News Stories

On Friday 31st January, President Kennedy School was the venue for a one day conference, bringing together over 80 maths teachers from across the Midlands and The Futures Trust.

 

President Kennedy Teaching School Alliance and ABBC Maths at Parkgate Primary hosted Craig Barton, Maths Teacher, TES advisor and author of the book "How I wish I'd Taught Maths", who delivered workshops on Worked Examples and Formative Assessment as part of this fantastic maths CPD day.

Feedback from the event was very positive with delegates commenting that the information presented was "extremely useful in moving forward in my classroom teaching" and "the mathematical presentation was clear and easy to link in with".

  

The work focused on the best methods to enable students to have more opportunities within lessons, to discover maths for themselves and try to reach outcomes, rather than being told what they were aiming to achieve from the outset.

You can follow Craig Barton and President Kennedy Teaching School Alliance on twitter @mrbartonmaths and @PresKenTSA

 

May Sly,Teaching School Manager

                                                                   

World Class Schools Quality Mark (WCSQM) has named the latest group of schools to have been awarded the status of World Class, as part of the annual WCSQM Awards Ceremony, hosted by Cambridge University at Lady Mitchell Hall. The Awards Ceremony celebrates accrediting schools, as well as individual students from World Class schools UK wide, in recognition of their outstanding achievements in 2019.
 
Now in its sixth year of accreditation, WCSQM has awarded the mark to a further 17 non-selective state secondary schools and seven primary schools, from around the country. All of the new schools have demonstrated that their students are truly World Class through their successful participation in the rigorous assessment process. 
 
WCSQM assessment requires schools to demonstrate that their students are capable of compiling comprehensive evidence in support of their application. All applicant schools must exceed a challenging threshold in their Key Stage 2 or 4 performance before being invited to apply. Their students must then develop a compelling case for accreditation through detailed auditing of their school's capabilities, video submissions in support of their application, and participating in an assessment centre event, at which their performances are measured against a challenging framework. 
 
“WCSQM is a charity created for and driven by World Class students. Our assessment process is very much student led and student centric, and this year we were once again amazed by the tenacity, drive and work-readiness exhibited by the students of these applicant schools. They were a credit to their schools and a testament to the truly World Class education provision they offer.” Miranda Perry, Director of WCSQM.

The Awards Ceremony saw World Class school leaders, staff, students and their parents from across the country come together to enjoy an afternoon of talks and workshops including an essay writing workshop led by Cambridge University’s Faculty of English lecturer Phil Knox, a talk on Cambridge admissions by Dr Glen Rangwala, Director of Admissions Trinity College Cambridge,  and presentations from World Class alumni students, World Class school leaders and the event sponsor, DPR, giving students and staff the opportunity to try their award-winning Dynamic Progress Reporting system. The sessions preceded an evening of prize giving, accompanied by performances from talented World Class students and a keynote talk from the event’s host, Dr Phil Knox. As well as awarding this year’s accrediting schools, there were awards across a number of categories recognising students’ World Class achievements in 2019, including the essay writing competition and individual student achievement award.

 

President Kennedy School’s Performing Art Showcase 'What's Your Greatest Show' was a huge hit.  Appreciative parents, carers and friends who filled the school hall were treated to an evening of fantastic acting, singing and

Last Wednesday, President Kennedy School students had the fantastic opportunity to perform in front of hundreds of school leaders from across the country at the SSAT Conference held at the ICC, Birmingham. 
The students had been informed that their application to perform at the opening of this years conference had been successful 
'...against a very strong and competitive process'. Their hard work and professionalism was greatly received by those who attended the conference.

Sarah Murphy – Project Manager for Student Input and the SSAT National Conference team said the following:

The SSAT National Conference is a flagship event bringing together school leaders and teachers from around the country to hear from inspirational speakers and share practice through practical workshops. 
This year’s conference was a key milestone in SSAT’s campaign for deep social justice and brought together over 700 colleagues to celebrate and share the transformational work already happening in schools to remove barriers to learning; and go even deeper to collectively enact real societal change.

We were delighted to welcome students from President Kennedy School to open the conference with their highly impactful performance. The students conducted themselves with great professionalism and delivered a stunning piece of work. The piece that the students had created really captured the themes of the conference and, combined with the energy and dynamism they put into the performance, it was a fantastic way to begin the day and set the tone for the programme ahead. 

We would like to extend a huge thank you to the students, and the staff that supported them, for all their hard work.