THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW
Highlighting best practice
32 | BERRYWOOD PRIMARY SCHOOL
Hook – Imaginative activity to engage
pupils in the subject matter and project
structure ahead
Body of Learning – Six to eight weeks
of well-planned project lessons
bringing rigour into learning across
thecurriculum
Celebration – Exciting and varied
events to which parents are invited; an
experience aimed at deepening pupils’
understanding
Having embedded project learning
fundamentals, we’ve created capacity
to embark on larger scale projects. In
2014, we appointed an environmental
learning leader who transformed
our nine-acre site. To explain our
journey towards “a school within
a garden”, we’ve produced a film,
greenheroes.berrywood-pri.hants.
sch.uk, that celebrates the beauty of
our environment while exploring the
children’s critical thinking on climate
change. In establishing the Green
Heroes brand and Forest School
approaches, our aim is to encourage
pupils and staff to take this venture to
even greater heights.
Challenges ahead and future
hopes
Like many public-sector organisations,
our greatest challenge is meeting
growing need during a sustained
period of funding constraint.
Educationalists, child psychologists
and others with a professional stake
cite a decline in children’s social,
emotional and academic functioning,
alongside increases in mental health
diagnoses. Thus, doing more with less
is straining capacity in even the best
placed schools and adversely affecting
recruitment and retention.
Another challenge is steering a
pathway through SATs in the better
interest of pupils. While welcoming
accountability and not denying the
imperative of a strong grounding in
English and maths, the effectiveness
of these tests, with their impact on
pupils’ wellbeing and a narrowing
curriculum, are of increasing concern
to parents and professionals.
The ambition at Berrywood is
founded on a belief that primary-
age children benefit from a buoyant
education aligned to their actual lives
and the exciting spirit of childhood.
It is encouraging that unease is
being voiced over, seemingly, the
acceleration of a predominantly
utilitarian direction in state education
and the possibility that by subtle
design this mainly serves to preserve
vested interests. Likewise, the political
consensus in neoclassical economics
that during recent decades has
provided the overarching context for
public policy, including education,
may now be ending. If this is
the case, a significant number of
educationalists may well welcome the
prospect of redefining the purpose of
their work through better imagining
a future less restricted by a naïve
standardsagenda.
Children
benefit from a
buoyant
education
aligned to
their actual
lives and the
exciting spirit
of childhood
“
“
Forest School – creative
experiences in the spirit
of childhood
Rt Hon The Lord David Blunkett, MP
Rt Hon The Lord Eric Pickles, MP
