Jenni Osbaldiston

-My philosophy is that learning should be exciting and experiential. For example, I involved the children in the planning and design of the pond in our school meadow, using calculations of perimeter, area and volume (of the pond).
-It is vital that education also encompasses and is rooted in equal rights for all and have strong links to the community and worldwide issues. Very recently, I have been teaching the children about the Black Lives Matter movement, about racial injustice and non-violent protest (e.g. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr) and about the first 100 years of women’s suffrage and professional involvement.
-I include practical learning in my teaching wherever possible. I have strengthened my mathematics programme, having been trained to use the Maths Mastery approach this year. I was observed by Laura Tyler, a Westminster principal delivery lead in January 2020 as part of my training. She was impressed by the range of resources I used, writing,“There was a huge range of resources out and available for the children to use. The children were using diagrams, manipulatives-cubes, bead strings and dienes” It is essential at all times to challenge and extend children’s thinking and Laura noted that, “Through the use of JO’s questioning she was able to challenge and push the GDS children, and even challenged a GDS child to recognise where he had made a mistake.”
-I was Mathematics Coordinator from 2016 to 2018, during which I supported colleagues through observations and feedback, lead regular staff meetings, ran workshops for parents and monitored school wide assessment for mathematics. When I left the role in 2018, our school’s results for ARE across the school were above national average and in most year groups above the expectations set for Kingston Borough. Children in the PPG group made excellent progress to ARE in maths between 2016 and 2018, with a rise in children doing so from 60% to 80% (Year 1), 50% to 71% (Year 2), 0% to 50% (Year 4) and 58% to 83% (Year 6).
- My teaching and my pupils’ learning has been consistently graded as either outstanding or good. My planning has been praised as having clear objectives and imaginative cross curricular links. My link inspector at King Athelstan Primary, came to monitor how we were implementing a new marking policy. My marking across all areas was identified as an “excellent example of effective marking.”
-I was Literacy Coordinator for 3 years at King Athlestan School and I believe I was instrumental in helping the school make progress. I implemented school wide individual writing targets, organised whole school book day events, took booster groups for Year 6 children (all these children then achieved ARE in writing and reading), introduced effective 1-1 writing conferencing techniques for staff, promoted effective questions to assess reading across all assessment focuses and held numerous staff meetings on shared writing and writing moderation. This role also involved my being an effective part of the Senior Leadership team. Part of that role required me to undertake book looks, learning walks and observations for reading and literacy – supporting my colleagues to further develop their teaching of literacy and reading.
- King Athelstan’s strength is that is an extremely multicultural school. We had a multicultural festival in which children enjoyed sharing food, song and art activities linked to the cultures and religions of those who made up the school. In my current school, I recently had a parent deliver an assembly with me based on the Polish culture (we have a high proportion of pupils whose parents hail from Poland). At King Athelstan school there was also a high intake of children for whom English is an additional language. I developed many strategies to support these pupils in developing English communication, reading and writing skills. Most of the pupils who arrived in my class with no English went on to become confident and fluent English speakers, readers and writers. I was involved in a pilot project run by Nicky Hickman (EAL Coordinator for Kingston) to encourage the progress of new to English speakers. I learnt many new strategies and Nicky observed me in order to judge the impact of each approach. We planned and evaluated each literacy lesson to measure the impact on how our EAL children were responding. These approaches had an immediate impact on the rapid progress of my EAL pupils. It also incidentally benefitted those of my pupils with special educational needs and helped to support the progress of my class generally. I and a colleague presented our strategies and findings to EAL coordinators in Kingston at the King Charles Centre in 2010. I have been EAL coordinator at St Matthews Primary School for 7 years now. Early on, I introduced ‘Assessing Proficiency in English for Pupils with EAL’ and trained our staff on how to effectively use it as an assessment tool and through staff meetings I taught staff EAL strategies to be utilised across reading and writing literacy units. A Year 6 EAL group I took last year during assembly times had been struggling with aspects of their writing but, by the end of the year with this support, 67% had reached ARE with 17% reaching above this in their writing.
- I have taught and managed pupils on varying levels of School Action and School Action Plus. I continue to work very closely with our SENCO to collate the evidence required for pupil’s Statement of Special Educational Needs and I have developed personalised learning programmes for many children over the years.
-To develop an inclusive learning environment for classes of highly mixed ability, I plan for a high level of differentiation and adapt my teaching style accordingly. I am flexible where necessary, whilst retaining structure, organisation and collaborative learning. My highly committed my Teaching Assistants are essential to this and I find out where their strengths lie in order to encourage and develop their skills. I teach each pupil in a way that allows them to maximise their individual potential. I have set up focus groups for high ability children, where pupils can be challenged through additional learning at a higher level.
-In order to help each child identify their future goals and to monitor their progress, I use formal assessment together with peer and self-assessment to set individual targets. My teaching assistant and I also work closely together to regularly carry out assessments in all areas. We give regular feedback to pupils and their parents to connect with their learning and become aware of the role they play in their progress. I regularly share their personalised targets across Mathematics, Reading and English –this focusses a pupil’s attention on what they have already managed to learn and the next steps required to support their progress.
- I encourage mutual respect between the children, my teaching assistant and me and have high expectations of their attitudes towards learning and behaviour. I maintain a neat, well-labelled learning environment with vibrant and interactive displays that are changed regularly. I encourage every child’s achievement through individual and whole class reward systems. I actively promote a growth mind set where I teach the importance of resilience.
- I am very experienced with issues surrounding children with safeguarding needs. I have worked closely with CAMHS and my SENCO to produce plans for children to support their mental health needs. I have also worked closely with my school safeguarding lead to support a mother and her child in my class suffering domestic violence. This year I have worked with the Young Carers service to support a boy who was not able to leave his flat due to his mother’s severe agoraphobia and social anxiety. I maintain regular communication with parents them through Home school diaries as well as regular meetings. A strong school home link, provides children with stability, organisation and consistency. I have also encouraged parents and carers to be involved in their children’s learning though helping on class trips, special events and open mornings where pupils show what they have learnt.
- ICT: I am adept to working remotely as well as providing remote home learning through Google Classroom to pupils who cannot currently attend school. My pupils have access to chrome notebooks which we use in many lessons. They are highly adept with technology and have taught me much! I use the full audiovisual range and online breadth of Smart Notebook.
- I have always been actively involved with my school community, participating in school fairs, fund raising projects and sports trips. I have run after school clubs such as a poetry, film and fitness clubs.
- After 27 years of teaching, I learn something every day and regularly undertake new professional development opportunities to challenge myself. I am constantly striving to keep learning so that my teaching practice continues to be relevant to my pupils.