Latest News
Welcome to our TILT news page. Here you will find out what has been happening within our TILT family of schools - don't forget to take a look at our Trust Newsletters page for further information. We are incredibly proud of The Island Learning Trust community and are committed to sharing with you our exciting news and events as they happen.
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Trust School Evaluation Visits
Tue 03 Jan 2023An Independent School Improvement Advisor recently visited all TILT schools to provide assurance to the Trust Board that all schools and indeed the Trust are well led. The report that followed captured the essence of our Trust, our Trust Premium:
- The Trust’s vision and values are embedded across each school.
- The key question: what is in the best interests of our children?” drives the Trust but also each school.
- A culture of high expectation and aspiration is modelled by senior leaders who are passionate for what pupils can achieve and determined to put in place strategies to achieve this.
- Behaviour is a strength. Each school is calm, orderly, and purposeful. Pupils have a positive attitude to learning.
- Reading is given high priority and there is a determination that every pupil will learn to read with every opportunity provided for them to access rich texts to support their enjoyment of reading.
- Care and attention have been given by the Trust in maintaining school accommodation to a high standard. The schools are light, attractive places to learn and work. Classrooms are well resourced. This extends to the grounds and outdoor classrooms for the youngest pupils.
As a CEO the external validation of the strength of our schools is fabulous to read. I am rightly so very proud of our children, leaders and staff team, this is our Trust Premium: we prioritise children, well being, reading as key levers to success. ❤
TILT schools all have a fantastic offer for our young people and their families. As a Trust we aim to lead schools of choice: we invest heavily in teaching and learning, our curriculum, our resources, our accommodation, to enable this to become a reality. ❤
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Monster Phonics...
Tue 01 Nov 2022We are very excited about Monster Phonics, our new approach to phonics, which we are now using across our TILT schools.
Traditional ways of learning to spell can be time-consuming and for some children they are ineffective. Monster Phonics teaches children to read by enabling them to identify the individual graphemes (letter combinations) and blend the sounds (phonemes) together to read the word. The 26 letters of the alphabet are represented by black cat symbols whereas the combinations of these letters (which make 44 speech sounds in English) are colour coded to help children decipher them. For example, the ay (play) and ai (train) sound are coloured red and are linked to the monster 'Angry Red A'.
Monster Phonics uses 10 monsters to categorise all sounds into 10 simple areas, each monster has a different colour and a story that explains who that monster is. Our children have loved finding out about the monsters and are now starting to discover the ebooks and apps!
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Statement of Condolence
Fri 09 Sep 2022Following the passing of Her Majesty the Queen, our thoughts are with the royal family at this very sad time.
She was a national treasure, ambassador, role model and an enduring servant of us all: devoted, constant, dignified, loyal and loved. 70 years, 15 Prime Ministers and just one Queen, our Queen.
God Bless our Queen.
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And finally...
Wed 27 Jul 2022Sunny Bank's new build is almost complete! Our staff and pupils are very excited and looking forward to September to enjoy the wonderful new spaces that have been created. Here are some of the latest pictures, while over the summer, final preparations are put in place for September's grand opening!
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TILT pupils keep on moving!
Wed 27 Jul 2022Nicole Ward, our Lead Sports Coach for TILT gives us the lowdown on this summer's sporting events...
A fantastic effort from our Year 6’s across our TILT family at the Kent Cricket Kwik Cricket Tournament. 10 schools took part on a glorious sunny day at Bapchild Cricket Club. Minster showed great grit and determination throughout the tournament winning all of our games except the final, where we played our sister school Halfway. The final was a brilliant game to end on, with players from both teams showing great team play and sporting prowess, and what better than an Island Learning Trust Final!
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More cricket for Years 1 and 2...
Wed 27 Jul 2022We had another great day of weather at Bapchild Cricket Club for the year 1+2 Rapid Fire Tournament. This tournament saw 10 teams full of young sporting talent ready to put their hearts and souls into their performance. Our children were outstanding throughout, in both their ability and their exemplary behaviour. For a team that had never played together before we progressed through the tournament at a rate of knots, only losing one of our games by 3 runs!! We then played the same team in the final and drew! Making us joint 1st overall. What an experience and what an achievement for such a young group of children!
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Work Experience for Sunny Bank's Year 6 pupils...
Wed 27 Jul 2022At Sunny Bank, Year 6 were participating in a Work Experience week and were given a range of jobs around the school including: Gardeners, Assistant Headteachers, Caretakers, Forest School Assistants and Reading Assistants to name but a few. Pupils had to apply by completing application forms and attending interviews! Following that process, they were then assigned different jobs. The children have taken their roles and responsibilities seriously and have been doing a fantastic job around school!
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Halfway's Spud Buds
Wed 27 Jul 2022Halfway have just completed a 4 week programme called Spud Buds, which was organised by Sheppey Matters. 6 OAPs (we referred to them as VIPs) came in each week and were paired up with one of our Year 5 children. Each week they prepared, cooked and ate a meal together, under the guidance of the Community chef. At the end the children and VIPs exchanged presents and have made a great bond. The children received pen pal packs and we are encouraging them to write to their VIP. We have set up a method for exchange for the letters so that no addresses are exchanged.
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The TILT family celebrate our Queen's Platinum Jubilee in style...
Fri 10 Jun 2022The staff and pupils at Minster, Sunny Bank and Halfway all enjoyed a whole host of activities to celebrate our amazing Queen's Platinum Jubilee. At Minster, the children created an incredible historic learning wall - the children made images of significant events that happened during each decade of the Queen's reign, which can be seen outside the hall. They also painted a ceramic tile each and a beautiful array of designs were produced including crowns, castles, palaces and of course, Corgis! Picnics, dancing, dressing up and teacher's doing egg and spoon races...The most entertaining highlight has to be the 'Nominate A Teacher To Splat' event where poor Mrs Payne had a bucket of goo poured all over her by Mr Pye. What a sight that was...!
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Mental Health Awareness Week at Minster...
Fri 10 Jun 2022Minster-in-Sheppey Primary School have recently held a special Mental Health Awareness week, to support their ongoing commitment to promoting the importance of positive mental health and wellbeing across their community.
This year the school community explored the theme of loneliness, with pupils learning that we can all find ourselves experiencing loneliness at points in our lives and that loneliness is very different to being alone.
Pupils also considered strategies which they could use to support themselves if they experienced loneliness.
The week started with a special assembly to introduce the theme with daily curriculum activities following. Many of the activities highlighted the importance of connecting with ourselves and others. Activities across the week including appreciation circles where pupils voiced what they appreciated about others in their class.
