Miss Mason

I began my teaching career in 2014 and my teaching experience so far has been in Years Five and Six.  I thoroughly enjoy working in Upper Key Stage Two and supporting the children both academically and developmentally as they enter their final years of Primary School and begin to prepare for the transition to Secondary School.  Alongside teaching in Upper Key Stage Two, I am our Curriculum Lead at Shiphay Learning Academy and am very passionate about providing a broad and balanced curriculum for our pupils. During my career, I have also led Reading, Writing, PSHE, RSHE, British Values and SMSC.

My areas of interest within education are pupil development, reading and writing. I am very interested in understanding the stages of development and how we can best support children socially and emotionally in all aspects of their lives. Through my interest in these areas I have become a Specialist Leader of Education in children’s Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development and the subjects PSHE and RSHE. In addition to this, I am also very passionate about promoting a love of literature and books with children to enable their enjoyment of reading, whilst also broadening their language understanding and in turn providing opportunities for children to explore different styles and approaches to writing.

Mr Mike Smart - Elm
Originally from Westminster, London, I began teaching in Birmingham over thirty
years ago after attending Birmingham University to study education and science. I
continued to teach there, in an inner-city primary school, for 11 years before I was
asked to work for the council in one of their many outdoor centres.
I enjoyed working out of the classroom with children while ensuring that every
session was enjoyable and a learning experience. After three years, I was asked to
move to Oxford to be a principal of my own outdoor centre where I worked with
nursery to university students. Eight years later, I began to miss the day to day
working with children over a longer period and returned to teaching in a primary
school. I then worked in Manor School, in Didcot, for the past five years in Y6. All this
time in education has added up to over three decades, but I still enjoy it

immensely and want to continue helping the young people of Shiphay succeed.
My passion is being able to help children to achieve their absolute maximum, so I look forward to welcoming
children into my class, finding out about them and the ways that we can work together to gain the
confidence, tenacity and desire to fulfil their potential. The children can expect carefully planned, engaging
lessons that move them forward in steps that ensure everyone achieves and improves.
I was so happy to be accepted for a post at your school, for September, so I can move closer to many of my

family; relocate to a beautiful part of the world with such friendly people; and work in your school. Over the
years to come, you may see me out and about, kayaking, fishing, walking across Dartmoor, enjoying a book
outside a café or exercising our dog.
I look forward to meeting the children in Elm Class very soon.