7.7.21 Lesley Lyon, Chair of Governors

This morning I met with Mrs Buttress to talk about the work in English across the school since we last met. This was set in the context of the difficulties presented by the pandemic, isolations and home learning.

The quality of home learning at Mellers has been exceptional and, as governors, we were privileged to join a session earlier in the year to see for ourselves what pupils were getting and it is fair to say that we were very impressed. However it has also has its shortcomings and Mrs Buttress remains vigilant about the stamina of our children to do lengthy pieces of writing simply because over Teams it was not easy to practise. This picture is a national one and at Mellers, as ever, our staff have got it high on the agenda for next year. Our pupils have wonderful ideas, because of the amount of reading they do, but need to develop more stamina for lengthier pieces of writing and continue to develop the fine motor skills required.

Children’s reading continues  to go from strength to strength. They love the high quality texts and this will be underpinned by the opening of the new library area in the autumn term.

Mrs Buttress has also been successful in a bid to be accepted on a new project launched by Nottingham Playhouse in which our children and staff will be able to work along side theatre educational professionals to develop confidence in speaking and presenting themselves. It is a two year project and can be accessed by all year groups. This was an area highlighted by our School Improvement Advisor at her visit in January. Oracy is also being addressed through our debating project run by Miss Bird in which we are a hub school and years 5 and 6 are having a head to head debate this week!!

Our recovery curriculum is still being taught so that children who fell behind during the pandemic can continue to catch up by using the government funding to put interventions in place. At the start of the autumn term  children will be following the Growing Together, Learning Together project in which they study the same text across each key stage.

As ever at Mellers things are moving on apace, challenges being grasped and addressed and new exciting opportunities being developed. Mrs Buttress is doing a very good job of ensuring that our pupils leave Mellers as creative thinkers, readers and writers.

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