Our Quest (Our Vision)

Our aim is:

For all our children to be very special healthy, responsible, happy, successful and achieving young people – Golden Children!

We believe that:

Learning is accelerated when pupils and staff are in an exceptionally positive and happy environment

“I Shine Learning” is unique to our children and the best way to deliver creative and fun learning across both schools

Each child is part of the daily Learning Adventure to:

1.       achieve very high standards in academic learning

2.       achieve in a huge range of exciting subject areas beyond reading writing and maths

3.       find and develop their talents and passions

“I Shine Learning” develops each individual child into a very special, responsible person by using:

1.       Our simple guide – The Golden Way

2.       “GO POWER” personal thinking method

“I Shine Learning” can continue at the Gold Star Centre outside school hours and also when a child has continued beyond the primary age.

All children and adults are of equal worth in our large community.

I Shine Primary Learning Explained

We are a little bit different from many schools as we create learning that is fun, simple and inspires the children to become someone very special.

Quest

Each year we have an annual quest to recognise the star in everyone and to make a Golden Child of every child. The annual quest varies its theme e.g. “Quest to be the Best”, “GO Quest – the discovery quest” and "Power ON! The Quest to Empower" which is our theme for 2016

The Learning Journey, The Learning Adventure

• Lessons, the school day and week has this simple title.
• Every minute of the day is important learning time, even play!
• Fun lessons are organised in a special “can do”, “find out” way

Academic Learning, World Learning, Smart Learning

• Academic is reading, writing and maths
• World is all others including science, art, history etc
• Smart is finding your talent areas and working hard on these.

The Orion Way, The Golden Way

• We have a simple and “easy to do” code

GO Power – Character Development

• Great character is so important to us
• We have 5 powers which we use develop great learning Behaviour
• There are 6 badges to collect too!

Power it! – 16 Techniques for Learning and Living

• We have a way of helping you learn quite fast
• There are 16 techniques we use through the year to accelerate learning.

Smart Enterprise Teams – Staff Leading Learning

• 15 learning “departments” in the school
• e.g. I Shine galleries – Art and DT, I Shine Music and Drama Production

The Golden Way - A Guide for the Adventure

Children have the Golden Way which sets a basic expectation in behaviour and attitude.

GO Learning

We learn 3 core areas - Academic learning, Our World Learning and Smart Learning – this is a range of essential curriculum areas organised in a creative and inspiring way. We believe children should discover, explore, and investigate their learning as well as be guided by staff. We believe that excellence and achievement is the key to succeeding on the learning adventure and becoming a Golden person.

GO POWER

Every day children are expected to use a very simple method of personal thinking called GO POWER.

The Golden Way provides a basic guide for pupils however many other attributes for life need to be learnt e.g. self-motivation, thinking skills, independence, self-management, decision making, understanding our learning style etc.

Golden Child

We would describe a Golden Child as:

·         A person who tries their best

·         A great learner

·         Responsible, a good decision maker and know right from wrong

·         A good friend

·         Kind

·         Polite and well mannered

·         Confident about themselves

·         Positive in attitude

·         Honest

·         A good communicator

·         Respectful and understanding of others

·         Cool

·         Resilient

·         Ambitious

·         Safe

·         Strong in commitment

·         Hard working

By Year 6

A child will be all of the above and also: 

a) know his/her academic strengths

b) know his/her talents 

I Shine Learning

Our Special Curriculum (Summary)

A Child……

1. Learns and SHINES in our very happy and positive learning environment
2. Is a successful learner in reading writing and maths - Academic Learning,
3. Acquires many skills and much knowledge and many subjects - World Learning
4. Knows their talents and develops these successfully - Smart Learning

A Child also……

1. Has pride and wants to show their very best  – Go Power 1
2. Is an optimistic and positive person – Go Power 2
3. Is wise in decision making, speaking and also shows a thirst to gain knowledge and skills – Go Power 3
4. Has an energy in their attitudes to learning and in their relationships/friendships with others – Go Power 4
5. Cares about everyone and everything  – Go Power 5

Other Key “I Shine” Strategies

Champion Reader, GO READ, Mathletics

• Home reading card – 10 minutes per day home reading
• GO READ time at 1.30 – seriously fast ready checks and great enthusiasm for reading
• Mathletics – online amazing help in maths, homework too

Go Goals and Assessing Pupil Progress

• The academic curriculum set out in “I can” simple statements/targets for pupils
• Find them in the font of children’s maths and writing books
• They are our way of measuring the skills and knowledge learnt in literacy, maths and science in each year group
• Pupils are assessed each term

Champions Academy

• The academy is a weekly session for all pupils to recognise and bring on their talent.
• Children are assessed as to their best “smart” talent each year.
• By Y6 children should be achieving much in their talent strands.

The Shine Academies and Additional Learning

• We have around 70 additional learning experiences across the Federation.
• These are split into 2 – the arts and music, sport and getting active.
• Able pupils from both schools are asked to join our 2 Shine academies (special joint club sessions).

Power Boosters 

• Support/catch up/extension programmes – all children need to learn that we need additional help in life at some point.
• There are children who need support beyond the literacy and numeracy sessions eg for catch up, new to English, level 6 extension. Many different programmes are run for small groups, 1:1, who year groups (eg Saturday school).
• Our aim is to help children learn and know that boosting in life is normal.

GO FEST and Word Up Fest

• Go Fest is a 6 week summer festival for the children and the whole community. We all enjoy additional and unique learning events and visitors.
• Word Up Fest is a 60 day literacy festival running through the toughest part of winter. It is way beyond your traditional literacy week!

I Shine Graduation

• Formal graduation every 2 years reaffirming children’s achievements and goals

Our Extra Learning

(learning alongside the regular curriculum)

Whole school

• Event weeks – e.g. Word week, ICT week
• Event days – Smile Day, High Five day, World Peace Day
• Visiting tutors – Olympic athletes
• Themes across the school e.g. Global Citizen, Champion Learner

Clubs – Active Time

• Up to 70 difference clubs each week across the Federation
• After school activities
• Sporting competitions

Federation

• Joint sports e.g. girls football
• Dance groups – the Festival Dance group
• Music groups - choir and rock band

Leadership

• Enterprise for Y6
• Decision making for all other children
• Cinema, shop, arts centre etc. every Friday