Governor Blog

Governor Visit - 14th October 2011

2011-10-20T04:04:00.000-07:00

My name is Valerie Thompson, I am a school Governor and I visited the John Bramston on Friday 14th October 2011 to look at one of the School Improvement Priorities – Emotionally healthy pupils ready for learning.

The school has highlighted two success criteria, one being that lesson observations will show that pupils reflect on their learning and are willing to take risks and demonstrate resilience and secondly that pupils say that they feel safe, valued and cared for.

I began my visit by attending the sharing assembly with a large number of parents. We were treated to a variety of items including dancing from one class and a song from another. Each form teacher gave out awards for the week and I certainly saw many pupils feeling valued and praised. It was also an opportunity to observe that the pupils who did not receive an award at the assembly were very pleased for their classmates and supported them in their pleasure of winning.

During the morning, I visited years 2,3,4,5 and actively looked for the success criteria. I saw a variety of pupils, eagerly taking risks with their learning, by offering answers to difficult questions. Staff were encouraging all pupils in the class to stretch their comments and expand their answers to questions; to move them on to the next level of learning.

None of this is possible without an atmosphere of trust within a classroom and I feel that the pupils at John Bramston are in a very supportive environment, where they do feel safe, valued and cared for.
I look forward to working with the staff to ensure that this priority is achieved this year.I would like to thank all of the staff and children for making me feel so welcome during my visit.

Lack of Direction!!! Not in 3C…

2011-06-20T23:40:00.000-07:00

Lack of Direction!!! Not in 3C…

I was fortunate to join 3C just as they started doing some compass work. All pupils were gathered in a circle with their compasses, each taking it in turn to point to an object in the class with another pupil having to work out whether it was North, East, South, and West. Mr Cusack really had the class engaged with this very hands on learning, well done…

What could you do with £10,000?

Well 4G (Miss Gould maths lesson) certainly knew. The task seemed simple, to fit out an empty classroom with £10,000 to spend! However the class soon realised that it wasn’t as easy as they first thought. In groups they were each given tasks to purchase things like, furniture, stationary, computers, interactive white board etc…The class were really excited about this and were more then happy to share their ideas with me. Full marks again to a really interesting and hands on lesson, I wish maths was this much fun when I was at school!!

Val Thompson Governor Visit

2011-03-09T04:00:00.000-08:00

I visited the school on Thursday 17th February 2011 in my role as community governor. As I am a newly appointed governor this visit had been organised to let me see as much as possible of the school.
I managed to see most of the year groups apart from the nursery classes. I found an active working environment with the children fully engaged in their activities. The staff work very hard to provide excellent learning experiences and I saw a range of lessons including music, maths and painting.
A special assembly took place during my visit, a representative from the chosen charity of the year, NSPCC, came to tell the children that their fund raising had totalled over £2000. It was very interesting to find out how the money would be used to both help children and to train adults to help in the future.
I joined the children for lunch at the end of my visit and enjoyed the calm and polite way everyone made the most of the mid day break.
I would like to thank all of the staff and children for making me feel so welcome during my visit.

Governor visit - Thursday 17th february 2011

2011-03-02T12:11:00.000-08:00

Visit to John Bramston Primary School - Thursday 17th February 2011

Governor - Brian Walker (SEN Link)

Focus - Interventions to support SEN

I spent a few very happy hours in school seeing how staff support children who need a little extra help. As it was nearing half term there were assessments taking place.

I spent time with Class Y6 K/L as they undertook a 45 minute Science test. Staff were fully engaged in reading out the questions from the test paper for those children that would benefit from this extra help.

I then observed some out-of-class interventions that support children. Mrs Murcutt was working with a year 4 child to help with fine motor skills / speech & language. Mrs Murcutt has introduced some great ideas and resources for her work with children.

I then met Mrs Evans who showed me some of her intervention work. Mrs Evans is trained in using the Precision Teaching technique and works with individual children to support their reading. I observed her working with a child, who told me that the sessions are helping him to 'remember words.'

After a quick visit to Reception and Nursery where I tried extremely hard not to trip over tiny people, I went into Class 4B where there was assessments taking place This time it was a writing assessment. I stayed long enough to witness how well the children were working on their assignments.

I briefly spoke to a lady in the Staff Room who was a representative from the NSPCC. She had just just received over £2000 which had been collected by the children of John Bramston for the charity! She was clearly moved by the amount that was raised.

As always, I was impressed by the colourful and calm environment of the school.

My visit concluded with a debrief with the Assistant Headteacher.

Thank you and well done to everyone who helped to make my visit so pleasurable and informative.

Governor Visit: Stuart Cheek

2010-06-18T07:18:00.001-07:00

Governor Visit: Stuart Cheek

I attended the school on Wednesday 9th June 2010 in my role as Parent Governor.

I initially met with Miss Abela in my capacity as Link Governor for Assessment For Learning. I was impressed at the amount of targets that have been met and the plans for the future. I was impressed with Miss Abela’s knowledge of the subject and her plans for the future. I was shown the numerous resources and ideas that she has implemented into the day to day life of the staff and pupils also how she monitors that this Policy is being complied with.

I then met with Mr Lee, where he explained to me about the Family SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning). I was informed about the course being offered out to Parents and the content of the course being provided by Mr Lee. It is clear that this appears to be a good way to engage parents.
I also reviewed the way the school interacts with the parents through letters etc. and was surprised at the shear number of letters sent out keeping parents informed. I was also impressed at the amount of trips arranged for the children and it is clear that they are very lucky. It is apparent that the parents are kept fully updated with the progress of the children and through activities in the school. I have also reviewed the web page for the school including the blog spot and was impressed with how much information and assistance can be found for parents about activities for them and their children.

I then visited the Nursery and had a talk with Mrs Murcutt as to the activities available to Nursery children’s parents. Again I was surprised at just how much goes into making the children feel welcome and I liked the innovative ways in which parents are included in this crucial first stage of development. I was especially impressed with the new book bag idea that has been developed, which will encourage learning at home with parents.

I concluded my visit with a discussion with Miss Jennings about the school profile and we discussed the current draft.

Yet again I was made to feel welcome throughout my visit and would just like to express my thanks to all the staff and Miss Jennings for taking time out of their day to give me further information on both my link governor role and also my role to develop the school SEF.

Mr Walker Governor Visit

2009-12-07T12:34:00.001-08:00

Friday 4th December 2009 - Governor Visit

I spent a very enjoyable morning in school observing lessons and talking to the children and staff. I was fortunate to be able to visit 4 classes, as well as being present in the sharing assembly. Whenever I visit, I am always impressed at how friendly and welcoming the environment is. JB is a colourful and vibrant school, which seems to function with the minimum amount of fuss. This is an absolute credit to all the staff, who continue to work so hard, in outdated and inadequate buildings, so that the children of JB have the best school possible. The lessons and activities I witnessed were relevant, interesting and fun. I learned things about geometric shapes in class 5G that I had long forgotten! I saw how a recent visit to meet with elderly members of the local community had inspired Y6L to produce some fantastic journalistic style writing about WW2. I especially enjoyed the poetry writing lesson in Y2E which used the following poem as an example:

I eat my peas with honey
I've done it all my life
It does taste rather funny
But it keeps them on my knife

A true Pam Ayres style ditty to savour!

Thanks to all the staff and children who made my visit both enjoyable and memorable. Have a very happy Christmas break. I look forward to seeing you all again in the New Year.

Brian Walker
(Governor - John Bramston Primary School)

Mr Cheek Link Governor Visit

2009-11-23T01:37:00.000-08:00

As part of my role as a school parent governor and also link governor for Assessment for Learning, I spent the 8th October 2009 at the school. This enabled me to take the opportunity to spend some time in the classes and witness for myself the current excellent standard of teaching and see how much the children have been progressing during the Autumn term.

I initially went into Class Y3E and witnessed the use of the interactive whiteboards and children learning about different parts of a book, such as the glossary and the index. I was pleasantly surprised just how much they knew and it was clear that the use of the IT made this an enjoyable and interesting lesson for the children and having this lesson on a large screen in front of them provided a far better learning aid then just sitting at desks looking at a book.

From here I attended a school assembly, the theme of the assembly was Black History Month. This consisted of a Powerpoint and verbal presentation from Mrs Ehsan. I was impressed with the Children’s knowledge of Mary Seacole and Charles Drew, the latter I must confess that I was not aware of!!!! I was impressed with how well behaved and attentive the children were.

I then had the opportunity to witness Mrs Cheek at work in Class Y2C. I was again impressed with the endeavour of the class, the pupil management and the standard of teaching. I have consistently been impressed with the level of teaching and pupil behaviour across the school.

From here I visited the Reception and Nursery. I have a vested interest in the Nursery in particular with my 2 year old daughter hopefully starting here next September. I witnessed the children in Miss Fresco’s Reception class learning their sounds and then engaging in play based learning. I then moved to the nursery and got to listen to a story being read to the children by Mrs Creasey, I was impressed with how well the majority of children just sat and listened and also with the way the other staff managed the children who did not want to just sit down. My short time in the nursery has left me with a very positive view of the nursery and from a purely selfish point of view the way that it will benefit my little girl.

I then got to sample a school dinner, which I believed is now being provided by a new contractor. I can remember school dinners when I was at school and the stodgy, bland food that they used to serve up. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality and variety of the meals available and enjoyed the pasta and meatballs.

After this I had the opportunity to sit down with the School’s Assessment for Learning lead, Mrs Abela and have explained the current and future plans. For those of you unaware, examples of this involve the traffic light marking system that you may have seen in your children’s books, amongst other tactics to raise learning standards. This is an area constantly under review and development and I can see real benefits for both the children and the school as the school develops its own policies for Assessment for Learning.

All in all, I had an enjoyable day at the school and would like to thank the staff and children for making me feel welcome and included and I look forward to my next visit.

Thank you!

2009-07-10T11:18:00.000-07:00

To the governors -
On behalf of all the parents, staff and children of John Bramston Primary school - thank you for all the hard work, commitment and involvement shown over this year. Thank you for helping us make our school a great place to learn!

Open Afternoon

2009-07-10T04:30:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

Thank you to everyone for making me and all the parents feel so welcome at yesterday's Open Day. As always, I really enjoyed the visit and I went home wearing a big smile. I visited a number of classes and I was impressed by the enthusiasm shown by pupils when they described what they were working on and what they done recently. I would also like to thank the pupil in Year 5 who taught me how to use the interactive white board. It was a pleasure to walk around and look at all the displays.

I would like to congratulate Year 6 on an awesome set of SATs results. Well done! Briliiant! With those science results I hope to see some of you fixing global warming, building space stations and solving Fermat's Last Theorem. But for now though, you must enjoy a well deserved summer break and I wish you all good luck at secondary school. Please keep in touch with JBS by visiting school events or creating a "Class of 2009" blog; some of you will go to different secondary schools but meeting up at JBS events would be a great way of catching up with each other, and I am sure the teachers would be interested to hear what you get up to!

The turn-out from parents was phenomenal! The school hall was packed for Miss Jennings' presentation. I hope all the parents were pleased by firstly, the SATs results and secondly, the way JBS is moving the curriculum forward. I loved the idea when she first told me about it and I hope the children do too. I particularly like the way JBS is a trail-blazer - delivering innovative work before the rest of the country!

Finally, a BIG thank you to all the teachers and support staff. It has been a pleasure watching and hearing about the fantastic job you do. I would like to express particular appreciation and gratitude to the staff moving on to pastures new and that they have fond memories of JBS.

Next year I hope I can visit JBS even more.

Alex Macneill

Mr Cheek school visit

2009-02-04T23:53:00.000-08:00

This is my first entry onto the Governor’s blog and I am gradually easing my way into the new role at the School and learning what it entails. Firstly, I would just like to say thanks to those who supported my nomination and hope I can do justice to the role and be part of the school’s ongoing progress.

As part of my new role I was invited to an Initial Induction Day at the School. So on Wednesday 4th February 2009 I visited the school for my first visit in my new official capacity.

I was given an introduction to my role by Miss Jennings and we discussed some of the school’s current issues, such as the current curriculum and proposed improvements, the current school buildings and plans for the futures and also the general improvement of the school over the past 4 years. I was very impressed with what the future could hold.

I visited all the classes briefly and observed a small snapshot of each class. The immediate thing I noticed was that the children were well behaved and engaged in a plethora of varied activities, all of which were well planned and enjoyable for the children. I was shown the school’s ICT suite and I could not help but be impressed by the set-up and there was no resemblance to my school days when we made do with a couple of BBC Basics and the odd RM Nimbus. The opportunity to develop computer literacy, an important life skill in my opinion, was clearly evident by the facilities available to the children.

After this initial tour I spent some time in three different classes.

I initially spent time in Class Y5E, where a class full of children and two adults taking part in Aerobic exercise greeted me! I was impressed by the participation level of the children and also with the effort put in by the teacher! We then went to the ICT suite and I watched as the children demonstrated their skills and knowledge and was shown an excellent PowerPoint presentation. I was impressed with the children’s knowledge of PowerPoint applications and the use of Hyperlinks. I was also impressed with the way the teacher dealt with a challenging class and still managed to deliver the lesson in a way that was both informative and interesting.

I then moved to class Y3G where the children were learning about Music Appreciation. I was able to observe the Interactive whiteboards in action, which are massive improvement on chalk and a blackboard! The children again were attentive, interested and seemed to enjoy the opportunity to listen to Classical music and describe how the music made them feel.

Finally, I went into Class Y1A where I was treated to a rendition of the class song for their next sharing assembly. I was very impressed with the effort put in by the class.

Overall this was a visit well worth making, I was impressed by what I saw:

1. The children all appeared happy, content and genuinely interested in what they were being taught.
2. The style of teaching was constructive and innovative, but still managed to deliver the objective of the lesson.
3. I was impressed with the way the behaviour of the children and the way they interacted with their peers and the teacher.

This visit has given me an insight that I would not normally have got and it has only reinforced my view that this John Bramston Primary School is a good school yet continues to seek new ways to improve further and move forward.

Thank you all for having me today.

KEITH VARNES - Governor Blog

2008-11-11T00:28:00.000-08:00

On Thursday (6 November 2008) I spent some time visiting the school and was very pleased with what I saw.

• Children knew what they were learning and were able to talk about it.
• Throughout my visit all children were attentive and very well behaved.
• Participation was good and all appeared to enjoy the lessons.
• Good work was encouraged, praised and rewarded.

In school assembly we all learnt about the reason poppies are now being worn and the significance of Remembrance Sunday was explained.

With the children in 2CE I learnt how to use reference books and how to look things up in the contents page, index and glossary.

Children in 5E have been studying ‘Streetchild’ and were demonstrating their understanding of the book through drama. In groups they acted a ‘freeze frame’ scene from the book with the watching children having to name the characters.

Children in 6L have been looking at rhythm and rhyme in poetry analysing what makes this type of verse work. Working with their talking partners they wrote their own poems which were read aloud.

Children in RC were having lots of fun working at activity tables.
I saw examples of very good handwriting and heard about bonfire night fireworks. The children also showed me how they could look and listen quietly.

I would like to say thank you to Class RC for letting me have school dinner with them; they were extremely helpful showing me where to go and what to do