We suspect that outside of schools, it remains a bit of a mystery just what type of thing goes on during an INSET Day. These days are compulsory and have to involve staff professional development/training.
Ours this week focussed on:
A review of how we teach writing and the introduction of new pedagogies (a jargonny, posh word for teaching methods!) and initiatives to raise outcomes in writing by focussing more on core skills and quality over quantity. These to include an additional weekly independent write for all children at an age appropriate level.
A review of the system of Rainbow Grammar to support children’s sentence construction and fluency. This is a pedagogy (that word again!) of colour coding elements of sentences to support correct grammatical composition. This is obviously linked to the above. We have previously shared a parent/carer guide to this and will update this and share again in due course. Not that we’re expecting you to teach it, but it might just be interesting to know what the children are working on. **Update, this is now available to download here: https://parkdale-primary.co.uk/rainbow-grammar-a-guide-for-families/
The introduction and onboarding of an exciting new digital tool to help staff better support children in Maths and for children to support themselves! .If you hear talk around school of Magma Maths, that’s what this is – it’s worth clicking the link for a quick look…
We all completed compulsory updates to our Safeguarding training, generally and also further specialised units around such themes as Domestic Abuse, Child Sexual Exploitation, County Lines (criminal gangs operating from outside of major conurbations), Child-on-Child Sexual Abuse, Sexual Harassment, Prevent (radicalisation) and Female Genital Mutilation, just to name a few from the lengthy list.