As Mrs Johnston reported in the Newsletter last week: the new St Peter’s Faculty Self-review process has been launched.
What is it?
The Faculty Self-review (FSR) provides an opportunity for faculties to provide evidence of their successes and to produce a clear plan of action which maps out how improvements will be made. It aims to help faculties to improve through identifying strengths and weaknesses, thus allowing key priorities for improvement to be identified.
FSR is a simple process which enables Head of Faculty and Subject Heads to measure progress in practical ways through their day-to-day work. It is based on openness, honesty and trust. It should balance the desire to highlight any barriers to learning with the need to challenge and seek the highest standards and levels of progress possible. The pupils are the benefactors of this process.
The evidence gathered from the FSR will be analysed and used to:
- Diagnose where strengths and weaknesses lie and the implications for change
- Identify the key priorities
- Plan the action needed to bring about improvement
The evidence should provide information about how well our pupils are performing in terms of:
- Overall standards attained
- The standards attained by different groups such as girls and boys, the able and talented and those with specific learning needs
- The progress made by different groups over time
- The assessment procedures used
It should also assess the quality and impact on standards of:
- Provision – teaching, learning and the curriculum
- Leadership and management of faculties
FSR is a continuous process based on a nine-term cycle. During each cycle, a subject will undergo a major review and minor reviews. At each review, planned actions for improvement should be evaluated to establish whether they are having the desired impact, and if not, why not. Minor reviews might lead to a minor adjustment of targets and activities and the reallocation of resources partway through the next cycle. Alternatively, it might identify actions for the next development plan.
Since starting the process in November 2021 we have so far completed reviews in Religion and Philosophy, Science, English and Modern Foreign Languages. The St Peter’s teaching team have managed to complete four full major reviews in four subjects across three Faculties. Impressive pace for four months’ work.
I want to thank the whole teaching team for their energy and enthusiasm; their reflectiveness and creativity; their jolly hard work and deep thinking.
My favourite line in our FSR policy is:
The pupils are the benefactors of this process.
Since starting this process, all I can see around me are very professional teachers discussing and moving forward curriculum developments again and again. All the time the conversations are based around doing ‘right’ by our pupils in 2022 and beyond. You cannot lose when the kiddos remain at the centre of everything.
It would be so easy to just repeat the same brilliant events, trips, residentials, activities, topics and learning adventures. But why stand still? We annually tweak our plans and delivery to suit different cohorts. No learning journey is ever the same. However, it is the new FSR process that is now driving fresh motivation amongst staff who want to change whole topics and schemes of work. Trialling new resources and making plans to refresh delivery. Exciting Teaching and Learning times ahead. St Peter’s staff are certainly not afraid to change and evolve with the pupils’ needs.
I will leave you with the Faculty Head and subject Leads roll out of the Self-review:
Faculty Self Major Review Autumn Term 2021
R&P
Mrs Lucy Ball
Science
Dr Rowan Evans
Faculty Self Major Review Spring 1st Half Term 2022
English
Mrs Mantie Parker
MFL
Mrs Virginie Evans
Faculty Self Major Review Spring 2nd Half Term 2022
Sport and PE
Mrs Emma White
Subject Lead on Drama and Computing
Mrs Kate Hurley
Faculty Lead of Performing Arts and Subject Lead on Music
Mr Chris Hoban
Faculty Self Major Review Summer Term 2022
Faculty Lead on PSHE inc. RSE curriculum
Mrs Deborah Evans
Subject Lead on Maths
Mr Simon Payne
Faculty Lead on Humanities
Mrs Amy Hughes
Co-curricular Lead
Mr Sam Budgett
I will be writing a blog with each Faculty Head or Subject Lead over the next three terms so that we can report back to our parent body what discoveries we have made. We will report Faculty and Subject strengths and upcoming developments for our St Peter’s School Baccalaureate® curriculum.
Lucy Ball
Deputy Head Teaching and Learning
