ECM Premium Project - COnnecting REpositories · 2012-06-07 · ECM Premium project 2 Contents...

ECM Premium Project

www.ncsl.org.uk

Inspiring leaders; improving children’s lives

Online Learning ResourceSCHOOL LEADERS

School leadership, Every Child Matters and school standards

Case Studies

2ECM Premium project

ContentsBournville Junior School 4

The Canterbury Campus 10

Homewood School and Sixth Form Centre 20

Lister Community School 29

Seven Mills Primary School 39

With thanks to the Research Team

Tony Kirwan, CCCU and Prof John MacBeath, Cambridge with Diane Wilson, Harvey Adams, RalphHiggs, Penny Clayton, Ros Frost, John Crossman, Lynne Graham-Matheson and Anne Bowker


IntroductionThe ECM Premium Project was a study toidentify the evidence base for a link betweenthe Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda andimprovements in school standards, and toidentify the nature and quality of leadershipthat underpins it. This study was undertakenby staff and associates of Quality in StudySupport (QiSS), Canterbury ChristchurchUniversity and Leadership for Learning,University of Cambridge. These case studiesform part of a suite of resources resultant fromthe project which include a report, reportsummary and the ‘Levers for Leaders andLearning’ Toolkit, a toolkit designed topromote leadership in extended schools.

Bournville JuniorSchool

Portrait

The three-form entry junior school is locatedjust four miles from the centre of Birminghamand a pleasant walk from Bournville railwaystation. The roads are tree lined, and wafts ofchocolate – emanating from Cadbury’s ‘factoryin a garden’ – greet visitors passing the work’splaying fields. The nearby houses are semi-detached, each pair designed differently fromthe others. This is a conservation area,preserving the original feel of the early 20thcentury village built by the Cadbury familyto house their workers in good conditions.The area is peaceful and well ordered.

Continuing up the hill, the junior school risesabove its sister infant school, and with its15-bell tower topping the Edwardian Gothicbuilding, the school might easily be mistakenfor a church. A grassy strip with trees separatesthe school from the two roads that it adjoins.The two schools’ playgrounds are mainlyhidden from the roads by the listed buildings,which are brick-built, the junior school havingwide gothic-arched wooden doors, and a highroof. Within, many classrooms are locatedaround a central hall that has a high timberedceiling and panels, some 10 feet above thefloor, which depict scenes from the bible, areminder of the Quaker origins of the schooland village. While the buildings, subject toconservation laws, remain largely as theywere built in 1906, the classrooms havenonetheless been refurbished for themodern curriculum, containing interactivewhiteboards, and brightly colourednoticeboards. The atmosphere is calm yetbuzzing; the children are happy and engagedwith their lessons.

Maintaining standards with achanging cohort

The junior school is a co-educational, non-denominational voluntary-aided school, andhas approximately 380 pupils. Since 2005it has won the local authority LearningAchievement Award for ‘learning throughcollaboration’, its second National HealthySchools Award, its third Basic Skills QualityMark and the Sportsmark Award. The BorderBusters extended schools cluster of which it isa part has gained the Quality in ExtendedSchools Award. The school was awardedBeacon status in 2001, focused on citizenship,modern foreign languages, initial teachertraining and supporting schools facingchallenging circumstances.

The socio-economic profile is broadly average,with children coming from professional,academic, working, unemployed and single-parent low-income families. Nearly a quarterof students now come from minority ethnicgroups, and four per cent speak anotherlanguage at home. About 13 per cent on rollare acknowledged as having specialeducational needs (SEN), with a further five percent receiving assistance; approximately fourper cent are statemented/require substantialsupport. Nearly 15 per cent of pupils havebeen identified as gifted or talented.

Most of the pupils live locally. The BournvilleTrust, who administer many of the houses inthis conservation area, has recently become ahousing association, and as such is committedto taking 50 per cent of pupils from the cityhousing list each year. The profile of the schoolis changing, with an increasing number ofchildren coming from disadvantaged orunsupported single families. The number ofpupils from minority backgrounds has doubledin four years, and eligibility to free schoolmeals has risen to 15 per cent. There has beena rise in marital break-ups and of parents



whose full-time employment prevents themfrom being able to offer significant time totheir children.

Education is seen as important by themajority of parents, reflected in a 95 per centattendance at consultation meetings andinformation sessions. Children enter Key Stage2 ‘better than normally expected of pupils ofthat age’.

What steers the school: vision,values and professionalcompetences

Supporting high standards

George Cadbury founded the school to providea ‘fine’ education. While the school’s main aimis to ‘provide the best educational environmentpossible to enable each child to develop andlearn towards their full potential’, the vision is‘to have a vibrant and exciting learningenvironment, where everyone feels valued,cared for and supported’ (SEF 2007). Makinglearning fun is important, as is ensuring thatpupils respect each other’s values and cultures,and members of staff have high expectations ofbehaviour as well as social and academicprogress. The headteacher believes that the‘best educational environment’ is one in whichall members, including staff, enjoy their work.

Strategies to achieve the overall aim include:

• involving pupils meaningfully in the runningof the school;

• giving access to a wide range of studysupport activities;

• childcare arrangements;

• working closely with parents, as partners inthe learning process, to raise standards;

• working closely with other schools andeducation institutions to share expertise;

• links to national bodies.

The school council, as it is run in this school,is a particularly powerful vehicle for pupils toexperience democracy-in-action, emphasisingtheir rights and responsibilities.

Extended services on offer

Study support activities

Study support activities occur eachweekday evening, and during the lunchhour. There is a large range, with three clubsenriching experience in traditionalcurriculum areas (French, science andSpanish); six sports-related (football, netball,Irish dancing, dance, cycling and skipping);six music-related (choir, brass, rock band,orchestra, handbells and recorder); and twospecial interests (gardening and chess).Several occur more than once a week, andsome are targeted towards particular Yeargroups. Most are run voluntarily by teachers,a teaching assistant and a past pupil, but someare provided by outside agencies. Pupils havealso taken part in a survey of activities theywould like to undertake in the future, whichhighlighted an interest in self-defence anddrama, and a wish for a homework club.The latter is being set up for autumn 2008.

In addition there is peripatetic teaching ofinstruments during the day, involving over100 pupils. Music lessons include: violin, viola,cello, oboe, flute, clarinet, percussion, guitar,brass and keyboard. The school also offersenrichment activities such as visiting plays,ballet and the opera. Parents fund the schooltrips, but there is a greatly extended paymentplan (over nearly a year). The school hasoccasionally funded a pupil in extremefinancial poverty.

A range of sporting activities at lunchtime andafter school is perceived as ‘having a positiveimpact on children’s attitudes and behaviour’(SEF 2007), as well as enriching pupils’interests and experience. Specialist coaches


are brought in to support some sports,such as Warwickshire County Cricket Clubrunning sessions.

To meet the childcare needs of workingparents a breakfast club is open every morningfrom 7am. After-school childcare is provided bya local community-based organisation butschool-based after-school care is planned forSeptember 2008.

Border Busters cluster

The school is also part of the Border Bustersextended service cluster of Birmingham LocalAuthority. Clusters are the main means ofimplementing the Every Child Matters (ECM)agenda in Birmingham, and there is strongand effective support from the local authorityto create the necessary collaborative workingbetween education, health and social careagencies. This includes staffing, support needsidentification and planning, staff developmentand quality assurance.

The cluster consists of a partnership betweenthe local authority, individual schools,statutory agencies and voluntary organisations,that together form a strong multi-agency team.The 13 junior, infant and primary schools, andone secondary have a range of different wantsand challenges; for example, some servemainly deprived areas, some mainlyRoman Catholic.

The cluster schools work closely witheach other and the cluster coordinator, underthe aegis of a steering committee, andcollectively employ people for specific tasks.The steering committee consists of over 50representatives from all the partners, six ofwhom are regular attendees of meetings. Thesteering committee chair holds post for twoterms. The coordinator is seen as a dedicated,dynamic and energetic individual, whoseofficial role in the past has been tocommission and monitor services, althoughmembers of this cluster perceive theircoordinator, with appreciation, as someone

who also brokers, negotiates and organisesfurther services.

The cluster has employed a family supportworker, a nutritionist, and four parent supportworkers, the first having funding ‘matched’ bya Roman Catholic voluntary organisation,which enabled the position to be extended fora second year. The steering group also bid for£10,000 to identify and enable the mostvulnerable children to access additionalsupport, services and activities. The cluster hasalso funded training, such as that offered tofoundation teachers to attend the Speech andLanguage Training programme, and to schoolsand partner agencies to use the CommonAssessment Framework that supports ‘swiftand easy’ referrals to support services.

Schools within the cluster have workedindividually to develop their own extendedservices and supplemented this by takingadvantage of the Border Buster network, withits collective brokerage, larger purchasingpower and well-managed organisation ofsupport services, under their able coordinator.School leaders believe that health, educationand social services now work more closely onissues such as child protection. Partners arequick to offer resources, such as the EducationPsychology Service supporting the delivery ofparenting workshops, working and trainingalongside the cluster’s family support workerand Child and Adolescent Mental HealthServices (CAMHS) worker. The cluster hassystematically identified where provision islacking, and addressed this such as throughencouraging particular activities or breakfastclubs. Providers of specific activities aresourced through the Education Service’s studysupport section or tutors employed by thefurther education colleges or adult educationcentres run by the city council. While there areclear advantages to members of the cluster,there is also concern from some of the schoolsin more deprived areas that their specificdifficulties could be masked by the overallprofile of the cluster.


Impact on standards

Learning

Despite the changes to pupil intake, there hasbeen no detrimental change to attainment atKey Stage 2; standards remain higher thanexpected both nationally and, to a greaterextent, within the local authority. Typicallyover 80 per cent of pupils attain level 4 orabove, with a substantial proportion achievinglevel 5. Most noticeably, in science in 2007,55 per cent of the cohort achieved level 5.The school’s contextual value added (CVA)for 2007 for Key Stages 1–2 was 99.8.

The absence rate is approximately four percent, with little or no unauthorised absence,suggesting that pupils are well motivated toattend school.

What supports learning?

The staff are well-qualified and stable; theheadteacher has been in post for 12 years,and her recently promoted deputy for 17years. There are three advanced skills teachers(ASTs) (modern foreign languages, science andart). There are also two trained learningmentors, one of whom is also an assistantchild protection officer, as well as teachingassistants and ancillary staff.

Developing new roles

The three learning mentors have the task ofsupporting the pupils as learners. Pupils trustthem: issues discussed are confidential, andcomplement other ways in which children canexpress worries. The main learning mentorinterviews all new students on entry andmonitors how they are getting on in the initialstages, and interviews statemented childrentermly. As well as being available to children atlunchtime, before and after school, she is alsoavailable to talk to parents, should they wish.Complementing their counselling and angermanagement work with specific pupils thelearning mentors also lead the structured play activities.

Using external expertise

Links with four secondary specialist schoolshave provided assistance, enriching thecurriculum in particular areas. The head ofmaths of one school works with the most ableYear 6 mathematicians; a senior teacher ofanother works with Year 6 to develop theirscientific knowledge; a history teacher of athird has worked (2005/06) with teachers atBournville to enrich the history curriculum;and a department in a fourth is advising theschool’s modern foreign languages AST, andtraining two further members to developteaching expertise in French.

Pupil ownership

Central to the success of this school is the way in which pupils have ownership of theirlearning. This is encouraged throughleadership opportunities, encouragingfeedback and participating in communal activities.

Leadership opportunities include being ahouse team captain, belonging to thebehaviour committee, and being part of theschool council. The council and circle timewere initially developed in response toconcerns expressed by parents about thedifficulties children had transferring frominfant to junior school. Each class elects tworepresentatives, who gather the views,concerns and suggestions of their classmatesthrough activities such as circle time, and inturn feed back council activity to the class.They recently brought attention to pupilseating toast in the toilets, and arranged for thechair to talk in assembly about health hazards.

Pupils’ views are also garnered throughquestionnaires, such as for the school travelplan (which encourages the walking bus), a‘worry box’ and talking to the independentschool adviser, which recently prompted areview on the use and communication oftargets. Teachers see the school council asparticularly good for pupils as it raises self-esteem, and allows pupils to engage with and


understand processes such as planning andconservation. Hence there is a concern that, as yet, there is no comparable democraticactivity in the secondary schools to which pupils transfer.

The school council have worked with theschool cook to develop healthy options atlunchtime, and as part of the development ofthe school travel plan, which encourageswalking and cycling to school. Water is madeavailable throughout the day, and parents havehad a ‘healthy lunchbox’ workshop.

A house system that strengthens the verticalrelationships between different Years ispopular with pupils; they were keen to showoff the bear (displayed in the hall) that borethe colours of the house that had won themost points during the week.

Leadership

Individual and collective efficacy

Staff development is an important factor inthe way Bournville Junior School isaccommodating to the changed remit ofbecoming an extended school. Training ofteaching assistants to become learningmentors with new functions makes real theschool’s concern with the needs of the whole child.

Bournville is a school that thinks about itswork collectively. The school council, as well asmeeting fortnightly at lunchtime, has an ‘awayday’ similar to the senior leadership’s awayday, where discussions about the future of theschool occur and guest speakers are invited.The school council, together with the deputyhead, have spoken at regional and national-level conferences about their work.

Within the school community pupils have realopportunities to influence decisions on theway the school is run. For example, the councilproduced the anti-bullying policy, and were

recently involved with interviewing for a newdeputy headteacher. Curriculum issues are tobe added to the school council’s remit in thenear future. They have also lobbied to improvefacilities, such as the provision of toys and bikesheds. The latter involved them working withgovernors, planning and conservation officersto achieve an acceptable outcome. On anotheroccasion they identified a problem withlunchtime supervisors not always attending topupils, and invited the senior supervisor to ameeting to express these concerns.

Workshops for the whole staff are used todevelop responses to changed circumstancesand to increase the understanding andcommitment of the staff team. The schoolhave also held workshops on safe use of theinternet and the behaviour policy wasdeveloped in conjunction with pupils.Membership of the South Birmingham PrimaryStrategy Learning Network has stimulated staffto question their teaching and learning skills,and enhanced professional developmentthrough an opportunity to share ideas,research and resources through workingtogether on issues such as thinking skills.

Internal development andnavigating the external world

Role of networks

Membership of a large number of networksenables the school to ‘add a new dimension tothe curriculum’. Some of these are formalnetworks, such as the Border Busters extendedservices cluster and South BirminghamPrimary Strategy Learning Network, whereasothers relate to members of staff seizingopportunities to work with other institutionsand influence policy. All these enhance thecapacity of the school; together staff are moreknowledgeable about possibilities, and able touse this to enhance their children’s experiencesboth beyond and within the curriculum.


Various members of staff are on nationaladvisory panels. The headteacher is amember of the UNESCO Education Committee.In addition she is a governor of the localteacher training institution, with whom theschool is a level three (highest level) partner.

The school also encourages local connections –a governor is a member of the BournvilleTrust. Previous pupils were encouraged to joinin the centenary celebrations, and one alsoruns one of the after-school clubs. In additionthe school visited an old people’s home, someresidents of which had expressed anxiety aboutchildren’s behaviour in society as a result ofmedia press. Several had themselves attendedthe school as children and were pleasantlysurprised about the children’s behaviour and attitudes.

Pupils are involved in various activities inthe local community, such as the choir anddancers visiting local community groups.Members of the school have worked with othernetwork schools on projects such as walking,and are also involved in the studentparliament in Birmingham.

Parental partnership

Relationships with parents are good but theschool is constantly developing new ways ofincreasing parental engagement with theschool and of enabling parents to bettersupport their children’s learning. The Year 6pupils and staff run an annual SATs workshopfor parents. There are three parent–teacherconsultations in the year, and parents’evenings alternate between ‘early’ and ‘late’starts, in order to accommodate differentparental work patterns. More recently theschool has introduced the parent–childinterview during the day. Most parents came.The school continues to look for ways toencourage hard-to-reach parents to attend,and as part of this they are trialling having a

crèche facility during consultations, which willadd to the current arrangement ofaccommodating older children with a film.

The fortnightly newsletter asks for feedback onspecific issues, as well as feeding back resultsof surveys, and informing parents of eventsand successes within the school. Parents alsohave the opportunity to complete more formalsurveys, such as the recent one concerning thetransfer of pupils between schools, and theseare used to inform future practice. Parentgovernors are active in representing parents’views, and the school is planning a parent‘focus group’ as a first step to creating a parent council.

Conclusions

In this school, with its able cohort of pupils,the school has fostered children’s self-esteemand pride in their work through a range ofextensions to the curriculum. Study supportactivities have provided a stimulus for newinterests and enjoyment, as well as anintroduction to ‘high culture’, while the schoolcouncil system has encouraged responsibilityand social development. Leadership over arange of issues has been effectively distributedto pupils, and the ECM agenda forwardedthrough such activities. In addition,enthusiastic well-qualified staff make good useof opportunities, through their various links,to develop their skills and knowledge of recentinnovation. Together, these appear to enhanceboth pupil and teacher commitment to allareas of the curriculum, which supportscontinued high attainment.


The CanterburyCampus

Portrait

On cresting the hill as you drive intoCanterbury the tower of the cathedral appearsabove the roofs of the medieval city and itssurrounding suburbs. The road becomes awide boulevard, with flower beds leadingdown to the city walls. It is a pleasant,re-assuring prospect of a fine English city.

Canterbury Campus stands to your right on theedge of playing fields; the railway lines form abarrier between the city and the school andsurrounding estate of local authority andprivately rented housing that is almostinvisible as you drive in. At times largenumbers of children can be seen trying tocross the boulevard, while buses, vans and carsattempt to utilise the narrow road that is theprincipal access to the estate. The estate ofmore than a thousand houses has no postoffice, doctor’s surgery or pharmacy and onlya couple of corner shops.

The Canterbury Campus is an unusual federalorganisation consisting of:

• Canterbury High School, a specialist sportscollege with foundation status

• Beauherne Primary School

• City View Nursery and Pre-school

• Canterbury adult education centre

• The Body and Mind Gym (funded by aprivate finance initiative [PFI], with schoolshaving priority use from 8.30am to 5.30pm)

• The Appetti tennis centre

• Five elite academies for 16- to 18-year-oldsorganised with the governing bodies ofathletics, tennis, rugby, volleyball andwomen’s football, whose pupils are on theroll of Canterbury High School sixth form.

Also on site are the authority’s behavioursupport service and staff of the hospital school service.

The Campus’ buildings range from the modernand well-designed, with specialist facilities forsports and adult education, to those urgentlydue for demolition and replacement,particularly the primary school buildings.The primary school and high school werebuilt in the 1950s; their grounds abutted eachother but entrances were on different roads.Yet again, initial impressions as you look acrossThe Campus to Canterbury are of a well-endowed school in a handsome flourishingcathedral city.

However, Kent is an authority that maintainsselection at age 11. The city of Canterbury hasthree independent schools, three grammarschools, two church schools, a technologycollege, a newly opened academy and finally,Canterbury High School. In the eyes ofThe Campus staff the high school’s intake isthe residue after four levels of academic, socialand self-selection; the intake in the words ofThe Campus principal “has been failed by thesystem or worse sees themselves as a failure”.

Over 95 per cent of the pupils are white Britishworking class; refugees, asylum seekers andchildren of students attending university in thecity make up the small proportion of studentsfrom other ethnic groups. The level of socialneed among the student population of boththe primary and secondary schools is very high.

The primary school and the high school areat different stages of development. In 1992 thehigh school was named one of the 20 worstschools in the country. But by 2005, when the‘hard’ federation was established, Her MajestyInspectorate’s (HMI’s) annual report identifiedthe high school as outstanding and one of themost improved schools in the country.The primary school’s difficulties are morerecent; serious weaknesses were identified in1997–98 and special measures ensued from1998–2002.


The sports facilities, incorporating The Mindand Body Gym, opened in 2002 and the adulteducation centre was re-located on toThe Campus in 2006.

The Campus is led by a principal (formerly theheadteacher of the high school) and there isone governing body for the federated schoolsand the other constituents of The Campus.

Canterbury High School

There are 1,171 pupils on roll, 231 of whichare in the sixth form, including 75 studentswho are members of one of the five elite academies.

Half the pupils are on School Action or SchoolAction Plus, with seven per cent having beenstatemented. A total of 25 per cent of studentshave active social services case files.

Beauherne Primary School

There are 148 pupils on roll. A total of 48 percent of pupils are on the special educationalneeds (SEN) register for School Action or SchoolAction Plus, and 33 per cent are registered forfree school meals.

Because of its reputation for effectivelysupporting SEN pupils and those withbehavioural problems in particular,Beauherne has a very high level of pupilmobility. In 2007–08, and excluding the intakeinto the reception class, 25 per cent of thepupils on roll had joined in the past year.After years of decline its roll is now rising.

Attainment on entry to the primary and to thehigh school is very low.


History

It is against this background that theleadership team of Canterbury High School has built a federation of schools and otheragencies with these purposes:

It is the responsibility of the school toeducate children and to make Canterbury abetter place to work, live and play and toimprove the conditions on the estate wherethe school is situated; thereforerecruitment is preferentially directed topeople who live on the local estate.

‘Those with the least deserve the best’ is awatchword of Keith Hargrave, the principal ofThe Campus and formerly headteacher of thefederated schools, whose visions and drivehave steered The Campus over the past 21years. The principal’s vision and many of thestrategies and structures that he has put inplace predate Every Child Matters (ECM):

“ECM is helpful because it means I’m no longera maverick. The mainstream has caught upwith us”.

The purposes of The Campus derive fromtheories about development and learning, ofboth children and adults, such as “We can’timprove exam results without addressing socialissues”, and from judgements about needssuch as “Our pupils have a lack of self-confidence which leads them to act with exaggerated bravado”.

The current leadership team strongly andopenly works to the same values as all staff:“The student is at the heart of everything”, inthe words of one of the deputy heads. Talkingto the deputy and assistant headteachers andto the senior youth worker, we found they gavea consistent message about the core valuesand purposes of the school and where theirjobs fitted in.

There is a shared sense of taking suitable risksfor the good of the students/children. Using PFIfinance to build the sports facilities anddeveloping the partnership with thecommercial sports organisations that share thefacilities entailed accepting a certain level offinancial risk for the schools. Recent examplesinclude the decision to take on the running ofthe adult education centre as part of thefederation and to solve the resulting cultureclashes. Overall the approach can be


characterised as strategic opportunism.

The headteacher believes they have nowconvinced pupils that:

• they have the right to be well educated;

• they do not have the right to steal someoneelse’s learning (that is, by being disruptive),and this point was confirmed inconversation with a girl on report fordisruptive behaviour in class who used thatvery phrase.


The notion of the core offer of extendedservices has not been the driver for thedevelopment of the wide range of servicesprovided on The Campus. Rather, the serviceshave been built up over time in response toneed and to funding and developmentopportunities:

• Study support for both primary andsecondary pupils (for example, breakfastclubs, use of the Playing for Success studycentre at Kent County Cricket Club andextensive holiday provision).

• Parenting support programmes, includingtargeted sessions for children on the SENregister and those with case work supportfrom social services and parent and toddlerprovision supported by a health visitor.

• After-school childcare but deliberatelylimited only to children whose parents are working.

• Community access to sports provision, adesignated community room and to schoolfacilities on a community and commerciallettings basis.

• Adult education classes are run from a centrethat serves the whole of Canterbury anddistrict. Both high school pupils and staffare able to study for A-levels at the centre.

• Nursery provision, with priority given toschool-age mothers.

• In-school support for children with theschool counsellor, inclusion manager andyouth workers.

• Effective referral to external support servicesfor pupils and an extensive range oflongstanding relationships with child andfamily support agencies, both statutory and voluntary.

• A police officer with responsibility fordiversion from the youth justice systemhas a base at The Campus and conductsregular clinics and teaches on thecitizenship curriculum.

The school leadership team does not simplyregard these services as aspects of the coreoffer but rather as necessary functions toachieve the core purposes of the school.

Impact on standards

Learning

In 2007 Canterbury High School’s contextualvalue added (CVA) for Key Stages 2–4 was1063.0 and for Key Stages 3–4 1059.4. Thepercentage of students achieving theequivalent of 5A*–C GCSE passes was 72 percent, rising every year from 39 per cent in2004. The percentage achieving the equivalentof 5 A*–C passes with English and mathsincluded was 27 per cent.

Beauherne Primary School’s Key Stages 1–2CVA was 99.4. Aggregate test percentages forlevel 4 and above at Key Stage 2 have risenfrom 152 in 2004, after a dip in 2005, to 189 in 2007.

In both schools there is a longstandingproblem of poor attendance by a smallproportion of pupils, giving overall absencerates of seven per cent for Beauherne and 9.1per cent for Canterbury High School.

Participation rates in out-of-schoolprogrammes, because children and youngpeople choose to attend voluntarily, can alsoprovide effective success indicators.


At Beauherne they are very successful inencouraging pupils to participate in out-of-school learning: 66 per cent attend at least one club, 47 per cent of whom are on the SEN register.

On a longer-term scale high school pupils aretracked for up to five years after leaving so thattheir achievements can be monitored and celebrated.


Measures of attainment alone do not takeaccount of the breadth of the goals ofThe Campus and the two schools which makeup its core. Because these schools arethoroughly extended, preventive interventionsare a critical part of their activity. For example,a child at a Canterbury High School open daywas overheard by a member of support staffsaying to his parent “I am looking forward tocoming to CHS because I can trash the place”. A deputy head then identified the child,contacted the primary school and discovered a long history of behavioural and familyproblems. He was able to arrange socialservices family support while the child wasstill at primary school and a place on summerschool before he came to the high school. No trashing took place.

These types of successes can only be identifiedthrough case histories, or through long-termlarge-scale analyses of trends in social carereferrals or crime statistics. It is therefore notsurprising that the focus in these schools wason data by which the schools are currentlyjudged and on monitoring the specific impactof programmes. So programmes for reducinglateness and smoking among pupils werebeing monitored and quantifiable datacollected at the time of the research visits.

Culture and routines thatsupport learning

The restructuring of the school day and therange of activities available to pupils, and toothers before, during and after formal schoolperiods, have contributed very significantly toa culture of learning and purposeful activity.

Pupils and students at Beauherne PrimarySchool and Canterbury High School were veryclear about the aims of the school and wereable to repeat the main principles – based onmaximising learning. They were also very clearabout what constituted unacceptablebehaviour and had a clear knowledge of theescalating stages of sanctions and rewards.Staff and pupils share the value thatinterfering with another’s learning is a seriousoffence. We interviewed one Year 10 studentwho told us she was on special report to help her learn “not to interfere with others’ learning”.

The high school day has been reorganised intofive periods of one hour, with a late lunchbreak and only one period in the afternoon.Bells to signal the end of periods have beenabolished so there is no mass influx into corridors.

Rewards

‘Bikes for Beauherne’ is a raffle for whichtickets are earned through children reading athome three times a week. It is interesting as itappears to be working with a ‘currency’ that isunderstood and appreciated by children andparents alike in this locality. Bikes are awardedto the children and £50 ASDA vouchers to theparents. In Beauherne Primary School the useof ‘golden assemblies’ to celebrateachievement every week is planned so thatparent/carers can attend. The parents of nearlyall the members of the school council hadattended a golden assembly. This is muchappreciated by the pupils.


In Canterbury High School at Key Stage 4there is a sophisticated reward system. Pupilscan earn credits for ‘performance’ and ‘fairplay’. Credits are paper vouchers issued by theteachers with different colours for each faculty.These are ‘bankable’ and can be cashed forprizes such as vouchers to buy DVDs. Eachstudent’s account is openly viewable online.Students can therefore compare their positionwith that of their classmates but the head of14–19 can analyse which pupils are receivingcredits for what reasons, and which facultiesare rewarding behaviour anomalously.

Leadership


Staff development

Staff development has a high priority in bothschools. Induction of newly qualified teachers(NQTs) and the support of trainees on thegraduate teacher programme (GTP) are saidby the leadership team to be of a very highstandard. Lesson observation is routinepractice for all staff and is conducted bythe assistant head responsible for staffdevelopment supported by a large numberof the leadership team.

There is a deliberate policy of localrecruitment to support functions, and to alesser extent, to support teaching roles.Recruitment of staff via the GTP is also routine practice.

Distributing leadership

A vital component of the leadership approachin these schools is the creation of functioningteams that accept collective and individualresponsibility to plan, monitor and changework practices for which they are responsible.

Leadership is distributed but the headteacherprefers the term ‘contributive’ leadership.What makes it possible for a large numberof people to be contributive is:

• a coherent vision strongly held by the seniorleadership team and focused on meetingthe needs of learners;

• continually and consistently promulgatingthis vision;

• the building of a climate of trust, praise andmutual support;

• staff recruitment and development practicesthat support the vision.

Habits of leadership

A good school is a school that learns with asmile on its face.

The personal leadership style of theheadteacher is:

• “Always be cheerful.”

• “Catch them in – don’t catch them out.”

The senior leadership team is longstandingand has been remarkably stable. A number ofthe leadership team went with the principalwhen he was seconded to be executive head ofRamsgate School.

Management appears very open and includesdaily briefings, weekly meetings and weekendsaway, resulting in clarity of shared vision andvalues and understanding of each other’s roles.The headteacher’s door is, literally, alwaysopen. Responsibility for “walking about theschool” is allocated daily among the leadership team.

The school is effective in recognising andvaluing the contribution of other professionalssuch as the two full-time and two part-timeyouth workers and the school councillor whoare on the staff of the school, but also thepolice officer who is attached to the schooland the adult education and professionalsports instructors who are part ofThe Campus staff.


Internal development and navigating the external world

Deputy head(curriculum

standards andeffectiveness)

Asst head(appliedlearning)

Asst head(organisationof learning)

Asst head(maths and

scientificlearning)

Asst head(learningfor global

society andcommunity)

Yearmanagers

Inclusionmanager

SENCO

Schoolcounsellor

Deputy head(inclusion andpastoral care)

Financeand

resources

Asst headextended

school

Asst head(sport)

Sportsdevelopment

officer

Schoolsports

partnershipprogramme

manager

Performingarts

Youthwork team

Asst head(11–14)

Asst head(14–19)

Deputy head(finance,

resources,community

and projects)

Humanresources

officer

Asst head(professional

learning)

Head ofBeauherne

Primary

Key Stageleaders

Deputyhead

Headteacher offederated schools

Principal of The Campus

Governing body of theCanterbury Campus

Other educationbodies

Commercialbodies

Senior managementand leadership team

Adult other thanteacher

Teacher


The federated schools’ senior leadership teamconsists of six people: the headteacher of thefederation with the two senior staff of theprimary school and the three deputy heads of the high school.

The three deputy heads of the high school areaccountable to the headteacher of thefederated schools and responsible for:

• site, finance, buildings, community and projects

• curriculum standards and effectiveness

• inclusion and pastoral care.

There are nine newly appointed assistantheadteachers, with teaching loads, responsible for:

• faculties

• Key Stage managers

• professional development

• organisation of learning

• sport

• extended school.

Beauherne Primary School is led by a head ofschool supported by a deputy.

The remodelled workforce

The workforce of the federated schools(excluding the other constituents ofThe Campus) is 164, of which 87 are notteachers. Workforce remodelling has thereforebeen used extensively to create specialist roles:

• a youth work team of two full-time and twopart-time staff; delivering a strand of theKey Stage 4 curriculum and extensive studysupport provision, running onsite youthclubs and residential programmes in the holidays;

• year managers;

• performing arts development officer;

• programme manager for school sports

partnership for Canterbury;

• sports development officer;

• school counsellor;

• Connexions personal adviser;

• inclusion manager;

• human resources officer.

A police officer is also attached to the school.

In the high school one key innovation hasbeen the appointment of non-teaching full-time Year managers to handle all thediscipline, attendance, uniform issues andbasic liaison with parents. There are no formgroups and no registration periods. Instead,students are expected to be in class at 8.45am,ready to learn and registration takes placeelectronically each lesson. Year managers trackattendance and chase up any internal truancy.They are given the autonomy andresponsibility to follow up issues about pupils’behaviour and attendance with parents withsupport from the inclusion manager and thedeputy head; pastoral. Year mangers moveup with each cohort except for the Year 7manager who retains the necessary closefamiliarity with feeder primary schools andtransition issues.

The development officers for the sports andarts programmes and the community managerare similarly given the freedom to act onbehalf of The Campus in negotiations withoutside agencies in the development of theiraspects of The Campus’ work. The linkgovernor for extended services is a localresident and runs one of the clubs for localsenior citizens.

These are two schools that do not see anydisjuncture between raising standards ofattainment, and of wider achievement, andensuring that the needs of the whole child aremet. We have characterised how the schoolapproaches this with two principles: puttingthe child at the centre and as focusing the work


(of the two schools) on learning. However, thisis an artificial distinction because the freedomsoffered by workforce remodelling have beenused creatively to enable teachers to focus ondelivering high-quality lessons and supportingpupils’ learning, and at the same time tocreate a range of roles to support pupils aslearners, as individuals with other needs and to meet a range of other needs in the neighbourhood.

Putting the child at the centre

The approach has been to re-engineer theschool structures and routines to meet theneeds of the child and at the same time tocreate working arrangements with otheragencies better placed to address the needsthat spring from family functioning andsocio-economic circumstances. A multi-agencyworking group was put in place in 2003.As other schools in the area have developedtheir extended services provision this hassomewhat withered because of the increaseddemands on social care and healthyprofessionals and other specialist services.

Beauherne Primary School’s behaviour policyhas been used as an exemplar across Kent.It is detailed without being rigid and basedon the school’s three golden rules: ‘Thinkbefore you act’; ‘Learn as much as you can andlet others do the same’; and ‘Care for everyoneand everything – make the right choice, it’syour choice’. The staff handbook emphasisesrewards before sanctions. In 2004 a den wasestablished – a small room equipped withlearning resources and space for up to twochildren and one adult. It is not used as apunishment room but rather children maychoose to go there if they are having trouble inmanaging their emotions. Its use has declinedsince 2004 as far fewer children areabsconding from lessons or the school site.

Services and programmes have beenincrementally established to meet needs asthey were identified and as opportunities

became available. A pre-school learningalliance nursery on the Beauherne site wasdeveloped into the privately run City ViewNursery as part of The Campus. This nurserynow meets the needs of a significant numberof school-age mothers from across East Kent.The curriculum and administrativearrangements for students with young childrenis very supportive so they can adjust theircurriculum to fit in with their otherresponsibilities, for example some students inYear 11 are scheduled as part of sixth formstudies. Sixth form retakes in maths andEnglish are taken in the evening as part ofthe adult education provision.

Focusing on learning

I feel like a professional; I have time forplanning and preparing and I know my taskis to deliver quality learning experiences.

In Beauherne each teacher’s planning folder isreviewed every Monday morning by the headof school. An NQT spoke of assessing children’swork every day. There is a formal assessmentweek every term when SATs papers are takenand levelled and outcomes fed back to parents.

In Canterbury High School homework iscalled ‘learning practice’ at Key Stage 3 and‘qualification prep’ at Key Stage 4. All teachersset tasks on the same day and the tasks arepre-planned for each six-week module and areon the website. A learning practice club anddrop-in learning practice support are availableto all students.

All teachers have a mentee group of about16 pupils that they retain up to Year 11.The focus of the mentoring is on learning,target setting and monitoring of progress.Written reports are sent to parents six-weekly.

The integrated project for Year 7 (around14 periods per fortnight and planned withKey Stage 2 teachers at Beauherne) introducespupils to learning styles, multiple intelligencesand De Bono’s thinking hats, and aims todevelop key skills/core competences.


Curriculum restructuring

The significant and innovative modifications tothe curriculum have been made as part of apilot programme with the Qualifications andCurriculum Authority (QCA). In Beauherne thecurriculum has been restructured aroundthemes to provide more suitable and relevantlearning opportunities for the intake and topromote inclusion. Staff have been groupedinto leadership teams for curriculum areas todeliberately include NQTs and trainees on theGTP in developing and decision making aboutcurriculum and teaching.

In the high school there has been majorinnovation in the structure of the curriculumand the organisation of learning at Key Stage3. Year 7 groups have a dedicated building justfor them and a high proportion of theirlessons are taught by one teacher. There isjoint planning and cross-phase teaching withBeauherne. A major curriculum innovation isthe cross-curricular project for all of Year 7 and8 taught for 15 periods per fortnight. This isbased on and has been piloted with the newQCA curriculum model of key skills and competencies.

At Key Stage 4 the curriculum is highlypersonalised, with four different curriculumpathways, plus an alternative curriculum route.

There is a strong vocational element to thecurriculum in both schools with substantialtake-up of BTEC and vocational GCSEs at thehigh school. The Campus canteen and sportsfacilities are extensively used for workexperience placements and a plannedconstruction skills block will further developthe vocational curriculum for both schools.The provision of courses such as the ASDAN(Award Scheme Development andAccreditation Network) Certificate of PersonalEffectiveness and vocational GCSEs has helpedcreate a culture of achievement and positivelyinfluenced GCSE results.

Working collaboratively and creating partnerships

The Campus’ constituent organisations follow a clear, common direction but each have thefreedom to act independently in their ownareas. An example would be the work of theschool sports partnership as an aspect of thespecialist sports college status of the high school.

There are a large number of staff who haveresponsibility for an aspect of the school’srelationship with the wider world.These relationships fall into three categories:

• Delivering services: school sportsdevelopment managers, performing artsdevelopment manager, assistant head of the extended school, director of sport, youth work team.

• Inter-agency collaboration to support pupils:five Year managers, inclusion manager,deputy head of inclusion and pastoral,school counsellor, youth workers.

• Developing provision and resources: campusprincipal, headteacher, deputy head offinance and resources, link governor forextended services.

A key strength of the high school is itspermeability to outside agencies – its linkpolice officer runs regular surgeries in theschool, for example, and the owner ofThe Body and Mind Gym contributes hiscommercial and sporting expertise as amember of The Campus management team.

Pupil leadership

Both schools have significantly developed theroles of pupils and students in leading learningwhile acknowledging that they have somedistance yet to go. In the high school thelearners’ parliament (the recently renamedschool council) has, since September 2007,taken a step further to create five actionteams, each based on one of the ECM


outcomes. The teams are led by students, whothen recruit others from the student body tojoin the team. The ‘enterprise’ team is involvedin running activities and fundraising, the ‘besafe’ team is looking at improving safety toand from school and in providing self-defencelessons, the ‘health’ team has produced leafletsto promote the work of the school nurse, whilethe ‘enjoy and achieve’ team has beencanvassing student opinion on how lessons canbe improved in order to inform their meetingswith faculty heads. In addition, there is astudent-run sports council and three studentssit on the extended school committee.

At Beauherne Primary School the schoolcouncil consists of two representatives electedfrom each class and includes pupils of verydifferent abilities. They are guided on the sortsof issues that they can make decisions on butthey have a budget of £300 per year to spend.They demonstrate maturity in dealing withschool issues – for example, theirunderstanding of the punishment and rewardssystems, recognising the need for them andunderstanding the implications of a widerange of behaviours. All Year 6 pupils aremembers of one of five playground squadsresponsible for playtime equipment andleading younger pupils in playtime games.Training has been provided by the schoolsports coordinator at the high school.

Conclusions

For these two federated schools pupildevelopment and community developmentare inextricably linked. Each is on a risingtrajectory on the current limited measures ofschool standards. But these measures do nottake account of the extent to which theseschools have embraced the imperatives behindthe ECM agenda. While we lack the tools withwhich to evaluate the effect that schools suchas these make on attitudes and aspirations andwhile progress in social skills and personal andemotional development is graspable onlythrough proxy measures such as reductions inplayground incidents, then the impact of theseschools is only partially recognised.

The goal of the Canterbury Campus to be asignificant agent for community developmentcannot escape the staff while they areconfronted daily with the tasks of amelioratingthe effects on their pupils of poverty, familybreakdown, low aspirations and inadequateskills to function as citizens of Britain in the21st century. But measuring progress at schoollevel – aye, there’s the rub!


HomewoodSchool and SixthForm Centre

Portrait

Homewood School and Sixth Form Centre inTenterden is a large mixed comprehensiveschool set in the heart of a small town servinga large rural area of Kent. While the areassurrounding the school are affluent, and thelocal ‘community’ in the town isoverwhelmingly middle class, middle aged andretired professional, there are small pockets ofrural deprivation and isolation linked todemographic movement and the demise oflocal farming communities.

The school is the largest in Kent and the thirdlargest in England, with 2,057 students,including 727 students in Key Stage 5. It drawsits intake from 45 rural village primary schools,covering 12 local parishes; half the pupils usethe school bus service. The school employs 280associate and teaching staff. It has a budget of£9.3 million.

Established on an extensive 45-acre campusthe school boasts a professionally equippedtheatre and dance studios, a newly openedvocational centre, a school farm that includesa ‘rare breeds programme’ linked intoPlumpton Agricultural College, the recentlyopened Knowledge, Information andCommunication Centre, sports hall, newgymnasium and a restaurant. The excellentfacilities include refurbished sciencelaboratories, a year-old design technologyblock and music recording studio. Home FarmChildren’s Nursery, which is a registeredcharity, is open daily between 8.00am and6.00pm and staffed by full-time community

staff. The school recently gained Quality inStudy Support (QiSS) and Quality in ExtendedSchools (QES) Advanced status, reflecting itsextensive range of well-managed services, fullyutilising an excellent range of resources.

Homewood School is popular with parents,attracting students from the nearby urban areaof Ashford in a local authority that retains agrammar school system. Approximately twothirds of students take the bus to school.The numbers of children sitting the selectivetest in Kent’s many rural primary schools isdeclining, demonstrating that many parentsapprove of what Homewood has to offer. In2002 the school became a performing artsspecialist college, focusing on dance, dramaand music with primary linkage. Its secondspecialism is vocational education.

The overwhelming majority of students arewhite. Just under five per cent of students havespecial educational needs (SEN) statements orare School Action Plus and a further 12 percent of pupils with SEN are supported atSchool Action. Eligibility for free school mealsis just under six per cent.


School purposes

The school’s key purpose as identified in itsprospectus is to ‘help all learners fulfil andexceed their potential so that they can besuccessful in life’, and the school does indeedput young people at the centre of everything itdoes; many exceed their potential in a diverserange of ways. There is a wide definition ofwho the learners are: “the six-month-old in the nursery and the 80+ year old who comes in as part of community access”.

The vision of the leadership team is stronglyshaped by Homewood being a comprehensive


school in an authority that retains selectionand serving a large rural area with greatvariation in socio-economic status. Accordingto the director of the extended school,“everything linked to ECM [Every Child Matters]is designed to support the children and youngpeople, develop them into independent adultswith skills to thrive in the 21st century andenable them to contribute to their communitiesas valued citizens”.

But the school also sees itself as a bridge, aplace where learning, support, advice andguidance are available to meet the needs ofthe community. It recognises the contributionit must make to support the growth of theneighbourhood and the development ofcommunity cohesion and sustainability.The opening of the nursery was a response tothe absence of any full-time daycare provisionin the area with the consequent restrictions onopportunities for parents of young children toseek work or further training.

The community dimension of specialist artscollege status has been a major factor inshaping how the school has developed as anextended school. The professional standardtheatre that is widely used was built becausethere was no public performance space in theschool’s 100 square mile catchment area.

The director of the arts college says “Specialiststatus [brought] the licence to be creative [and]has helped shape the development ofcurriculum and wider extended services overthe last six years”. It gave an excuse and amandate to unblock the stranglehold of thecore subjects, facilitated by specialistschool funding. This in turn has led to are-examination of how the specialism impactson all curriculum subjects driven through thearts college plan. It is blurring the normaldefinitions of key stages and curriculum anddismantling traditional curriculum modelsdriven by the examination system in order todevelop a variety of learning pathways foryoung people, for parents/carers and the wider

community. Developments include a Year 11Key Stage 5 model with online learningopportunities; implementation of a pilotundergraduate course in Year 13; morespecialist diplomas; and increasedcollaborative work with other centres,primarily linked to the school’s secondspecialism.

The ECM agenda is integral to all aspects ofthe school’s work but has not determined howHomewood has developed. According to thevice principal, “ECM and the strands of thecore offer provide a ‘focusing mechanism’which enables everyone to identify what theyare doing”. The school uses their own ‘internalself-evaluation form’ (SEF) to help theleadership team to capture what is going onand classify their interventions and initiativesagainst the five ECM outcomes.

Ethos

The staff have a strong sense of identity, asimportant members of a team working in apositive and forward-looking environment;good working relationships exist betweenteachers and the large range of ‘associate’staff, demonstrated by strong communicationsand lunch and leisure time spent together.Relationships between staff and students arealso positive, open and friendly. Students inturn are positive about the school, enjoying itssocial life, the range of activities (particularlysports) on offer and the opportunity to moveon with study and to take courses when theyare ready.

This key value is widely shared and a sense ofcommon purpose permeates all aspects of lifeat Homewood. Staff at all levels arecommitted, have ambitions for the school andfeel they have a voice in how the school is run.They admit to working very hard but feelrewarded by being part of an innovative andcreative school.



The school has an impressive varied menu ofvoluntary learning activities that take placebefore school, at lunchtime and after school.These include: study support, residentials andholiday programmes for pupils, family learningactivities including art, pottery, cookery andsports as well as parenting supportopportunities, programmes for primary pupilssuch as visits to the farm, and Saturday andholiday learning opportunities open to all thecommunity. As well as providing access tocommunity groups to the sports and artsfacilities the school also acts as the venue forthe meetings of a wide range of local societiesand groups.

Six family support coordinators act as thebridge between home and school, supportingparents and liaising as necessary with specialisthealth and welfare agencies.

The school has been proactive in establishingrelationships with all their key agencies andmulti-agency meetings take place each termwith between 20–25 professionals, who share,discuss individual cases and agree targets.As a forum for coordination, the meetings areable to address protocols for working togetherand deal with difficulties and delays inaccessing services.

Impact on standards

Learning

Outcomes and impact

Standards of attainment are good for a schoolthat is in an area with grammar schools. GCSEresults have recently increased, by 10 per cent,to 68 per cent of pupils gaining 5A*–C,The percentage achieving level 2 includingEnglish and maths has remained steady, ataround 36 per cent. SATs are increasing.

Contextual value added (CVA) is very good:Key Stages 2–4 at 1011.1 and Key Stages 3–4 at1014.3, and attendance is good.

These narrow measures of attainment can bevalidly supplemented by other indicators ofprogress in learning. About a quarter of thestudents take part in arts programmes in daycentres for older people and residential homesaround the school, an aspect of thecommunity dimension of the school’s specialistarts college status. Students assess thesethrough interviews with the residents and usethe findings to design choreographedperformances back in school.


Redesigned structures and services

In a very large school students need to feelthey are known and understood. The schoolhas created a vertical tutor group structureacross Years 7–10, thus creating five ‘minischools’ each named after one of the Kent‘Cinque Ports’. There are 360 students in eachmini school with additional Key Stage 5students associated with it. A family supportcoordinator is attached to each mini school.Review, target setting and reporting takes placewith all students every eight weeks. The newmini school structure is being reviewed andplans are being developed to provide anenhanced student services centre, furtherlinked into multi-agency working. Diversityand inclusion is facilitated by the manageablesize of the schools allied to the range of thecurriculum offer.

There is a director of Key Stage 5 and aninclusion manager.

Redesigning the curriculum

Students now complete Key Stage 3 over twoyears in Years 7 and 8, in what is a ‘stage’rather than ‘age’-related curriculum. Key Stage3 tests are taken a year early, and the resultsare therefore somewhat depressed, but theschool believes pupil needs are better met bybeing able to start Key Stage 4 a year early.The Key Stage 3 ‘Total Curriculum’ consists ofintegrated modules requiring a multi-disciplinary approach, the purpose of which


is to smooth the transition process from KeyStage 2 to Key Stage 3. It enshrines creativityand the arts and the education of the wholeperson, with, for example, music playing a keypart rather than its traditional rather restrictedand isolated curriculum offering with ‘real’music happening after school. Key Stage 3students have their own block to facilitatesocial interaction, designed to meet all theirneeds. While this approach appears to ease thetransition between Key Stages 2 and 3, somestudents then experience difficulty in adjustingto a more formal curriculum in Key Stage 4.

Thus the approach has been to addresslearning and the support of pupils with twodifferent and radical strategies which supporteach other. Each mini school leader also takesresponsibility for aspects of the curriculumwith their school linked to a group ofcurriculum subjects. In this way studentwelfare and academic support and progressare interlinked.

At Key Stage 4 Homewood is building on itssecond specialism of vocational education.

Key Stage 4 commences in Year 9. FromSeptember 2007 a new Key Stage 5 curriculumoffer in Year 11 includes AS level as well asvocational (BTEC, GNVQ) and additional GCSEchoices. A2 is offered in Year 12. Year 13 nowprovides access to Open University foundationcourses. Timetable turnover takes place in Juneand not September, removing the ‘dead’ timeat the end of the summer term.

Extended services have themselves led directlyto curriculum development. For example,photography started as an adult learningopportunity, its popularity led to it alsobecoming a study support activity, which inturn led to it becoming a GCSE subject andnow it is available in AS and A2.

The boundaries between normal lessons andstudy support activities have been blurred bythe introduction in September 2007 of atimetabled 40-minute curriculum enrichment’

session for Years 7–10. Designed to meet theneeds of pupils who, because of transportdifficulties, cannot attend after-school clubsand activities and funded from the extendedservices budget, a wide range of activities takeplace across the campus one morning a week.The staff identified activities they wanted torun and students on the student councilidentified things that they would like thechance to try.

A wide range of sports and also activities asdiverse as jewellery making, photography,bird watching, dissection, digital music makingand BMX, are provided. Both teaching andassociate staff lead the sessions, sometimesworking in teams with large groups ofstudents. By opening these activities to allthree key stages the school is strengtheningrelationships and increasing its social capital.Enrichment is in its infancy but indications arethat it is leading to greater participation inafter-school study support. Numbers areincreasing in after-school clubs including aSamba band and other music activities.

Other activities such as visits and field tripsfurther blur the distinction between whatgoes on as part of the curriculum and whatgoes on outside. A ‘Creative Partnerships’initiative helped curriculum teams focus on anaspect of the curriculum and design it so thatit would be delivered outside curriculum time.The results included a radio station, planned,programmed and led by the students,providing an opportunity for studentleadership and voice.

Many of the extended services outcomes arelong term and are difficult to measure in twoor three years, but the school is sure thatspecialist arts college status has had hugebenefits in increasing opportunities forstudents to become involved and develop theirconfidence. Progression routes include BalletRambert, National Theatre, art school, boxingand farming.


Leadership


Homewood’s principal is passionate aboutlearning and committed to distributedleadership. He considers everyone to be part ofthe decision-making process: “Leadership is ineverybody’s hands, whether you’re an NQT[newly qualified teacher], someone who runsthe kitchen or a student”. He emphasised theneed to delegate responsibility with a shared

vision and common purposes: “A principalcannot lead in traditional ways. He/she mustbe able to let those with expertise lead andhave autonomy. The task is simply HUGE but itmust always focus back on learners and theirlearning needs. This includes the six-month-oldin the nursery and the 80+ year old who comesin as part of community access”.

A new planning and decision-making structurewas set up in 2003 to lead and manage a verylarge school with a complex and expanding setof extended services (see Figure 1).

Organisation

Cohesion, continuity, planning, anticipation, evaluation

Student

Practice, delivery, problem solving, recognition, support, liaison,

inclusion, resource

Learning

Delivery, specialist knowledge, T&L and skill, attainment, performance depts,

benchmark data, teacher accountability

Extended School

Com learning, lifelong learning, com safety, study support, resources, ethos, planning,

com develop, funding, com

Staff

Teacher delivery, teacher support, accountability, development, teacher

voice, teacher welfare

Operation team

Meets fortnightly

Focus 0–6 months

School development plan team

Meets once a month

Focus 6–24 months

Research & development team

Meets once a month

Focus 2–5 years

Strategic policy team

Hard delivery Soft delivery


The ‘soft delivery teams’ provide leadership insetting the direction of the school, promotinginnovation. They enable young and newmembers of staff to take on leadershipresponsibilities because they haverepresentation from all tiers in the school.They have reporting mechanisms across thewhole school and guidelines on when to takethe initiative and when to consult with others.As ‘think tanks’ for the strategic policy teamthey enable it to carry out its function to‘promote informed educational discussionand avoid implementation pragmatics’.

The vice principal responsible for extendedschool services believes that distributedleadership has led to rapid development in allareas across the school, especially in the lastthree years: “Where everything used to go tothe senior leadership team, now teams are ableto focus on and make decisions for the areasthat directly involve them”. She knows she hasa great deal of autonomy where developmentsdo not impinge on other teams. She alsoknows the principal’s door is always openwhen she needs direct access to him.

Other staff spoke cogently and withunderstanding about the leadership structure.One member of staff described the model as“controlled distributive leadership with a lot ofmonitoring”. The current principal and severalof the vice principals have been at the schoolfor more than 10 years; stability has supportedthe building of trust and sharedunderstandings.

Staff development andleadership development

Taking on leadership responsibilities is seen aspart of the staff development process.Teachers are encouraged to take on multipleroles. One mini school leader describes thestudent leadership team, of which she is also amember, as a “mixed bag of staff with

different experiences and backgrounds”. The role is enjoyable but requires training and coaching.

Homewood encourages staff to take aleadership secondment, further qualificationsand to carry out action research projects in theschool, the findings of which can subsequentlybe used to influence practice.

Increased provision of extended services hasled to expansion in the number of ‘associatestaff’ to over 100, some of whom are ex-students or parents, who have often had along voluntary association with the school.They are integral within the leadership andstaffing of the school – teaching and otherresponsibilities are both highly valued, leadingto excellent cooperative working relationshipsand high levels of trust between teaching andassociate staff. The inclusivity extends to themany professionals from other agencies withwhom good relationships exist.

Succession planning is an important part ofthe strategic policy team’s function and issupported for teaching staff by the highlydistributed leadership structure. This is alliedto a strategy of ‘growing your own’ ofrecruiting parents and former students.For instance, former students have returnedas teachers, librarians, technicians as well asvolunteers. Currently six members of staff inthe arts are former students.

Pupil leadership

Visitors to the school receive a warm welcome.Students are on a rota to act as schoolambassadors; working in pairs from differentYear groups they receive visitors and deal with enquiries.

The main vehicle for student voice is thestudent council. Its many activities include:consulting others through focus groups,questionnaires and within subject


departments; reviewing the school’s welfareand behaviour policy; attending governor sub-committees; training for and participating instaff interviews; and working as ‘studentambassadors’ in reception. Students are alsobeing trained in lesson observation.

Students lead a range of study supportactivities and plan and deliver programmesacross many of Homewood’s feeder schools.They regularly run fund-raising activities andtake full responsibility for organising theannual school prom. They are trained tomentor younger pupils and when given theopportunity, to describe what inspires andmotivates them, to speak cogently,demonstrating ownership of their learning andarticulating their aspirations – anything frombecoming a young farmer to having a career inthe National Theatre.

Students recognise their opportunities forleadership which include running the schoolnewspaper and taking up roles as student‘captains’ of sports teams as well as thestudent council. However, there is still work todo as some students do not relate well to thecouncil – one student’s concern was that‘naughty children’ got more praise andopportunities than those that were good inclass. A perceptive student describedHomewood as a ‘trial and error’ school andsuggested students should be given fullerreasons if and when things were cancelled andbe taken more into the confidence of staff in arapidly changing environment. Students planand organise the Saturday programme, whichincludes a ‘driving school’, and also takecharge of the restaurant when it is used forevents. One parent told with pride how herdaughter had taken the lead in danceactivities, leading warm-up sessions with agroup of Downs Syndrome children, whileothers work through physical education (PE),supporting young people with disabilities in Ashford.

As student voice is further developed into theculture, ethos, values and programme of theschool, staff are realistic about the capacityof students to lead and recognise theconsiderable support and help they will need.


The changes that Homewood has made overthe past five years are the result of aninterplay between internal drives to improvelearning and responsiveness to externalopportunities and needs in the community.So curriculum restructuring, the creation ofmini schools and the development andexpansion of extended services are all seen asrelated aspects of the same change processes.

At Homewood specialist status and extendedservices have ‘grown’ individuals and providedstructures in which they can flourish and learnnew skills. One example is that six members ofstaff in the arts are former students. Parentshave been deliberately recruited to fulfil othernew roles.

A remodelled workforce requires themanagement of expectations, contracts,terms and conditions of non-teachingprofessionals. Associate staff bring to their newroles a much wider range of backgrounds,experiences and expectations, presenting newchallenges. A major outcome of taking onextended services and developing the specialistarts college role has been the significantenhancement of leadership’s understanding ofand skills in managing people and resources.

Working collaboratively and creatingpartnerships

The school has a number of ‘partnerships’through and beyond its specialist statuses.These include sports coordinator links withAngley School, a ‘Leading Edge’ partnershipwith a school in Maidstone and the lead of an


extended schools cluster of 23 primary schools.Homewood is considering taking its modelenrichment out to its feeder primary schools.

The school has been proactive inestablishing relationships with all their keyagencies and multi-agency meetings take placeeach term with between 20–25 professionals,who share, discuss case studies and agreetargets. As a forum for coordination, themeetings are able to address protocols forworking together and deal with difficultiesand delays in accessing services.

Liaising with ‘the community’

The leadership team feel that most localresidents of Tenterden, mostly middle-classand retired professionals, would not choose tohave such a large comprehensive school in thetown even though significant numbers use thearts and sports facilities and other learningopportunities that the school provides. Toincrease the wider community’s awareness andactive involvement, a new group of key localpeople has been set up to ‘vision’ the futurefor the school as part of its community.

The ‘community’ element of the specialistplan has focused on young people’s activeinvolvement in day centres and residentialhomes around the school. About 25 per centof the whole school population takes part,with the purpose of creating better channels ofcommunication between the community andthe school. These are assessed throughinterviews with centre attendees and residentsand the findings used to design choreographedperformances back in school.

Parents

The school has an ‘open door policy’ and isvery flexible in making appointments, butthere is concern that the heightened security,Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks andconcern fuelled by the media put someparents off from greater involvement with theschool. For some the difference between

primary and secondary school was noticeable.With so many students travelling a long way tothe school it is difficult for many parents to bein regular contact, and parental leadership isexercised largely by those who work at theschool and those who are involved in sub-committees and focus groups; but interest ishigh and there were 21 nominations for thepost of clerk to the governors.


Conclusions

Homewood is an effective, innovative schoolin a highly competitive environment. Studentsand staff flourish and the school is especiallystrong and innovative in curricular and otherlearning opportunities, in its approach tostudent care and in its distributed leadership.The innovations and curriculum and schoolstructure were seen by the leadership as risky,requiring very substantial redirection of stafftime and resources. Skilful financialmanagement has been essential but fundingremains a constraint in making thepersonalisation of learning for all a reality.

Homewood also knows that there is muchmore to do: greater integration between KeyStage 5 and other key stages, increasing socialinteraction and providing more opportunitiesfor young people to ‘lead learning’ are twoareas. Leadership, well distributed among staffmembers, is increasingly shared with students;the next challenge is creating a real voice andopportunity for leadership for parents andlocal residents.

Extended services are seen as alreadyproducing benefits, primarily because a deeperand wider commitment to meeting the needsof all pupils and the local residents positivelyinfluences the value that they give to learningand to a notion of community.

The leadership team have strong beliefsabout enabling learning across the community.It is a vision of a place of learning where thesystems and structures make it possible toliberate the facilities for all learners and torespond positively to changes in technologyand society. The principal is strongly aided bythe commitment of the staff that has enabledchange to take place at a rapid rate. His keytips for others are: first know yourself and yourvision, then live it and provide opportunitiesfor others to give of their best. In his viewpermission to innovate should not be soughtbut, in his words, “just do it!”.


Lister CommunitySchool

Portrait

Lister Community School is an 11–16comprehensive school in the London Boroughof Newham. The fifth most deprived boroughin England, it is one of the more denselypopulated and multi-cultural areas of London,has more than 20 parks and is an area richlyendowed with Norman churches and Victorian architecture.

The school is located among a dense urbansprawl, approached through a series of narrowresidential streets, rows of terraced homes andsections of brick low-level flats. The streets arefull of parked cars, some mounting pavements,struggling for space and obscuring the view ofthe street. A plethora of small businesses alsojostle for space with market stalls clusteredaround the train station. Customers are mainlyfrom Pakistan and Bangladesh – a range oflanguages and voices mingle with the familiarcockney dialect.

The school building is a rambling two-storeyconcrete edifice lined with windows andseparated from the street with newly paintedhigh railings that seem unending. It has beenextended in a series of phases since the 1940s.It is unclear where the entrance is until a walkaround the railings reveals a bright, newlyconstructed reception area. This cheers thevisitor, who is able to study the artwork of thestudents while listening to lively, busy chatteras the school day begins. Over the next twoyears the old and tired school buildings will bedemolished to make way for a new school aspart of the government’s Building Schools forthe Future (BSF) programme.

At the end of 2007 the roll of the school was1,373 pupils. There were 100 full-time

teaching staff and 80 student support andadministrative staff. Nearly a third of all pupilsare classified as having special educationalneeds (SEN). There are 15 students withexceptional needs, three of whom arewheelchair users. There are also currently 19 Deaf students as Lister is a resourcedsecondary school for the Deaf and Partially Hearing.

The school is part of a soft federation, aworking alliance of 15 schools who share acommon vision statement, work in concert ona development plan and agree joint outcomes.The newly launched E13 Learning Village isdescribed as a coalition centred on lifelonglearning for all ages. The E13 postal districtincludes 57 per cent of Lister students.

PALS (Plaistow, Southern Road Primary Schoolsand Lister Community Group) is a coalitionwhose purpose is to enable parents tocontribute to local community development,to strengthen school partnerships and toprovide support for children and youngpeople’s welfare.

Lister has specialist status in performing arts.It is an Artsmark Gold and Sportsmark Goldschool in recognition of the range and qualityof its provision in these curricular areas. In2003 it was granted recognition as a fullservice extended school and in 2005 it alsobecame a mentoring school.


The school has a strong commitment toeducational inclusion, an integral element ofits mission statement:

As an inclusive school community, we arecommitted to placing creativity at theheart of the learning experience. Ourpurpose is to ensure an educationalexperience which promotes and achieves


excellence. By nurturing the values,confidence and skills of students, staff andthe community, we will unleash the talentsand energy of the individual to preparethem for the emerging opportunities of the21st century.


Parenting and family support

Three family support workers work withparents and carers, running coffee morningsand toddler groups either in Lister or inprimary schools where many parents feel morecomfortable. Particular support is targeted onchildren at risk of exclusion and home visitsare paid to vulnerable groups, made possibleby effective referral systems among agenciessuch as social work and the police. Familysupport workers describe themselves as fillingthe gap that falls between the remits of thoserespective agencies. Parental support groupsalso hold meetings off site, including literacysessions for dyslexic adults and English forspeakers of other languages (ESOL) classes ledby a Somali-speaking tutor.

Initiatives are also taken to make contactwith hard-to-reach groups – Somali parents,Bangladeshi parents and parents of SENchildren. The agendas for work with thesegroups are shaped around their expressedneeds and through intelligence gatheringacross agencies. Saturday classes for adult andfamily learning include literacy, informationand communications technology (ICT), Bengali,a science homework club, women’s fitness,a crèche and an internet café. Bengalilanguage family learning evenings havebrought in directors of study and curriculumadvisers to explain school procedures.

Impact on standards

Learning

When the new headteacher was appointed in2000 it was on the back of a promise to builda community ethos and raise standards ofachievement. In the intervening seven yearsthe story is one of a slow but determinedcommitment to working with the communityto improve the quality of life for children andtheir families.

In October 2007 the school announcedthrough its community newsletter ‘Our bestever GCSE results’, with 54 per cent of studentsgaining 5A*–C passes as compared with 43 to46 per cent in 2005–06 and 36 to 37 per centin 2003–04. This is attributed to the range andquality of support given to young people,meeting the Every Child Matters (ECM) agendathrough an evolving range of engagingactivities and outreach to parents and to otheradults with a stake in improving youngpeople’s lot.

The school works on a number of fronts toovertake the ECM agenda, promoting bothexcellence and enjoyment in curricularsubjects and in learning more broadly defined.This assumes a variety of short, medium andlong-term initiatives, remedial, pre-emptiveand capacity building:

• direct out-of-hours work with young peopleon curriculum subjects and preparation forexams; this is essentially short term and remedial;

• collaboration with primary schools to betterprepare children for secondary school andto ease transition; this is short to mediumterm and pre-emptive;

• partnerships with parents to help themsupport their own children’s’ learning andwell-being; this is a medium to long-term strategy;


• out-of-hours activities to broaden interests,enhance self-efficacy and economic well-being; this is a medium and long-term strategy;

• investment in community activity in order tobuild social capital and regenerate a senseof optimism and agency; this is a longer-term ambition.

Indicators of success

Staff of Lister Community School and externalpartners point to a range of positive outcomesand continuing progress made over the pastfew years, both in respect of immediatereturns and longer-term investments, such as:

• growing involvement of adults in attendingevents and acquiring skills;

• increasing participation of parents inactivities designed to support them andtheir children;

• expansion of learning opportunities withinthe community;

• collaboration with primary schools, easingtransition from Year 5/6 to 7, addressingstudent disaffection and regression in achievement;

• removing barriers to learning – disaffection,anxiety, emotional and behaviouraldifficulties and peer pressures;

• better uses of data and information frompartner agencies;

• direct support in class and in out-of-hoursprovision for students who are underachieving;

• emphasis on a more learner-centredpedagogy.

The success of these is measured by indicatorsof success such as:

• Expanding the activity of the PALScommunity groups with new classes andnew activities with a focus on support for parents.

• A high and increasing demand for places infoundation and higher level English classesfor adults, outstripping supply. Parents andcarers now express greater confidence inapproaching the school and are more likelyto support its efforts.

• Family learning opportunities have been ofdirect benefit to students by helping parentsto give greater informed and emotionalsupport for their children.

• The breakfast club has also demonstratedpositive gains in punctuality, attendanceand readiness for school.

• The lunchtime session in maths for Year 9is credited with raised maths attainment forthose who attended.

• Improvement in transitional arrangementsbetween primary and secondary school isseen as explaining improvement in GCSEresults since 2005.

• A small-scale controlled research by theSaturday school teacher demonstrated apositive gain in SATs by those who attendedcompared to non-attending peers.


Intervention and support for pupils

Intervention and support for pupils isaddressed directly through classroom learningand teaching, through out-of-school hoursactivities, and through others who mediatechildren and young people’s learning –parents, peers, extended family members,professionals from other services andcommunity volunteers. ECM outcomes, such as‘staying safe’ and ‘enjoying and achieving’ areprerequisites for effective classroom learningand recognise the importance of addressingemotional issues within a clear hierarchy ofneeds. The breakfast club operates from7.45am each morning on a drop-in basis andaccommodates, on average, about 50 students.


Breakfast, free, healthy and winner of a qualityaward, is described by staff as noticeablyincreasing pupils’ ability to engage withlearning in the classroom.

Interventions designed specifically to raiseexamination attainment include mentoring ofD-C Year 11 borderline students and a mathsafter-school club once a week from 3.30pm to6pm attracting around 50 students from Year 8onwards. Year 10 and 11 students attend atcritical points while Year 9 students tend toappear in larger numbers before Key Stage 3tests in May. At lunchtime senior studentssupervise and support maths for Years 7 and 8,supervised by a member of teaching staff.

As well as extra help with homework andpreparation for tests and exams, study supportoffers young people opportunities to acquirenew interests, to experience success andfulfilment in new untried areas. On any givenevening there are up to 40 clubs or activitiesavailable for students after school, includingperforming and visual arts, sports and hobbies,language and literacy.

The summer school programme, structuredaround the five ECM outcomes, provides a safeplace for young people in both a physical andemotional sense. There are supplementaryschools for Arabic children and for Somaliadults and their children as well as literacyand numeracy booster groups and nurture groups.

The peer mentoring and senior studentsscheme aims at increasing participation fromsenior students who benefit from the supportthey give to Year 7 students. Before selectionthey are given clear guidelines as to the skillsand dispositions required and the tasksinvolved, including help at parents’ evenings,and assistance in setting up and running clubs.

The school behaviour policy is premised onpositive relationships between staff andstudents and between students and their

peers. A behaviour improvement project, seenas a precondition for effective learning andteaching, takes a supportive needs-focusedroute rather than a sanctions route. Bookshop,theatre and cinema visits and gifts of MP3players are rewards for good behaviour, effortand achievement, accompanied by one-to-onecounselling for children with social, emotionaland behavioural difficulties plus in-classsupport for those students. In class mentorsalso support a small number of students inmaths and writing.

Audit and needs identification

Key to extended provision is the systematicmapping of services for children within theborough. This provides a basis for feasibilitystudies and filling the gaps, setting up servicesto meet needs that fall between the remits ofdifferent providers. This is complemented byprovision mapping within the school toidentify where further support is needed.

The federation is moving towards a moresystematic way of auditing parental needs witha type of ‘family road test’ which applies to allmid-phase admissions of new families and forall families who access the service. The OpenUniversity is a source for accessingmanagement information expertise. In orderto meet the very diverse range of needs andexpectations of those most in need the schoolaudits staff expertise with a view to creatingappropriate learning opportunities and todetermine the nature of the offer that can bemade to adults.

Communication

Communication of purposes, provision andprogress takes a plethora of forms, constantlyunder revision and rethinking.

The school publishes its own newsletters aswell as disseminating newsletters from otherstatutory and community agencies. Flyers aredistributed wherever people come together inadult classes, support groups or electronic user


groups. Information is circulated in staffpigeon holes, student post, displays in thereception area, in local libraries and in doctors’surgeries. The school’s interactive websiteshowcases its activities and allows visitors todownload music composed by students, towatch rehearsals such as Guys and Dolls,or to watch highlights of a recent event.

The ICT publicity project was established tocreate a sense of ownership among studentsand families by involving them in the designand generation of publicity through posters,postcards, regular news items and web links.Local, and sometimes national, press is used topublicise school events and successes, withregular press releases to Newham communitynewspapers. Articles in the Newham magazineare distributed to all households. Familysupport workers and the PALS team alsodistribute literature, translate materials, makereferrals, offer advice on employment benefitsand advise on wraparound childcare. Goodstudent work is captured on digital video anddisplayed on interactive whiteboards andplasma screens in the reception area.

Face-to-face communication assumes anumber of different forms. As well as homevisiting and taking information and advice tocommunity sites where parents are, parentsare invited termly to meet with Year 7 and 8directors of study and members of theextended school team. A post-it board atschool events such as the bring-a-dish andperforming arts evening is provided forparents, students and others to suggest ideasfor improvement in learning and teaching,after-school provision or any other ideas forschool improvement. There are informationdesks at open days and parent evenings whilethe community learning manager staffs a stallat events organised by the community.

While this saturation coverage is seen as highlyimportant it is also acknowledged that themost effective communication is by word ofmouth, formally within streets, homes and

neighbourhoods, as people experience forthemselves acquisition of new skills, new hopeand potentially life-changing opportunities.

Monitoring, evaluation and feedback

Lister Community School is a self-evaluatingschool, data and information-rich withmonitoring and evaluation built into everyinitiative and activity and involving all staffand students in reflection and critique. All staffare expected to engage in at least one peerobservation a year, a process seen as formativeand knowledge building for both parties. Thereis a commitment to regular mapping ofprovision within the school as well as outsideit. Study support, Saturday schools, Easter andsummer schools are subject to systematicevaluation with references both to ECM andcurricular achievement outcomes.

Numerous channels are used to tune intothe voice of users and creators of services.The headteacher keeps in close touch withstudents, personally interviewing Year 7–11students in groups of three with a focus onlearning in maths, English, science andhumanities and other issues which they mayraise about school life and learning. Thesefeedback sessions are complemented by lessonobservation and work scrutiny. This helps toaddress inconsistencies between and withinsubject teaching, in relation to marking, for example.

Complaints from parents are invited and dealtwith sensitively and proactively. An operationalgroup works across all partnerships to ensurecoherence and common purpose. Chaired bythe assistant head (community and lifelonglearning) it monitors and evaluates existingprovision to ensure that the overall mission ofthe school is reflected in practice. Crossmembership of this group with PALS is amechanism to ensure that the communityvoice is heard.

Change teams revisit the aims, missionstatements and shared principles and how


these are perceived and enacted by all Listerstaff and partners. All these forms ofmonitoring and evaluation feed intodevelopment planning which is extensive,detailed and inclusive, and provides Ofsted, as well as staff, with a comprehensive,thoughtfully constructed self-evaluation form (SEF).

ECM outcomes

The headteacher describes the ECM agenda as‘nectar’ as its outcomes and key principlesresonate with the school’s values and priorities,and its focus on the whole child. The schoolcan point to tangible impacts under each ofthe five ECM headings.

Keeping safe: in a turbulent community withhigh rates of crime the school offers a safehaven and ensures stringent safety measures.Its extended activities offer a congenial placeto meet friends and collaborate with adults inan informal and relaxed environment. Extra-curricular activities and a wide range of studysupport activities keeps young people off thestreet and out of potential trouble. Visits fromthe crime prevention police team help toidentify risk and how to steer clear of criminal activity.

The school safety net identifies youngpeople at risk, keeps in touch with newreferrals and targets support for those whoare a danger to themselves through sexualactivity or self-harm. Buddy systems, vigilanceand good communication raise awareness ofstudents with low self-esteem, who areanxious or afraid of bullying. A girls groupprovides an opportunity for issues to beaired in confidence. Continuous monitoringand evaluation of teaching and learningprovides opportunities for students to voicetheir concerns. Placing pedagogy to the forein continuing professional development(CPD) contributes to making classrooms

psychologically and emotionally safe places to be.

Enjoyment and achievement: the schooldevelopment plan (2007–08) states that alllessons strive to meet this second ECMobjective. CPD, peer observation, maintainingopen channels of communication withstudents, teachers and other staff all combineto ensure that enjoyment and achievement aregiven high priority in lessons and are mutually reinforcing.

The wide range of extra-curricular activities onoffer ensures that there is something foreveryone. Efforts are made to fill the gaps asnew needs are identified. As the school is not aconvenient site for all students, collaborationwith youth and community agencies helps toidentify stimulating places where young peoplecan go out of school hours.

One of the primary functions of study supportis to inject fun and enjoyment into learning sothat it is not simply extra ‘work’ but offers asense of achievement through mastering anew skill or developing a new interest.Through one-to-one and group tuitionstudents struggling with maths or reading cangain a new sense of self-efficacy. Creatingcatch-up systems and a bank or resources forcompleting course work allows students towork independently.

Making a contribution: students areencouraged to make a contribution to schoollife through opportunities to exerciseresponsibility and to take leadership roles suchas monitoring of doors and computer areasduring breaks and lunchtimes, helping toestablish a calm and productive atmosphere inthe resources areas as well as giving help tostudents struggling with ICT. Older studentsmentor younger children both within theschool day and in study support and Saturday schools.


The school’s podcasting is not only acommunication device but also an attractiveopportunity for young people to make acontribution. It encourages students to engagein greater depth with what is going on aroundthe school, to spot significant stories worthtelling and to work with teachers todisseminate those stories. This requires visualand technological skills, in research, planningand recording skills, social and inter-personalskills and the communication skills whichcome into play in negotiation skills involvinglistening, talking and writing.

Making a contribution within the communityis fostered through students visiting andworking with primary school children, takingon leadership roles in sports, festivals andplaying an active role in planning andorganising parent and community events.

Economic well-being: facilities with podcastingalso contribute to economic well-being byenhancing a range of skills valued byemployers, not least the skills of takinginitiative, working with others and awillingness to learn – three of the attributesmost looked for by employers. Study supportand other out-of-school hours activities andtargeting of borderline under-achievers havebeen shown to raise attainment in SATs andGCSE passes, used as a first line siftingmechanism by employers.

Greater numbers are now staying on in schooland numbers of NEET young people (not ineducation, employment or training) arediminishing, directly attributable to theopportunities offered by extended activities inthe school, in the borough and through inter-school collaboration. There is a growingincrease in enquiries from the community atreception and steady attendance at supportgroups is being maintained.

Staying healthy: evidence of progress towards ahealthy lifestyle is measured by increasingparticipation in sporting activities and through

monitoring of attendance by the sports lettingmanager. The breakfast club provides healthyfood and encourages good dietary habits.Interventions with parents have increasedparental awareness of healthy eating andlifestyle. A key strand of the PALS initiative is to support parents in helping their childrendevelop healthy habits and to takeresponsibility. Parent classes also providetraining in first aid.

Leadership


Staff appointments and professionaldevelopment

Careful attention is paid to appointmentsas getting the right people on board isseen as critical to the purposes, ethos andoutreach of an extended school. At the pointof recruitment all staff are made aware ofthe school’s mission and priorities, its equalopportunities commitment and codeof conduct, followed by induction intoprocedures with clear priority given tothe ECM agenda.

Specific skills sets are drawn up forappointment to posts such as refugee supportworkers or sports letting officer and frontlinereception staff as it is their direct encounterswith parents and the public that can inhibit orenhance engagement with the school.

The community learning managerdisseminates research findings andopportunities for professional developmentwhile benefiting from training that createsspaces for reflection and networking togetherwith family learning workers.

Away days for headteachers and members ofthe extended school teams across the clusteropen up opportunities to further commonunderstanding, to share principles of practiceand to examine how these principles are being


realised within schools, centres and networksacross the cluster.

Broadening the curriculum

Broadening the ‘reductionist curriculum’together with accountability mandates on‘core’ subjects is a constant source of pressureon staff to focus on tests and targets.For senior and middle leaders helping teacherssee beyond the immediate targets andperformativity measures has to be balancedagainst the pressing need to cover thecurriculum and ‘deliver’ results. Embeddingthe five outcomes integrally within all teachingis described by the head as a long-term goaland a present challenge.

These issues impact directly on dilemmas indistributing leadership. Commitment atdepartmental subject level does not alwayscoincide with wider commitments at schoollevel and brilliant teachers who could assumeleadership roles can prove resistant toextending their sphere or influence. Goodleaders of children are not necessarily goodleaders with their peers and professionaldevelopment, promotion, retention andsuccession planning are required to betreated as a continuing priority.


In order to meet the school’s wide-rangingambitions the staffing structure hasbeen remodelled with leadership roles andresponsibilities clearly demarcated. The seniorleadership team comprises nine people –the headteacher, three deputy heads andfive assistant heads. Their remits are:

• deputy head: curriculum, learning and achievement

• deputy head: inclusion and support forlearning, behaviour and achievement

• deputy head: professional standards anddevelopment to support achievement

• assistant head: director of learning

• assistant head: primary and community learning

• assistant head: support for learning

• assistant head: personal development

• assistant head: school manager

Other key roles in support of the ECM andcommunity development agendas are:

• sports letting officer

• community learning manager

• family support workers

• refugee support worker

• personal assistant to the extended school team

• student support centre manager

• summer school coordinator

The governing body is composed to reflect theextended compass of the school’s activities andjoint governor’s group meetings are also heldat cluster level.

Building alliances andpartnerships

Key to the concept of an extended school isthe compass of activities that reach beyond theschool and create networks of support forchildren and families. Over the past few yearsmulti-agency partnerships have been growingapace, with a commitment to suspendingjudgement and learning from the differingconventions, norms and working practices ofdifferent agencies, professional and voluntary groups.

The school believes that challenges to thinkingand practice is the critical core ofcollaboration. Priority is therefore given to


raising awareness among staff and schoolpartners of cultural and religious differences,the importance of listening, negotiating,compromising and, as necessary, standingone’s ground and managing conflict.

A longstanding partnership with Newham’sCommunity Education and Youth Service ledto the establishment of a Saturday school forYears 5 and 6 and since 2006 a summer schoolcaters for 250 secondary students in Listeritself. Primary pupils also visit Lister to usespecialist rooms and laboratories and take partin joint projects.

Partnerships centre on a wide range of sportsfor school students and adults, many held inthe school’s spacious and well-equipped gym,others held in primary schools, led by staffand students from Lister. Staff and studentsmake a contribution to the many localauthority initiatives such as Newham LocalAuthority’s cultural harmony project and peermentoring strategy. Both within the school andin community sites basic skills courses areprovided for adults in literacy, numeracy and ICT.

The school maintains contact with NewhamSixth Form College, the Open University, theUniversity of East London and other potentialdestinations for its students.

Challenges for leadership inan extended school

Under the BSF programme a new school willbe built around the existing facilities and theongoing life of Lister Community School. Onlythe gymnasium and dance studios will remain.This not only presents a logistical nightmare inthe short term but BSF does not, in the view ofthe head, meet the requirement of anextended school such as theirs. While there issome input by staff into the design, the 70m2per classroom constrains opportunities for

different modes and styles of learning, fortrans-disciplinary work both within andoutside classrooms. Nor does it cater forextended school activities, with insufficientroom for community space.

Conclusions

Building bridges

At the heart of the school’s commitment is tobuild bridges with family and community andhuge efforts are made to bring parents intosupportive partnerships with staff. A perennialissue is trying to inform and encourage thosewho opt for other schools, in some cases dueto rumour and disinformation, in some casesbecause of religious or political leaders towhom parents look for guidance. It is astruggle for school staff to work at cross grainto what parents are being told and what theybelieve from other sources.

Twilight classes for young people and parentsrun up against family meal times andpreparation for religious worship and there aredifficulties in attracting girls to after-school orresidential sessions due to family pressures forthem to be at home and to avoid mixed-sex classes.

The head adds a final codicil to the manyachievements of Lister as an extended school.Just to maintain current initiatives and to keepmomentum demands a continuing sustainedeffort and increased investment. It needsresilience to deal with the inevitable setbacksencountered in turbulent communities. Itrequires encouragement and support for staffwho can become demoralised by the slow paceof success and seemingly minimal returns oninvestment. Distributing leadership spreadsresponsibility but nonetheless requires anoverview and joining up of the disparatestrands of activity. In the end the buck stopswith the head, which carries a particularlyironic reminder of the head’s singular


accountability, however collaborative theeffort. It is a considerable tribute to leadership,individual and shared, that Lister CommunitySchool continues to make such tangibleprogress against the odds.


Seven MillsPrimary School

Portrait

Seven Mills Primary School, in the LondonBorough of Tower Hamlets, nestles under40-year-old high- and low-rise concrete flats,and alongside 30-year-old terraced housing.Close by, a building site sits cheek-by-jowlwith towering state-of-the-art office blocks.The architectural pinnacle of the local ‘CanaryWharf’ landmark has been mimicked by thosewho have refurbished the old residential towerblocks as well as those designing the modern.Only two older, largely Victorian, buildingsstand in the area: a church and a communitycentre, the latter partially boarded up, daubedwith graffiti.

Wrapped around two sides of the school siteis a community play area for children thatcontains brightly coloured apparatus.At one end of this L-shaped playground liesthe entrance to the new Early Years buildingwhich is shaped like a ship with circular‘porthole’ windows; at the other end lies theentrance for the main school. Here, the single-storey building is flat-roofed and grey,originally built in 1967. Under a small‘covered’ area staff, parents and young childrencan huddle on a cold day, while Duplo andother toys are handed out. The nearbyentrance has recently been clad with pine andenclosed to form a warm reception area withchairs and a flat screen displaying schoolnotices. Here visitors can wait to see membersof staff without being within the body of theschool. The head rings a handbell at the startof school (he tells me later that he is “a firmbeliever in management by walkabout”).

Next to the Early Years area there is a dedicatedcomputer room. Outside, the playgrounds –

recently upgraded with a £276,000 ‘SportEngland’ grant – are zoned for different gamesor ages; bikes and football run on alternatedays. The ‘mobile’ huts in one of theplaygrounds house the music department anda classroom for parents to learn during the day.

This mixed, inner-city primary school hasapproximately 320 pupils on roll between theages of three and eleven. The school hasachieved a Sportsmark Gold award, the SilverArtsmark standard the Quality in Study Support(QISS) Established status in 2006 and isapplying for Quality in Extended Schools (QES)Emerging status.

Statistically, the school falls in the highestquintile for Ofsted’s ‘school deprivation factor’,with over 60 per cent of pupils eligible for freeschool meals. Approximately 19 per cent ofpupils have special educational needs (SEN)(the average for the country); however, 65 percent of pupils speak English as an additionallanguage (EAL). There is a wide range of ethnicbackgrounds, with approximately 60 per centBangladeshi, and 23 per cent indigenous white.


Fostering learning

There are a number of things that areparticularly striking about Seven Mills.There is a calm, happy, ordered and relaxedfeel to the school, a feel of the schoolsetting its own agenda to put children firstand using everything else to serve this.The senior staff, after long service, are stillinspired and inspiring. They appear to lookfor, and use, every opportunity that comestheir way in pursuit of achieving theschool’s aim:

To provide children with a broad and


balanced curriculum, which includes theNational Curriculum, through which theymay continually progress, communicateeffectively and engage positively withothers in all areas of their life. (Prospectus 2007)

The strategies employed to support this aimare rooted in activities stretching back throughthe school’s history, predating the Every ChildMatters (ECM) agenda and extended schoolsinitiative which are perceived as legitimatingwhat was already valued and promoted withinthe school. They include:

• study support activities directly supportingachievement in reading, writing and mathematics;

• study support activities and trips thatbroaden the statutory curriculum, and arebelieved to contribute to developing self-esteem;

• parenting support activities;

• childcare that also reinforces other aims,such as healthy eating;

• fostering a supportive atmosphere among staff;

• fostering links with other schools and the community, reinforcing mutual responsibility;

• fostering links with business and otherinstitutions as part of broadening pupils’ perspectives.

The importance of shared vision and trust

The head emphasised that the shared vision,particularly among managers and governors,is central to the success of the school.The relationship between the senior leadersand the governing body is good; theexperience and stability of both groupsappears to be an important factor, in that trusthas been built, which supports an ethos oftrying things out at all levels in the school.The governors are actively involved in the

school, at times contributing at theoperational, as well as strategic, level.

Fundamental to what the head believes is thatpeople have to have trust, forgiveness and thewillingness to ‘buy in’ to what the school istrying to give them – but that the school canonly do this if it has found out what they wantin the first place. The compact lay-out of theschool and small size means that pupilsnecessarily become familiar with staff, who, inturn, are able to pick up and address problemsquickly. The shared vision and knowledge ofeach other also allows members of staff tomaintain a consistent front.


Study support clubs are run before (startingfrom 7.45am) and after school (until 5.15pm)on each school day, with ‘springboard’ and‘French’ offered during the short 45-minutelunch break, and some sporting activitiesoffered on Saturdays. The extensiveprogramme includes seven different sportingactivities, five different clubs aiming toboost/encourage achievement, a computerclub, as well as library (after school) andbreakfast club before school. Several of theseclubs are run more than once a week,targeting different key stages. In addition,there are two for parents. The activities are runby classroom teachers, assistant staff andothers employed specifically for the purpose.The purposefulness of these activities is partlymonitored through attendance and parentalsurveys, and the potential link to attainment isalso examined. In addition, pupils take part inad hoc local events, such as exhibiting work ina local primary exhibition of art. The schoolalso participates in cricket, netball, rugby andsoccer tournaments, and runs residential fieldtrips to support geography and history.

While some of these directly target pupilattainment, largely by providing extension


activities that complement the mainstreamcurriculum, others are about extending pupils’experiences of subjects not normally availablein schools. Within the curriculum there is alsoevidence that teachers fill out the bare bonesof the curriculum through linkingrequirements with local events that pupilsknow about, thus encouraging engagement.

The programme has been funded throughseveral sources in the past, including CanaryWharf plc, the New Opportunities Fund andthe Standards Fund. In addition, staff andreading and number partners, volunteer theirtime. Most of the after-school clubs areprovided by the play centre that is hosted onthe school premises and until recently run byYouth Service staff who also worked for theschool. The school has now formally taken thisover, thus reducing the cost to parents who nolonger have to register with the Youth Service.Parents are expected to contribute to club fees(where relevant), school trips and the schoolfund. This, together with money from businesspartners, funds ‘treats’ such as parties, musicalevents and shows.

Services for parents

Various classes, supported by the borough,are available to parents at the school andEnglish for speakers of other languages (ESOL)classes enable some to progress to highercourses in the local college. The receptionteacher has run a well-attended readingworkshop and a ‘messy play workshop’ focusedon developing children’s language skills. Otherworkshops and classes included developingchildren’s number skills, healthy packedlunches, information and communicationstechnology (ICT) and fitness classes.

The breakfast club, and some after-schoolprovision is run by the play centre andprovides 6.30am–6.30pm childcare for parents.Whereas it was discussed as providing aflexible start to the day for parents who may

need to drop off children at other schools thathad the same start time, it was also perceivedas beneficial by the school, providing a calmstart to the day for the children who attended.Members of staff were observed as relaxed andinformal, having established trustingrelationships with the children. Pupilscommented that they enjoyed the range ofhealthy food and big portions, and the choiceof going out to play or going to the ICT suiteafterwards. The nursery nurse spoke of theneed to recruit more pupils, and thought thatlow numbers were in part because parents didnot perceive free play as beneficial learning.The long opening hours of the school’schildcare clubs prompted the deputy head topoint out the contradiction in messages overwork–life balance and extended schooling.

Good relationships with parents areunderpinned by the school acting ‘as a sourceof advice and support for the whole family,many of whom speak little English and arenew to this country’ (Ofsted 2004). There hasbeen a ‘Passport to Learning’ scheme for staffand parents, and a family learning project. Inaddition, the school website ‘points’ parents touseful services. Parents have been encouragedto feed back their thoughts on aspects of studysupport provision, although the response rateshave tended to be low. There was anunderlying anxiety that if activities for parentswere laid on without them being involved inorganising them, it would reinforce a ‘hand-out’ culture.

Teachers also ensure that parents who donot read English have letters and informationread to them, although it has been difficultfinding translators who can meaningfullytranslate Sylheti. One teaching assistantspoke of there being communities within thecommunity that the school serves, thatgradually ‘come on board’, through carefullythought-through strategies employed inthe school. Participation in school events bythe Bangledeshi community, for example,


was identified as low and so the school haveresponded by appointing a Bangladeshihome–school worker.

Impact on standards

Learning

In 2004, Ofsted acknowledged that ‘attainmenton entry to the nursery is very poor’. While atthe end of Key Stage 1 many pupils fall belowthe national average for reading, writing andmaths, they nonetheless consistently out-perform contemporaries with similarbackgrounds. Furthermore in recent years atKey Stage 2, pupils have achieved more highlythan predicted, typically attaining the nationalaverage. Significantly, there is little evidence ofa ‘tail’ of poorly achieving pupils: for example,all Key Stage 2 pupils achieved level 3+ andabove in English in 2006, and the 2006 profileof pupils’ average point scores peaked moretightly around ‘27–32’ than the national scores.The school’s contextual value added (CVA) in2006 was 101.2.

The various activities offered at Seven Mills areconsidered valuable by members of the school.The range and timings enable pupils to attendan activity they enjoy. For example, a pupilexplained that she could not go to an after-school club but would go to lunchtime clubs,which include quieter ‘friendship’ clubs, guitarlessons and French. Referring to music, onepupil explained that “it helps my emotionswhen I play, if I am happy or sad”. The schoolalso analysed data for 13 Year 6 (2006/07)pupils who had NC levels of below 3b theprevious year. All had gained 0.6–2 levels inthe interim. Further analysis showed thatthree pupils had made gains of 1–1.3 levelsin literacy, 1.3–1.6 levels in numeracy and1.3–2 levels in science and also:

• 98–100 per cent attendance

• 100 per cent attendance at booster

• high involvement in school clubs and

• 2+ sporting activities.

This suggests that factors of achievement, goodhealth, attendance at targeted classes,attending clubs and sporting activities may bemutually supporting each other.

More subtly, one teacher has noticed animprovement in writing, as a result of theenriched opportunities pupils have: heobserved that pupils would use technical termsthey had learnt in sports clubs to write moreinterestingly and thus reach higher levels.Similarly, he hoped that by encouragingchildren to coach they would developsensitivity to the different tones and ways ofgiving feedback to others.


In addition to the usual complement ofteachers, assistants and ‘ancillary staff’ there isa grant-funded advanced skills teacher (AST)for physical education (PE) (who is also theschools’ extended schools coordinator), ahome–school liaison officer and a head anddeputy head who are non-teaching. A numberof staff have worked for the school for severalyears, most notably the head (29 years), deputyhead (22 years) and the AST (12 years).

The extensive programme of study supportand parenting activities was developed as aresult of an audit and reflection on what wasrequired to both support the curriculum andteach new skills. Subsequent improvementwas, and continues to be, based on feedbackfrom children, through the suggestions boxand evaluation forms, parent questionnairesand ad hoc suggestions, and input from otherinterested parties such as the local secondaryschool. Registers are kept which allow teachersto monitor popularity and gender bias in theclubs. All projects have a termly plan thatvaries in delivery as appropriate for thecontent, and opportunities for pupils tocelebrate their successes are offered through


performance, certificates and displays of work.Activities are advertised through noticeboardsat the school entrance, posters and letters toparents, and are well attended.

The school works in conjunction with anumber of health and social care agencies.The head pointed out that ECM planning hadevolved through the ways that agencies workedtogether; however, with no more funding thanbefore, referral was still not a swift process.Referrals are made by the school to a range ofservices but the most immediate support tendsto come from the teaching assistants.

Leadership


Restructuring: sharing responsibility,encouraging initiative

To enable the school’s strategies for raisingachievement, a radical new staffing structurewas developed three years ago. The headdescribed the need to change his workingpractice in order to meet businesses in waysthey understood – specifically, over decentlunches rather than snatched coffees – andthis required him to hand over the day-to-dayrunning of the school to his deputy head.The time freed also allows him to work withschools experiencing difficulties, to devotemore time to the National Association of HeadTeachers (NAHT), and to extend the school’snetworks and partnerships.

Teaching and learning responsibility (TLR)payments are spread widely among teachers,who work in key stage teams. Recruitment andretention problems have encouraged an ethosof developing and promoting teachers fromwithin the school. A governor spoke of theskilfulness of the headteacher in assessing amember of staff’s capabilities, delegating, andthen giving staff the autonomy and confidenceto move forward.

All members of staff are encouraged tocontribute expertise. The home–school liaisonofficer and the learning mentor have bothoperational and strategic input. The learningmentor, who describes her role as ‘removingbarriers to learning’, commented that theschool was very good at listening tosuggestions and fresh ideas. Members of‘ancillary’ staff attend staff meetings and bringforward issues of concern. They, too, areencouraged to take the lead, although theyless commonly perceived themselves to beclassed as ‘leaders’. The site manager is one ofthree trained mini-bus drivers in the school.Teaching assistants have been employed to doa specific job rather than to work moregenerally, and so there are no higher levelteaching assistants; however, one of the Year 1teaching assistants is a graduate who speaksSyleti, Hindi and Arabic. While in general thisway of working and sharing is valued becauseit enables the extended curriculum, there wasa concern, expressed by the deputyheadteacher, about the lack of officialguidance on both pay and definition of rolesfor teaching assistants and admin staff withinextended schools.

All members of staff interviewed spoke of theopen, approachable, flexible relationship withthe head and deputy, who they saw as givingclear leadership and direction throughstructure and consultation. Unpicking this,members of staff spoke of the head anddeputy’s interest in their well-being andprofessional development, and theirwillingness to support staff who wanted toinnovate. This, in turn, caused members ofstaff to want to contribute flexibly and beyondwhat might be expected. For example, there isa willingness to pay a member of staff for oneclub if they choose to run two. It appears thatthe full and consistent way in which the headand deputy embody the vision and values ofthe school causes others to do the same andhelps to bring about the school aim.


Statements made by staff, such as ‘childrencome first’, shows how principles-in-actionestablished by the long-serving senior leadershave encouraged participation andengagement, although the head also talked of‘bending’ his own principles to get the best forthe school, for example by allowing businessphoto shoots in order to receive businessmoney. The level of trust was high: the deputytelling the head of her decisions in passing,the teaching assistant exploring new strategieswithout constant reference to a teacher, theexchanges of information between the sitemanager and the deputy over tea when heopens the school, were all cited as symbols of this.

With regard to prioritising, the head’sphilosophy is to consider if something isaffordable in terms of time and finance, ifthere is enthusiasm for it, if it is what clientswant and to what extent similar projects havebeen successful in the past.

Pupil leadership

Pupils are also given formal opportunities,through the school council, to takeresponsibility, to collaborate and to solveproblematic school issues. These opportunitiesallow pupils to experience and develop theirunderstanding of collective responsibility.Pupil attendance and good behaviouris encouraged, and used as an indicatorof enjoyment and achievement.Pupil participation is at the heart of theschool’s conception of enjoyment andachievement: participation in the schoolcouncil, each other’s religious celebrations,class rule making, are among thediverse examples.


Ties to beyond the school community

The school has belonged to the WISP(Wapping, Isles of Dogs, Stepney and Poplar)cluster group since the demise of the InnerLondon Education Authority (ILEA) in the1980s. In recent years the school has been anactive member of its local ‘Action Zone’ (andformerly the ‘Excellence in Cities’ initiative),forming links with other schools on the island.Early on, Year 7, 8, 9 teachers at the secondaryschool came in to help plan and workalongside the school, to enable a betterunderstanding of the capability of primarychildren. Through mutual support among theschools, various enterprises have beenundertaken, such as the school council lookingat environmental issues and the developmentof peer mentoring. The clusters are wellestablished, and the head has observed thatthe ethos has been sustained as newheadteachers come to understand what theyare ‘buying in to’. The funding source of theAction Zone finishes in 2008, and there issome concern among the governors as to future funding.

The extended schools coordinator is also anAST and is the borough PESSCL (physicaleducation, school sport and club links)coordinator, training and ‘growing’ localcoaches through the secondary schools.The school is a base for the summer schoolsports activities, open to all children in thecommunity, which further encourages themaintenance of good facilities.

Recruiting staff locally to admin and supportroles and as sports coaches is part of theschool’s strategy.


Business links

The school makes and maintains strong linkswith the local business community. The headestimated the school has received £140,000over the past three years through these links.He is able to allocate about five days each halfterm as well as lunchtimes and after-schoolmeetings because he also has a non-teachingdeputy headteacher who runs the school on aday-to-day basis. Apart from funding, theselinks have a direct impact on learningopportunities. For example, it has enabled theschool to offer French, through KPMG, whohave also organised and funded an excursionto Paris and Versailles. Similarly, Canary Wharfplc has developed a three-year cricketprogramme in which the school participates.On a more individual basis, the connectionsallow the school to locate people who arewilling to talk about their work to pupils, andthose willing to help with reading. In addition,the school has worked with the local museumand local schools to develop a history unit.

These links have been achieved in partthrough a courtship between local businessand the school. The head refers to ‘buying into’ what local businesses want from the school,and they in turn supporting what the schoolwants. A governor emphasised that therelationship was not instrumental, its naturebeing more complex. One such partnership iswith KPMG, which, as part of its corporatesocial responsibility, wished to team up with aprimary school. Seven Mills’ readiness to adoptnew ideas underpinned the initialcollaboration. Now the KPMG coordinatorspoke of how rewarding the 25 members ofher staff found the partnership terms ofacquiring new skills and being motivated bytheir work with pupils.

Conclusions

The headteacher, commenting on the steadilyimproving Ofsted reports, noted that theschool has not changed its underlyingphilosophy. As time has gone on, governmentpolicy has changed and the measures havebecome more sophisticated so that more ofwhat the school has always been doing hasbeen appreciated by Ofsted.

A key factor in the success of the school isthe notion of reciprocity: an attitude wherebyeach party responds flexibly to the other’sneeds and wants, while yet working togetherto further the underlying aim of the school.There is reciprocity between the school andthe staff, between the school and businesses,and the school and other schools. Through thisreciprocity, the school enables pupils to accessthe social and financial capital that reinforcesthe basis of their future economic well-being.The extended activities of the school act toallow this reciprocity to occur. Of concern forthe school, however, is the relatively littleactive involvement of many parents in theschool, and a sense that the provision mayserve to reinforce the ‘hand-out’ culture.

Overall, the extended schools initiative,here, has provided a legitimation of activitiesthat not only further pupils’ enjoyment andcommitment to their school and education,but also increase the social and financialcapital so that aims enshrined in the ECMagenda can be furthered. Pupils and staff havemore options available to them to progresslearning than in the compulsory NationalCurriculum and associated strategies, andthrough such options individual pupils arebetter able to access what they individuallyneed to underpin their improved attainment.

ECM Premium Project - COnnecting REpositories · 2012-06-07 · ECM Premium project 2 Contents...

Documents

Transcript of ECM Premium Project - COnnecting REpositories · 2012-06-07 · ECM Premium project 2 Contents...