Ribbleton Avenue Methodist Junior School

Impact of Actions taken

Following an extensive curriculum review, school is currently in the process of designing our own curriculum that focuses on meeting the individual needs of our Ribbleton community.  Primarily our new curriculum focuses on being good at the basic skills every child needs to have academic success.  On top of this we have embedded our school values alongside the British Values and embedded lots of experiential learning opportunities.  Much of the process we went through followed a series of reflection and a strong foundation of ‘intent’ on which to build our own unique curriculum.  (See Curriculum Overview TAB)

School are in the process of developing our own assessment system to run alongside our new curriculum however at present the assessment system used allows school to identify and meet the needs of the most vulnerable pupils.  School are effective at identifying and supporting the needs of children with additional needs and first and foremost, school must ensure our children are emotionally ‘school ready.’  This is supported by the additional support available to every child and runs alongside the quality first teaching that underpins all aspects of our new curriculum.  Where children need additional support, access to the Hub is provided where their social and emotional, needs are met through an academic approach linking learning and nurture together. 

Every class has additional support staff to support the needs of 35 children in each class.  Where possible, class sizes are reduced, using the support of additional teachers and HLTA staff.  Every year group has this opportunity available to reduce the class sizes where appropriate and this helps maintain the wellbeing for across school. 

Whilst attainment and progress are ongoing areas for development across school, primarily our school children are experiencing a wide range of additional and sometimes complex needs that come with living in an area of low aspiration and economic deprivation, with most of our school community living in E/E* Banding of deprivation.

Knowing our children well is paramount to ensuring their success and working through their issues alongside them in a positive way supports them in making the right choices that will in turn, support them in their future.  Wellbeing and mental health is a key focus for our school (See Website), and as a school we enjoy Wellbeing Days where we share ways to support positive  mental health and wellbeing ideas with the children and the wider community, where we are often experiencing poor mental health of both parents and children; some of which has recently resulted in 4 suicides of parents and siblings in the space of 8 weeks. (See Appendix 4-Wellbeing Report)

This combined with the increase in gang and violent crime in the area has had a significant impact on the school community as a whole which is why, whilst we recognise that academic success is important, we do not believe in gaining results based on practices that are detrimental to our children, who need to feel safe and happy at school when the world around them is often extremely chaotic.

One of the great attributes of our school community is the ‘Championing’ of children; being the champion they need and deserve.  The school culture is one of determination and resilience.  We have worked hard to introduce new learning opportunities that will support our children to ‘flourish.’  these have included:

• Theatre experiences
• Dedicated ICT teaching with a specialist teacher and a significant commitment to improve the ICT resources throughout school
• Dedicated sports coaching to provide high quality sports lessons daily.  Alongside this, our coach is also available at lunchtimes and provides sports coaching for children who wish to access it during their lunch time.  We are also providing this provision to our school community and have a Monday sports session for our Toddlers and their parents.
• Dedicated Music teacher

In order to truly flourish, our children also need opportunities to give back to their local community, so activities are provided to support our children in making the difference in the world around them.  These opportunities include:

• Carol singing at Morrisons / local nursing home / Local retail park
• Decorating school with Poppies and sharing a special mention to every soldier from the Ribbleton area who died in both WW1 and WW2

• Cards of Kindness (cards sent to people who may be elderly and alone) Over 300 cards were sent in 2018/2019 and here is one of the responses we received:

“To whomever it may best concern,

I want to thank you so very much for the lovely festive greetings card I received from your scholars. It was beautifully written, and the words were so kind. It was addressed thusly; "To Somebody Special" and gave me such a warm glow.

What many do not realise it that many of us have lost love ones at this time of year.

Thank you for enabling this initiative which has warmed hearts and made minds glad. That is the very best we can do in this life.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Contented and Productive New Year, you are all Somebody Special.

If nothing else I wanted to share.  Have a wonderful Christmas and the Happiest of New Years!”

Thank you for enabling this initiative which has warmed hearts and made minds glad. That is the very best we can do in this life.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Contented and Productive New Year, you are all Somebody Special.

If nothing else I wanted to share.  Have a wonderful Christmas and the Happiest of New Years!”

At Ribbleton we want our children to thrive and flourish and believe whole heartedly that by giving back to our local community, we are making the world a better place.  We were delighted when we finished our Community Garden which has been so well received by our local families and local community.  By taking an unloved space and make it beautiful we have been able to look at not only the impact of a transformation such as this on our community but also in an environmental capacity with the increase of wildlife activity which has been linked back to our learning throughout school.

Covid Reflections

Due to the limitations Covid has had on normal life, school have had to find alternative ways to provide exciting learning opportunities.  Much of this, during lockdown, was brought about through the use of our SEESAW App on which learning for children was set.  Through this platform, school staff provided a variety of learning experiences, including fun activities to complete at home, that could provide some experiential learning.  With walking being an allowed activity, children were encouraged to explore their local environment.  One of the ways we encouraged this was by asking the children to share NHS rainbows in their windows so that children in school could go on a rainbow hunt around Ribbleton.

As we recognised that many children would not be able to attend a firework display, Mrs Childs videoed a local firework display to share with the children, which delighted so many of them as they were able to watch the display from home.

Whilst children in the Key Worker provision, attended school, we linked up with MAD SCIENCE to undertake weekly science lessons, and our teachers and support staff, across both sites, taught the children new skills such as Macramé/Knitting/Den building/Gardening.

As we have returned to school, we have ensured that visitors can come into school.  We have already welcomed the Science team into school and teachers are planning local trips to the beach/forests to provide a different type of experience for the school community.

We are providing a significant subsidy to pay for the Y6 residential trip to ensure that as many children can attend as possible, and for those who wish not to go (through personal choice) we are providing outdoor learning activities such as building campfire and cooking on open flames as led by our Teaching Assistant who has completed his Level 3 in Outdoor Education.

Next steps:

• Continue with the development of our new curriculum
• Look for further experiential learning opportunities
• Continue to raise our school profile in a positive way based on the ways we ‘do all we can’ for our school and our wider school community