1. The document outlines the vision and priorities for an assistant head at Newminster Middle School, focusing on curriculum development, teaching and learning, assessment, enrichment, and directed learning experiences (DLE). 2. Key goals include developing a school community centered around excellence in learning, reviewing curriculum maps, celebrating student work, using technology to reinforce learning, ensuring high expectations and progress for all students. 3. The assistant head will also focus on improving assessment practices, providing enrichment opportunities across subjects, and reviewing the school's DLE program to enhance impact and recognize student achievements.

1. Assistant Head
Newminster Middle School

2. Vision
• “Excellence as a habit”. A school community where outstanding learning
and teaching take place based around the 5Cs of Core
Purpose, Clarity, Coherence, Consistency and Community (from Alistair
Smith)
• Core Purpose – the main business of the school is to develop high quality
learning and maximise pupil achievement
• Clarity – do we know what great learning looks like?
• Coherence – features of outstanding learning and teaching are readily
understood, are integrated into planning and teaching and appear across the
school
• Consistency – outstanding learning and teaching is delivered daily through a
balance of support and challenge
• Community – collective commitment from all members of the school
community

3. Curriculum
• Leading curriculum innovation, sharing knowledge, good practice and skills
• Review of curriculum maps in all subjects, including provision for SMSC
• FROG subject pages reviewed. Recognition, encouragement and support
given to staff at all levels of expertise
• Use of social media to reinforce learning and support the curriculum, and
also used as another method of communication with pupils and parents
• Celebrating the curriculum. Use the school web pages and FROG pages to
develop galleries of pupil work – photos, samples of writing, audio & video.
Let the school community know how to see this -
newsletter, email, text, twitter...
• Step Up

4. Teaching & Learning
• Teachers have high expectations of pupils at all levels
• Modules, units of work and lessons are planned to allow pupils to learn
through a variety of methods and teaching strategies
• Intervention has a notable impact on the quality of learning
• Reading, writing, communication and mathematical skills are taught across
the curriculum
• High quality marking and feedback ensures pupil progress
• Pupil progress is clear in every lesson
• Learning to learn
• John Turner model for improving learning and teaching
• New technologies used effectively and appropriately

5. Learning to learn
• Resilient (self-disciplined, stick with things, avoid distraction and
temptation, defer gratification and bounce back after disappointment)
• Resourceful (take initiative and be inventive in solving ones’own problems)
• Reflective (thinking back over experiences and learning from them)
• Reciprocal (be co-operative, mutual and inter-dependent)
• Responsive (to adapt, to adjust to changing circumstances, a desire to grow)

6. Assessment
• Assessment should be purposeful, linking curricular levels with targets. It
should provide information for student groupings, generate data for reporting
and evaluation, provide a measure of the impact of teaching, provide a
framework for discussions about improvement and help to predict future
performance
• Review assessment practices with subject leaders. Focus on effective
feedback – do pupils know what the must do to make progress?
• Have clear success criteria
• Use a range of assessment techniques – teacher led, peer led, self, parent
led. Assessment should be appropriate to the subject.
• Encourage the idea of “Try, fail, try again, fail better...” Show pupils Ron
Berger’s butterfly video
• Work with the data manager to ensure that data is collected effectively and
securely

7. Enrichment
• Continue the excellent work done to support and promote NSEW, Climate
Crew, sports and other extra curricular activities and clubs
• Encourage all staff to look for opportunities to provide enrichment activities
across the curriculum, linking curriculum areas for visits or with visiting
speakers
• Developing links with other classrooms locally, nationally and globally
• Effective use of new technologies to enrich and enhance learning

8. DLE
• DLE – review of DLE provision in KS2 and KS3. Look at core purpose with Year
Leaders, then consultation with DLE teachers.
• What should great DLE look like?
• How can we assess the impact of DLE?
• Use of FROG blogs and walls to develop conversations between pupils about
what happens on Friday afternoons
• Recognising pupils achievement in DLE. In the past we have had a 1st Aid
course which led to an assessment and certificate for successful pupils (and a
life saved). Could we introduce more ideas like this, building a portfolio of
pupil achievements?
• Parental involvement – how many parents know how great DLE can be? Can
we use social media (Twitter, Facebook) to let them know?
• Community involvement – resourceful parents may be willing to give up an
hour to talk to a group of pupils about their job, to link to Y8 careers, perhaps
with Northumberland Education Business Partnership, the Real Game,
Enterprise days or the Global Entrepreneurship Week (Nov 2013)