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.