At Cornelius Vermuyden, we aim to be a caring and orderly community, where individuals are able to learn, contribute and develop. In order to achieve these aims, we seek to provide a disciplined and purposeful environment, where the traditional values of mutual care, consideration and acceptance flourish.
As a learning community, we seek to provide an education that is exciting, challenging and prepares each child for life and learning beyond school, a broad based education in which achievement is celebrated and children succeed.

Cornelius Vermuyden School share with us their new building and wonderful imaginative spaces for new and dynamic ways of teaching. Scroll down the page to view the day in the life of Cornelius Vermuyden School.

		Sean Webb (Head of Science)
		"We have 7 science teachers and three science technicians. For year seven, we focus on 5 key ideas – forces, energy, particles, cells and interdependence. This is followed in year eight by exploring science in daily life, and we look at the farmer, the astronomer, the personal trainer, the geologist, the chemist, the metallurgist. Working with children and science is wonderful, because every day is different".

		First class of the day!
		SuperLab – Science lesson ‘Renewable energy sources’
Superlab offers the opportunity for whole and split class teaching of science. (Video length 10min 45sec) Mr Osei-Poku "I love my work because you get the chance to make an impact in young people’s lives" Miss Bermingham "I love my work because I like to make a difference"

Science labs have many signs about Heath and Safety - complete the game below to see if you understand their meaning!

		Second morning class
		Mrs Ekers: Foreign Language Teacher
Modern Foreign Languages –‘On holiday’ ‘On the beach’ the children bring in props to role play their German conversation. "My job is fantastic – I learn something everyday, and the children have such creative minds. I encourage them to have no boundaries – they learn better when they are secure and confident in the classroom" Mrs Ekers (Speaks French, German and Itlaian) (Video length 13min 29sec)

		Afternoon Lesson
		Mrs Cooper: Maths Teacher
Maths – ‘Olympic maths’ in hypothesis room "I love the children and their confidence – the way they all get involved" Mrs Cooper (Video length 13min 11sec)

		Mentoring in practice - Mr McGorry and Mrs Peel develop ideas on ‘An Inspector Calls’
"The new technologies are transformational – you never have to turn your back on the class – the children say I am more approachable and I feel more involved with their learning". Mr McGorry

Here Mrs Peel, an experienced English teacher with over 20 year’s experience, is mentoring  Mr McGorry, who has only been teaching for 2 years. They are discussing how best to engage a Y10 group with one of the key texts, ‘An Inspector calls’. They want to encourage the use of persuasive writing techniques with the children, and the task is to persuade the rest of the class as to why their character is most to blame for the death of the central character. Role play will also be used in the session, with the pupils selecting a judging panel and jury.
The table settings in the classroom (a set of 6 desks arranging in a circle) facilitates groupwork for discussing the play. It also enables the creation of resources for the groups of children – for example pupils 1/2 3/4 and 5/6 can all have activities to work on from an article supplied by the teacher.

For feedback, the webcam is used to share a pupils work to the whole class via the IWB screen. An image is captured and discussion of the work takes places with lots of positive feedback.

The IWB is used for the plenary session with a ‘rolling the dice’ activity to randomise selection of pupils to answer questions. The teachers talk about how to target specific children for developmental aspects, and how to capture feedback from the children. The dice can be used to assist with differentiation – groups in lower sets can write half the number of sentences of the dice number thrown.

		Immersive Room
		Ms Mayhew and Mr Hand
Lauren Mayhew (drama) and Sean Hand (geography) talking about possible uses for Learning and Teaching. (Video length 5 minutes )

We hope you have found your visit to our school useful and informative.
The staff and pupils at Cornelius Vermuyden School wish you every success with your teaching career.