March to November  2013

Kelly Brown, Deputy Head Teacher in March 2013

I joined the school last September, at the beginning of the academic year..... as soon as I walked in, it was the way people were so friendly and welcoming. I had a look round a few other schools and there just wasn’t that atmosphere of people clearly working together really well that was here. Straight away you could tell that people here were for the benefit of the children and want to really help the children. That was so clear on my first walk around the school; that was the main ethos of the school........There will be new guidelines coming in place soon from the Government. There is a lot to do with sharing ideas with staff, trying to be creative in the ways that we deliver the curriculum, making sure there are lots of links between subjects, so we are not teaching subjects in isolation, and so on.  As you walk around the school you see the topics that we cover, so we are very much topic-led as a school..... it’s very much the idea that the children carry out investigations, and they are supported with their learning by an adult but it is very much pupil-led. That is the idea nowadays, that they discover things for themselves, because when you are doing things and finding out things for yourself, that’s when you remember it and take it in more.

Alan Sparks, Chair of Governors  29th April 2013

We now have a full complement of governors, with four parent governors and a new community governor. We have a new demountable classroom coming in July ready for September. We had about 48 children and I think we’ve got sixty four now and I think we’ll have eighty plus by the start of September. That means the reception class will now be solely on their own,  and where we’ve had years 4,5 and 6 as one class, all classes will then be two year groups, which will be much easier to manage. We are having discussions about academies but only because it looks like it will come in the future anyway.  It means direct funding from the Government. Rather than it be Government to Essex County Council to the school, all the money comes through to us. Also comes with it a lot of responsibility. As well I’ve got involved with the pond project out the back. We had the pond dug and it got held up but it is going ahead now.

Rachel Welch, Head 4th July 2013

Curriculum Changes

Our curriculum  is about to change because we’ve come to the end of our three year cycle .... and in September we’ll have four classes, but we are also looking at new approaches. I went to a school in Swindon to look at their curriculum. For them everything is around ‘a big question’, so instead of just having themes and stating what they are, we’re changing them so they are a question. You then show the children some form of stimulus which might be a film or a picture or an artefact and they come up with more questions, so it is about engaging them more in the learning process and not just presenting them with lots of information.  It’s more about enquiry based learning.... the big question is going to be, “What does the Future hold?” and to start it off the teachers will show a PowerPoint presentation of slides and photographs and images and sound. Part of the afternoon will be watching that and coming up with their own questions and then the teachers will take those questions and plan for next term. There have obviously got to be some things that are covered so they have to carefully choose the stimulus to show and steer their questions in a certain way. ....part of that will be learning what they want to learn, and part of it will be the things they need to learn, but they are going to be involved in the process more and what the end product will look like.  

Ofsted Report

(Ofsted report as ‘Good’)  Yes, but we’re not complacent about it. There are so many things that can affect it: the day when the inspectors come, data is still very important, and who your staff are on the day, and when the school is small, it only takes one or two things to tip the balance..... we were really pleased we had ours like we did, because we thought we had another year to go and we weren’t in the slightest way prepared; it really was out of the blue, and the Inspectors saw us as it is every day. There just wasn’t time to put on a show.

International links

We’ve recently had our Kenya trip again.... Obviously we have to plan the next part of the project and evaluate how this year has gone and plan the next year..... At the beginning of the year, to get the Full International Award, you have to send in seven activities that you are going to do across international schools and they assess your action plan and ours was agreed. I’ve just written the evaluation for that and depending on the outcome, if we achieve the full status, it means we will be an International School for three years,

Outside work

I’m not going to be here all the time next term. I’m having a trial run doing some work back with the Local Authority. Kelly is going to step up; it’s too good an offer to pass up financially for us as a school. They asked me if I’d like to do it and financially we just need some more income to do what we want to do. So I’ll be out for two days a week, just taking it a term at a time. Quadrant Commissioner is the official title of the work. It’s more about brokering the consultants really, what the schools need to make them good, and supporting the heads.    Hopefully it will be a learning and development opportunity for everyone, so people will learn to step up and deal with things in a new way on the two days a week when I’m out but, as I’ve said, we’ll take it a term at a time to ensure things don’t go downhill here.  I hope each person here will get something out of it, and I should get something out of the experience, and the school will get some much needed extra funding from me doing it, which is needed in a day when budgets are so tight. Knowing the Ofsted have been and gone, this is a good time to do it. When I’ve done my sign-off inspection then I’ll be doing inspections as well and so then it will be a case of seeing which brings in most money to the school.

The following is a part extract from the 2013 Ofsted report:

Waterman Primary School

Inspection dates  6–7 March 2013

 Overall effectiveness         Previous inspection:      Good  2                 This inspection:       Good  2

Achievement of pupils              Good  2  

Quality of teaching                   Good  2  

Behaviour and safety of pupils  Good  2  

Leadership and management    Good  2  

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils:  This is a good school  

Memories are made of this... The New Classroom is Officially Opened

Wednesday 17th July 2013

Burying a Time Capsule:  Wednesday 27th November 2013

The parents and children  gather in the hall where deputy head teacher Ms Brown explains to the parents what the children have been doing. Starting from ‘the big question’, “What does the future hold?” the children had been encouraged to think what questions arise and the curriculum was built around those questions. From all this they decided to create the time capsule and think how life would change. Each class produced material to be put in the capsule to be opened on Waterman’s 50th anniversary in 2057

Rachel Welch, Head, 29th November 2013

With what I am now doing it is supposed to be just two days a week that I am out, but the balance isn’t quite right at the moment really, and I have twenty nine other schools that I have been visiting. The local authority are very keen for us to visit all the schools allocated to us, even the good and outstanding ones, they all have to have a visit this term.....I miss being here and I miss the children a lot, because when I am here I tend to have to be in the office catching up on paperwork and all the while things are moving along, and sometimes I feel I haven’t got 100% handle on things, which is why I am negotiating with the local authority. ... Trying to stay on top of things here is quite challenging but other people have been stepping in and doing things.  We are up to ninety now. In 2009/10 it had gone down to 32 children. In fact we’ve just put in an application to admit more....  It’s very much been business as usual while I’ve been away. .... Alan has had a lot of family illness to deal with and so he stepped down to vice-chair and  Mike Webb, one of the other parent governors, stepped up to take the chair.... we are still looking at the whole academy status thing. Probably the big thing is keeping standards up and improving from where we were, handling the class changes, new teachers and so on.

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Quotes from 2010 to 2013 at Waterman Primary School (Continued)

To return to the FIRST page, from the Oct 2010 to July 2011 (Out of Special Measures) CLICK HERE

To return to the SECOND page,  from Jan to Nov 2012, (Consolidation & Growth) CLICK HERE

This THIRD page takes us from Mar 2013 to Nov 2013  (Ofsted, Changes & Being Stretched)