working together to build term 2 2015 a successful future
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Term 2 2015
PE and Junior Sports League: Success for Hornbill:
Last term’s focus on athletic activities finished off with two highly successful Sports Days
one of which was held at a new venue, the AAC Stadium in Seria. This move was hugely
popular with children and parents and will continue in the future.
This term children in LearningPhase 2 are focusing on swimming and dance while
Learning Phase 3 are participating in swimming, over the net games, and preparing for
Panaga and JSL football tournaments.
Our swimming programme continues to be as strong as ever with all Years swimming
apart from FS1, who will swimming throughout Term 3. We have taken over life guarding
responsibilies ourselves to enable our swimming programme to continue because of a
lack of qualified life guards being provided by the Garrison. This makes it all the more
important that we provide adequate time for on-going training for our staff.
Identified children are being offered additional support in ball skills and basic body
management in 20 minute sessions at the end of the day. We are aiming to extend this
by developing a basic skills booklet which can be used at home by parents to help them
become more involved in developing these skills which transcend into the classroom eg
developing handwriting.
Competitive opportunities
62 children participated in the JSL athletic championships bringing home 72 ribbons – an
excellent achievement considering we are the smallest school in the League.
In February, 14 of our younger swimmers participated in the Brunei 7-9 Age
Championships at Berakus. The children had a great competitive experience, being the
only school entered amongst 5 established Bruneian swimming clubs.
The term will finish off in a blaze of internal and external competitive events;
Panaga football tournament – 11 teams entered from Years 1-6.School swimming
gala, years 4, 5 and 6.
JSL football tournament.
Years 5 and 6 badminton tournament followed by a staff one.
A number of staff continue to give up their free time at the weekends and after school to
enable our children to participate in these opportunities.
‘Flying High’
Working Together to Build
a Successful Future for All
The ICT Team continues to work well as
part of a team to maintain high standards
in all areas of ICT, Computing and
Information Systems across the
school. Freddy and Shanti ensure that
every item linked to ICT is fully
maintained and ready to use by teachers
and pupils. Quick problem fixing and
troubleshooting is key to this
success. The ICT Team have started to
prepare for the introduction of high Speed
Fibre Optic Broadband in Brunei. The
aim is to have two high speed lines that
are filtered out across the school
through the existing firewall to increase
the internet speed. The ICT Leader
will be attending the FORBISIA JAWS
event in Singapore on 27th and 28th
February where he will be presenting on
how we use iPads at Hornbill and specific
information about Pic Collage and how it
can be used across the curriculum to
enhance teaching and learning.
Computing at Hornbill continues to go
from strength to strength through the
outstanding leadership shown by the
Computing Leader. The Computing
leader has planned a series of lessons
where he is able to teach across the
whole school to promote technology
within the curriculum. As well as
providing technological stimulus in a
range of subject areas, it also creates
amazing professional development
opportunities for all staff to develop their
skills and confidence. Sessions have
included, Coding in Year 1 and 2 with the
aim to program a character to tell the
user some interesting facts from their
Theme. Using Augmented Reality
app Starz in Year 3 as a stimulus
for writing a newspaper report
and children to create their own
news shows using iMovie. These
sessions have been well received
by staff and pupils alike.
Children in Year 5 have had the
opportunity to use Google Sketch up on
the iMacs and Computer Aided Design
(CAD) to design a new home for a
character in their class book. The ICT
Suite and PCs continue their popularity
with a wide range of programs being
taught.
The Year 5 blog:
www.year51415.blogspot.com
is a show case of some of the great work
that is carried out in Year 5. Recent
posts include Mystery Skype, Year 5
Comic and Google SketchUp. The blog
has attracted an audience from over 27
different countries and is regularly viewed
by children and parents.
Development points include,
Extending the technology through the
curriculum lessons to Learning Phase 3.
Assessment and moderation of
standards
RE continues to be taught as its own subject and is
also effectively delivered through the celebration of
Hindu and Christian events within the school and
the community. These celebrations develop the
children’s knowledge of important religious events,
whilst also offering opportunities for all children to
share such festivities, and times for reflection,
together as a school and also as a Garrison
community.
Tihar was celebrated with a week of activities which
included visits to the Temple, the creation of kites,
lamps and rangoli patterns and the preparation and
sharing of delicious Nepali food.
In November, Year 6 created an opportunity for
whole school reflection through their annual
Remembrance Assembly. This incorporated a
bilingual service and prayers, for those who have
fought in war and for those who continue to do so
in the present day. Representatives from Year 6
also attended the Garrison Remembrance service
at St Margaret’s Church in Seria.
In December, festive spirits ran high at
Hornbill with Nativity plays, Christmas
concerts and a special visit by Padre
Duncan who shared the story of
Christmas with the children. Children
from across the school also attended the
Garrison Carol Service at St Margaret’s
Church in Seria with their families.
This term, Shrove Tuesday was
celebrated with pancakes made at
school by the staff from the Garrison
Cookhouse. The significance of this
important day and of the Christian
season of Lent was then shared in
classrooms, with children making Lent
promises and learning about the story of
Jesus’ time in the desert.
In March, Easter celebrations
began with a visit by the Padre, who
visited classes to talk about the
importance of Easter in the Christian
calendar. Easter activities took place
across the school to enable children to
engage with this festival, its meaning
and importance for Christians.
Three basic rules have been established to help promote
high quality dialogue:
Comment on the point and not the person
Give justified reasons for what we say
Follow on from what has just been said
Following a very successful Staff INSET on developing
philosophical enquiry in the classroom, P4C will be deeply
imbedded in the upcoming art competition THIS IS ART.
This will be a whole school competition in conjunction with
our school arts specialist, Miss Sarah Woodey.
Philosophy 4 Children has been imbedded into the KS2
termly planning to enable children to contribute their
intellectual ideologies, articulated opinions and further
develop their use of emotive language.
Upper keys stages 2 children are making great gains within
philosophy sessions and are very keen to continue
discussions well after the lesson has finished. This has
provided an opportunity to create open discussion forums
on the VLE, allowing pupils to express their thoughts in a
safe, secure and respected environment.
An audit, based on the Healthy School’s Agenda,
has been undertaken. The school meets or
exceeds all the relevant criteria. To further develop
Health and Wellbeing, a number of initiatives have
been introduced – these include embedding key
rights respecting Schools values within the
assembly programme.
An audit highlighted an increased
awareness of these. To promote
children’s safety, the RMPs delivered
very successful road safety workshops
across the school. To enhance staff
wellbeing, two CPD / staff meetings
have been arranged. In addition new
materials for Sex Education are in the
process of being ordered.
Rajesh Thapa and Joanna Brown
attended an SCE EAL conference
in Germany in February at which
they presented a workshop
entitled 'Are your EAL
learners really ready to
write?' to two sets of
participants. feedback
suggested that participants
found this very useful. In
March they will also present
this to an audience of 80
teachers in Ho Chi Minh as part
of Hornbill School's sharing of
skills within FOBISIA.
During January and
February staff have
undertaken two
professional development
sessions relating to
provision for the many EAL
learners at Hornbill
School. In the first of
these sessions, staff were
encouraged to consider the
extent to which they
pre-think the language that
learners encounter. Through
a range of directed tasks,
staff considered ways in
which to ensure learner
confidence when
encountering language
through listening, speaking,
reading and writing.
The importance of learner
confidence prior to an
expectation for language
production (speaking or
writing) was emphasised. In
the second session, staff
were given time to
actively pre-think the
language that learners
will encounter in
upcoming lessons and
themes. Staff used this
time to create language
resources and models
of language to support
learners. The importance of
all members of the school
(learners, teachers and
support staff) actively
engaging in 'noticing'
language was reiterated, as
it is only through noticing
language to remodel, recast
and recycle that we enable
learners to avoid fossilisation
of errors.
To date there are 14 playground leaders operative in the
school. Their activities are spread across several areas
including speedminton, table games, skipping, handball,
frisby and story-telling. There is one activity on per break
time and this is covered by one to two PGLs at a
time. There is also a PGL assigned to the equipment
shed each break. We are currently focused on getting
the handball tournament off the ground and this should
be up and running in early March.
The PGL team will also be helping out in
reading week where we will be directing
most of our resources to the library to read
a different story sack each break
time. Moving forward I expect to begin
setting a specific activity, table game and
schedule of stories to go with the regular
rota. This will be promoted through phase
assemblies and advertised around the
equipment shed.
This term we have celebrated
the launch of the new Art Blog.
This is available to all children
and parents from Year 1 to
Year 6. It is a great way for
children to share and discuss
their artwork with each other.
Year 5 and Year 6 have been
learning how to make their
own posts and comments on
this site.
Photographs of children’s work
and the process they have
taken is regularly uploaded
from their IPAD’s using the
camera and Apps such as Pic
Collage. This has enabled
children to demonstrate their
skills and celebrate their work
with parents at home, as well
as their teachers and school
friends.
We have also been taking part in a couple
of very exciting art competitions. The first is
the mini golf course competition that the
Garrison is planning on building, based on
the children’s creative designs; including
loch ness monsters, scorpions and even
crocodile mouths! The second competition
was run by ICON Design store, Gadong
and was open to all schools throughout
Brunei up to the age of 18. Children have
been exploring different chair designs and
purposes to plan their own chair proposal.
The children have generated some very
unique and useful creations ranging from a
bouncy Jellyfish chair to a hanging coconut
to the ultimate ICT incorporated
entertainment chair. Unfortunately, the
winner will not be announced until April, but
we all have our fingers crossed for a
Hornbill design to be made and sold in a
store near you!
Please log on and view Hornbill’s latest art
projects at our latest blog site: http://
hornbillschoolart.blogspot.com
Data mining and scrutiny shows that
progress in phonics in both Phases is
consistently rapid and sustained. Phonics
resources will be reviewed and those which
are popular and regularly used by
large numbers
of children will be
reordered where possible. By the end
of this academic year, the phonics team will
have re-established and re-embedded the
Hornbill culture of daily high quality phonics
teaching being delivered in Phases 1 and 2.
This culture will result in ensuring phonics
test results will remain high, and, more
importantly, pupils who have internalised
the knowledge given to them through high
quality phonics teaching will have the
confidence and skills to continue to use
them both in their reading and writing.
The Phonics team are continuing to raise
standards in phonics across Learning
Phases 1 and 2 through monitoring of
frequency, holistic planning and meaningful
embedded practice. Daily quality first
teaching has provided a strong foundation to
the pursuit of effective phonics teaching. An
attitude of positivity, success and enjoyment
has been fostered around the teaching of
phonics through a variety of mediums
including interactive software, games,
writing and speaking and listening.
Terms 1 and 2 have seen the observation,
training and mentoring of new staff in teaching
phonics to ensure cross-phase continuity,
together with collating and analysing of data
from both Phases to monitor teaching and
learning. Both teaching and support staff have
been given the opportunity and indeed have
taken the chance to observe phonics
specialists teaching phonics, providing
numerous opportunities for
mentoring,
training,
and
modelling.
This has led
to an
observable
difference in
the frequency
of specific
examples
extended writing and examples of
extended writing in other subjects.
We had a very successful Hot
Chocolate and Story day which
the children thoroughly enjoyed
and members of the SLT made
themselves available to engage
in story telling sessions which
were very well received. As a
school we have also taken part in the Reading Force initiative for the first time
and received the accolade of being the best participating school. Over 50
children contributed scrapbooks and we had many prize winners and their work has featured on the Reading
Force website and Facebook pages. We are also about to feature in their latest newsletter. Every child
who took part was sent a high quality book and their feedback afterwards was very positive. Following on
from the success of this we have opted to take part in the Reading Force Little Ones scheme and FS1 and 2
will be offered the opportunity to take part in this over the upcoming Easter holidays. The rest of the school
will take part again in October.
The English team are continuing to raise standards across the whole of phase 1 and 2 in writing and reading
through careful, targeted planning and meaningful practice. There have been regular book looks,
moderation sessions, drop in observations and learning walks which have helped to highlight all of the
wonderful practise taking place within our school and also
ensure that we gain an understanding of what our next steps
need to be.
Following on from INSET training in October and a learning
walk during the same month it was established that maybe
more attention in our classrooms could be turned to highlighting
the importance of reading as a fun and purposeful activity.
Current reading areas were audited and staff have been asked to
think of ways to create a reading rich environment. Many staff
have already risen to this challenge and thought about the
ways in which they present books and reading to their classes.
Children’s perceptions of reading both in school and at home were investigated in November and this highlighted
some key areas for development. The children on the whole loved reading and actually just wanted access to
more – even the older children would love the opportunity to share books on a more regular basis through
having a ‘story time’. They gave great ideas for raising the profile of reading many of which will be put into
practice during the remainder of this academic year. The major point they raised was that they didn’t feel that
they were read to enough at home and that they felt something could be done to ‘educate’ their parents. We
have therefore planned another FLP to try and share with as many parents as possible the benefits of reading
with your child and offering them strategies to help them. During term 1 the parents from Years 1-6 have had
the opportunity to attend a
Reading and Spelling workshop
and various FLP’s have been
provided for FS1 and 2 parents.
This has led to an observable difference in the frequency of specific examples extended writing and
examples of extended writing in other subjects. The quality and quantity of writing produced has
continued to accelerate into Term 2.
Book looks, diagnostic learning walks, drop ins and Pupil Voice shows clear and unambiguous
evidence that: teachers are fully engaged in the process of providing precise feedback which helps
form clear pathways for progress; pupils are fully engaged in the process of self- assessment; the
process is being used to form evidential next steps. Pupils can discuss learning analytically, know
and understand their targets and can communicate their individual next step.
Further moderation by the English team has shown that Level integrity is robust and a shared clarity
of understanding of levelness is consistent across the school. Significant steps have been taken to
establish an effective Hornbill assessment system which will support the delivery of the new
National Curriculum. Data mining and data scrutiny shows that progress in writing across both
Phases is consistently rapid and sustained.
At this point in the academic year, the English team have established and embedded a ‘culture of
writing’ across Learning Phases 2 and 3. This culture has supported the development of writing and
has had a measurable effect on levels of achievement in writing.
The English team are continuing to raise standards in writing across
Learning Phases 2 and 3 through increased frequency, holistic
planning and meaningful embedded practice.
Quality first teaching has provided a strong foundation to the pursuit
of writing as an activity of purpose and value in its own right. An
attitude of positivity, success and enjoyment has been fostered
around the act of writing.
Term 2 has seen a high priority and continuing focus on the
teaching and learning of writing. A writing task, linked to the
Quality Text studied in each and embedded in medium and short
term planning, is carried out on a weekly basis. Expectations and
clear pathways have now been established and embedded in
the pedagogy of all teaching staff. Stakeholders are clear that
this act of extended writing is the culmination of a week’s English
Planning and that writing is discrete and takes place in Extended Writing books.
The ‘Maths is
Fun’ culture
remains at the forefront of
children’s learning. As part of this we have teamed up with
FOBISEA and joined an online mathematics competition
which will run alongside schools from all over Asia; children
will compete against schools in China, Vietnam, Singapore
and Thialand to name a few!
To sustain our children’s excitement about maths,
we continue to provide fun activities such as
fortnightly maths competitions and times table
promotions – we thank Hornbill Helping Hands for
providing the prizes for these. Our ‘online’ packages
such as Education City, our VLE and our website
provide a wide range of maths based activities for
children to enjoy; all of which help their learning!
High quality teaching and learning continues to engage
and inspire our children within mathematics. Children
demonstrate positive learning behaviours and show that
they are able to talk effectively about the strategies that
they were using within lessons – great reflective
learning!
Since the last curriculum update there have been two
Family Learning Programmes which were well
supported by our parents. These offered parents an
opportunity to interact with staff, who demonstrated a
range of year group specific strategies that are used
at Hornbill. Parents left feeling more confident and
knowledgeable and felt better informed on how to
support their children at home. Feedback forms from
parents were very positive and welcomed more
sessions in the future, which are already planned in.
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