Thurrock Trailblazer Evaluation 2015/16
Read the full evaluation report for Thurrock Trailblazer 2015/16
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Chadwell St Mary Primary School<br />
“It makes our minds less heavier…with art you just do it – it helped me get away<br />
from the stress of the SATs”<br />
Fabiana, Year 6 student<br />
School details<br />
Chadwell St Mary Primary School is a single-form entry primary school with<br />
approximately 210 children on roll. The school was rated as ‘Good’ in its most<br />
recent Ofsted in 2011. The Cultural Champion is Michael Nunn.<br />
Why did Chadwell St Mary Primary School join <strong>Trailblazer</strong>?<br />
To use <strong>Trailblazer</strong> expertise and advice to improve outcomes for the pupils and<br />
the professional development of the staff. The school wanted to extend the<br />
range and quality of their well-established cultural offer.<br />
What whole school priority was linked to <strong>Trailblazer</strong>?<br />
Two key areas from the School’s strategic plan - improving the cultural offer<br />
and cultural awareness of the children and to improve writing across the school.<br />
What was their action research question?<br />
If we strategically extend the cultural offer for the children, will it inspire pupils’<br />
writing across the curriculum through broadening their experiences and<br />
enthusiasm?<br />
What did they do?<br />
The <strong>Trailblazer</strong> experiences were used as inspiration for writing. Staff and pupils<br />
took part in a range of projects in school led by practitioners, in school teacher<br />
led projects and out of school workshops. An audit of staff identified areas of<br />
development around arts and cultural practice. The CPD programme was<br />
tailored to enhance the cultural offer within the school.<br />
Who took part?<br />
For their research, the focus was a core control group of 24 children across<br />
Years 1–6, these children covered a range of different ability groups, different<br />
genders and included some children from disadvantaged families or those with<br />
English as an additional language.<br />
The difference that has been made<br />
● Children’s writing is consistently better when writing about a real life<br />
experience. This may come in the form of a description of a place they have<br />
visited and/or drawing upon ideas and feelings of the experience. This<br />
improvement can be seen in all age and ability ranges across the school.<br />
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