Teaching and Learning

Education never ends, it is a lifelong acquisition of skills which enables everyone to play a full role in influencing the events around them; it helps shape the values and skills of individuals, enabling them to lead a positive and fulfilled life. This journey begins when a child is born and, once in school, we have an important role in working alongside parents in developing and establishing the foundations for adult life. At Crabbs Cross Academy we have clear ambitions for achieving this.

Every child is entitled to a teacher that will inspire them, engage them and help them to make the maximum progress they are able to each year through their school life. In short, all children are entitled to teaching that is outstanding and the Trust’s vision is to provide this by recruiting teachers who will inspire children to be information seekers and clear thinkers, listeners and learners in their own right. Visitors in school can see this in action every day.

Together the staff have developed a culture where:

• children tell us they want to come to school, to learn and understand what to do next to continually improve
• relationships in the classroom and across the school are excellent and enable children to learn in a secure and safe environment
• classrooms support and help children to be good learners 
• teachers are experts in the subjects they teach and if, due to curriculum or year group changes, they are less sure they seek out the excellence and support within school and across our two schools so they develop professionally
• teaching is stimulating, enthusiastic and consistently challenging with its foundations strongly rooted in an understanding of how children learn
• the curriculum engages children, valuing how they learn best; children are active partners in their learning and are enabled to be independent in their choices
• children know what they need to do to improve; they are clear about their next steps and how to meet them, enabling strong progress and achievement from starting points
• staff use a variety of teaching methods, aiming for children be active learners for most of the lesson in whole class, group, paired and independent work, with the teacher shaping and facilitating learning from their knowledge of where children need to go next
• additional adults within school understand how they can aid children under the guidance of the teacher and intervene effectively to support individual and group learning.