Closing the gap at Parklands is one of our greatest priorities. At Parkland’s we believe that every child is unique and we will do everything in our power to give our children, irrespective of their starting point and background, the best start to school life. Our vision is to ensure that all of our children receive the best possible education – one that focuses on aspiration, high expectation and personalisation. We place a great deal of emphasis on nurturing every child, to ensure they grow into responsible members of our society and as a result will succeed in life.

Here at Parkland’s we put kindness, care and respect at the centre of everything we do. We encourage our children to be curious, to have a thirst for knowledge, to problem solve and to look for different ways to approach challenges. We passionately believe that in today’s world, it is more important than ever, that we ensure every child is given the tools to learn to read, write, spell and use maths with confidence. We must also continue to address the educational and emotional impact of the pandemic, particularly for more disadvantaged and vulnerable children.

With this is mind, at Parklands we aim to:

1. introduce and implement standards that will improve all our children’s education;
2. deliver the right support if they fall behind;
3. give them the tools to lead happy, fulfilled and successful lives.

We understand the value of quality teaching and learning in Early Years, with a particular emphasis around oracy; for every child; this forms the basis for future success. We strive to work with parents and carers, alongside outside agencies where necessary, to ensure all children receive the help and support they need to attain and make great progress – and transition to the next stages of learning with the skills and confidence to be successful.

A broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum to support all learners (covering all areas of the National Curriculum) enhanced by additional educational and residential visits, sporting and musical opportunities is at the heart of our vision, always underpinned by high quality provision in terms of teaching and learning. We always consider the challenges faced by children and families deemed to be vulnerable and/or disadvantaged and do our utmost to enable them to access the curriculum through quality first teaching.

Parklands Response to the Government’s White Paper

This government’s Levelling Up mission for schools, states that by 2030, 90% of children will leave primary school having achieved the expected standard in reading, writing and maths – this is up from 65% in 2019. These ambitions will be the measure of this White Paper’s success.

The best schools are realising these standards already, but our aim at Parklands is to achieve these excellent outcomes for all of our children. We will do this through two key principles:

• having a rigorous commitment to using, building and sharing evidence and good practice;
• having a focus on enabling collaboration between teachers, other schools and wider children’s services.

At the heart of these ambitions is the need for an excellent teacher in every classroom at Parklands. Improving the quality of teaching is the single most important in-school factor in improving outcomes for children, especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). We have a duty to our children to ensure we are delivering quality first teaching at all times.

Our Performance Management Objectives support these aims. Although the number of pupils eligible or accessing Free School Meals (FSM) has dropped, we are aware that the location of Parklands places us in a very deprived area of Leeds – many pupils come from more deprived backgrounds and may need additional support to access (and succeed) in learning

Our strategy here at Parklands, is aligned to wider school plans for education recovery following the COVID19 pandemic, notably in its targeted support through the National Tutoring Programme for pupils whose education has been worst affected, including non-disadvantaged pupils.  We also understand that we may need to provide extra support for our children in the following areas:

• attendance;
• physical and mental health and wellbeing;
• evidence based learning interventions to close gaps;
• financial support, for instance subsidised support to enable children to access rich, cultural experiences (Cultural Capital).

Our approach is pro-active and is underpinned by evidence based research – in particular, ‘The Education Endowment Foundation Teaching and Learning Toolkit.’ (EEF). The approaches we adopt complement each other and support our children to achieve.

Parklands Offer

• We will use Reed Recruitment for a tutor for 3 days a week

Accountability

• The Pupil Premium Strategy is available on the website