Marks Gate Junior School

Marks Gate Junior School is a special place full of learning, laughter and friendship and where children are happy, feel safe and are valued.At Marks Gate Junior School, we aim to provide the best possible education in a stimulating and creative environment. The school develops a love for learning inspired by high-quality teaching and developing and building upon individual strengths and talents. We expect all children in our school to reach age-related levels, in line with national expectations, as a minimum and work hard to ensure barriers to learning are removed so that every child reaches their full potential.

Children educated at Marks Gate should be curious, committed and confident. We encourage a positive partnership between pupils, home, school and the wider community. The school values and has a strong relationship with its community. The children in our care develop into individuals who are honourable and fair; they are persevering and will lead happy and rewarding lives.

At Marks Gate Junior School we use the Success For All Literacy strategy.Success For All is a whole school improvement strategy focused on consistent, dynamic and exciting teaching and learning of literacy. All learning in literacy lessons is done cooperatively meaning children work in teams of four, or with a partner, to discuss and explore their ideas.

Pupils are grouped into classes according to their stage of learning in reading comprehension. This allows children to receive the teaching and learning they need at the appropriate level and with the correct amount of challenge needed to enable them to make accelerated progress.

Success for All is one of only 19 programmes across the world identified by Graham Allen in a significant HMI Report that is 'proven to work'. It is built on forty years of research into the psychology of learning and has been successful in improving the learning outcomes for children across the world.

Children are assessed regularly after eight week cycles of instruction and then regrouped to ensure they make rapid progression towards their Age Related Expectations and beyond. It is our aim at Marks Gate to ensure all children love literacy, experience working collaboratively and build their confidence, understanding and ability when reading and writing.

At Marks Gate Junior School we use the Abacus Maths Scheme. Abacus is a unique maths toolkit that’s carefully crafted to help teachers inspire a genuine love of maths and help every child master mathematical concepts.It is built on research into successful teaching in the UK by a team of expert authors and teaching practitioners to help teachers ensure mastery of skills for all. We use Assessment resources and tools to help us to track children’s attainment and their progress towards Age Related Expectations. We aim to instill confidence and ensure understanding and progression for every child.

Our Special Educational Needs co-ordinator for the Infant School is Ruth Lansdowne and for the Junior School is Ruth Mercer. Both are Na SENCo accredited.Governors with responsibility for SEND are Pauline Wincott for the Infant School and Kim Rohm for the Junior School.Every pupil at Marks Gate has the opportunity to follow all National Curriculum subjects.We are committed to narrowing the attainment gap between SEND and non-SEND pupils. We do this through a variety of different provisions which may include after school interventions, short-term specific interventions, home-school interventions and other learning interventions developed on an individual needs basis.

Our school council provides an opportunity for children to have a voice and understand that their opinions matter.It also provides a basis for active learning of life skills such as speaking and listening, problem solving and encourages them to voice an opinion and express their feelings about issues. At the start of the year, each class is asked for a class representative for the school council. Children can give a short speech to explain why and how they would best represent their class. The class votes and the child is chosen.

The representatives from each class form the school council. The school council meet once a term to discuss issues raised by the children in their classrooms.The school council discuss these issues and try to come to an agreement of what can be carried to solve these issues.

In accordance with The Department for Education we aim to actively promote British values in schools to ensure young people leave school prepared for life in modern Britain. Pupils are encouraged to regard people of all faiths, races and cultures with respect and tolerance and understand that while different people may hold different views about what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, all people living in England are subject to its law.

Digital leaders are pupil monitors for the technology that is used in schools. They are children who are interested, enthusiastic and after training they are knowledgeable! They demonstrate good behaviour with technology, support teachers and are able to develop their own skills.