Tree of Life Vision and Values

The Tree of Life at Penn Wood School

The ‘Tree of Life’ visually represents the essence of the school.  We include all, celebrating diversity and minimising any barriers to learning.  We embrace our cultural and linguistic diversity and there are ‘no outsiders’ at Penn Wood.  The heart at the centre of the tree represents our values of community, kindness, respect and excellence.  The tree is about the growth of the heart and the mind.  

Our vision is ‘Better Never Stops.'  This means knowing and respecting each child as a unique individual and building on existing knowledge and skills within a broad and rich curriculum.  Learning to read and reading to learn are at the heart of our curriculum and so books are the golden thread weaving through all of the curriculum areas. 

‘Reading and writing flow on a sea of talk,’ and language is crucial for learning and ‘being.’  Starting with the developments of speech, language and communication of early years, through phonics, early reading and the acquisition of an extended vocabulary, oracy is an integral part of children developing the necessary literacy skills to be successful in school and beyond.  This includes the development of disciplinary literacy (talking, reading and writing in different subject areas).

We instill a sense of awe and wonder within the children and provide multiple opportunities for communication, representation, productions, performance and presentations.

Our vision for the curriculum is to ensure learners become:

• ambitious, capable learners, ready to learn throughout their lives
• enterprising, creative contributors, ready to play a full part in life and work
• ethical, informed citizens of England and the world
• healthy, confident individuals, ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society.

We are a Unicef Rights Respecting School and commit to the Global Goals for Sustainable Development.

We embrace diversity and embed it in all threads of the curriculum.  We are inclusive of narratives on, for example, age, disability, gender, race and sexuality (characteristics protected by the Equality Act 2010).

A Vision for Recovery from The Pandemic

Sir Kevan Collins, the Schools’ Commissioner for Recovery, is encouraging schools to find creative ways of enriching and deepening the curriculum for all. This needs to be done in a way that is aligned with reducing inequalities and closing the attainment gap. Our school improvement aims already align with this endeavour in a research informed way. Over and above, and in alignment with our appointment of AHTs for remote learning, we are truly committed to retaining the very best opportunities within remote learning. This enables our curriculum offer to extend beyond the typical school day and allow for anyplace, anytime learning.

As always, we endeavour to engage children with deep, meaningful, relevant learning.

We will:

• Develop ‘The School House’ as a physical link between home and school

• Revisit our overview for experiential education to include opportunities for virtual learning opportunities e.g. museum, zoo visits

• Support families with opportunities for home learning

• Add 3D depth to our knowledge organisers

• Extend our reading Padlets to incorporate tips for parents and comments from parents

• Extend our offer for Early Years Opportunities e.g. Bristol Project

• Extend our Google Classroom offer to Year 1 Summer Term 2 in preparation for Y2

• Continue to develop our home- school curriculum Padlet

• Embrace new virtual learning opportunities e.g. Google poetry

• Enrol our new parents in EY as soon as possible each Summer Term so that they can benefit from our virtual learning environments

• Explore ideas to refurbish our ICT suite so that the space can be used more flexibly in the future e.g. 3D reality