying GOLD School status - congratulations! This is not an easy award programme and you should be incredibly proud of what you have achieved! For context, we had 296 schools complete the programme with 11% achieving Gold, 24% Silver, and 55% Bronze.”

Building work has begun at Locking Primary School to create a new home for the Treetops resource base.

 

The building is scheduled to be completed on Friday 14 June 2024. The school and trust are working hard with the contractors, Wernick Buildings and North Somerset Council to limit disruption. We would like to thank the whole community for their support, patience and understanding during the current disruption, particularly Locking Parish Council, Locking Preschool and the ELAN central team.

 

Treetops Resource Base opened at Locking Primary School in September 2023 housed in temporary accommodation until the permanent resource base is built. This meant that the base was able to open a year early, providing places for children and enabling the development of excellent working partnerships and high-quality practices.

 

Treetops provides early intervention for pupils with moderate learning difficulties and associated developmental delay within a small nurturing environment that enables pupils to make good progress in an inclusive setting. It provides space for up to 10 children aged 4 to 7.

 

Treetops offers a bespoke learning environment for children who have access to education in the resource base, but also remain part of a mainstream class family and are very much part of the whole school.

 

Roxanne Simpson, Headteacher at Locking Primary School said: “The new building will mean that we can create and develop a purposeful provision with access to a high quality indoor and outdoor provision to meet the sensory, physical and learning needs of those within the Treetops family. Our mainstream class families will also have access to the resources, interventions and support from our team of specialist practitioners in Treetops. We can already see the impact this is having on our provision across the school and look forward to seeing how this develops over time.”

For Opening Worlds curriculum to have maximum success, we know that teachers need on-going professional development. Last month we welcomed Christine Counsell, the co-author of the curriculum to deliver a training session to 105 leaders, teachers and support staff.

 

Her session focused on Seeing the story: making a humanities lesson ‘sing’. Christine used a Year 3 geography lesson as an example and looked closely at how staff can mediate content with passion, enthusiasm and energy by using the way the content has been shaped. There was lots of enthusiasm and positive feedback from staff who attended the session.

 

One leader said that it was, "such a brilliant day. I loved every second of today and can’t wait to share all the nuggets with our staff team."

We were delighted to be able to take seven ELAN  schools to Sidcot School to take part in our annual swimming gala. This forms part of a series of sporting activities that Sidcot School run with our schools throughout the year, including tennis, cricket, swimming and two gymnastics sessions.

 

The gala includes a range of races from front crawl, back crawl, breast-stroke and relay races and is tailored to support students of all abilities. Sidcot’s ELAN Sport Liaison, Lee Molland, organises and runs the event, accompanied by Director of Sport Matt Lloyd, Sidcot’s Sport Manager Martin Rogers as Lifeguard and Sidcot’s BTEC Sport students providing event and scoring support.

 

Each ELAN school selects eight students to take part and transport to and from the event is arranged by Sidcot.

 

Commenting, Louie, Year 6 at Walliscote Primary said, “It’s really fun for all of us to take part, especially for teamwork with our school friends but also for meeting people and making friends in other schools”.

 

Lee Molland, Junior School PE and Sports Lead at Sidcot added, “Because this is an annual event, we’ve really seen a marked improvement in the swimming ability of all the pupils across the schools. It’s a lively event and all the kids have a good, fun time. We really hope they enjoy themselves and that it encourages them to keep practicing their swimming!”

 

A huge thank you to our friends at Sidcot School for their ongoing partnership and opportunities as well as providing transport that enables these events to take place. Transport costs are a huge barrier to a lot of things and with Sidcot School removing this, it means that more children can have the chance to showcase what they can do. 

 

The ELAN schools that took part in this gala included Banwell Primary, Milton Park, Mendip Green, Walliscote Primary, Mead Vale, Bournville Primary and Locking Primary School.

Extend Learning Academies Network (ELAN) has implemented the Opening Worlds curriculum for history, geography and religion in KS2 across all its schools. This knowledge-rich programme is characterised by strong vertical sequencing within subjects and by intricate horizontal and diagonal connections. Opening Worlds is having a rapid effect on all pupils’ literacy through the systematic introduction and revisiting of new vocabulary; engaging story-telling and a highly inclusive

approach. Teachers’ practice has improved through training in the Opening Worlds evidence-informed, high-leverage techniques which are integral to the programme.

 

‘In nearly 30 years in education, I have never known anything to be so transformational. The curriculum naturally allows children to explore and understand what it means to live in a global society. It has empowered pupils, who otherwise may be disadvantaged, to engage in their learning as equals and we have seen pupils with special educational needs accessing the curriculum in a way we have never seen before. The impact on all pupils’ reading and writing skills has also been significant. They are reading and writing more regularly and at length. However, more importantly, they are reading and writing with enthusiasm because they are genuinely interested to learn more and they have important things to say!’ Penny Boardman, ELAN School Effectiveness Lead

 

The impact has been so significant that we would like to extend an open invitation to headteachers and deputy headteachers in North Somerset to see the curriculum being taught and learn a little bit more about its impact from the ELAN Extend-Ed Team.

 

Dates: 23 February 2024 or 8 March 2024 or 22 March 2024

Places available on each session: 3

Venue: Mead Vale Primary School

Time: 12:30 – 15:30

Overview of the session:

• • Introduction to the curriculum

• • Observe a geography lesson taught in Year 4 from 13:00-14:15

• • Exploring the impact

• • Question and Answer session

 

If you would like more information, please contact penny.boardman@extendlearning.org

To book a place, please follow the link ELAN and Opening Worlds curriculum

 

Notice is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of Extend Learning Academies Network will be held at Locking Primary School on Tuesday 6 February 2024 at 5:00pm for the following purposes:

1 Elect Chair for the meeting
2 Welcome, apologies and quorum
3 Disclosure of interests
4 Approve minutes of the previous AGM 07.02.2023
5 To receive the annual accounts of the company for the period to 31 August 2023
6 Any proposed changes to the Articles of Association
7 Any changes to the Funding Agreement
8 Appointment/retirement of Members, Clerks or Directors since September 2022
9 Appointment of external auditors of the Company
10 Trust business update from the CEO
11 Any motions which the Members wish to debate
12 Any business which the Trustees have asked the Members to consider
13 Any business the community has asked the Members to consider

All associated documents will be available in advance of the meeting. If you would like the Members of the Multi Academy Trust to respond to questions at the AGM, please submit these in writing to the Company Secretary at least 4 days prior to the meeting

By order of the Board
Sarah Edwards
Company Secretary
Email: office@extendlearning.org

Extend Learning Academies Network
Registered Address: 13 Lime Close, Weston-super-Mare BS24 8BH

 

Please let the Company Secretary know if you will be attending by emailing office@extendlearning.org.

On Thursday Kerri McArdle, our Innovation and Development Lead co-facilitated a Year 2 ECT (early career teachers) training event on behalf of Early Career Framework Professional Development Programme Delivery Partner, The Five Counties Teaching School Hub Alliance at Shaftesbury Park, Frenchay, Bristol. 70 Year 2 ECTs from across Bristol, Somerset, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire and Bath & North East Somerset including some of our ELAN second-year ECTs were in attendance.

 

The content of the day included sessions about challenge, aspiration and high expectations; motivation and self-regulation; and making learning stick.

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We are very proud of everyone flying the flag for SEND (special educational needs) education yesterday at the North Somerset Parent Carers Working Together Forum SEND event.

Our amazing teams from Mendip Green School, Locking Primary School and Milton Park Primary School were there representing their schools, the trust and most importantly the resource hubs: Treetops, The Den, The Cove and Hearing and Language Resource Base (HLRB).

They set up super early and were not due to be finished until 9pm. Don’t worry, they were doing shifts and had coffee, tea and some delicious food. 

Our hubs do an incredible job supporting children with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) and MLD (moderate learning disorder) and increasing Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provision across North Somerset. Children are provided with a specialist intervention programme within a mainstream educational setting that enables them to make progress, achieve their goals and access the curriculum.

Thank you so much to everyone working so hard yesterday and everyday.

We have been successful in moving forward with creating two new resource hubs following approval from the DfE’s (Department for Education) South West Advisory Board. One at Milton Park Primary School and one at Locking Primary School. These specialist bases will increase much-needed SEND provision within North Somerset and are open to children with an identified need.

 

The aim of a specialist resource base is to provide children with a specialist intervention programme within a mainstream educational setting that enables them to make progress, achieve their identified outcomes and continue to access the mainstream curriculum.

 

The new provisions will provide 10 additional Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) with Moderate Learning Difficulties (MLD) specialist places at Milton Park Primary School and 10 additional Moderate Learning Difficulty (MLD) with associated difficulties specialist places at Locking Primary School.

On 28 April all schools in Extend Learning Academies Network attended a second session of training for the Opening Worlds curriculum.  The training was informative and fascinating in equal measure and everyone is really looking forward to trialling a unit about the Stone Age this term.

 

I feel so fortunate to be able to offer our children such an inspiring and captivating curriculum. We cannot wait to start teaching the new units! (class teacher)

 

There is a real buzz amongst the team after the two excellent training sessions from the Opening Worlds team. We can't wait to get stuck into this - it really is an ambitious, extraordinary and language rich curriculum! It aligns beautifully with our vision and values! (Headteacher)

 

I am really pleased with the resources available to us through Opening Worlds. I have already delivered the first session: the booklets are really high quality and I could see the children rise to the occasion of having their own in front of them when I used them for the first time. I am also pleased with the emphasis on responding to questions in whole sentences. This forges much stronger links for the children to their new knowledge. I am looking forward to being part of the roll out of this new opportunity. (class teacher)

 

I think it's a great opportunity for our schools and I can't wait to get it going in full come September. (class teacher)