The Vision for children at Springwood Junior School

Vision

“Learning to think, thinking to learn”

Vision Statement

We believe children learn best when they learn from previous experience, applying knowledge gained to the solution of new problems and challenges. In discussion, children are reflective and evaluative about outcomes. The children show enthusiasm and are motivated by a rich and varied curriculum that stimulates all types of intelligences and learning styles.

We believe that children are challenged in their learning when they use thinking skills. They are encouraged to select and pursue a task, developing and extending their own ideas and acknowledging the need for a variety of appropriate problem solving strategies. Teachers and learners have high and ambitious expectations.

We believe children are motivated to learn when tasks have clear purpose, are interesting, relevant and varied. The children are active and are encouraged to take risks in exploring ideas. Opinions are valued and individual needs recognised. Achievement and effort receives much praise.

We believe that children can learn much from each other. They are given opportunities to cooperate in teams, sharing and developing expertise. They are encouraged to support and respect the opinions of others and to apply emotional intelligence to understand and empathise with other people.

In Springwood Junior School’s aim to develop learning and thinking we particularly value independence in children, teamwork, creativity and emotional intelligence.

In our vision for the future we would imagine our school to reflect this by:

Children working in teams, sometimes teacher selected, sometimes pupil, solving problems together.

Children working with others using independent learning skills to achieve their goals. High levels of reflective thinking, evaluation and decision making help pupils to make informed decision for future learning and to enable the children to follow creative pathways to new learning.

Teachers will be working with targeted children, individually in groups, with much independent work going on around them, with teaching assistants providing good points of contact for pupils. Teachers will do less whole class sessions, but may work with wider ranges of children than their own class.

Technology will be fully utilised with children holding conferences with children from other schools, engaging in remote learning from high quality internet sites and in accessing relevant and stimulating resources. Some groups of children may be using remote equipment to send information back to the main school site eg live streaming video of a school trip.

Teachers will be learning alongside children, accessing resource and information from a rich cache of sites.

Confidence levels will be high and children readily able to explain what they are doing and why. They will be on task, motivated and receptive to new ideas and challenges. They will understand their own learning needs and will be comfortable with this. They will be happy to take risks and be creative in their approach to school work and life.

School improvement in the future at Springwood Junior School will take place in the following way:

Our vision will light the path

Our core values will drive what we do

Our evaluation of projects and actions will shape the path

Our action research will provide evidence for improvement

Our creativity will enable new directions and opportunities to be taken

Our teamwork will ensure we all go forward together

Our emotional intelligence will allow us to reflect on what part as individuals we play and to reflect on our own contributions

Our leadership will allow growth and development of all and will apply to all levels