Outstanding schools: Jeavons Wood Primary

For children at Jeavons Wood Primary School there are plenty of incentives to wander beyond the restrictions of the classroom, and no shortage of opportunities to do so. Jacob Stow remains steadfastly shackled to his keyboard to tell you more...

It was so nearly a major incident, and the headlines would have made grim reading for Jeavons Wood. “We brought in our toys and they went missing,” six- year-old Indy tells us, the experience – surely every child’s worst nightmare – clearly still fresh in her memory.

“They were all in a basket,” seven-year-old Chloe explains. “The message said they would be back in the morning, but they weren’t. If the toys escaped, they would be killed!”

“Zurg took them,” Indy continues confidently, “but we got them back. There were emails from the toys, and we found clues. We searched the school and found them in the cupboard.”

Phew. Dig a little deeper, however, and you’ll soon discover that this is far from the only time pupils at this Cambridgeshire primary school have had a shock in recent years: there was the time Doctor Who emerged from a TARDIS thought to be entirely Time Lord-free, the time they had a real – they think – visit to the Arctic sprung on them at short notice, and the time the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun, no less, appeared in school without any warning whatsoever. To their credit, those we spoke to seem to be taking all of the above very much in their stride…

The unmistakable enthusiasm Indy, Chloe and their peers have for their learning, and the creative opportunities that have inspired it, is an abiding memory from TP’s visit to Jeavons Wood, but there are others, too. A young school – its Year 6 classroom won’t be occupied until September – in a new building, its learning environment is an exciting Child-led learning The Foundation Stage’s
emphasis on placing departure from the norm, as is the child-led, Foundation Stage- inspired approach to teaching taking place within it. From top to bottom there’s a clear vision of what primary school education should look like, and you get the feeling the staff are only just getting started…

1 Early inspiration

Jeavons Wood has taken inspiration from early years practice since its doors opened in 2009. “Sarah Humphreys, the original head, wanted to extend the early years throughout the school; child-initiated learning was her passion, and she drew in staff who shared that philosophy,” Emily Flitton, deputy head and Key Stage 1 leader, says of the school’s beginnings. “In other schools children leave the Foundation Stage and that’s the end of play, the end of the water tray and the sandpit; they’re replaced by sitting down at desks with books. We were adamant that this shouldn’t happen. We’ve always said we don’t want to be a school where the Foundation Stage children are more independent than the other year groups. That’s crazy – why should they be the only ones who can choose what they’re doing and work on their own? The oldest children should be able to do that as well.”

It was a fortuitous coming together that ensured the continuation of this approach following Sarah’s departure. “It was pure luck that we found each other,” headteacher, Cath Hainsworth, explains, “Before I arrived I was head of a school with a very similar curriculum. We’d started to build our curriculum from the Foundation Stage up; it was well established in Key Stage 1 and we were looking at moving it into Key Stage 2. Em’s sister worked at my school at the time, and mentioned that Jeavons Wood was a school with a similar approach. I came down to have a look with a view to sharing practice between the two schools, and then the headship came up. It was just the right time for me: I’d been at my previous school for five years, and Jeavons Wood was a new build and an exciting challenge. It was here or nowhere!”

2 Child-led learning

The Foundation Stage’s emphasis on placing children’s interests first is embedded in practice throughout Jeavons Wood. The school’s creative curriculum has been crafted to make the philosophy a reality while ensuring that learning doesn’t suffer. Skills driven, it engages via ‘wow’ days like those recounted by Indy and Chloe, and remains flexible to allow teachers to mould their teaching to children’s interests – uncovered through pre-topic learning forums to which the whole class can contribute ideas. Whilst the most popular suggestions, by necessity, become the focus for learning, ‘free flow’ time provides those children whose hearts are set on more esoteric pursuits with opportunities to go their own way, and everybody with the chance to learn in the manner that suits them best.

“About 50 per cent of the school day is flow time: time not spent working with an adult,” Emily explains. “We put out continuous provision that links to the children’s interests in different areas of the room, along with question prompt cards – so if any of them don’t know what to do there’s something they can go to that they’re familiar with. When children get something out for themselves, they have to have told an adult what their aim is, and we’ll work with them to adjust that so they’re always challenged.”

Flow time is just one example of Jeavons Wood’s efforts to meet children’s individual needs. Another involves their use of Learning Journeys – “We don’t have any exercise books,” Cath tells us – which are used to record work that demonstrates children’s progress. Careful analysis of them has enabled the school to hone its focus on identifying and plugging gaps in learning.

A system of Assessing Pupil Progress is also in place, strengthening the process. “The APP is how we find out ‘what next?’ for each child,” Cath explains, “It allows us to think about gaps in learning first and then build our curriculum around them. What we want is for staff to understand different levels, because if we’re teaching according to ability and skills and not in terms of content, teachers have to be really comfortable with that. APP has provided the backbone.”

3 Space to learn

At Jeavons Wood, there’s an inextricable link between learning and the physical environment in which it takes place. The school is still in its first year in a modern building, whose layout complements its teachers’ modus operandi perfectly. Particularly eye-catching is the Agora, a broad thoroughfare which runs the length of the school. “We’re very lucky with the space that we’ve got,” Cath says, “because it suits our curriculum. Interestingly, when it was empty, people would walk around and say, ‘What a waste of space this is! Why not make the classrooms bigger and the corridor thinner?’” “The classrooms probably are smaller than we had before,” Emily continues, “and we have more children in them. But it doesn’t feel like it because they can spread out. The Agora is used for flow time, so the children have the opportunity to use the space if they wish – they don’t have to be in their classroom. In fact, we purposely don’t have enough tables and chairs for children; we don’t want them sat at desks, we want them learning – on their tummies writing, or standing at easels painting, finding a space wherever they want. It means that I can deliver a quality group session without having lots of other things and noise going on. Children know the rules, they know how to behave. They can spill out and it feels more relaxed as a result.”

“There’s one little girl in our Newts class,” Cath says, “who you’ll find out there every day because she likes to work on her own. She likes the space. It’s also used for all our guided work and interventions.”

It might be unconventional but it’s clearly working for Jeavons Wood. The Agora is a bright, colourful space filled with learning opportunities, and it’s not hard to see why it is proving popular with the children. “Since moving to the new building, we’ve definitely noticed a difference in terms of children’s heightened interest,” Cath says. “They’ve raised lots more questions and lines of enquiry than previously. They’re seeing things and they’re finding things and they’re noticing things.” “And it affects children’s behaviour as well,” Emily says. “I’ve worked in schools where there’s been a lot of bad behaviour because children have been restrained; we don’t see that anywhere near as much here because children are allowed that freedom.”

4 Curiouser and curiouser…

Take a stroll down the Agora and you’ll happen upon four glaring and intriguing examples of Jeavons Wood’s creative approach to learning: far from just an empty space, it also plays host to four ‘curiosity shops’, themed around literacy, maths, science and history. Designed by BookSpace (Bookspaceforschools.co.uk), the shops’ arrival caused quite a stir. “We didn’t plan anything,” Cath explains. “It was child-initiated all the way through. We left them
there and waited…”

“Just the fact that they appeared over half-term sparked so much learning for children,” Emily agrees. “They were writing letters to the owners: who are you? Where has this come from? We were doing things like putting food into the shops, and turning lights on in order to make the experience more real for the children; they really believed that someone was living in there!”

Cath and her team have big plans to develop the curiosity shops into a key part of the school’s continuous provision. As well as firing imaginations, a process given fresh impetus by the constant arrival of new and exciting artefacts – from a skeleton, to a suspiciously rattling egg, to the aforementioned sarcophagus – they are being equipped to fully support children’s learning in their themed subject: “In the literacy shop, we’ve made little suitcases, each supporting a different genre,” Cath says by way of example. “So, if children want to go and write letters they have a toolkit to do that. We’ve created job descriptions so the children know what they might do in the shops, and there are writing frames and key vocab – all the resources they need. If they want to do something separately from the rest of the class, they’ll be able to enter a shop and have everything they need to research and carry out an independent piece of work on literacy, or any of the subjects.

“The way we’re setting up at the moment,” Emily continues, “is a bit like how we structure our outdoor area. There’ll be one adult in the Agora with a focused activity, asking children whether they would like to work with them. They’ll be the troubleshooter who’ll be there facilitating and monitoring learning. The children know they have to have an aim for any session, and that will carry on with the curiosity shops.”

“Our vision,” Cath sums up, “is for children to use them completely independently of adult input, but we’ve got lots of stages to go through before we arrive at that point. The first step has been, ‘Hey, they’ve arrived. What do you think they’re about?’ Now we’re making sure the children have the right skills to make use of them.”