Starfish Story: SATs at St Anne’s RC Primary School
By Zoe de Haes, 7 December 2011
As a Corps Member I proudly served on the Barclays Capital team, at St Anne’s RC Primary School in Tower Hamlets.
I provided classroom support to a year six English group, which comprised of 13 children, all of whom had learning, behavioural, social and emotional difficulties and started the year at levels 1 – 3. There were always four or five adults in the group, making the ratio of adults to children around 1:3. During the year, I worked with most children on one occasion or another but I did have a ‘focus child’.
As one of many children in the school who spoke English as an additional language, and having spent a year in Brazil before coming to St Anne’s, she started Year Six with only a basic ability to read or write. I worked with her during English classes and read with her whenever possible during ‘Discovery’. As the SATs drew nearer we worked one-to-one, for 30 minutes every morning before school. She found it hard and there were often times when it was a challenge to engage her in learning, but I knew if I kept going her confidence and ability would improve. I had to be inventive finding ways to improve her vocabulary, spelling and comprehension. One thing which worked really well was a picture dictionary I created, of words she did not understand in class. I always encouraged her learning and rewarded her with stickers and her attitude changed from ‘can’t-do’ to ‘can-do’.
My ‘focus child’ progressed from a level 2, to achieve a level 4 in her SATs exams. In the class six children achieved a level 5, five children achieved a level 4 and two children achieved a level 3.
