Rationale
We firmly believe that good teaching enables good learning and progress for all children at Parklands Primary School. In our inclusive learning community, both staff and children know what good learning looks like. We aim for our children to set high expectations of themselves so that they know how well they are doing and how to improve.

This rationale is encompassed in the school’s mission statement:

Children are at the heart of our school… a happy and secure community where staff, families and partners work together to ensure that there are high expectations of learning and achievement for all.

Aims
This policy will set out teaching and learning statements for both teachers and learners.
It will describe what good learning looks like at in our school.
It will outline how the learning and teaching environments will develop.

As teachers we will…

• Plan carefully for all groups and individual needs
• Deliver purposeful lessons linking them to real life situations and problems where we can
• Build on links with other subjects
• Include open-ended questions and challenges in our lessons
• Check on what you already know and help you to learn more
• Deliver your lessons with pace and challenge
• Share the next steps of learning with you
• Share with you what you are going to learn and how you will know if you’re successful
• Expect you to work hard and do your best
• Assess your learning every day and use this to help you to move on to the next stage
• Make sure that in our lessons we use different methods to help you learn
• Work closely with other adults to help you in your learning
• Try to make lessons interesting and exciting
• Talk to you about your learning and progress in different subjects
• set challenging targets for you

As learners we will…

• Participate in paired talk
• Stay on task
• Follow classroom rules, rewards and sanctions
• Complete homework on time
• Read teacher’s comments and take note of these
• Take responsibility for our own work
• Make sure we do good sitting, listening and looking
• Feel confident to ask for help
• Fnow that we can learn from mistakes
• Help others if needed
• Know what are targets are

Good learning at our school looks and feels like…

The teachers thought that there is:
Effort
Buzz
Active learning
Talking
Listening

Explain back to me what is going on
They want to do it again
They are on task
Say “I love being in this class”
Talk to their friends about learning in a positive way
Can explain to me what’s been going on
Are enthusiastic about when the next lesson will be

And that learners:

want to please… are happy… want to stay and do more… smile… have skills… are involved… relate learning to their own life… some watch at a distance and then join in through choice… are keen to share… like working in a team… are willing to take on a challenge.

The children tell us that:
They can ask teachers for help
PE and swimming is great learning as it’s good exercise
Noisy learning is the best
Having fun helps learning
Many like their Maths and writing work
Knowing their targets helps learning
Homework can help stuff in class get easier

The learning environment will develop by:

Improving the range, quality and number of learning opportunities through:

• Relating to class work to real life
• Cross subject understanding
• Providing stimulating and inspiring topics and projects

At home with parents and families including:

• Setting and marking homework
• Termly newsletter
• Parents evenings with information about targets and levels
• Family learning sessions

Through our displays including:

• Working walls for Maths and Literacy in each classroom
• Displays around school

Through learning first hand from visits and visitors including:

• A visit or visitor as a stimulus for each new topic
• An emphasis on research and investigation

Through paired and group work including:

• links between year groups for reading and writing
• talk partners for reviewing our work
• reading with Reading Volunteers

Through planning and assessing learning opportunities including:

• Learning opportunities and success criteria clearly identified on planning
• Evidence of continuous assessment taking place during lessons and informing planning: use of white boards, informal checking of learning, discussions with pupils
• Setting individual targets and reviewing them regularly
• Identification of next steps for learning and discussion with children
• Marking for learning-comments indicate what is required next
• Time for reflection and discussion of learning strategies
• Talking learning on a regular basis

Through creativity, drama and self-expression including:

• Role play
• Visual and expressive arts

Through the use of ICT including:

• The use of technologies in every classroom especially computers and interactive white boards
• The use of PCs in the ICT suite

• Find Your Talent clubs and activities
• School trips
• Children’s University (from 2010) to raise ambition and develop life long learning
• Sporting activities and clubs which help develop social skills and encourage fitness and healthy life styles and well-being
• Language club
• Music and drama clubs
• Choir
• Sports teams and competitions

The teaching environment will develop by:

Improving the quality of and opportunities for teaching through:

• Providing support for teachers to meet their performance management objectives-INSET courses; provision of resources; advice from colleagues; PPA time
• Providing CPD opportunities-in-house; from the L.A; from external providers
• Ensuring the necessary resources are readily available-to support classroom management; to support independent learning; to support planning and preparation; to support the assessment process
• Protecting and valuing the work-life balance of teachers-monitoring of number and duration of meetings; use of ICT to reduce workload
• Ensuring that PPA takes place
• Ensuring that quality cover is provided so that teachers can attend CPD activities and have their PPA time
• Providing an exciting and stimulating curriculum plan-develop the curriculum plan in consultation with teachers; develop ways of sharing expertise between staff
• Requesting only necessary planning-have advice and support from subject leaders and Leeds Challenge consultants; have agreed proformas saved on the shared network
• Ensuring that additional adult support is available when necessary-through the effective deployment of TAs; HLTA and Learning Mentors; through the use of volunteers