Spinning discs for music and fun
TEACHERS and education staff from across County Durham were treated to displays of juggling, dancing, drumming, drama and DJing at a Wear Valley school this week,Nearly 60 education experts and teachers attended the Raising Achievement conference held at Wolsingham School and Community College where they discussed ways to raise achievement in boys and looked at methods of engaging pupils.
Year five pupils from six of Wolsingham’s feeder primary schools, including Wolsingham Primary, Stanhope Barrington, Peases West, Blessed John Duckett and Millennium Primary school, also took part in the different skills.
Assistant headteacher of Wolsingham and leader of raising boys achievements Steve Glover said: “Nationally there is nine per cent gap between girls and boys achievements while in Durham it is 12 per cent.
“At Wolsingham the gap is more like the national average and we are targeting Years nine and 11 and implementing strategies to help them improve. “It’s not just academic though as we are trying to encourage caring masculinity, and get them away from the intense macho behaviour some of them have now.”
After listening to a talk by Gary Wilson, an expert in raising boys achievements, the teachers were shown various different activities which the youngsters from the feeder schools were getting involved with including circus skills and drumming.
Steve said: “The reason we’ve got the Year five pupils here is so they can see what is happening at our school and encourage them to come here.” Jill Hodgson from St Chad’s RCVA in Witton Park said: “It was really interesting and motivating to listen to the different ways of raising boys’ achievements, especially in literacy.
“We have to raise the self-esteem and confidence of the boys and give them proper role models.”
Chris Armstrong, headteacher from new Brancepeth Primary school said: “What’s important is getting away from the macho peer pressure stage and encourage them to learn and achieve in the classroom.”
This is the first such conference to be held at Wolsingham but headteacher Andrea Crawshaw is pleased with the way it went and says the school could be used as a conference venue in the future.
Mrs Crawshaw said: “Today is going really well and it is a good sign that we can hold events like this at the school. We are one of six schools in the county to be involved with Raising Boys’ Achievements programme and offered to host this event so that other schools in the region can learn all about it.
“We haven’t got a problem with achievement here, but we are still trying to raise it across the board. “Performing arts is a great way of raising achievement and encouraging pupils and we hope to demonstrate that to our partner primary schools who are here today.”
