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Schools Summer Network Meeting 2023 – all about Deep Dives

What a great start to the summer term! Over 130 schools from across Kent were in attendance at the Summer Network Meeting on Monday 24th April 2023.

We were delighted to welcome Karen Marshall as our speaker. Karen is an award-winning educational author, speaker, teacher and workshop presenter with over 20 pedagogical books to her name. Based in York, she is a practising private, peripatetic, first access and classroom music teacher. She is also a member of the British Dyslexia Association’s Music Committee.

Karen shared her experience of being on the receiving end of music deep dives and she shared her experience of the event while we all frantically made notes!

There were sp many important points to take away from Karen’s session to support schools with deep dives. However, some key ones were:

  •  ‘Progress’!  Ofsted wanted to see how a student progressed from EYFS, through KS1 and KS2. They wanted to see this clearly on provision and skills maps and quizzed staff and children on their progress through the school. Everyone needed to be aware of their progress and what is coming next.
  • All staff needed to know the school’s music curriculum inside out, just as they would understand the maths curriculum.
  • Everything needed to be relevant. They wanted to know how a particular warm up related to the main content. Everything you do needs purpose and intent.
  • A key point of interest was on the topic of evidence. Karen was asked to provide audio or video evidence of children’s work. This is contrary to advice given by Christopher Stevens from Ofsted who stated that physical evidence is not needed as inspectors will draw their conclusions from the lessons they observe. As a Hub we would say that when planning your curriculum, it is worth considering how best to capture pupil progress and making sure that assessment points are mapped in. For example, if you intend on teaching pupils to sing with accuracy or rhythm and pitch in a scheme, record your pupils at the beginning and at the end of the scheme to demonstrate the progress they made over time.

Karen has kindly allowed us to share her slides with people who attended the network meeting. If you attended the meeting and have not had an opportunity to access them then please contact your local Area Manager.

To find out more about Ofsted’s requirements, check out our dedicated pages: