Downsway Primary School on Shine Interventions: GPS

We spoke to the Deputy Head Teacher of Downsway Primary School and his team, Angela, Lorraine and Andy, about their recent experience with Shine GPS: Targeted Interventions for Primary:

"By inputting data from our [New GaPs] assessments into Boost Insights, the Group Intervention Reports identified pupils in need of extra support and then we adjusted the groups as we thought appropriate, in terms of character and whether Shine would best suit their needs. These pupils were then delivered the Spelling, Grammar, Vocabulary and Punctuation programmes. We ran two 30-minute sessions in groups of 10 across years 5 and 6.

The pupils showed a positive response to the interventions. The engagement in the sessions was really good and several of the children came to me and said that they really enjoyed it. You would come across a part that some of them go, “oh, I'm not sure about this” or “that finally explains that” and you get the little light bulb moments which are great.

The interventions were pitched perfectly for age-related expectations, in terms of what we look for in Key Stage 2 outcomes and it was bang on for that. It was very easy to pick up and actually teach. I loved the detail in the resources, especially with phonemes and syllables. There’s lots of information and various ways to break the texts down, which I know the children found very useful. If they didn’t get a first explanation of what a particular grammar law was, then the variations that you can swap in were really good. There was an improvement in spelling from the first test to the last test, which shows the pupils were listening and taking onboard the spelling patterns. Individuals certainly seemed more confident in the sessions talking about their understanding of spelling and grammar.

I would like to use the interventions again in the future and we are continuing with them in the Spring term with year 5 as I think we are now doing better as a school as a result. Shine GPS is a great resource, and the children have definitely benefited from it, especially those children who were working below expected with certain gaps in their knowledge.

When looking at term scores, the interventions have absolutely brought the learners up to their age-related targets."

With thanks to all staff at Downsway Primary School for sharing their experience. Read more about their outcomes in our Shine GPS Impact Report.