Tuneful Toys

UJS pupils were proud of the 'Desktop toys' they made at a day of design and technology at Royal Manor Arts College. Each toy played a tune which the child had downloaded onto a microchip in a circuit they had soldered together. This was a successful pilot project which we hope to roll out to other classes.

Iron Man

A dramatic performance of the 'Iron Man' was very well received by the invited audience of families of the cast. Children from the after-school literacy clubs at Underhill and Southwell schools worked jointly on the dance and drama with staff at Royal Manor Arts College. The presentation was the climax of this term's project based on a study of 'The Iron Man' by Ted Hughes.

Above Average Again

For the second year running, UJS pupils made above average progress compared to schools in Dorset and across the country. On this measure, as you can see from this link to the BBC News website , we are the fourth ranked school in Weymouth and Portland and nearly two-thirds of Dorset primary schools had lower progress figures than UJS. Unfortunately, this information was not included in the version of SATs results for Dorset primary schools printed in the local paper. The missing figures are vital because they're a much fairer way to compare the results of schools (as well as our own results from year to year). Each school is given a "value added" (VA) measure which shows the progress made by that group of children from the SAT tests they took at age 7 to the ones they took at age 11.

Our 2006 results were lower than our 2005 ones but that's because our 2006 leavers were quite different from our high-flying 2005 group. The 2006 group was made up of 20 boys and 10 girls and half of the children had special needs. Nevertheless, these children still made good progress as shown by the above average "value added" figures. They also set the following records:

• Best ever girls' English results with 90% at or above the expected level 4.

• Best ever girls' writing results with 90% at or above level 4.

• Best ever overall results for writing.