Flying high at Shropshire primary school with glowing Ofsted report
A school near Market Drayton got the chance to celebrate its latest good Ofsted report with a visit from an RAF team.
Excited Hodnet Primary School students watched in amazement as pilots from nearby RAF Shawbury descended in a Juno helicopter.
The team was there to hand over a STEM kit, soon after Ofsted reported the findings of their latest inspection.
Headteacher Penny Lyall said the school often works with the area's armed forces bases.
"We have many forces families in school and we have found the projects, especially more recent projects, to be superb learning experiences for our children," she said.
"We took part in RAF 100 events, such as Fly to the Line, where our children got through to the national finals.
"This helicopter event is another way of developing STEM projects in school through exciting learning experiences - memory makers.
"We want to give our children good experiences and this is one of them."
The Ofsted report, following a visit on November 28, praised the leadership team's "drive and commitment", the "beautiful" school grounds and parents' positive views of the school.
Mrs Lyall said: "We are delighted to secure a 'Good' overall effectiveness grade.
"When speaking to children the inspector noted 'pupils enjoy coming to school... learning is exciting because topics are interesting... pupils appreciate opportunities to work outdoors in the beautiful school grounds'.
"Our whole school team is delighted with the inspection report. If you would like to read the full report it is available on our school website hodnetschool.com or via the Ofsted reports page."
Mrs Lyall has served at the school since 2013, acting as deputy head before becoming acting headteacher last year, and taking on the job properly at the start of this academic year.
She said: "I am thoroughly enjoying my role and embracing the challenges of leadership.
"As new headteacher I am very pleased that parents praised leaders for bringing about stability. We are a strong, committed team at Hodnet, our aim is to ensure all children have access to a broad and balanced curriculum which is exciting and innovative, stimulating them to be inquisitive learners.
"I am very proud to be headteacher at Hodnet, not only are we aiming high academically but the level of care and pastoral support for our pupils is exemplary. Overall Hodnet is a happy and thriving school at the heart of a welcoming community, a great place to be.
"This year our early years team have adopted principles from the Reggio Emilia approach to learning.
"The staff team have worked exceptionally hard to adapt the learning spaces to include resources designed to stimulate open ended investigations and create enabling environments.
"They have created a more natural, holistic and calming environment designed to enable the children to be more independent in their learning choices.
"So far the children have enjoyed setting their own learning pathways, investigating rabbits as they found some ‘holes’ and some children are very keen to learn about building sites due to our building work, so they have enjoyed peeping through the window and communicating with the builders.
"They have also learned about dinosaurs because they found some eggs in our extensive grounds. The children are all keen to learn and able to make positive learning choices. We are very proud of them."
