We spoke to Clare Ogle, Lead Practitioner for Years 5 & 6, about how Sandcross uses the platform.

Hardware set-up: 1-1 Chromebooks

Methods of use – Using CENTURY:

• in class to stretch/extend as well as support
• home learning 
• Teacher Dashboard to track home learning 

Setting work on CENTURY 

• Setting nuggets in advance on CENTURY
• Setting nuggets during the lesson as an activity, whilst teaching an interventions group

Advantages

• Saving teacher time producing resources
• Saving money printing resources
• Getting students secondary ready
• Instant feedback for students
• Differentiation in class

How do you use CENTURY at Sandcross?

Using CENTURY in class to support children’s learning 

We have embedded CENTURY into our lessons across the school from Year 2 to Year 6, using it to support the deepening of our children’s learning and provide extra stretch.  We set nuggets, weekly or bi-weekly, related to the topic that we are studying or as a revision task. When the children have finished their set work, they can use the nuggets to deepen their learning and extend themselves. Since each child has their own Chromebook at Sandcross, they can be totally independent, working at their own pace. 

The children have always got something to challenge themselves. You do not have to print out extra worksheets. It’s also great, because it gives the children that instant feedback and can direct them with nuggets to access next. 

This year, I have found it very useful with an extension group of five or six children who are really strong at maths. Some children were scoring 100% in their SATs papers back in September, so I put them on the KS3 pathway.  I set them the KS3 equivalent objectives on CENTURY so that they can access this once they have completed their work. It means that they have content to continually challenge themselves. I have some children who have completed up to 20 hours of KS3 maths nuggets in particular.  It is excellent preparation for secondary school and I plan to use it later in the term for a wider group.

Using CENTURY in class for support 

I have also used CENTURY to create a support group in maths, reading and SPaG. I set them the nuggets that are appropriate for their individual learning journeys.  It has been great in reading lessons, as whilst the rest of the class work on the class text, they have been completing weekly comprehension tasks on CENTURY.  It has meant that I have been able to give them a bespoke curriculum during those times when there’s just myself teaching the class, without any additional support. 

Using CENTURY in class to adapt a lesson

One of our Year 5 teachers finds it useful when she quickly needs to adapt a lesson in that moment either to stretch or support specific groups of children. In that case, she can access CENTURY to slightly tweak her activities, either when pupils have understood a concept really quickly and need a greater challenge, or to set a revision nugget for the majority of the class to complete. During this time, she supports any children that need extra inputs as a part of a small group. 

Does CENTURY save teachers time and money producing resources? 

Definitely, it’s been helping us greatly to reduce our printing costs and provide instant feedback to the children during a lesson.  The nuggets are easy to find and set and support all areas of the curriculum in maths, reading, SPaG and science. We also use it to set home learning tasks from Years 2 to 6.

Have  you had any feedback from the students about CENTURY?

The children like it because it is easy to access and gives them a different tool as part of daily class work. There’s a place for online learning games, but what’s great about CENTURY is it’s more focussed to specific learning objectives. The teachers can set specific tasks related to each lesson or skill. The way the questions are displayed on CENTURY look similar to the SATs papers, so it is a familiar style of question. 

What impact have you seen on learning?

I see impact all the time. The fact that students are able to access additional nuggets to support each topic is really beneficial. The more practice that our children have, the more secure their understanding. CENTURY acts as another layer in trying to close the gaps since the COVID pandemic. It’s another tool to provide children with personalised learning.

How do you find the Teacher Dashboard?

It’s really clear. You can see the percentage scores of the children in your class and it’s colour coded for easy visualisation. It also identifies which children require additional intervention or greater stretch. We use the Teacher Dashboard to track engagement with home learning. All classes in year 2 and throughout KS2 set regular home learning on CENTURY. A large proportion of the class can access this regularly at home, whilst some of the children who do not have the opportunity to complete this at home can complete it during morning work time. I think that for our Year 6s, this gives the children an insight of how home learning might be completed when they go to secondary school next term. 

How do you plan on moving forward with CENTURY?

We plan to further develop parental engagement through the use of their logins to track their children’s progress. I would like to show the teaching assistants how to set up their own groups to deliver interventions, which are truly personalised to support an individual or small group’s learning. 

Find out more about how you can successfully embed CENTURY in your primary school here. Book a demo here.