Awards

After continued hard work and dedication, the staff and children at Toftwood Junior School have been awarded the Bronze Linguamarque award. This reflects the consistently high expectations across KS2 to develop our Modern Foreign Language learning skills. Children have benefited from various cultural activities, not just focusing on Spanish but also increasing our understanding of the wider world. The examiner who presented the school with our accreditation was pleased to see that the children were engaged and enthusiastic in their learning and were proud to show off their developing skills in Spanish. A huge well done to the staff and children at Toftwood Junior School, fantástico!

We have received some very exciting news to let us know that here at Toftwood Infant School we have been awarded the Artsmark Gold award! We have received this from the Arts Council England and everyone should be proud of the hard work that all the grownups and children have put in to show how valued and enjoyed the arts is in our school. Arts Council England were impressed with how our school provides external opportunities that enhance arts teaching (music, drama, dance and art) that benefit the children and how proud the children are of all the achievements in these areas they are able to make.

“Your children are offered equal opportunity to plan, experience, participate in, and evaluate a broad range of high-quality arts and cultural activities, and your children have an opportunity to further develop their knowledge, skills and understanding of arts and culture through experiences provided.” – Arts Council England.

A huge thank you to all the staff and children at school who have worked so hard over the last two years to achieve this award.  It is fantastic to see the children enjoying the arts so much and we all look forward to seeing what excitement is next! Below are a few pictures of some of the exciting arts projects we’ve had in the run up to achieving our Gold award. Well done everyone!

Mr Hardy was nominated for the Norfolk Music Hub in their innovation award category, reflecting on his enthusiasm and approach to the teaching of high quality music.

Mr Hardy, the Junior School music lead has been working with Miss Coombes, the Infant School music lead and they have used Music to draw the two schools closer together. Our first training as a combined staff group was a singing workshop which was an incredible success and great way to break the ice when bringing two lots of staff together. They applied for and received the Hub’s bespoke project grant which we used to fund a series of steel pan workshops for Yr2 and Yr3 children to play alongside one another. Not only was this an amazing opportunity for some really top quality instrument tuition it helped with the younger children’s transition to KS2. (It also added some much needed focus on Music from around the world.) After attending a Singing Playgrounds workshop Mr Hardy formed a singing group of Key Stage 2 children who have learned some of the songs and have visited the Infant School playground at lunchtime to teach these to the younger children
In terms of innovation, Mr Hardy has introduced making music with technology to each of the Year Groups – Yr3 using the fantastic ‘Isle of Tune’ online program, Year 4 using MadPad, Year 5 Scratch and Year 6 Garage Band which led to a group of Yr6 students running a lunchtime Garage Band club.

The amazing loan of Samba instruments from the Hub has enabled Mr Hardy to start teaching Yr 6 a term of Brazilian percussion (with a great deal of help from John Owen from Neatherd High School and by joining Norwich Samba to give himself a crash course in an area of music he had had no previous experience of) again trying to give children a more global idea of Music.

Mr Hardy has been playing and teaching ukulele for 16 years and has a very dedicated Ukulele Club who have recently performed at a concert organised by BTEC Music students from Neatherd High School.

Mr Hardy has also ensured equality of access for all students, regardless of physical difficulties and carried out some research into open tunings and spending an afternoon with a child and her uke a uke blu-tacked to a table and various plectrums and sticks to use as slides they were jamming together playing ‘Three Little Birds’. She is now a stalwart member of Uke Club.

At the awards ceremony, Mr Hardy was one of 3 Norfolk Music-Coordinators shortlisted. In the speech, the judges recognised his engagement with the Music Hub over the last 2 Years, the work he has done with Miss Coombes to use music to bring the federation together, organising the steel pan workshops; the whole federation staff singing workshop; taking children from Juniors to do Playground Singing with the children at the Infants at lunchtime , the inclusion of music technology in each Year Group; the Yr6 Samba lessons; the ongoing Ukulele club and the efforts to be fully inclusive.

We are pleased to say Mr Hardy was chosen as the winner of the award for innovation in music co-ordinators 2018. Congratulations Mr Hardy!

Norfolk Music Hub Expo & Awards 2018 Round-up

We were delighted to welcome Mr Mann, from the West Norwich and Dereham School Sports Partnership, back to Toftwood Infant school last week. Mr Mann was accompanied by Wendy Bear, the partnership’s mascot.

They came to present the Sporting Stars Bronze Award to the school for their achievements in PE. The award was presented to two of our pupils in Key Stage One.

The School Sports Partnership award was designed by Key Stage 1 schools within the SSP and is a great way to recognise the PE/Sporting success that schools are having at KS1. It helps all schools who participate to create a development plan for the coming year based on their progress. We were awarded the bronze standard for participating in competitions and festivals within the partnership and providing a sports enrichment fortnight where the children get to try new sports. In the future we hope to develop the role of the children in leading some sport activities and our involvement with local sports clubs.