Dave Fitzpatrick:

Then it’s tuition time. The older kids have one-to-one tutors, from 3.30 to 4.30 and then we have a short break. It’s a symbolic break, just dried fruit or sesame snaps these days with the healthy eating policy, and then they change to the next tutor until 5.30. Not every student has two hours’ tuition per day, and when they don’t have a tutor the older ones support the younger ones, or they will be getting on with their own homework. There’s a bit of a family atmosphere because we do have the multi-age grouping.

If they don’t have homework then I’ve got some boxes of materials. One has Maths tuition books, another has Literacy things and then another general one has Science, Society and Environment and various other odds and ends. So the kids can select something and usually there’s a tutor to help them find what’s appropriate to their level of learning. One of our keys is be flexible and to address student needs so we’ve also got various resources to work on meta-cognitive skills, time management or study skills.

We had some good What Works sessions at our induction conferences, and I’ve adapted a What Works planning document to make Individual Education Plans for students.

Look at the What Works page...

At the end of the day there’s a time for a variety of games and I’m happy to say that generally I see a lot of Maths games being played.

I’ve found that the cleaners really want us out of the school before six, so these days parents will pick up their kids by 5.30 generally, and after that I’m pushing the trolleys back to the office and unloading food back into the fridge and putting the papers out for the next day. We encourage that daily interaction with any parents who can make it, especially when the kids are coming from neighbouring schools. But some parents don’t have transport so there’s a bit of car pooling to be worked out.