THE FUTURE OF THE CLUSTER
The Excellence in Cities/Clusters initiative is scheduled to end on March 31st this year. However, at a review meeting just before Christmas, Headteachers of the Ashfield Excellence Cluster schools decided that they had benefited from the partnership and that they wanted their collaboration to continue. There will be changes to the way we work with emphasis on a more flexible and responsive approach that will better meet schools' needs. Details of how this is to be achieved will be the focus for the next Partnership Board Meeting in February.

MUSIC FESTIVAL
The Ashfield Excellence Cluster Music Festival took place in October. Over 15 Ashfield schools were represented and 350 children and young people performed in front of an audience of family, friends and teachers. The event, on the theme of ‘Around the World' aimed to provide students and staff in schools with the opportunity to work with specialists from the Nottingham Choral Trust. The scale of the event, the number of people involved and the grand venue made a deep impression on many of the students. What one child will remember most is ‘Me being able to sing in front of so many people in a huge hall.' Another will remember singing ‘like a professional', and one commented ‘I will always remember walking into the room with all the friends and family clapping'.

HOME LEARNING
A homework idea introduced through the Gifted and Talented Network some time ago, appears to be spreading. Instead of set weekly homework tasks, students are allowed to choose from a menu of activities over a much longer period of time. The activities are devised using Bloom's Taxonomy so that tasks, which are not necessarily written, require progressively higher order thinking skills. Assignments are assessed and celebrated in a variety of innovative ways that are more meaningful for students and less tedious for teachers than simple ‘marking'. Students are responding really well. In both primary and secondary schools teachers are very pleased with the numbers of pupils who complete their ‘homework'. Responses from parents have also been extremely positive. Teachers feel that not only do the tasks foster curiosity, creativity and deeper learning, they also reduce workload!