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Diary of a head teacher Helen Green – Upton Primary School


What prompted you to become a head teacher?


I went into teaching to teach so I had no great desire to become a head teacher. I had been a deputy for 13 years and I thoroughly enjoyed the ‘cut and thrust’ of this role and of course I still had a class of my own. I have spent over 30 years formulating my opinions on teaching and learning and rather than pursue headship, I decided to work as an SLE (Specialist Leader of Education). I supported management and teachers in five local authority schools. One of these schools was Upton Primary. I was asked to cover the headship for a short time and I am still here, so you could say I fell into headship by a combination of accident and circumstance. I feel very privileged to serve the Upton community. The main reasons I actually applied for the headship when it came up were because of the children (who are wonderful) and the staff who are incredibly dedicated. It sounds very twee but there is a family feeling about being part of Upton Primary School. Our school had an Ofsted inspection last September and after four years of hard slog, we got a good grading – something we are all very proud of.


Have you seen a move towards cross- curricular learning in your school and if so, what have been the benefits of this?


My secondment to Upton coincided with the introduction of the changes to the National Curriculum. I had attended Focus training and so the school began to use the learning challenge system. This involves introducing the topic via an overarching question. The children all get the chance to shape the learning by posing their own questions around the topic, engagement after all is crucial. We worked hard to eradicate passive learning by introducing a variety of interactive teaching strategies. Some subjects lend themselves naturally to a cross–curricular approach. Our learning challenges have science, history and geography as main drivers but other subjects can also be included, for example Year 6 this year have investigated the circulatory system and lung capacity during PE. One subject provides a context for developing and deepening learning in another.


We worked hard to eradicate passive learning by introducing a variety of interactive teaching strategies. Some subjects lend themselves naturally to a cross- curricular approach. Our learning challenges have science, history and geography as main drivers but other subjects can also be included.


Children need to understand why the learning is being linked. This isn’t ‘rocket science’ – where pedagogy is active and experiential children are able to make better links to the learning. Skilful teaching is required so that the learning is not tenuous, repetitive or lacking in expectation. As the years have passed, we have made further adaptations by placing a text at the centre of the learning and this has been greatly received by the children. The teaching profession often complains about change and often we are justified, however change is essential, standing still is not an option.


In what ways do you bring a cross- curricular approach into lessons?


One of the greatest challenges to cross–curricular learning is ensuring that work is always presented neatly. Historically there was a clear difference between work produced during ‘topic time’ and work produced in literacy and maths sessions. Over the last two years we have raised our expectations of all work produced. We introduced a presentation policy that covered non–negotiables for children’s work, ensuring that books are neat and well presented.


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