Velmead Junior School

At Velmead, all children participate in the Commando Joe programme – we often refer to it as CoJo. This character education programme provides our children with lots of varied opportunities to think critically and develop an awareness of themselves and others in order to experience and achieve success.

Each of the ‘training missions’ is based on the lives of real-life adventurers and explorers, such as Ed Stafford and Kira Salak. The missions that we have chosen to do here at Velmead have been selected because they match each of our termly topic themes for all subjects. Tackling these missions helps the children to develop valuable life skills. As they move through the school and complete more missions, the CoJo programme offers a progressive range of challenges. Experiencing these missions helps our children to develop positive character traits and to ‘collect’ strategies that they’ve experienced through CoJo to respond to any problem-solving challenges they may face.

The CoJo programme also contributes to our children’s learning about cultural, physical, spiritual, moral and social well-being and plays a part in extending their understanding of British Values.

Children learn about a different hero or heroine each term; with mental, physical, skill-based and practical challenges to complete, based around their real-life adventures.

Examples include:

Year 3 – Spartacus, the gladiator that led a Roman slave uprising

Year 4 – Amelia Earhart, the American aviation pioneer and the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Year 5 – Tim Peake, the first British ESA astronaut to visit the International Space Station

Year 6 – Nancy Wake, a New Zealand nurse and journalist who joined the French Resistance and later the Special Operations Executive during World War II

By combining creative problem-solving, physical activity, TEAMwork and the experience of succeeding in the mission or sometimes more usefully reflecting on why their group has fallen short, we are contributing to the children’s development and maintenance of good mental health.

For more information about how our PE and Sport Premium Funding is spent, please clicking here.

For information about PE and Sport Premium click here. 

Over the past few years, Velmead has enjoyed many successes and new experiences across a whole range of sporting events and initiatives. Mr Trendall, Mr Fletcher and Mr Mortimer, along with the entire teaching staff, are constantly working hard to provide the best possible sporting opportunities for our children.

There are many sport clubs run by staff in school, including Football for girls and boys, Cross Country and Netball.  To find out more about these clubs go to the clubs page.