Watling Lower School

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Watling Lower School endeavours to meet the Special Educational Needs of pupils, to help children with learning difficulties and to ensure that there is provision for the gifted child to reach his/her potential. The expertise of the Learning Support Team, the Emotional Behaviour, Disorder Unit and Psychology Service and other support services are employed to assess and help children where necessary.

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In Key Stage 1 the children cover a variety of games skills, gymnastics and dance. In Key Stage 2 the children cover games skills, gymnastics, dance, athletics and outdoor adventurous activities. The heated swimming pool is operational during the second half of the summer term. The children increase their water confidence and work towards swimming competence and swimming awards. The school has its own football team which participates in the Dunstable and District Lower Schools’ Football League. Parents run the football team after school and at weekends. Each summer we have a Sports Day, which is a fun day for all and is run as an activity day. A variety of after school clubs are on offer, including football, cricket, tennis and dance, and the school has recently been awarded the Silver Sports Active Award.

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Music plays an important part in the life of the school. There is a Key Stage 2 choir and a school orchestra (if enough instrumentalists are available), as well as recorder groups in Years 3 and 4. The children have an opportunity to learn to play the violin, cello and double bass and to participate in class lessons. We also offer woodwind and brass tuition through a private company, ‘Musicale’. The children are helped to develop their understanding and enjoyment of music through cross-curricular activities.

Each Key Stage has a timetabled singing lesson in addition to their class music lesson. They perform in a variety of concerts both in school and in the wider community.

All the children in Key Stage One perform in a musical play at Christmas, usually based around the Nativity. Key Stage Two children all participate their own musical production at the end of the summer term.

We have many visits from outside agencies for extra-curricular musical activities; Bedfordshire Youth Opera, Bedfordshire woodwind, brass and string groups; Douglas Coombs and his Music Scene; Shake, Rattle and Roll.

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Pupils are encouraged to develop their creative, imaginative and practical skills through a balanced programme of art, craft and design activities working individually, in groups and as a whole class. Their work is displayed in the classroom and around the school. Artefacts are displayed around the school on loan from the Art Advisory Centre.

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Children are encouraged to draw upon their own experience to help generate ideas in Design and Technology. They investigate and evaluate simple products to learn how they work. There are many opportunities to use skills and knowledge from art, mathematics and science in their own projects. They are encouraged to consider quality, as well as health and safety in their work, which is sometimes completed at home.

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Pupils are given the opportunity to develop an awareness of the past and of ways in which life was different from the present. They learn through enquiry, activities and first hand experiences looking at historical artefacts, visiting museums and historical buildings and inviting historians to school.

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Places and themes are studied to develop and apply geographical skills. This includes studying the locality of the school and contrasting localities both at home and abroad.

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Religious Education contributes educationally to the development of our pupils as individuals and members of society by fostering a reflective approach to life in the context of a growing understanding of the experiences, attitudes, beliefs and religious practices of mankind. R.E. takes place in cross-curricular topics and themes, through specific R.E. focused units of work, as a separate subject on the timetable and through spontaneous experiences.

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Pupils are taught to use I.C.T. to organise and communicate ideas and information. Computers are used daily in each classroom and each class is time-tabled a weekly session in the Computer Suite where the pupils have access to the Internet and E Mail. They use a wide range of programs on the computers including word-processing, databasing, graphics and programs linked to all subjects.