English -  Miss Wilson

Maths - Mrs Geaves  and Mr Craig (STEM team)

Science - Mrs Geaves  (STEM team)

Computing - Mr Craig (STEM team) 

P.E - Miss Wilson

P.S.H.E 

Creative Arts - Miss Lavos

Music - Mrs Costi

MfL - (Spanish in KS2) - Miss Lavos

Humanities - (History, Geography and R.E) - Mrs Burman and Miss Sturmey

EYFS leader - Mrs Geaves

KS1 leader - Miss Wilson

LKS2 leader - Miss Lavos

UKS2 leader - Mr Craig

All subjects have their own subject-specific SEF, written in the summer term each year. This SEF is then used, by the subject leader, to formulate the subject-specific action plan. All subject-specific action plans then lead directly into the wider School Development Plan.

Here at Waterside we give our teachers, who are also subject leaders, two additional lessons per week release time to fully plan for, implement and then evaluate the impact of their area of curriculum responsibility.

Being a subject leader is an incredible privilege but a big responsibility too. We recognise the increased workload that comes with leading a subject; curriculum mapping and planning, monitoring, feedback, research, measuring impact and so much more.

This is why every single one of our subject leaders gets two lessons, every single week, out of class, to fully lead their subject properly.

This is protected release time and enables our team to do their jobs to the best of their abilities. The children are then taught by Mrs Burton, who is a very experienced and highly skilled teacher. 

4) The behaviour of pupils requires improvement. Although pupils are polite and well-mannered around the school, during lessons they are not independently resilient and this stops them applying their learning effectively.

At Waterside Academy we all strive to follow our Golden Rules...

We let other children learn

We are kind

We look after property

We keep ourselves safe

We try our hardest

These ‘Golden Rules’ were written with the help of the children and are explicitly taught in class as well as in our Monday assembly each and every week.

Here at Waterside we take every possible action to make sure our behaviour leadership is robust and consistent.

In the autumn of 2019 we sat down with our leadership groups to work through our behaviour processes and then implemented a brand new behaviour policy. The absolute focus of the policy is consistency and restorative justice.

All staff have been given significant training and instruction on how to embed the policy fairly and consistently. We review this overtime and continuously provide staff with behaviour leadership guidance.

5) Although improving, the quality of teaching is too variable across a range of subjects. Consequently, achievement for pupils in all areas across the curriculum is not consistently good.

A very comprehensive program of CPD is offered and delivered to all staff. Our teaching team this year have benefited from CPD work looking at an array of different pedagogical skills including assessment for learning, differentiation, questioning, feedback, behaviour leadership, grammatical structures to both spoken and written English amongst other things.

In addition to the CPD we deliver here in school, our teachers also access a wide range of training courses from various supplies including, but not limited to, HfL.

We have also benefited from the support of teaching and learning providers who have worked with the school across English, maths and the early years. Feedback from visits is always given and actions are put in place to continuously improve the quality of what we do.

6) The newly implemented curriculum is not yet fully developed across all subjects. As a result, pupils are not receiving a broad and balanced curriculum.

Since the launch of our new academy, we at Waterside have worked tirelessly to design and deliver an engaging curriculum that ensures children leave our school with the skills and knowledge they need to be successful within the next phase of their learning and development.

We intend to, and indeed do, deliver a curriculum that helps children to understand the world around them, both here in Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire, but also within the wider world as a whole.

We are passionate about enhancing the future opportunities that our young learners will have in life and believe these all start with a world-class and personally designed curriculum.

Some of our young learners will eventually go on to study at world-leading universities, some will be skilled tradespeople, some will work wonderfully within the creative industries and others may be destined for careers in financial or legal services. Whatever our future leaders choose to pursue, we are driven by the knowledge that they leave us with the ability to 'do things' to a very good standard but also 'know things' that help with that journey. 

In addition to the skills and knowledge our children gain from our carefully sequenced curriculum planning we are also very proud to consistently develop our learners' 'cultural capital' through the strategic implementation of enrichment opportunities such as day trips away from the main school site and facilitating visitors here as well, all of which start in the early years foundation stage of the school. 

This way we know that today's learning really does prepare our children for, but also vastly improves, tomorrow's world!

7) Over time, while getting better, in key stage 2, too few pupils make enough rapid progress to ensure they attain the nationally expected standards. This results in Year 6 pupils not being sufficiently ready for the next stage of their education.

National league tables for schools across the UK were released in December 2019. By way of comparison, we have looked at where Waterside Academy ranks compared to the other primary schools across Hertfordshire, which is typically a high-achieving county.

There are 481 primary schools in Hertfordshire - Waterside Academy ranked...

Reading Progress = 159th out of 481

Writing Progress = 210th out of 481

Maths Progress = 77th out of 481

Last year 64% of our year six pupils left for secondary school having met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths - which is in-line with national figures.

School Performance Data 2018.19

Key Stage 2 Summary Figures (not current due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic)

Assessment Results 2023

Compare Waterside Here - National Performance Tables

Compare Waterside Academy to other schools here

SEN

SEND Information Report

Mindfulness Video for Children and Young people

DSPL website http://dspl-welhat.org.uk/

Complaints Procedure

Click here and scroll down for the trust wide Complaints Policy

Whistle-blowing

Click here and scroll down for the Trust wide Whistleblowing Policy

Requests for paper copies

If a parent/carer requests a paper copy of the information on our school’s website, we will provide this free of any charge.