Latest News
Check out this page to find out all our latest news.
-
Pupils from The Littleton's impress in visit to Cathedral
Mon 05 Dec 2022What a wonderful letter for a class teacher to receive!
Dear Nicola,
It was wonderful to have the privilege to meet and teach the children from The Littletons C of E Primary School today. They were from Years 4 and 5 and were with us to learn about The Cathedral as a Place of Christian Worship.
I have been a Volunteer on the Education team at Worcester Cathedral for more than 10 years and during that time I have met many groups from a very many schools in the Worcestershire and Birmingham areas. We get many groups from Birmingham who are predominantly of Muslim Faith. I am always impressed by these children’s attitude, knowledge and spiritualism when they visit us but I put it down to the fact that many come from families with a great Islamic Faith. Having said that, I was blown away by the children from The Littleton's school today. Their behaviour, prior knowledge, enthusiasm and interest was a pleasure to experience. All of the children, without exception, showed joy and genuine fascination in all aspects of the Cathedral and in turn, the Christian Faith. They were respectful and reverential when going on the tours and they asked pertinent questions and showed obvious knowledge of all the aspects of Christianity that we discussed. We later completed workshops on The Trinity, notoriously difficult for many adults to get their heads around, let alone children. They showed excellent knowledge and a great understanding of the concept of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as One. They all showed a Spiritualism that is often lacking amongst children in our Christian Faiths, and I was deeply humbled and impressed by their dealing with the whole topic. It is obvious that they’ve had excellent RE teaching at their school and that they are all genuinely interested in Faith. They went away with their own Prayer Stones that they had made, and I was left in little doubt that they would use and treasure them in the future. I would like to congratulate you on your obvious high standard of religious teaching and also thank you for giving me the joy of meeting such wonderful children.
I wish you all at The Littleton's, the very best for the future
Kindest Regards,
Lynn Thornes, Education Team Volunteer at Worcester Cathedral
-
Crowle CE First School is a Good Church School
Mon 14 Nov 2022Please read the key findings of the recent SIAMs inspection of Crowle CE First School. Very impressive!
- Guided by the fully inclusive Christian vision, deeply committed and passionate school leaders are instrumental in driving the school forward. Systems for monitoring and evaluating the impact of the vision are less well developed.
- Religious education (RE) is very well led, managed and taught. Pupils enjoy RE and are challenged to apply their learning, in line with the vision. This prepares them well for living with contradictory convictions.
- Collective worship is highly inclusive, offering everyone the opportunity to engage with integrity in the outworking of the school’s distinctive Christian vision.
- The inclusive culture, underpinned by caring relationships celebrates difference and individuality impacting positively on pupils’ mental health and wellbeing.
- Leaders' intentional development of a shared understanding of spirituality enhances opportunities for personal reflection. Explicit occasions for spirituality to be evident throughout the curriculum are less well planned.
For the full report, please click on the link below.
-
Welcome to the New School Year!
Mon 05 Sep 2022A warm welcome to the new school year to all our DoWMAT family - and especially all our new pupils, new members of staff, new families and new Local Academy Board members. We are looking forward to working with you all this academic year!
-
Crowle CE First School receives prestigious Artsmark Award
Fri 15 Jul 2022Very excited to report one of our successes this year .... Pupils and staff at Crowle CE First School are celebrating after receiving a prestigious Artsmark Award in a momentous year for the programme as it celebrates 20 years of arts, culture and creativity in schools.
The Artsmark Award is the only creative quality standard for schools, accredited by Arts Council England. It supports schools to develop and celebrate arts and cultural education, putting creativity and wellbeing at the heart of the curriculum. Artsmark ensures every young person can be creative and access a diverse, high-quality cultural education.
In order to achieve their Artsmark Award, Crowle CE First School had to develop their arts and culture provision to embed a broad and ambitious curriculum. This was achieved by creating an overall plan that was committed to and delivered across the whole school.
The Artsmark assessor commended Crowle CE First School on: “Crowle CE First School have embraced the opportunities offered by your Artsmark journey…They have developed their art curriculum and built on the potential of the Arts to deliver pupil outcomes and increase the range and quality of arts that they offer to the children.”
On receiving the award, Mrs M Abbott (Headteacher) said: “We’re extremely proud of achieving our Artsmark Gold Award. We are committed to delivering a high-quality arts and cultural education and we look forward to continue to grow with Artsmark.”
Dr Darren Henley OBE, Chief Executive of the Arts Council, said:
“I would like to congratulate Crowle CE First School on their Artsmark Award. Becoming an Artsmark school demonstrates that through offering a broad, ambitious, and creative curriculum, every pupil can develop character and resilience, increasing their knowledge, curiosity and skills that will remain with them through to adult life.”
-
Congratulations to St. Oswald's CE Primary School!
Mon 11 Jul 2022I am so pleased to be able to share the news of St. Oswald's recent Ofsted inspection. Inspectors visited the school on the 11-12th May and all judgements - for all aspects of the school's provision have been declared as Good.
Inspectors said the following;
'Pupils thrive at St Oswald’s CofE Primary School. Leaders have high expectations for what all pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities can achieve. Pupils become confident, articulate learners. They dress smartly and are proud of their school. There is a very good range of after school clubs. Pupils benefit from visitors to the school and trips to places of interest, such as local museums.
There is a calm and purposeful atmosphere in classrooms and corridors. Pupils are keen to learn. Their work is varied and interesting, and this helps them to concentrate well in lessons.
Pupils behave responsibly, for example using litter bins and tidying up without being asked. The school provides them with good opportunities for leadership. Older pupils act as role models for younger ones. Pupils get on well with one another, and bullying is infrequent. Staff resolve any disagreements fairly and effectively. Pupils feel safe and happy.
Learning is well planned and covers lots of topics well. Staff are well trained, and they work together as an effective team. This helps them to teach the curriculum effectively, including those elements that are relatively new. Everyone wants to improve the school further.'
For full information, please read the report below.
https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50187290
-
Congratulations to Netherton CE Primary School
Mon 23 May 2022On the 29th and 30th March, Netherton received a visit from Ofsted. The inspector spent two days examining all aspects of the school's provision and came to the conclusion that Netherton CE Primary School remains a Good school.
Leasers were praised for adopting an ambitious curriculum and providing exciting extra-curricular opportunities for all pupils.
The report highlighted the following;
'All pupils are welcomed and included in the life of the school. Children from the age of two make a good start in the early years and pupils continue to be well cared for as they grow older. Adults know children very well. They engage positively with families and work hard to promote pupils’ well-being.
The majority of pupils are happy and proud of their school. They get on well together. They treat each other with respect and kindness Bullying is rare. Pupils' playground behaviour is mostly positive but sometimes games become too boisterous. Some pupils say that this has a negative impact on them having fun at lunchtime.Leaders have worked hard to ensure that curriculum leaders know how to plan their subjects well. Curriculum leaders have used this knowledge to design a curriculum that is ambitious for all pupils. This work has included setting out the essential information that leaders expect pupils to know and remember. Teachers present this information in a logical order. For instance, in geography, children in the early years start to draw simple maps. This means they are ready to learn about more complex features of maps in Year 1.'
For more information, please read the full report below.
-
News from St. Oswald's CE Primary School
Tue 12 Apr 2022British Science Week 11th - 20th March 2022
The children had lots of fun participating in various exciting science experiments, investigations and activities. They watched a live show hosted by the Royal Institution in conjunction with the University of Worcester and Worcester Cathedral, which taught them how energy can be transferred. This was shown through some very engaging practical demonstrations. Key Stage 2 had the opportunity to carry out an experiment using sugar, warm water, dried yeast and a balloon. Incredibly, the reaction made the balloons inflate due to the release of carbon dioxide. In addition to this, the children worked scientifically and have created outdoor gyms!
A Day for Ukraine
Wednesday 16th March saw schools up and down the country spending time to show they stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. The children at St Oswald’s wrote really thoughtful messages of support and have made a wonderful display that has been attached to the fence at the front of the school. We are continuing to support the First News Ukraine Schools Appeal, organised in partnership with First News and the Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC).
World Book Day
What a fabulous day we all had! The theme of the day was ‘magic and mystery’ and throughout the day there were a lot of mysterious occurrences in classes. The children deduced from the clues left behind that the mayhem and mess left in their classes was caused by various book characters!
We also had a visit from the author Andrew Powell-Thomas whose inspiring workshops not only developed a further interest and love of reading but as a result, the children created
some super poems. Andrew was so impressed with our children that he emailed us to pass on his thanks and wrote,
“ I get to visit a lot of schools, but hand on heart, they were an absolute delight and a real credit to the school. Friendly, enthusiastic and articulate - it’s just a shame I couldn’t spend a whole day with each year group! They were amazing.”
We are super proud of our children who continue to demonstrate our school values. A huge thank you to all the staff for organising such a memorable day developing reading skills.
-
Learning about Communion at Broadheath Primary School
Fri 08 Apr 2022As part of our RE work at Broadheath, Owl Class enjoyed a special session with Kalantha learning about Communion. She explained what happened in the service and the meaning of each part. We had the opportunity to ask questions and to try the bread.
Thank you to Kalantha!
-
The Commonwealth Connections Programme at Netherton CE Primary
Fri 08 Apr 2022Netherton CE Primary School has been chosen as a Commonwealth school as part of the Commonwealth Connections Programme. We have been paired with a school in Sri Lanka. On Tuesday 8th February we were invited to the media launch at Thorns Academy. This saw the children meeting the other schools in the project, taking part in several team building and leadership activities and being interviewed by both the BBC and ITV news. The YST athletes Tom and Liz lead several activities with the children where they had to interact with pupils from various other schools. They conducted themselves with the utmost maturity, showing all of our school values through their conduct and personalities. One of the highlights of the day was meeting Perry the mascot and also being part of the live link up with our school in Sri Lanka. The next phase of the programme involves us planning and setting up our own festival to run alongside the Commonwealth games, creating an after school club to learn the national game of Sri Lanka; Volley ball and finally learning a dance with a professional dancer who will be spending 6 weeks in school working with the chosen children. This will then be performed at the same time as the school in Sri Lanka as a celebration of the two cultures. There is also an art project that will run concurrent with this. Children will create a large-scale anchor and chain [the anchor for the Titanic was produced in Netherton] to show Sri Lanka what the area around our school is well known for. The anchor will be made from reclaimed materials to show that the children are becoming more aware of sustainability and the role they have in climate change.
-
British Science Week at St. Barnabas CE First and Middle School
Fri 08 Apr 2022St. Barnabas CE First and Middle School St Barnabas CE First & Middle School took part in the British Science Week between Monday 14th March and Monday 21st March. Each group took part in a different activity linked to this year’s theme: ‘Growth’. Activities included gardening, making slime, discovering about the brain and illusions and life on Mars. Year 7 took part in a live lesson hosted by Worcester University and took part in different practical activities. Each teacher looked out for students who showed excellent science and enquiry skills and these students were awarded certificates in the celebration assembly at the end of the week. As well as this, we held a poster competition linked to the theme of ‘Growth’. Two children from each class were selected for their amazing posters and they were given an award at the end of the week. These posters will also be submitted into the national British Science Week poster competition. On Monday 21st March we were visited by the Science Education Group. Years 4, 5 and 7 took part in a science workshop about Space in which they were able to explore the solar system through virtual reality headsets! This activity went down very well with the children! Thank you to the St Barnabas Friends group for helping with the Space workshop. Well done to the children of St Barnabas for your effort and enthusiasm during Science Week!