Newlands Primary School News: June 2015

Newlands Primary wins the ‘International Award’ at the prestigious 2015 TES Schools Awards

London, 20 June 2015: Newlands Primary School in Hampshire, has won the ‘International (including MFL)’ award at the prestigious 2015 TES Schools Awards. The awards, now in their seventh year, recognise outstanding contributions made by education teams and individuals to help students around the country to succeed, both inside and outside the classroom.

International school partnerships can sometimes be token affairs with little in the way of interaction. At Newlands Primary School, nothing could be further from the truth.

Through its partnership programme, Newlands has ties with schools in Kenya, South Africa and Sweden; these relationships are subject to an extensive review and evaluation process to ensure the potential benefits are maximised. Teachers from the different schools do joint planning and trips involve a rigorous five-step CPD process that includes background research on the school being visited and an evaluation after the event.

All this careful oversight means that best practice can be shared and genuine international collaboration can occur. The initiative helps to drive school improvement; it has contributed to a record high of 98 per cent attendance and improved results in all subjects, particularly reading. What is even more impressive is that the partner schools have experienced the same benefits, showing that the scheme is truly a two-way process.

Building on this success, the school is embarking on a new project this year, in which pupils will assess their school based on criteria from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The judges said: “It was the school’s innovative streak – and its willingness to share the fruits of the ideas that spring forth – that made it stand out in a competitive field”.

Ann Mroz, Editor, TES, commented: “Newlands Primary School is doing fantastic work providing students with a rich cross-cultural education, putting ‘global citizenship’ at the very heart of the school.”

Winners attended a black-tie event in at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London, hosted by BAFTA-nominated writer and comedian Greg Davies, where over 1,000 attendees celebrated all that is outstanding in UK education, from the efforts of individual teachers to the work of entire schools.

The awards have 17 categories, including secondary school, primary school, alternative provision and healthy school of the year. New accolades have been introduced in 2015 for teacher-bloggers and early years’ settings, in addition to an award for the most creative school.

The winners were chosen by a panel of judges including the writer Anthony Horowitz, Dame Joan McVittie, Headteacher, Woodside High School, London, and Colin Bell, Chief Executive of the Council of British International Schools.

The list of this year’s categories is as follows (Full details of the winners can be viewed here):

• Headteacher of the year

• Lifetime achievement award

• Teacher blogger of the year

• Bev Evans resource contributor of the year

• Community and collaboration award

• International (including MFL) award

• Healthy school of the year

• Creative school of the year

• English teacher or team of the year

• Science, technology and engineering teacher or team of the year

• Maths teacher or team of the year

• Arts and humanities award

• Early years setting of the year

• Primary school of the year

• Secondary school of the year

• Alternative provision school of the year

• Overall school of the year

For more coverage of the awards, profiles of the winners and photos from the evening, please visit www.tesawards.co.uk or pick up a copy of TES magazine, available in newsagents from 26 June.

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About TES

The TES story is an extraordinary one: its digital community is one of the fastest growing of any profession globally, and it boasts a 100-year heritage at the centre of teaching and the education community. Today, with more than 7 million registered online users in 279 countries and territories, TES is the world’s largest online network of teachers. Home to more than 800,000 individually crafted teaching resources developed by teachers for teachers, now downloaded 1 million times a day, this unparalleled collection helps to guide, inform and inspire educators around the world. For more information: www.tes.co.uk