I am currently an Assistant Headteacher at Bowker Vale Primary School, and I have led our EYFS provision as part of this and previous roles for over 13 years.  I have worked primarily in Reception throughout my career, however I have also spent time teaching in our Nursery classes.

I have led many changes including transforming from an EYFS unit to a separate Nursery and Reception. I have also been involved in the designing and planning of our new Reception classrooms.

Through leading my own team I have worked collaboratively to improve the skills of everyone in the team and support them to increase the level of challenge for our children. We have also worked on other aspects of our provision including improving adult interactions with the children and ensuring our indoor and outdoor environments provide a consistently engaging and stimulating place for our children to learn.

I was recently part of the team which delivered the phonics intervention programme which supported schools with the phonics provision from Nursery to Year 2. This involved providing information on subject knowledge, ideas for manageable planning for different groups of different abilities, information on how to effectively assess children’s phonics, links with reading and writing, practical activities for phonics sessions and the application of phonics in different areas of the classroom. Through this project we also provided ideas for improving parental engagement with children’s learning across the curriculum.

I have supported other schools with reorganisation of classrooms, timetabling and planning to ensure the environment provided sufficient challenge for all children. Through these projects I have spent time in other schools supporting EYFS leaders and teachers to reflect on their own practise and provision. I have also invited practitioners to spend time in my school to share ideas and see my setting in action. One of the main aspects of my role here was to provide increased confidence for the practitioners to reflect on all of the different aspects their own settings and support in making the appropriate changes.

I have also supported teachers within my own phase, and other schools, to scrutinise data in order to action plan. This has helped those I have supported to acquire the skills with which to sustain the development of their own practise over a period of time.

Bowker Vale Primary School

Bowker Vale is a 2 form entry school in the North of Manchester.  We have a large proportion of children with EAL.

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