Page 17 - The Badger - Issue 8

THE BADGER Celebrating 125 Years of The Downs
Academic Report
The 2024-2025 school year has been another terrific, and highly successful one at The Downs Malvern.
TThe TDM Baccalaureate is now fully established and in its second year. It has been incredibly well received by pupils, staff and parents alike, with
pupils being well motivated to excel in all areas of school life and showing clear motivation to reach their highest achievable level. This was notable right from the start of the course all the way through to the end. Regular updates meant that our Year 8s pushed hard in those final few months in an attempt to get across the threshold for the next level. Many succeeded!
This Year 8 cohort proved themselves to be hugely able with three pupils achieving the highest accolade of an overall Platinum level (Academic and Personal Development combined). Academically, there were an impressive five pupils who achieved that optimum level, perhaps no surprise when one notes that the children managed to attain no less than eleven academic scholarships or awards to various senior schools: a clear record achievement.
Of course, the Baccalaureate is not just about those who gained a Platinum award. It is an aspirational programme where children strive for their own personal best. It was fantastic to note that, in many cases, the Personal Development aspect enhanced an overall score, clearly encouraging pupils to engage productively in a wide variety of areas - perfect for children of this age.
In other areas, the school continues to embrace the Structural Learning initiative with the highly acclaimed founder, Paul Main, delivering our Summer Term INSET. The initiative embraces a structured, evidence based, approach to teaching and learning, supporting and encouraging individual flair from our teachers but using a cohesive educational language so that pupils can
recognise when and how to use specific skills to help them achieve their learning goals. Next year, this will be developed by a further pedagogical focus on what we are calling the First Five - challenging and stimulating five-minute starter activities designed to ensure an active focus from the off and enabling children to prepare their minds for the lesson’s activities ahead.
A child’s metacognition has been at the forefront of our minds this year. We want children to engage fully with their individual learning journeys, understanding and reflecting on where their strengths and weaknesses lie. In order to enable this, since the start of the Summer Term, all academic subjects have been using either Reflection or Progress Checker sheets at the start and end of each topic. Comments like ‘I didn’t realise how much progress I have made’ and ‘Well, it’s clear that I need to work on that area’ have been heard throughout the school, and this initiative has encouraged the children to take greater responsibility for their own learning and to set their own SMART targets.
The profile of academia has been further enhanced with several initiatives from key departments.
In September our new Reading Ladder was launched, a scheme intended to encourage our pupils to expand their reading across a variety of genres whilst ensuring that the books that are read are age appropriate in content. Children who have gained their badges or simply read a book on the scheme helped to gain points for their House, the points being accumulated at the end of each term. The Autumn Term also saw us celebrate National Poetry Day in style, with some fantastic performances being delivered from each House. In the Spring Term, the school celebrated World Book Day and some classes wrote to the authors of their class readers and received letters back! Year 8 embarked on a collaborative project with the Art department based on Shaun Tan’s, The Arrival. The Summer Term whizzed by with exams, reading books focusing on myths and legends and Year 7 spent time working on advertising campaigns for toothpaste.
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