Continuity and Progression: Life in the Upper School
At Glendower we welcome girls with a range of talents, abilities and personalities. We aim to provide a breadth of opportunities and challenges so that each girl can discover her particular talents and interests and can develop these to the full. We believe that girls should share both learning and life experiences with different sorts of people, both adults and peers, so that they learn to acquire tolerance and understanding. We are used to drawing out the shy girl so that she feels valued and confident as well as channelling the energies of the more vociferous and confident so that they have the satisfaction of achieving well both individually and as part of a team. We aim to see our girls as they leave us in Year 6 happy, quietly confident, with a strong sense of their abilities and achievements and fully prepared for the start of the next phase of their education. Through a range of teaching methods and experiences we hope to develop each girl's individuality in her thinking skills so that she can give rein to her creativity and express her views with substantiation. We are able to do this because our class sizes are small, our teaching is, and has been, excellent over many years, and lessons are delivered in a variety of stimulating ways.
At Glendower, each girl does matter and each has an important contribution to make both to our school and to the community as a whole.
Unless you have an older daughter who has progressed through the Upper School you may be wondering what lies in store for your daughter next year when she moves to the Upper School. I am writing to try and give you a flavour of what is to come so that you can see how much there is to look forward to.
Essentially, in the Upper School, we aim to build on the strong foundations laid in the Lower School but also now to extend the range of educational and recreational opportunities too. Each girl will be able to actively participate in these and these, in turn, should enable girls to learn new skills, experience enjoyment and fulfilment and a heightened awareness of the number of exciting possibilities for the future.
The year group is usually divided into two forms which will stay together all the way through unless we feel that there are too many personality clashes within a form and then, in rare circumstances, we re-shuffle the classes. This academic year there is only one form but we anticipate there being two again in September.
Each form has a form teacher who is in charge of the pastoral care of each girl and to whom you should refer if you have a concern as a first port of call. In addition to this, the girls will continue to be taught by the subject specialists, Mr. Sanderson for Music, Miss Martin for Drama and Mme Metro for French. PE, swimming and netball will be taught by Miss Richardson and Miss Rowe but they may be assisted by Miss Mackenziel, Mr. Oppenlander and Miss Tucker.
The great excitement for the girls in Year 3 is that they are allocated to one of our three Houses, Gordon, Wellington or Marlborough and they are also allowed to wear a purse belt! Breaks, lunchtimes and after lunch recreation all move to be in line with the rest of the Upper School. The full range of extra-curricular activities is available to the girls after school including such exciting things as Chess Club, German and Scottish Dancing. There is also a homework club each day from 4 to 5 pm, which is supervised, for which any girl can sign up. The choir and netball and swimming squads are by invitation but girls who are well-motivated and hard-working will easily be spotted! They regularly compete in swimming galas and netball tournaments both locally and nationally. And frequently win!
In Year 3 the girls currently have Miss Mackenzie as their form teacher. She teaches them English, Maths, ICT, RE, Geography, History and PSHE.They have Art lessons and DT lessons with Miss Tattersfield. One of their Science lessons (a double period) is taught by Mr Marshall and the other by Miss Tucker, the Science Coordinator, in the lab. They will also have enjoyed this arrangement in Year 2. Miss Martin will teach a Library period each week.
In Year 4 the girls currently have Mrs Sales and Mr Oppenlander as their form teachers. Mrs Sales teaches English and History to both classes and Mr Oppenlander teaches Maths and Geography to both classes. In addition to the other subject specialists, they now have Miss Tucker for Science, Mrs Travis for RE and Miss Campbell for ICT.
In Year 5 the two form teachers are currently Miss Tucker and Miss Martin. The girls continue to be taught by the subject specialists as mentioned before (Mrs Sales is the History Coordinator and Mr Oppenlander the Geography Coordinator) but they are now taught English by Miss Clegg, the English Coordinator and Maths by Mr Marshall, the Maths Coordinator.
In Year 6 the two form teachers are Mr Sanderson and Miss Clegg. The girls are taught by all the afore-mentioned subject specialists and Latin is added to the curriculum as well as Verbal Reasoning in preparation for the 11+ exams.
All forms in the Upper School are taught PSHE by their form teachers.
Mrs Travis is the Director of Studies and the person who coordinates the teaching and learning in the Upper School. She is the one to whom you should refer if your query is one of an academic nature.
Miss Richardson, the Deputy Head, is in charge of pastoral care and any concerns which the form teacher has not been able to address should be referred to her.
She organises the Prefects and Miss Martin the Librarians. These are posts of responsibility which all girls in Year 6 hold on a temporary basis whilst we assess their aptitude for positions of responsibility within the school. Permanent Prefects and Librarians are appointed at the end of February and a Head Girl is chosen.
Girls elect their form captains as their representatives each half-term. They also elect the Member of Council for their year and the girls chosen have an active and exciting role in the life of the school-we listen to them!
From Year 5 the girls will be placed in sets for Maths and they are also taught English in these groups. This allows for the work to be tailored to the needs of individuals. Often there are other teachers, such as Mrs Travis or Mr Oppenlander who are timetabled to teach alongside so that they can withdraw groups for consolidation or extension purposes which further decreases the group size and increases the amount of individual attention which each girl receives. Similar support is offered in English from Mrs. Gifford, Miss Martin and Mrs Sales with Miss Bond coming in once a week to teach girls for whom English is not their mother tongue.
Internal assessment and tracking ensure that our teaching is informed accordingly. Differentiation within the lessons either formally, for those girls who have Individual Educational Plans recommended by Educational Psychologists, or informally, is the norm. Formal assessment results are shared with parents and regular methods of reporting to parents are firmly in place and we keep these under constant review.
We do not read out marks and results in class as we do not wish any girl to suffer from loss of self esteem. Our aim is always to encourage, praise and celebrate because we know that children feel secure and achieve best in such a positive and rewarding atmosphere.
All of the staff in the Upper School very much look forward to welcoming your daughters, getting to know them and guiding and sharing in their learning and development over the next four years.
Rosamond Bowman Spring 2010