Wow, what an amazing and inspiring day! We split into two groups today and 4 of us went to PS5 (the number of the school). It's in a pretty tough neighbourhood in the north of Manhattan. I'll be honest. I thought that we'd see a slightly hectic school that was struggling to control 'difficult' pupils who found it hard to learn for all sorts of reasons. I was very wrong. The school has 788 pupils and 99% of them receive free school meals - this is one of the ways that school compare each other.
Our first stop was the school based health centre. Was talked to the busy medical team who are based at the school and as 'at home' as the teachers. They are not visitors, this is their place of work. At the front door is a desk with a NYPD police officer overseeing security. Again she's not a visitor, she works there. As well as the principal there is a Community School Director. Her job is to run all the parts of the school that involve partnerships and oversee extended learning and community involvement. She is paid by the Children' Aid Society. She's not a visitor, she works there. By organising the school in this way, children are at the centre of the schools work. There is just 'joined up thinking' about how these people are paid. They work where they are most needed and where they can help most.
Next we met a group of parents in the Community Room. This room is really popular. Some days they can come in to learn knitting skills, other days they creative things in art sessions. On other days, they have the chance to meet and speak with a psychologist about things that worry them or which are affecting their learning in a bad way.
The ladies who spoke very little English get a lot of support from each other and the program staff. ... But they made the best cup of coffee I've had all week!
After this we spoke with members of the social work team who told us about the 'Balance Room', a place where children can choose to go for a bit of time out to learn about controlling their anger. After this we met with Mrs Sota the school's principal (headteacher) - she was a fantastic character who has led the school for 14 years.
We then visited classes from each year group. Each year group has around 5 classes and what was very obvious when we stood in and watched lessons was the quality of the learning which of course is down to the quality of teaching. My favourite lesson was a mixed year 3-4 class of pupils who are quite new to the school. The children are mainly from Dominican Republic families. In this lesson two visitors from the NY Reatoration Project visited to show the children how to investigate how much salt was in each sample. The samples came from the Harlem River (also called East River) and the Hudson River to the west. I was really impressed by the children's willingness to learn, their correct answers and the level of work they did. Their teacher was inspirational- just a great teacher who understands how children learn.
After a fantastic lunch, of rice and sauce and fried banana, a Dominican dish, we visited a number of classes. Again lessons were calm and organised and of a really high standard. I think I expected to see a school with some wild, hard to manage children and low standards of learning. I was wrong-this is a very safe, calm and focussed place to learn. A school with high standards and most importantly high expectations.
We visited the after school club which is run by CAS and I was amazed that, for juniors, there is the option to join a reading group and get support there. The groups are split into boys and girls which let's them focus on certain activities at certain times. The sessions look just like literacy lessons. Again, high standards.
We met some fantastic teachers and leaders as well as workers today. In Wales every aspect of running a school comes down to the Headteacher but here there are more people to do those jobs that need doing but which don't make learning easier.
Fantastic day! But that's a lot of typing on a phone pad so I'm going to go now to sleep!
