Chair of Governor's Message
Since my last message there have been some exciting changes here at Hirst Park.
The school is now part of a Trust and Hard Federation within the Ashington Learning Partnership. It is also subject to an application to become a Sports College later this year and work is well under way to achieve this.
In September 2006, a group of Ashington Schools was chosen by the government to become Pathfinders for a new educational venture – forming an Educational Trust.
One year later, the schools in question, Ashington High School, Bothal Middle School, Central First School, Hirst Park Middle School and Wansbeck First School, formed the Ashington Learning Partnership and became one of the first twelve Trusts in the country.
We were joined in the venture by some very prestigious partners as Trustees: The University of Northumbria, Northumberland County Council, Wansbeck Business Forum, Ashington Children’s Centre and Northumberland College.
The Trust was formed to improve the quality of the education of the children in the five schools, over 3,000 in all. By pooling resources and sharing the expertise of staff we have increased the range of provision for our pupils. More importantly, we have begun to explore new ways of delivering education to match the needs of our pupils.
We are currently designing a curriculum which puts more emphasis on teaching skills that enable pupils to become independent learners and less and less reliant on being told what to do.
We are moving away from slotting all learning into subject based lessons of about an hour and are exploring extended learning opportunities which cross subject and age boundaries. One example of this is what we call the 'Deep Learning Day'.
The concept of Deep Learning Days is part of the work of the Trust, where pupils might move from school to school working with different teachers in an all age class, supporting each other and investigating big themes such as Global Awareness.
Our last DLD was a tremendous success. We were delighted by the responses and feedback we got fron staff and students.
The pictures on this page are all from our the last Deep Learning Day and show students from Hirst Park working with sixth formers from Ashington High as well as pupils from the First Schools in the Partnership.
As well as getting some deep and meaningful learning experiences, we’re also having a lot of fun!
We are already planning our next Deep Learning Day which will have an unusual and exciting theme! Be sure to watch this website for more information..!
Chris Smith
Chair of Governors