Diary Entry - November

HMIs

On Monday 2nd November I had arranged a meeting to discuss our introductory video with the Head. We were in the middle of our discussion when Trevor received notification that Ofsted would be visiting that week! This meant that we had one day to sort out our film. Our IT team have been brilliant and have agreed to help video, edit and compose our story board ready to send off on Thursday. As we did not have the time we had hoped to prepare, we were all disappointed with the results.

On Thursday 5th, post-Ofsted, we held our second full team meeting and discussed progress and planning. We have spoken to a local company and have managed to get some carpet for the Year 8 crime scene in case of poor weather. We are extremely grateful to our team of lab technicians who have prepared the materials to be used in the project – especially Caroline Watts who went out of her way to get gloves and overshoes for all Year 8 students to reduce the muddiness of the digging activity. 

We have extended our Coaching programme to include English teachers who are supporting the project. In particular I have been working with a Year 12 teacher and a Year 7/8 teacher. Both will help to support the project with creative writing opportunities. Moreover, I have found a forensic scientist who is involved with amateur dramatics so I’m keen to explore potential links here. More on this at a later stage.

On the 10th November, Matthew and Dominic introduced ‘Talking Bones’ to the rest of the Science staff. This meeting was invaluable and allowed teachers the opportunity to consider how to deliver the project and what best practice should be involved. Matthew and Dominic helped staff to consider how the lessons could be differentiated and how different teaching styles would be appropriate for different learners.

Chris delivered a fabulous assembly to all Year 8 pupils on Friday 13th. In fact, she was so convincing that two pupils were overheard discussing whether they should be the ones to dig up the bones that had been found on the school site! There was also much speculation about the teacher that had gone missing!

On Wednesday 18th Phil and Gary from Rolls-Royce visited Moulton. We spent the day filming and received valuable advice about our next recording. The question and answer session with the sixth form was excellent and I hope that we have recruited a couple more helpers.

On Friday 20th November, we begin to prepare the video of our team members. On Monday 23rd  November Chris and I will deliver some further training on how to be a successful coach to our team members. This will help to prepare Matthew, Dominic, Rosie and Adam to become successful coaches. Our Head of History and Maths have also asked if they can attend.

We continue to prepare for the 26th November when Ellie Backhouse will be in school. We have organised some digging, interviews with staff and pupils, and photo opportunities. At this point, we realised how important the issue of photo/video consent can be. When we checked our data sheets we were very surprised to see that a large number of parents had not checked the box that gave us permission to take photos. Rosie has since written to every Key Stage 3 parent explaining the project and, to date, has not received any letters to suggest that pupils cannot be filmed or videoed. This is something that we will continue to monitor.

On the 26th November I have a meeting with one of our local partner schools (Bishop Stopford.) We are aiming to share good practice on coaching and consider how to best  maximise teacher potential through non-judgemental reflective sessions.

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