Creating a vision for continuous improvement

Information about the school

Cardiff High School is a diverse and vibrant comprehensive school situated in the north of the city of Cardiff.  There are 1,613 pupils on roll, of which 422 are in the sixth form.  Around 6% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, which is much lower than the national average of 16.4%.

The school has a diverse pupil intake. The majority of pupils speak English as their first language.  Four hundred and thirty-five pupils are categorised as pupils with English as an additional language and around 36% of pupils come from a minority ethnic background.  One per cent of pupils speak Welsh as their first language.

The percentage of pupils with special educational needs is around 18%, which is lower than the national average of 22.9%.  The percentage of pupils with a statement of special educational needs (2.4%) is just above the national average of 2.2%.  The school has a specialist resource base serving the local authority for 15 pupils with specific learning difficulties.

The school is currently a pioneer school and is working with the Welsh Government and other schools to take forward developments relating to education reform in Wales.

Sustaining and improving effective practice

In 2015, Cardiff High School was a highly effective and high performing school with year on year progression in terms of outcomes.  The school had a long history of excellence in learning and teaching, was judged as excellent by Estyn, was rated as a green category school, had been identified as sector leading and was routinely working with other schools, working at local and national levels to shape and develop the self-improving system.  However, the question that the school posed itself at this point was, ‘How can we be even better?’

Cardiff High School’s belief that learning is at the heart of everything they do underpins the school’s approach to learning and teaching.  In order to strengthen this culture, in 2015 the school made the strategic decision to invest significantly in learning and teaching.  As a result, the leadership of learning and teaching was enhanced through the expansion of the senior leadership team to include two assistant heads, who alongside a deputy head lead the strategic vision across the school.  Furthermore, a learning and teaching team was established from middle leadership to lead and support the implementation of strategic priorities.  With this framework in place, a new vision for learning and teaching was established with the emphasis on:

•  leadership at all levels
•  developing and sustaining highly effective classroom practice
•  professional learning and aspiration to improve for all

Leadership at all levels

Senior leadership established learning and teaching as the key priority for ongoing school improvement.  Learning and teaching are the central priority in both the SIP and DIP every academic year.  The school recognises that it can always improve and enhance the quality of learning experiences. 

The school recognised that meaningful and sustained development of learning and teaching was only possible through the recognition and growth of teacher efficacy.  This meant that, in order for the school to realise its vision, it needed to empower teachers to lead learning in their classrooms and to provide the appropriate balance of challenge and support to make this happen.  This approach also applied at departmental level where middle leaders are trusted to develop a vision for learning and teaching that is appropriate to each subject specific context.  For example every department was given responsibility for its own approach to feedback.

Quality assurance of this approach to learning and teaching is underpinned by a philosophy that it is done with and not to staff and departments and that it is a developmental process to foster further improvement.  The school believes that this collaborative approach and its emphasis on professional trust is the essential component in implementing effective pedagogical practice. The model strikes a highly effective balance between support and challenge that is both robust and places learning at the heart of quality assurance processes. 

Developing and sustaining highly effective classroom practice

The school wanted to establish a clear pedagogical framework in order to create a consistent language for talking about learning and teaching, provide staff with accessible research informed strategies, and establish professional learning as an entitlement for all staff.

As a result, senior leaders set five core priorities for learning and teaching:

• whole school learning and teaching model using a specific pedagogical framework
• closing the gap between potential and performance for all pupils
• literacy, numeracy and digital competence
• feedback
• learner voice

The school implemented a commercial learning and teaching model.  It felt that the model articulated the five core elements required for highly effective learning and teaching:

deepening thinking, role modelling, impact, challenge and engagement in learning.  This model provides a common language for conceptualising learning and teaching whilst allowing for teacher agency and flexibility of approach.

Closing the gap between performance and potential is a philosophy that permeates the school and, as a result, there is a culture of aspiration for all.  As part of this approach, the school has adopted several pedagogical strategies based on current educational theory.  The strategies promote an emphasis on engagement in learning and high levels of challenge to stretch every learner. 

Literacy, numeracy and digital competence are essential cross curricular skills that the school feels are best applied in context, where relevant, and at an appropriate level.  In order to support the collaborative ethos of the school, the learning and teaching team co-plan, deliver and reflect on skills application and progression with subject specialists.

The school believes that feedback should inform planning and effective classroom practice at all levels, and may be given verbally, in written form or digitally.  The school’s feedback policy outlines the four pillars of highly effective feedback.

• regular and timely
• focused and specific
• acted upon
• shared practice 

Middle leaders take ownership for their subject and context specific approaches to feedback. These are shared with all stakeholders and are regularly quality assured.  This results in highly responsive and reflective feedback processes, which are finely tuned and feed directly into the quality of learning experiences in the classroom.

The leadership of learning in the school effectively incorporates learner voice and opportunities for learners to take an active role in informing learning experiences.  The school elicits the views of learners in a number of areas including departmental reviews, work scrutiny and subject specific panels.  Pupils are also engaged formally through a school parliament working within school and across the consortium to shape pedagogical experiences.

Professional Learning

Senior leadership believes that staff wellbeing and professional development are central to the school’s exceptionally high standards of learning and teaching.  A culture of professional learning is firmly embedded at all levels and is viewed as a professional entitlement for all and by all staff.  The school recognises that staff are the most valuable asset and looks to provide regular, high quality and bespoke development opportunities.  The school considers itself a highly effective learning organisation.

The school provides numerous pathways for staff to develop professionally:

• research informed strategic vision
• strategic whole-school INSET provision focused clearly on improvement priorities
• a supportive culture of lesson observation, learning walks and sharing good practice
• collaborative approaches to key aspects of learning and teaching pedagogies
• a whole-school coaching ethos and coaching programme
• a whole-school Action Enquiry
• a suite of commercial programmes to develop pedagogy and leadership e.g. those for outstanding teachers, teaching assistants and leaders

The school recognises that the successful leadership of learning in teaching does not exist in isolation.  It is only possible to achieve when it works in harmony with all other aspects of the school.   The alignment of wellbeing and achievement, curriculum, data, and learning and teaching is needed to ensure that learning experiences are highly effective and achieve the four purposes.