Griffin Park Primary School on Shine Interventions: GPS

Jeannine Astley, Head of English at Griffin Park Primary School, and Kirsty (TA), share their recent experience with Shine Interventions: GPS:

"After entering our PiRA and PUMA assessment scores into Boost Insights, I looked at what our needs are as a school as well as individual needs, and grouped pupils based on the Group Intervention Reports. Shine GPS was used for years 4, 5 and 6 with six pupils in each intervention.

We had a look through the lesson plans and resources for 5-10 minutes and it’s straightforward after that. Once you've done your first one, you can fly through and know which bits you need. We printed out the Shine resources and when the space was available, we would also use a smart board. 

I think the sessions took quite a bit longer to start with - the children loved doing them though. I think with time and with practice it would become more natural and that would make it a bit quicker, but because Kirsty was delivering it to children who are not in in her year group, I think you're more conscious of trying to make sure you follow step by step and getting everything done.

The children enjoyed the sessions and were very enthusiastic and they became more confident as the sessions progressed. There was one child in year 6 who had missed a lot of days of school, so their attendance was low. Having the interventions was very good for them in helping to cover some of the missed learning. 

We would have liked to have run sessions across more year groups, but this term saw staffing restrictions. We are getting a new head teacher in September, so lots of things are on hold at the minute, but it is definitely something I would take forward and say it made good progress. It's nice for teaching assistants to have something they can follow, which is always good, especially for the class teacher. It's good that you can feed back so quickly as well - that was definitely a positive to it. So, going forward as an English lead, definitely it would be something that I would recommend in the future for us."

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