Teaching and learning Policy

Carlspat Private School

Teaching and Learning Policy

Introduction

At Carlspat Private School we believe in the concept of lifelong learning and the idea that both adults and children learn new things every day. We maintain that learning should be a rewarding experience for everyone; it should be enjoyable. Through our teaching we equip children with the skills, knowledge and understanding necessary to be able to make informed choices about the important things in their lives. We believe that appropriate teaching and learning experiences help children to lead happy and rewarding lives. This policy highlights classroom practices and procedures that promote high quality teaching and learning based on the current DfE Teaching Standards.  It is written against the key Teaching & Learning points from the OFSTED handbook and as such acts as a tool for internal Monitoring and Evaluation.

Teaching Standards Summarised (Part1):

1. Set high expectations which inspire, motivate and challenge pupils.

2. Promote good progress and outcomes by pupils.

3. Demonstrate good subject and curriculum knowledge.

4. Plan and teach well-structured lessons.

5. Adapt teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of all pupils.

6. Make accurate and productive use of assessment.

7. Manage behaviour effectively to ensure a good and safe learning environment.

8. Fulfil wider professional responsibilities e.g. deployment of support staff and communication with parents.

Aims 

We believe that people learn in different ways through the seven main areas of intelligence: linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, kinaesthetic, musical, interpersonal/group working, and interpersonal/reflective. At our school we aim to provide a rich and varied learning environment that allows children to develop their skills and abilities to their full potential by catering for those different learning styles.

Through our teaching we aim to:

• Enable children to become confident, resourceful, enquiring and independent learners.

• Nurture children’s self-esteem and help them build positive relationships with other people.

• Develop children’s self-respect and encourage children to respect the ideas, attitudes, values and feelings of others.

• Show respect for all cultures and, in so doing, to promote positive attitudes towards other people and their possessions.  

• Enable children to understand their community and help them feel valued as part of this community.

• Help children grow into reliable, independent and positive citizens.

• Encourage children to learn to trust God for every aspect of their lives and their learning. 

Effective Teaching

When teaching we focus on motivating the children by:

• Providing a varied and exciting curriculum in line with the statutory requirements and principles of equal opportunity.

• ICT as a tool for learning

• Ensuring there is a balance of appropriate teaching styles used and suitable teaching strategies.

• Using interesting and good quality resources and visual aides to aide effective learning.

• Building on their skills, knowledge and understanding of the curriculum.

• Using the school curriculum plan to guide our teaching with clear learning objectives.

• Ensuring the learning environment is stimulating to interest, encourage and engage pupils.

• Make effective use of time and insist on high standards of behaviour.

• Use homework effectively to reinforce and extend what is learned in school.

• Providing personalised interventions to ensure pupil progress and raise pupil confidence.

We use our knowledge of the children’s level of attainment to enhance our teaching. 

Our knowledge of learners is gained by:

• Continually monitoring and assessing pupil progress to ensure that all tasks set are appropriate to each child’s level of ability; 

• Planning work for all children including those with special educational needs, giving due regard to information and targets contained in the children’s Individual Education Progress Plans (IEPs).

• Close liaison with parents and all members of staff who are partners in the learning process.

• Feedback from pupil intervention.

Effective Learning

We acknowledge that people learn in many different ways and we recognize the need to develop strategies that allow all children to learn in ways that best suit them.

We take into account these different forms of intelligence when planning teaching and learning styles in order to achieve the following pupil learning outcomes:

• Effectively acquire new knowledge or skills in their work, develop ideas and increase their understanding.

• Show maximum engagement, concentration, application and productivity.

• Develop skills and capacity to work independently and collaboratively.

• Use visual, auditory, kinaesthetic and other styles to access learning.

• Reflect, evaluate, edit, improve and present their work using ‘stars’ and ‘target’ evaluation comments.

We offer opportunities for children to learn in different ways that may involve the use of varied seating arrangements. 

The learning styles used include:

• Independent work, paired work and group work;

• Whole-class work, talking teams, mixed ability seating

• ICT as a tool for learning and the use of the computer net books and audio visual resources.

• Investigation and problem solving;

• Independent and group research;

• Asking and answering questions;

• Debates, role-plays and oral presentations;

• Watching and responding to live drama and musical presentations.

• Creative activities and designing and making things;

• Use of games and fun competitions and challenges;

• Outdoor work and visits to places of educational interest;

• Participation in athletic or physical activity. 

Distinctive Learning Culture:

The teaching and learning at Carlspat Private School is distinctive because it is conducted within the context of our relational Church school ethos that enables pupils to learn within an emotional culture that is:

•     ‘Open’, whereby pupils feel able, encouraged and enthusiastic to ask for help from peers, staff and family members without being judged.

•     ‘Supportive’ whereby pupils are keen to offer to help other pupils to be successful by peer mentoring.

•     ‘Friendly’, whereby pupils feel that no matter what they have achieved or not completed the staff will be friendly and focus on helping them achieve the learning goal rather than emphasising sanctions.

•     ‘Relational’ whereby staff relationships with pupils is a priority and always ever positive, nurturing and consistent - not dependent upon the learning outcomes achieved or not achieved. Our relationship with the pupils is not derived from their performance but from relationship of grace.

•     ‘Personal Responsibility’ whereby pupils are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning and make positive choices to be successful; staff are committed to facilitating the pupil choices.

•     ‘Celebratory’ whereby the focus is on pupils souring with their strengths rather than being reminded of their weaknesses on a consistent basis.

•    ‘Collaborative’ whereby pupils never feel isolated, excluded or ‘on their own’ when trying to achieve their learning goals.

•    ‘Faith based’ whereby staff are committed to pupils bringing into being the unseen and as yet undiscovered or undeveloped talents of pupils, through words of faith and encouragement staff bring out the gifts and talents in pupils and do not develop a can’t do mentality towards pupils, but rather interpret the behaviour of even the more challenging of pupils as for example leadership qualities that are emerging. Staff are committed to avoiding judging pupils by their past or even present behaviors but in faith believe that by the time the pupil leaves our school the qualities and strengths as yet unseen will emerge. 

•     ‘Positive Identity’ whereby Staff always affirm the positive identity in the child and the language used towards pupils reflects our commitment to strengthening, uplifting and encouraging pupils for who they are and who they are going to be refusing to let daily set-backs, events and issues define pupils identities but rather bestowing on pupils a positive identity during most of our conversations with pupils derived from the Christian identity given to us by Father God.

•     ‘Holistic’ whereby every effort to ensure all pupils have something they are good at, all pupils experience success and are proud of something they achieve at school – as we believe that the confidence, enjoyment and skills learnt in one area will eventually transfer to other maybe more academic areas – hence our school provides numerous clubs and ensures every child engages with them to develop new skills, acquire positive peer relationships and experience success.