Aug 27 2007
New Post!
Musselburgh High Street
I haven’t been keeping up with my blog of late for a host of reasons but I’m back. Back to my old home town, back to my old stamping ground and my old primary school. I have been the ‘New’ head here at Pinkie St Peter’s since the 8th of May. It’s strange to be back as Head Teacher as I was once a pupil here. It was strange to enter some of the classrooms, definite ghosts from the past! It’s a delight to be here. Pinkie was famous for its lack of speed but we now have a 10mb connection so all excuses for not keeping up to date are redundant. One of my first major tasks is to prepare an HMIE follow through report on the progress of our Action Plan. I am gathering in as much evidence as possible. Earlier on I did an analysis of our assessments and found, to no great surprise, a distinct difference between boys attainment and that achieved by girls. There is a clear difference in the levels of attainment. Now finding the whys and wherefores is my next task.
This very raw data shows that there is clearly something going on with the boys that needs to be investigated. This is not a unique Pinkie problem as this type of drift is something I have seen before in other schools. I am going to establish a pattern of assessment here to give me a base line on reading attainment using the Suffolk Reading Scale to measure progress over a year from Primary 3 to Primary 7. I’ll use my blog here to record my findings. At the same time I will audit all reading resources/practices here to see the best way forward. I am also constructing a new school web-site. Still in its infancy but to be put on-line soon.
