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Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Context

Lliswerry High School is an English-medium, 11-19 mixed, community school serving residential areas to the eastern side of Newport.  There are around 800 pupils on roll with approximately 150 in the sixth form.

Around 31% of pupils are eligible for free school meals.  The school identifies that around 29% of pupils have an additional learning needs and nearly 3% of pupils have a statement of special educational needs.

Around 23% of pupils speak English as an additional language.  This is a substantially higher proportion than the local authority average.  Sixteen per cent of pupils are at Welsh Government language acquisition stage A or B; a few of these pupils do not have any prior experience of education.  The school has pupils from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds.  Approximately 15% of pupils are not from a white British background.  There are a very few pupils who speak Welsh at home.

The leadership team consists of the headteacher who has been in post since September 2017, a deputy headteacher who joined the school in 2013 and two assistant headteachers.  The assistant head with responsibility for teaching and learning joined the school in April 2014.

Strategy and action

Over the last three years, senior and middle leaders have had a relentless focus on improving pedagogy and creating a culture of consistently high expectations for teaching and learning.  Leaders have clarified and strengthened their minimum expectations of classroom practice and collective responsibilities.  Leaders have provided staff with relevant and timely professional learning opportunities and have been careful not to overwhelm staff with too much change.

The school’s strong evaluative culture has enabled leaders to judge strengths and areas for development honestly, and to pinpoint professional learning needs accurately.

The school has a detailed three-year plan for improving teaching.  This outlines carefully planned and timely opportunities to introduce new strategies to ensure improved progress for learners.  The main foci for improving teaching over the last two years have been the introduction of a pedagogical acronym to ensure pace and challenge, alongside a range of strategies to challenge the underlying beliefs about learning and predetermined intelligence.  All teaching staff are clear about their collective responsibilities with regard to pedagogy and their personal accountability within the system.

All staff are members of one of the school’s networks of professional learning.  These networks use action enquiry to improve aspects of teaching.  The networks follow the Welsh Government guidance (Welsh Government, 2013) to ensure that they focus appropriately and can demonstrate the impact of their work.  Recent networks have focused on national priorities as well as school priorities.  Each network writes a report of their findings, which they share with the whole staff.  Leaders take account of the outcomes of the networks’ action enquiries when they review school policy and approaches.  As a result of senior leaders taking the views of staff into account, they feel involved in school improvement and their professional opinion is valued. 

Staff also participate in joint practice learning groups.  This is peer coaching using the GROW model and also incorporates aspects of lesson study.  Colleagues agree a focus, support each other as they prepare improvements and reflect on classroom practice through peer coaching.  Through both learning communities and joint practice learning groups, teachers are encouraged to engage with evidence and employ proven effective practice.  The range of support available to the groups includes video technology to capture lessons and a learning library with relevant publications and access to research.

The school plans its professional learning activities very carefully.  Leaders ensure that staff have the necessary resources to support their learning.  Evaluation is thorough and honest.  All staff feel involved and know their contribution is valued.  They understand their responsibility in improving their teaching.  Staff discuss their involvement in these activities during performance management sessions that link to the new professional standards.

Evaluation processes include rigorous tracking and monitoring to support and challenge all staff.  As a result of regular and robust self-evaluation activities, each teacher has a personal teaching and learning profile.  Senior and middle leaders discuss the personal profiles in line management meetings to celebrate strengths and to identify appropriate professional learning opportunities.  Staff value these as they appreciate the opportunity to talk about their practice and the bespoke nature of the precise professional learning opportunities offered.  Each department also has a teaching and learning profile, which supports middle leaders to tailor their improvement plans accordingly.  Teaching and learning is an agenda item in every line management and departmental meeting.

As a result of these thorough and detailed self-evaluation activities and line management discussions, the school is able to plan and map beneficial professional learning activity for the year ahead.

Outcomes

At the time of inspection in 2013, teachers were enthusiastic and had high expectations of pupils’ behaviour and standards of work in only around half of lessons.  In 2017, the quality of teaching has improved notably as evidenced by the outcomes of lesson observations, the scrutiny of pupils’ work and by staff and pupil responses to faculty surveys about the quality of teaching and learning.  Pupil outcomes have also improved for example, in 2017 the school is in the top quarter of similar schools based on pupils eligibility for free school meals for level 2 including English and mathematics (Welsh Government, 2017c).

Pupils are strongly of the view that teaching and behaviour has improved significantly during their time in the school.  Teachers are highly appreciative of the professional learning activities available to them and of how the school supports their personal development successfully.

Next steps as identified by the school

  • Embedding collective responsibilities for all staff borne from professional learning days and linking in particular to a growth mindset and developing oracy
  • Developing learner voice through termly dialogues about teaching
  • Development of looking at books in conversation with learners
  • Embedding the language of the 12 pedagogical principles
  • Introduce personal teaching and learning profiles for support staff (mirroring teaching staff) to enable them to take ownership of their professional learning and development

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Context

Ysgol Syr Hugh Owen is a bilingual 11-19 school in Caernarfon in Gwynedd.  There are 853 pupils on roll with 171 pupils in the sixth form.  Overall, there are almost 100 more pupils than at the time of the core inspection in March 2016.  

Approximately 16% of pupils are eligible for free school meals.  Almost 90% of pupils speak Welsh with their families and 92% are fluent in the language.  Most pupils come from a white British background.  The school identifies that around 13% of pupils have additional learning needs.

Since the core inspection, the substantive headteacher has been seconded to work in a regional consortium and the deputy headteacher has taken up the post of interim headteacher.  One of the four assistant headteachers has taken up the post of interim deputy headteacher.  In order to support the leadership team, four middle leaders have taken up further interim leadership responsibilities.  

Strategy and action

Improving teaching is a main priority in the whole-school improvement plan, and the school states that it is trying to ‘create an atmosphere that allows the school to push the boundaries of teaching and learning’.  The interim headteacher’s vision is for the school to be as inclusive as it possibly can.  She believes strongly that all pupils deserve high quality teaching and high levels of support and guidance.  In order to reflect this raised level of expectation and increased staff accountability, senior leaders amended or rewrote school policies and procedures.

All senior leaders have improving teaching and learning as one of their core responsibilities.  Purposeful training has taken place to ensure senior and middle leaders understand the qualities of successful lessons.  All teachers have a performance management target related to teaching.  Teachers understand that they have a professional responsibility to improve aspects of their teaching in order to contribute to the whole-school vision.  Governors support this priority well.  They have prioritised spending to enable teachers to attend beneficial professional learning events.  In return, leaders expect staff to share their learning about teaching methodologies and pedagogical issues with their colleagues, either in departmental meetings or at whole-school events.

The substantive headteacher and deputy headteacher (now the interim headteacher) identified the low expectations and lack of ambition of many pupils as a risk to the school achieving its aim of improving teaching and learning.  To this end, they split each year group into two parallel bands.  This enabled the school to allocate two classes to core subject teachers in each year group, if needed.  Splitting year cohorts into two sets of 1, 2 and 3 instead of having sets 1-6 resulted in raising pupils’ aspirations and promoting their belief in being able to reach their potential.

Senior leaders identified the need to make leadership more distributed across the school.  They increased the accountability of subject middle leaders, giving them clear direction in terms of their responsibility for teaching and learning within their departments.  All subject middle leaders became accountable for the quality of teaching and the consistency of marking and assessment within their subject.  As a result of the increased distributed leadership, the rate of improvement and change was fast. 

Most staff understood the need to improve teaching and shared the school’s vision and ambition for greater consistency in the quality of teaching.  A few teachers volunteered to lead pedagogical programmes to further their own learning and gain leadership experience.  However, a minority of teachers were averse to radical changes in the organisation of classes and in the rapidly growing culture of self‑reflection and self-improvement.  A significant few were apprehensive about the pace of change.  In order to reduce anxiety, the headteacher put in place practices to promote a culture of openness and sharing among staff. 

The school introduced triad working which gave teachers the opportunity to work collaboratively with colleagues.  Leaders ensured that they and other key staff were available to support the triads with the planning and delivery of lessons if needed.  Leaders also arranged worthwhile opportunities for teachers to visit other schools to observe strong practitioners.  Prior to senior leaders observing lessons, all teachers had the opportunity to co-plan the lesson with a peer of their choice.  

Outcomes from monitoring activities showed that the pace of pupils’ learning needed to improve.  Leaders spent time researching successful ways to engage pupils in their learning.  They shared their findings with staff, emphasising the importance of pupils being at the centre of the lesson and reducing the amount of teacher talk. 

The school organised bespoke whole-school professional learning days and events, led by renowned practitioners with a successful background in change management.  These strategies helped to reduce teacher anxiety and contributed to a more open culture within the school. 

Due to the need to prepare for the introduction of the Digital Competence Framework (Welsh Government, 2016) the school invested heavily in improving its ICT hardware.  Leaders purchased tablet computers, white boards, digital resources and specialist hardware for teachers.  They provided bespoke training for staff on how to use these resources.  They made explicit their expectations of how staff should use the new resources in lessons.  In a comparatively short space of time, nearly all teachers have developed good practices in the use of digital technology in their lessons.

Leaders place a strong emphasis on celebrating good practice in teaching and assessment across the school.  For example, after every period of work scrutiny, they produce a compendium containing examples of effective feedback and assessment.

Outcomes

Pupils reacted well to the significant change in teachers’ practices and, generally, attitudes to learning across all year groups improved significantly in a short space of time.  Pupils interviewed as part of this thematic review praised the changes in the quality of teaching highly.  They made particular reference to teachers bringing the learning alive through interesting and engaging tasks that enabled them to think things through themselves.

In a relatively short period, the school has succeeded in improving the quality of teaching across the school.  Nearly all teachers have enthusiastically approached the school’s priority to ‘push the boundaries of teaching and learning’.  As a result of this new and ambitious drive for improvement, performance at key stage 4 has continued to be at least good for the third year running and standards of wellbeing have improved considerably over the same period.

Next steps as identified by the school

The school will continue to embed the practices introduced to ensure maximum collaboration and co-operation between staff.

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Context

Ysgol Uwchradd Aberteifi is a bilingual 11-19 school situated in the coastal town of Aberteifi in Ceredigion.  The school serves pupils from the town and the surrounding rural catchment area.  There were 534 pupils on roll at the time of the core inspection in January 2015, but there has seen a considerable increase in pupil numbers since then.  The school now has 603 pupils on roll, with 84 pupils in sixth form.

Around 30% of pupils come from homes in which Welsh is the main language spoken.  However, over the last three years, the school has increased the number of pupils who study Welsh first language to 67%.  The school has also increased its Welsh‑medium provision considerably since the time of the core inspection.  Around 16% of pupils are eligible for free school meals.  The school identifies that 34% of pupils have an additional learning need.  Most pupils come from a white British background.  The school hosts a learning resource centre.  

The headteacher was appointed in January 2012.  The senior management team includes the headteacher, an assistant headteacher and an acting assistant headteacher.

Strategy and action

Since the core inspection, the school has appointed a new deputy headteacher and three assistant headteachers.  The headteacher has shared her vision for improving teaching with all staff.  This vision is to ensure that all teachers collaborate with and support each other to secure a culture of a self-improving school, which is aiming for excellence.  Teaching and learning are the central focus in this vision and much energy and time are devoted to ensuring teachers deliver the best possible lessons consistently.

Highly effective faculty reviews take place annually for each of the eight faculties.  The robust and comprehensive review includes pupils taking part in twice-a-year teaching and learning surveys for each faculty.  Leaders also scrutinise evidence from the minutes of faculty meetings and evaluations of professional learning to judge the extent to which teachers are making use of training and guidance.  The full governing body receives the faculty reviews, which include recommendations about how to improve the faculty.  Heads of faculty then present an action plan to the next meeting of the governors’ standards committee.

A senior leader, with responsibility for teaching and learning, has invested much of her time in action research and exploring good practice in other schools.  She uses strong practitioners at school to support her in the drive to improve teaching.  The school has made productive and beneficial use of research into pedagogy to provide high quality and bespoke training for all staff.  These activities have led teachers to amend and update policies on teaching and learning and marking and assessment.  These two policies have a common aim; for teachers to be consistent and fair through creating an atmosphere of trust with the pupils they teach.  The policies emphasise the importance of teachers using their planning and assessment time wisely and productively to reduce their workload.  To this end, the policies include well-considered appendices on practical ways to reduce workload and increase impact.

Since the core inspection, continuous professional learning is a key focus of school development planning.  Over the course of the academic year, teachers, as part of their directed time, take part in a series of 11 professional learning events and training sessions.  This has allowed leaders to train staff and put in place the well‑researched pedagogy underpinning the headteacher’s vision for improving teaching.  All leaders of professional learning events are required to base their input on evidence gleaned from reliable and effective action research.  As a result, staff respond very positively to training and guidance from their peers.  After every professional learning event, all faculties carry out a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis of the quality of their current provision.  Faculties then draw up an action plan to address the outcomes of the analysis.

Leaders place high importance on capturing pupils’ opinions and pupil voice plays an integral part in most self-evaluation activities.  For example, school council members and key teachers sit on a teaching and learning committee.  This innovative group plays an important role in supporting teachers to improve their practice.  The committee devised the school’s ‘Quality Teacher 10’ strategy, which is based on the principles of effective planning and includes guidance such as having an inspiring start to lessons, purposeful content and a beneficial plenary.

Research into pedagogical strategies to develop pupils’ independence and resilience underpin many of the school’s agreed procedures for planning and teaching.  These include boy/girl seating plans, strategic positioning of pupils from vulnerable groups, random pupil questioning and ensuring appropriate ‘wait time’ for pupil response, both orally and in response to written work.  Teachers make effective use of a well‑considered matrix of questioning techniques, which enables them to develop pupils’ thinking and problem solving skills well.  The school expects teachers to place as much importance on ‘wait time’ as on ‘talk time’.  Leaders provide well-considered guidance, derived from comprehensive research, to teachers on how to assess pupils’ work effectively and provide useful feedback.  All teachers employ the school’s agreed model for marking pupils’ work.  This model encourages teachers to dedicate equal attention to the content of the work, the application of skills and areas for improvement.  Teachers highlight areas of pupils’ work that need improvement and give useful suggestions that help pupils to take responsibility for improving their own work.  Teachers give pupils time in lessons to respond to comments about their work.

In order to support its goal of excellence in teaching, the school has adapted its quality assurance documents.  For example, lesson observation forms and work scrutiny reports make clear that good standards, provision and teaching are the minimum expectation.  If leaders judge any activity or lesson in need of improvement it is based on the fact that too few pupils made enough progress.  Teachers also use common systems for planning lessons and success criteria.  They share with pupils three levels of expectation, explaining the minimum expected level and what good and outstanding success looks like.  Across the school, teachers make clear to pupils that nearly all of their work should be at least good.

Leaders set up many thematic projects as part of their whole-school focus on improving provision in general, and teaching in particular.  The school identified a group of teachers in their third or fourth year of teaching who would benefit from clear direction and a fresh approach to improving their teaching.  Leaders not only wanted these teachers to benefit from professional learning, but also to use their personal development to benefit the school through becoming leading practitioners.  These teachers became the improving teaching group.

The group made productive use of video technology to evaluate strengths and areas for development in their own teaching.  They met regularly, sharing video clips of themselves teaching and identifying areas of focus for the next meeting.  They organised focused learning walks in school and visited other providers.  In time, they identified particular strengths in their practice, which were shared with the whole‑school staff in the form of ten minute ‘how to’ clips.  The school has now increased this platform of support and guidance by enabling more teachers to create the clips, for example ‘How to use multiplication tables correctly in cross-curricular numeracy tasks’, ‘How to get a class settled and ready for work successfully’ and ‘How to plan effective and inspiring starter activities’.  The work of the improving teaching group has given staff greater confidence and expertise in planning purposeful activities.  This has secured improvements in the quality of teaching and the standard of work in pupils’ books. 

The school also identified a group of excellent practitioners and enabled them to join the regional outstanding teacher programme.  These practitioners provided whole‑school leadership and training, based on sound pedagogical theory and methodology following their participation in the programme.  For example, they led whole-school professional learning activities on using effective questioning techniques.

Outcomes

The school has successfully changed its culture and become an organisation that is continuously striving to improve.

Professional learning is a high priority for the school and leaders have invested considerable time and finance into this priority.  The professional learning opportunities afforded to staff have led to better teaching practices and a much greater consistency in delivering good teaching across the school.  Giving teachers the chance to lead professional learning activities has strengthened the school’s leadership capacity.  This has improved the school’s succession planning agenda successfully and has significantly improved the quality of middle and senior leadership. 

Teachers now have more frequent and beneficial opportunities to reflect on and evaluate their own practice and that of their colleagues.  Learner involvement in quality assurance activities, such as work scrutiny, has created worthwhile opportunities for staff to work collaboratively with pupils to prioritise improving outcomes. 

Performance outcomes at key stage 4 have improved since the core inspection and the gender gap has closed considerably (Welsh Government, 2017c).  The school has also seen a great improvement in pupils’ behaviour and attitudes to learning.

Next steps as identified by the school

  • Strengthen further teachers’ skills in questioning and other assessment strategies, to increase the level of challenge to pupils
  • Make teaching and learning more consistent across the school by finding opportunities to disseminate best practice through the use of technology
  • Improve pupils’ involvement in their learning by making assessment and marking practices more consistent across the school in order to give better feedback to pupils on their progress and to ensure that students know what they should do to improve their work
  • Share best practice in involving pupils in assessing their own progress and developing their independent learning skills
  • Develop teachers’ understanding of the revised professional standards and engage teachers in action research as part of the new performance management procedures

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Deighton Primary School is in Tredegar in Blaenau Gwent.  There are 182 pupils on roll, who are taught in three single age and three mixed-age classes.  There is also a part-time nursery class.

Around 32% of pupils are eligible for free school meals.  Most pupils are of white British ethnicity and none speak Welsh at home.  A very few pupils speak English as an additional language.  The school has identified around 34% of pupils as having additional learning needs.  A very few pupils have a statement of special educational needs.  A very few pupils are looked after by the local authority.

The headteacher has been in post since April 2012, and the deputy headteacher was appointed in April 2013.

Strategy and action

Senior leaders have high expectations of themselves, their staff and their pupils.  Staff agree that the school has to provide the best life chances that it can for its pupils and raise their aspirations.  This is the driving force behind everything the school does.

When the headteacher was appointed in 2012, the school did not have a culture of sharing practice between teachers.  After a difficult start, the culture changed gradually and gained impetus after the inspection of 2015, in response to the recommendation about sharing good practice.  Now, the school uses a mixture of formal lesson observations by senior leaders and more informal observations in teacher triads to continue to raise the quality of teaching across the school.

The current school development plan reflects the school’s continued drive to improve alongside its aim to prepare for changes to the curriculum.  For example, teachers are developing an approach to the curriculum that uses ‘vehicles’, or contexts for learning, that provide meaningful, real-life experiences for pupils.  In doing so, teachers aim to embed the four purposes from Successful Futures (Donaldson, 2015) into the curriculum and move towards an area of learning and experience approach.

The headteacher and deputy headteacher focused initially on improving collaboration between teachers in the school.  In recent years, they have extended this approach to develop a culture of collaboration with other schools in the regional consortium and further afield to help improve teaching.  School leaders encourage teachers to visit other schools in Wales and beyond to acquire new ideas to influence and improve their practice.  The school has useful overseas links, as well as benefiting from working with external arts agencies, as part of the ‘lead creative schools’ programme.

In 2012, the headteacher tried to introduce termly lesson observations.  Despite some initial opposition, by 2014, regular lesson observations and sharing good practice across the school became the norm.  In 2016, the school’s work to improve teaching reached another level, as leaders introduced a commercial, structured framework to focus more precisely on specific elements of teaching to help teachers at all levels to improve their practice and aim to be excellent.  Observations concentrate on different elements of the framework across the year, while maintaining a focus on pupil progress and standards at all times.

When senior leaders carry out their termly formal lesson observations, they provide teachers with a very detailed analysis of their lessons, including how long the teacher has spent delivering each section of the lesson.  The headteacher believes that this level of scrutiny has been instrumental in helping to raise teachers’ expectations of themselves and their pupils.  It aids senior leaders when providing teachers with clear developmental feedback and enables them to identify specific issues that individuals can work to improve. 

In addition to formal lesson observations, teachers work with their colleagues in triads and use video technology to film their own lessons at least once a term.  These sessions encourage teachers to use their critical skills to review their own teaching and that of their colleagues and develop their evaluative skills.  The development of trust between colleagues has been key to the success of this system.  It has raised teachers’ self-confidence to hear their colleagues identify strengths in elements of their teaching.  It has also encouraged them to modify their teaching, often in quite subtle ways that make a considerable difference to the quality of pupils’ learning, for example giving pupils more time to think before they answer or being more aware of how they question pupils.

As the school has developed its approach to collaboration between colleagues within the school, many teachers have also visited schools identified as having good practice elsewhere in the regional consortium.  They have also travelled to England to visit schools with particularly interesting practice.  These collaborative experiences help teachers to broaden their thinking and try new ideas that they pick up.  For example, swapping classes with other teachers in the school on ‘Freaky Fridays’ provides valuable opportunities to understand the challenges of teaching different year groups.  Also, attending meetings with teachers in the locality who are using the same professional learning framework provide good opportunities to share ideas and to discuss successes and failures in a non-judgemental environment. 

Senior leaders ensure that teachers and support staff have plenty of opportunity to take part in professional discussion and contribute to decision making.  An outcome of this has been the development of opportunities between classes to collaborate on problem solving and investigation activities on a Friday.  In turn, this has involved pupils in contributing more to teachers’ planning.  For instance, in the foundation phase, pupils suggest ideas for areas of enhanced provision, based on the skills they have been learning in focused activities, such as using a story map in the writing corner, or building a bridge for the gingerbread man to cross the river in the water tray.

Outcomes

Pupils’ standards at the end of key stage 2 are high with around 90% of pupils achieving the expected level in English, mathematics and science (Welsh Government, 2017d).  The headteacher believes that this is a direct result of the detailed feedback given after lesson observations.  Senior leaders now consider most teaching in the school to be good or excellent. 

Teachers are confident and ready to take measured pedagogical risks and try new approaches and strategies.  They know that senior leaders and governors are supportive of this, and they are not afraid of asking, or being asked, difficult questions.  Interestingly, teachers say that some of the most beneficial improvements in teaching are not necessarily transformational in themselves, but are quite small.  The school calls them ‘golden nuggets’, little things that add up and made a significant difference to their work.  Teachers share these ‘golden nuggets’ with one another during discussion and reflection after triad observations.  

As a result of developing teachers’ understanding of standards by moderating pupils’ work regularly together and quality assuring moderations, the correlation between teacher judgements and the standard of pupils’ work in books is far closer than it was in the past.

Learning conversations in staff meetings are based around learning and teaching.  Importantly, teachers and support staff feel valued and encouraged in their professional learning.  They acknowledge that senior leaders have very high expectations of them, but understand that they need to be the best teachers they can be if they are to provide pupils with the best possible chance of succeeding.

Next steps as identified by the school

  • Continue to provide teachers with clear developmental feedback that enables them to improve their practice
  • Embed and extend triad working
  • Continue to prepare for the new curriculum

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Context

Hafod Primary School is in Swansea, close to the city centre.  There are 247 pupils on roll, aged between 3 and 11 years.  Pupils are organised into seven classes.  The school provides nursery facilities for 36 three and four-year-olds who attend school on a part-time basis initially.  In addition, the school manages the Flying Start provision on the site.  Around 29% of pupils are eligible for free school meals. 

Around 60% of the pupils are white British.  Forty per cent of the pupils speak English as an additional language.  A majority of these pupils are of Asian heritage, predominantly Bangladeshi.  There are 15 different languages spoken by pupils, the most common of which is Sylheti.  No pupils speak Welsh at home.

About 35% of pupils have additional learning needs.  A few pupils have statements of special educational needs.

The current headteacher has been in post since 2006.  The deputy headteacher has been in post for a similar length of time. 

Strategy and action

Much of the school’s success in developing a vibrant curriculum and improving teaching pedagogy is due to the longevity, consistency and creativity of the school’s leadership.  Leaders know their pupils and staff exceptionally well and create a climate that encourages mutual support, creativity and innovation.  

The school has recently evaluated its provision to ensure that it is fully prepared for the forthcoming curriculum changes.  As a part of this work, it has re-organised the senior leadership team to incorporate teaching and learning responsibility posts for literacy, numeracy and digital competency.  It has developed teams and individuals with responsibility for overseeing the six areas of learning as well as staff with responsibility for assessment for learning and ensuring continuity in pupils’ learning from the age of 3-16.  While there are teams for each area of learning, the school does not allow staff to work in ‘silos’.  Effective monitoring and staff development from senior leaders, for example on professional learning days, ensure that the areas of learning and the school’s pedagogical approach stay joined-up.

Senior leaders, leaders of specific areas of learning and their teams evaluate the curriculum and its impact on learning through a carefully planned calendar of monitoring activities.  These include book scrutiny, lesson observations and, more recently, learning walks.  This work has identified clear and appropriate next steps.  For example, the digital competence team understands that, while pupils’ presentation and creative skills are strong, aspects of work around data handling are at an earlier stage of development.  Leaders have also identified that too much work in pupils’ books is correct, which means that it is not consistently challenging all pupils well enough.  They identified that their electronic tracking system did not meet its need in relation to informing pupils’ next steps for learning well enough.  They also identified issues with using the system to ensure rigour in the accuracy of assessments.  The school is working to address this by developing a new assessment model.

Leaders undertake similar monitoring activities to evaluate the quality of teaching.  Through this work, they identify aspects of professional practice that require improvement at whole-school level for all teachers as well as strengths and areas for development for individual teachers.  To address whole-school improvement priorities, the school is beginning to use action research effectively.  For example, having identified assessment for learning and feedback as an area for improvement, leaders allocated responsibility for improvement to a teacher.  He used this as part of his masters work.  The work started with hypotheses and a literary review.  In this case, the reading focused on whether five and six-year-olds were able to evaluate their own progress effectively.  This led to the development of a range of permanent success criteria to help a group of six pupils to evaluate aspects of their written work, for example punctuation.  The research found that this work was effective in supporting pupils to evaluate their own work.  Since this initial trail, the findings have influenced the whole school assessment for learning and marking policies.  The school is keeping further impact of this work under review.

In other research work, the mathematics leader joined with colleagues from across Wales to identify areas of the subject that pupils found difficult to understand.  They identified reasoning skills and the difficulties that pupils had in solving problems independently.  They came up with the idea of using story maps to help solve the problems.  Each teacher in the group trialled the strategy with half of the pupils in their class.  The outcome was slightly improved outcomes for targeted pupils.  Leaders at Hafod School ensure that staff have time to share the findings of their work in order to discuss the benefits and any pitfalls.  This is supporting a culture of professional reflection and learning at the school.  The school is aware of the need to trial these initiatives in more depth to make the findings reliable.  This type of work is helping the school to take good account of the new professional standards for teaching and leadership.  For example, senior leaders ensure that all teachers have opportunities to innovate, collaborate and lead initiatives that affect the school’s teaching and pedagogical practices positively.

Monitoring work from lesson observations and scrutiny of books ensures that leaders keep a close eye on levels of compliance with initiatives as well as on their impact.  This enables them to challenge staff effectively.  For example, leaders use a post-it note system to identify specific strengths or weaknesses in teachers’ work when scrutinising books.  This shows teachers that leaders’ observations are evidence based.  Individual professional dialogues based on these first-hand sources of evidence also ensure that individual teachers have clear targets for improvement.  These targets, as well as whole-school teaching targets, such as improving feedback, become teachers’ performance management goals.

Pupils make a strong contribution to self-evaluation and improvement planning work.  For example, they participate in lesson observations and make suitable evaluations.  This has produced interesting suggestions for improvement, for example by identifying that in a few instances teaching assistants needed to engage more proactively with pupils during learning experiences. 

Leaders are very confident in the decisions that they make about teaching strategies in the school.  They know what suits their learners best.  For example, they have introduced a formal approach to teaching phonics based on a published scheme.  They have trained all staff to use this effectively.  This has led to improved outcomes for pupils in their reading ability and end of key stage teacher assessments.  Leaders resist guidance from external partners to revise this approach because their own self‑evaluation identifies this practice as effective. 

Next steps as identified by the school

  • Introduce video observations of teaching to support professional growth
  • Consider with teachers the benefits of and barriers to teachers observing their own class during their planning, preparation and assessment time to inform their assessment of individuals and groups of pupils
  • Further develop pupils’ digital skills
  • Increase the level of challenge for more able pupils

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Context

Gladestry Church in Wales Primary School is in the village of Gladestry in Powys.  There are just over 40 pupils on roll between 4 and 11 years of age.  The school has two mixed-age classes.  Since the last inspection, in line with the policy of the local authority, the school no longer provides for nursery-aged pupils. 

All pupils are white British and no pupil speaks English as an additional language or speaks Welsh at home.  No pupils are eligible for free school meals.  The school identifies that around 15% of pupils have additional learning needs. 

Since the 2009 inspection, there have been no changes to teaching staff.  The headteacher has been in post since September 2001.  The headteacher has 1.6 days per fortnight to carry out her leadership responsibilities and teaches the key stage 2 class for the remaining time.

Strategy and action

All staff, pupils, governors and parents believe in the school’s guiding principle, which is that pupils should be at the heart of the teaching and learning process and that pupils should own their school and everything that happens in it.  This is central to the school’s ethos, vision and daily practice and leads to pupils consistently making informed choices about what and how they learn.

One of the main catalysts for the school’s approach to curriculum development and pedagogy was the publication of the non-statutory skills framework for 3 to 19-year‑olds in Wales (Welsh Assembly Government, 2008a).  This document, coupled with additional guidance in the form of ‘Making the most of learning – Implementing the revised curriculum’ (Welsh Assembly Government, 2008b), gave the school the impetus to adopt a new curriculum and alter the way in which teachers facilitated learning.  The document reiterates the aims of the curriculum, as:

  • focusing on the learner
  • ensuring appropriate skills development is woven through the curriculum
  • focusing on continuity and progression for 3 to 19-year-olds
  • offering reduced subject content with an increased focus on skills

This was the starting point for asking pupils what and how they would like to learn.  Since 2008, the school’s pedagogy and curriculum have evolved, but pupil voice, respect for everyone, independence and creativity remain central.  Many of the school’s current teaching practices exemplify well the 12 pedagogical principles outlined in Successful Futures (Donaldson, 2015). 

Both teachers in the school are highly successful in encouraging pupils to make their own decisions.  They ask pupils questions such as

  • what do you think we should do next?
  • how best can the adults or your peers help you?
  • how can you help yourself to improve? 

Questions like these are not one off events but happen on a regular basis and help pupils to have control over their own learning.  Comments from a pupil who has joined the school recently encapsulate the teachers’ approach.  He says that in his previous school, ‘I was always told what to do, never asked what I wanted’.  During a learning conversation with his teacher about what he wanted to achieve, they looked together at the work in his books from the previous school and he came to the realisation that his work, prior to starting at Gladestry, had not challenged him.  What is interesting is his comment that he would not have known or even thought about challenging himself before he joined the school.  Challenging yourself, each other and asking when you do not know something are common and consistent themes in conversations between everyone involved in the school.  Teachers model learning conversations with each other and pupils.  Their regular and insightful feedback helps pupils to improve their learning and encourages them to take greater responsibility for their own outcomes. 

Another successful feature of the teaching in the school is the high level of trust between staff and pupils.  Teachers model effective teaching and talk explicitly to the class about what makes effective teaching, such as good questioning, high expectations, valuing all responses and planning appropriately challenging work.  They encourage pupils, particularly those in the key stage 2 class, to plan their own lessons and teach the rest of the class.  Older pupils also regularly support the learning of pupils in the foundation phase.  This practice has grown over time and pupils are now very confident in delivering lessons to their peers.  In the summer term 2017, key stage 2 pupils split into groups with each group taking responsibility for planning and delivering a week’s worth of lessons on a topic of their choice.  The teacher talked to pupils about what the plan should contain in terms of developing skills and knowing what they wanted their peers to learn.  She gave pupils planning time.  The pupils’ planning contained success criteria, links to the literacy and numeracy framework and often tasks at different levels.  When pupils are teaching, the teacher observes carefully, directs the pupil teachers to those in need of additional support and models questions that pupils may wish to ask individuals and groups.  Again, this is a two way process with pupils also suggesting ways that teachers could improve their practice.  Every term, Year 6 pupils formally observe the teaching in each class.  They fill in a proforma showing their thoughts on what they have seen and set relevant targets for the teachers.

To make sure that they keep in touch with the learning and pedagogy in the other class teachers swap classes for a session every week.  They formally observe each other each term and use the regional consortium proforma to evaluate the quality of learning and standard of teaching.  However, the headteacher is considering moving away from this practice as she feels that it adds little value and is not telling her anything she or the other teacher do not already know.  She is researching different models before making any changes.  Teachers, pupils and governors monitor the quality of provision and the standard of work in books regularly.  They use the outcomes from these activities extremely well to inform priorities in the school development plan.  Teachers and pupils produce detailed action plans, which focus well on improving standards and teaching.  For example, the school is now prioritising the ‘taking measured risks’ element of Successful Futures (Donaldson, 2015) as pupils identified that this is an area they need to improve.

The headteacher is very conscious that, as a small school in a rural location, she needs to be proactive in establishing professional relationships with other providers.  She has weekly conversations with the headteacher of the local pioneer school to ensure that she is aware of what is happening in the wider field of education.  She also reads extensively to keep abreast of new research and curricular developments.  The headteacher shares this information with others in the school.  The foundation phase teacher also seeks out information actively and uses online forums to learn about the practice in other schools and share ideas.  Both teachers are very keen to acknowledge that they are responsible for their own professional learning and take this responsibility seriously. 

Outcomes

Due to the exceptional levels of respect within the school and teachers’ determination to facilitate learning through their teaching practices, the school is well on its way to exemplifying many of the pedagogical principles that underpin the new curriculum. 

Teachers:

  • maintain a consistent focus on the overall purposes of the curriculum
  • encourage pupils to take increasing responsibility for their own learning
  • support social and emotional development and positive relationships
  • encourage collaboration
  • challenge all pupils by encouraging them to recognise the importance of sustained effort in meeting expectations that are high but achievable for them
  • employ a blend of approaches including those that promote problem solving, creative and critical thinking
  • set tasks and select resources that build on previous knowledge and experience and engage interest
  • create authentic contexts for learning
  • employ assessment for learning principles
  • regularly reinforce cross-curriculum responsibilities, including literacy, numeracy and digital competence, and provides opportunities for pupils to practise them

Next steps as identified by the school

  • Work with another local school to share practice using video technology
  • Take part in an action research project about taking physical measured risks
  • Consider further how well the school compares as a learning organisation

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Context

Herbert Thompson Primary School serves the Ely area of Cardiff.  There are 524 pupils on roll, including 70 in the nursery.  Pupils can join the nursery on a part-time basis at the beginning of the term following their third birthday.  Many pupils are of white ethnic background, the remainder are of mixed ethnic groups.  Around 7% of pupils speak English as an additional language.  No pupils speak Welsh as a first language.  Around half of pupils are eligible for free school meals.  The school identifies that about 38% of pupils have additional learning needs

There are currently 14 full-time teachers and nine part-time teachers at the school.  The headteacher was appointed in 2016 having previously been the deputy headteacher for three years.

Strategy and action

The headteacher and senior team do not take the excellent judgements for granted or underestimate the planning and determination needed to sustain the school’s high performance.  The school sees developing practice and pedagogy as an ongoing improvement priority that has at its heart a shared understanding of what constitutes good and excellent teaching in Herbert Thompson.  Quality professional learning opportunities linked to classroom practice and supported by effective coaching build the capacity of all teachers and learning support assistants to ‘aim for excellence’ in their teaching.  All staff have challenging performance management targets and receive beneficial support to help achieve their targets.  The senior team actively seek to ensure all staff feel valued and respected by taking steps to improve wellbeing across the school.  These include, for example, ensuring that staff have enough time to carry out their tasks and that meetings focus sharply on core issues.  Leaders make sure that they build in regular opportunities to thank colleagues and celebrate the work and life of the school.  Teachers and learning support assistants are proud and happy to belong to the school community.

Through its improvement hub, Herbert Thompson has delivered a range of development programmes for schools across the Central South Consortium including one designed to improve the skills of teachers who already perform well.  The school has enabled many of its own teachers to follow this programme.  The senior team are clear that however good these professional learning opportunities are, it is necessary to follow up and build on the skills developed.  They therefore make a commitment that teachers can reflect and improve on focused aspects of their pedagogy over time.  To facilitate this they invest time and resources to release teachers to undertake peer observations and to use the coaching skills developed during professional learning time.  This allows teachers to share ideas, practice and resources, and begin to unpick the pedagogical principles outlined in Successful Futures (Donaldson, 2015).

These actions drive home the point that improving teaching is central to school improvement.   The school is planning further opportunities to facilitate discussions about pedagogy to sustain the improving practice.  Alongside the established initial teacher and newly qualified teacher programmes and the pedagogy and coaching work, the school is now sharpening its action research activity to be a manageable yet meaningful addition to the professional learning that takes place. 

Learning support assistants in the school benefit from strong professional learning opportunities.  Through mini learning reviews, learning support assistants reflect on the quality and impact of their work.  These reviews give support staff the time to reflect on how well they deliver aspects of their work, what still needs to improve and how the school can support them.  Support staff have also led professional learning sessions with schools across the consortium on some of the programmes developed by the school.  This has improved their confidence and skills.

Outcomes

As a result of these actions, teaching in Herbert Thompson continues to be very strong and the school has sustained its excellent practices.  The school uses evidence from pupil outcomes, lesson observations and drop-ins, work scrutiny and listening to learners to make this judgement.  All pupils continue to make very strong progress during their time in the school, including groups of pupils vulnerable to underachievement.

Perhaps the biggest difference that the focus on teaching has had is that leaders, teachers and learning support assistants all share how extremely proud and happy they are to belong to the school community.  They feel valued and supported as well as challenged to be the best they can.  They continue to make a significant contribution to enriching the learning experiences for pupils at the school.  Leaders and all staff live out the vision of the school, and exemplify the positive values and behaviours set out for all members of the Herbert Thompson community.

Next steps as identified by the school

Through its rigorous self-evaluation processes, the school has decided to focus on two of the pedagogical principles this year.  Staff are now linking their performance management targets to the new professional standards for teaching and learning, and in particular to the pedagogy dimension of advancing learning.  Teachers can choose from blended learning experiences or real-life, authentic contexts.  As part of performance management, senior leaders have a monitoring and evaluating impact target from the new formal leadership standards that they link to improving pedagogy.

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Context

Ysgol Gynradd Parcyrhun is on the outskirts of the town of Ammanford in Carmarthenshire.  There are around 210 pupils on roll.  The school has a Welsh language stream and an English stream, and both languages are used in the day‑to‑day life of the school.  A resource centre for children with hearing impairments, which serves Carmarthenshire, is an additional part of the school.  The school is divided into eight mixed-age classes in the mainstream, and one additional classroom in the resource centre for children with hearing impairments.  The school employs ten full‑time teachers, including the headteacher, and two part-time teachers. 

Just over 20% of pupils are eligible for free school meals.The school identifies that around 50% of pupils have additional learning needs this includes pupils who attend the resource centre.Very few pupils come from Welsh-speaking homes or ethnic minority backgrounds.

There have been no notable changes to the school’s staff since the inspection.The headteacher was appointed in January 2009, following a short period as the school’s deputy headteacher.

Strategy and action

From the outset, the headteacher had a clear vision that is based on ensuring that pupils at Ysgol Parcyrhun receive an education of the highest standard to enable them to achieve to the best of their ability.  When she started working there, she realised how vital the school’s role was in providing broad and rich experiences for its pupils.

Soon after taking up the headship, the headteacher appointed the deputy headteacher, who shares her vision and works effectively with her.  Together, they put in place monitoring, self-evaluation and strategic plans to enable them to identify the school’s strengths and areas for improvement.  As a result, they decided that teachers’ expectations of what pupils could achieve needed to be raised, accountability procedures needed to be established and best practice in teaching needed to be consistent across the school.  This case study focuses on ensuring consistency in effective teaching practice across the school.

Leaders established basic principles at an early stage to ensure that teaching was effective.  These included providing effective professional learning opportunities and support for staff, and ensuring that they have appropriate resources to fulfil their roles successfully. 

Procedures for monitoring and managing staff performance are now an integral part of the school’s work, and are a way of recognising good practice and identifying each individual’s development needs.  Leaders arrange specific professional learning activities to address the development needs of each member of staff.  They evaluate professional learning in detail and identify its effect clearly.  Professional learning opportunities vary according to individual need and include activities such as attending external courses, sharing good practice within and across the school and other schools, or working with another member of staff with specific expertise.

There is a clear focus on high expectations and consistent provision across the school, particularly between the two streams.  In order to ensure this and reduce the workload, teachers frequently work in pairs to plan lessons, produce resources and moderate assessments.  This is a good opportunity for them to share their expertise, and support and challenge each other’s ideas. 

One of the school’s most effective procedures to ensure consistency and high standards in terms of teaching is the monitoring week that it holds each term.  It has a high profile in the school’s termly calendar and is a forum to enable leaders at all levels to evaluate teaching and learning and share good practice.  Leaders, in consultation with teachers, agree on a specific focus for the week, for example numeracy, literacy or independent learning.  Leaders arrange useful opportunities for members of staff to visit each other’s classes to observe practice and scrutinise pupils’ work.  During the week, they invite governors with a specific link to a particular area to take part in learning walks.  This enriches governors’ awareness of the school’s work and enables them to operate better in their strategic role.

As a result of the frequent and successful co-operation between staff, they are now very open with each other, honest in their judgements and willing to support each other to improve in order to provide the best possible education for pupils.  Leaders consider the ideas of staff when introducing new strategies, which encourages ownership and enthusiasm. 

In order to enrich this further, leaders have begun the practice of engaging with pupils through questionnaires.  For example, survey questions ask what kind of learners they think they are, which spelling strategies work best for them and how they like to learn new computer skills. 

Teachers’ practices are now effective and based on a number of educational principles that relate to the four purposes identified in Successful Futures (Donaldson, 2015).  They place a clear focus on improving pupils’ literacy skills in Welsh and English, numeracy skills and ICT skills, and provide regular opportunities for them to apply them naturally across the curriculum.  Lessons engage the interest of nearly all pupils and promote their thinking skills, their independence and their co-operation skills well.

Ensuring good teaching is no longer the aim in itself; it is now more about sharing and sustaining excellence.

Outcomes

Leaders have a clear understanding of the school’s strengths and areas for improvement.  They use the information well to set appropriate priorities for the school development plan.

All of the school’s teachers are dedicated and confident in their work.  They are open and honest with each other and are effective critical friends.  They have high expectations of themselves and pupils, and are willing to try out new ideas.  Teachers have embedded the principle of consistency across the school.  They work effectively to ensure that all pupils receive the best provision possible. 

Standards of pupils’ learning have improved consistently over recent years.  Nearly all pupils now speak confidently about their work and discuss complex concepts confidently.  They express their opinions eloquently and appreciate what the school does for them. 

Next steps as identified by the school

Using its current thematic plans, the school will build on the excellent practice that exists in order to develop all of the 12 pedagogical principles from Successful Futures (Donaldson, 2015).

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Context

Pontarddulais Comprehensive School is an 11-16 mixed school maintained by Swansea local authority.  There are approximately 800 pupils on roll.  The school hosts a unit which supports key stage 3 and key stage 4 pupils with profound and multiple learning disabilities from across the local authority.  The school serves pupils from Pontarddulais and the surrounding villages.  Around 15% of pupils are eligible for free school meals.  The school identifies that approximately 29% of pupils have additional learning needs.  Around 3% of pupils have a statement of special educational needs.  Most pupils come from a white British background and very few pupils speak Welsh at home. 

The headteacher has been in post since September 2011.  The senior leadership team is made up of two deputy headteachers and two acting assistant headteachers.

The school is currently a pioneer school and is working with the Welsh Government and other schools to take forward developments relating to the curriculum and other professional learning.

The school has recently restructured its staffing to align with the four core purposes of Successful Futures (Donaldson, 2015).

Strategy and action

Leaders place a strong emphasis on ensuring that staff lead on school improvement initiatives and that teachers lead, develop and refine the school’s pedagogical practices.  This has ensured that there is a positive learning climate across the school.  Pontarddulais staff are involved fully in the construction and implementation of the school development plan.  The headteacher and senior team hold a Saturday school development-planning day at an external venue in the city, which, along with the school’s robust self-evaluation cycle, helps to formulate key priorities.  Staff attendance at this voluntary event is high and this has helped to continue to foster a collegiate, inclusive approach to school improvement.  All staff are members of working groups that lead on these key priorities and are therefore advocates for whole school initiatives. 

In order to raise expectation within their departments, middle leaders set ambitious targets using value-added data.  They conduct forensic monitoring of pupils’ progress through a nine-week tracking cycle based on thoughtfully scheduled assessment across subjects.  This results in a meaningful progress check for each pupil.  Pupils have ownership of their learning and progress through this system and they reflect genuinely on their learning and progress.  The school shares this work effectively with parents and carers.  This creates a mutually supportive relationship that focuses on improving standards.  Teachers use this information beneficially to inform their planning and to intervene at an early stage when pupils are at risk of underachieving.  Where appropriate, the school uses highly effective intervention programmes in both key stages to support pupils with weaker skills.  These programmes build pupils’ confidence across the curriculum and are a strong feature of the school’s work.  

Over time, the headteacher has established and maintained a positive learning climate in which teachers lead and embrace change and innovation.  There is a culture of sharing of good and excellent practice and an open and transparent self‑evaluative approach in all aspects of the school’s work.  For example, the whole school approach to the delivery of the Literacy and Numeracy Framework has ensured that skills development is an integral and fundamental part of every teacher’s pedagogical toolkit.  Working together, teachers led on how to embed the skills of literacy and numeracy across the curriculum.  This has resulted in very high levels of consistency in approaches to reading and writing and high levels of pupil confidence when reading complex texts and when undertaking a wide range of writing tasks for a variety of audiences and purposes.

Teachers have also have implemented very effective changes to the school’s approach to marking and feedback.  A working group of teachers undertook an action research project to look to improve the consistency of approach to diagnostic marking and pupils’ responses.  This group were keen to align the school’s ethos and its culture of growth mind-set as part of this work on assessment.  As a result, they revised the school’s marking policy and clarified the school’s approach to marking the technical features of pupils’ work.  Most importantly, the teacher led group initiated a consistent approach to giving pupils opportunities to respond to teacher feedback following key assessment tasks through introducing dedicated ‘STAR’ (stop, think, act and reflect) time.  This has resulted in pupils taking purposeful ownership of their learning and has helped them not only to understand what they need to do to improve but also given them frequent, timely opportunities in which to do so.

Outcomes

The school has a rich culture of support, challenge and collaboration.  Strong leadership, at all levels, has enabled the focus on learning and teaching to flourish.  The headteacher and leadership team have established an ethos of excellence in all aspects of the school’s work.  They have high expectations of everyone in the school community coupled with an intrinsic trust in their staff.  The school has robust systems for self-evaluation and for gathering first-hand evidence and this is aligned to very effectively planned and tiered continuing professional development and learning for all staff.  The combination of the culture created and nurtured by the headteacher and headship team and their trust in aspiring leaders to lead and manage whole school developments has ensured excellent outcomes and innovative approaches to pedagogy over time.

As a result of this culture and approach, pupils at Pontarddulais Comprehensive School, understand and have pride in the ethos of the school and its expectations of the highest quality of teaching and learning.  Pupils can articulate confidently the school’s focus on standards and the excellent working relationships between teachers and pupils, which means that pupils feel valued and known as individuals.  Pupils have high levels of engagement and motivation in their learning.  They demonstrate strong reading, writing and numeracy skills across the curriculum and the overall standards achieved by pupils are well above modelled expectation.

Next steps as identified by the school

The school is committed to ensuring leadership continues to focus upon teaching, learning and assessment and through its pioneer role, the school will look to share its good practice and learn from others locally and nationally.

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Context

Y Pant Comprehensive School is an English-medium 11-19 school, maintained by Rhondda Cynon Taf local authority.  It serves the areas of Pontyclun, Talbot Green, Brynna and Llanharry.  There are around 1,300 pupils on roll, of whom 205 are in the sixth form.  Nearly all pupils speak English as their first language and come from a white British background.  A very few pupils are fluent in Welsh.

Around 10% of pupils are eligible for free school meals.  The school identifies that around 12% of pupils have additional learning needs.  A very few pupils have a statement of special educational needs.

The headteacher at the time of the January 2017 inspection has since left the school.  Currently, an acting headteacher and acting deputy headteacher both of whom were at the school at the time of the inspection lead the school.

The school is currently a pioneer school and is working with the Welsh Government and other schools to take forward developments relating to the curriculum and other professional learning.

Strategy and action

Over time, the school has developed a highly effective three-pronged approach to maintaining and improving excellent standards in outcomes and teaching.  Central to this has been the evolution of an approach to pedagogy, which staff understand and apply consistently.  At the same time, the school has developed robust mechanisms to develop teachers as reflective practitioners, enabling purposeful opportunities for colleagues to share and reflect well on each other’s practice.  Finally, the school has developed a rigorous approach to the use of data and qualitative evidence to support its evaluation of teaching and to identify further areas for improvement.

At the heart of the school’s approach to developing teaching is a strong and shared understanding by teachers about the impact that effective teaching has on learning and pupils’ outcomes. 

The school’s teaching and learning policy describes its approach to teaching and learning through key principles.  The school refers to these principles collectively as the ‘Y Pant Way’.  The policy explains the approach clearly.  This supports teachers that are new to the school.  At strategic points in the school’s professional learning cycle, leaders reinforce and discuss the key principles with all staff.

A key priority for the school’s leadership team in developing these principles has been to ensure that they remain simple, memorable and relevant.  Leaders and teachers at the school are clear that this approach should not result in a formulaic or tick-box approach to evaluating teaching that prohibits the development of individual teachers’ autonomy.  On the contrary, the principles form a common framework to guide and inform discussions on teaching, learning and professional learning, within which teachers are encouraged to identify and develop their own strengths.  This ensures a rich and varied diet of learning experiences for pupils across the school. 

The school’s approach to teaching and learning focuses on the following essential principles:

  • All learning has a clear structure
  • High levels of engagement are sustained
  • Learners are sufficiently challenged
  • Assessment for learning is embedded
  • Cross-curricular requirements are meaningful and relevant
  • Positive and supportive working relationships between teachers and learners support learning

Leaders and staff are clear that the consistent focus on these key principles by all staff has provided a highly effective starting point for discussions about teaching.  Over time, this has led to the development of highly consistent practice across the school.  It has also helped to create a culture of professional autonomy that enables staff to implement new policy requirements and curriculum initiatives in a staged, considered and proportionate way.

Well-established processes, which aim to develop an ethos of reflective practice within the school, strengthen the consistent approach to teaching and learning.  The school has implemented many relevant opportunities for teachers to share their experience and practice in a context that allows for meaningful discussion and debate.  For example, the school has moved away from the practice of using lesson observations to judge teachers and lessons, to one that sees observations as a vehicle for identifying best practice and a rich context for coaching for teachers seeking to improve aspects of their practice.  Peer observations, conducted by members of the senior leadership team and subject specialists, help the school to gather rich information about the strengths and areas for improvement in teaching across the school.  Staff use this information well to inform priorities in whole school and departmental improvement plans. 

Small groups of teachers within or across departments take part in learning walks, which have a clear focus on identifying what works well.  These learning walks provide valuable opportunities for teachers to share and reflect on best practice.  Leaders allocate time, as part of the school’s professional learning programme, for teachers to work together in groups of three or six to plan, complete and report on learning walks.  Staff share and discuss the key findings annually.

The school’s after-school strategy groups, which are part of teachers’ directed time, have also given staff opportunities to engage with research and to develop action research projects.  These groups act as discussion forums to enable staff to keep abreast of initiatives in education and to develop colleagues’ awareness of pedagogical practices.  In the first year of the current cycle, leaders selected a range of academic texts for discussion.  Staff chose topics they felt were most relevant to them, and met regularly over the course of the year to read and discuss their text, providing a synopsis of their work to the whole staff at the end of the year.  Teachers valued the opportunity to explore and develop their understanding of these ideas in their own time, as opposed to passively receiving information from the senior leadership team.  In the second year of the cycle, colleagues were encouraged to consider the practical applications of what they had discovered and initiate individual or collaborative action research projects.

The school supplements the sharing of good pedagogical practice described above with high quality professional learning days.  Staff from across the school have beneficial opportunities to plan and deliver these.  A teacher leads each session and focuses on an area identified as best practice within their own area of responsibility.  While these days and sessions frequently address whole-school developmental needs, leaders ensure that there are regular opportunities for teachers to access a more varied menu of professional learning activities that reflect their individual needs.

In addition, the school’s involvement with networks of other schools, for example through its work as a pioneer school and a professional learning hub school for the Central South Consortium, has provided meaningful opportunities for staff to work with other schools to share and gather best practice.

The final element of the school’s strategic approach to improving standards in outcomes and teaching lies in its rigorous approach to the use of data and other sources of qualitative evidence.  The school has established robust procedures to evaluate pupil progress through the development of its own value-added measure, the ‘Y Pant residual’, which it uses to track and monitor pupil progress at key stage 4 and key stage 5.  Middle leaders conduct departmental reviews for all departments each year, using this information as well as the outcomes from work scrutiny and pupil voice activities, lesson observations and learning walks.  These reviews provide a comprehensive overview of the department’s work, informing departmental self‑evaluation and improvement planning.  These activities inform in turn whole‑school self-evaluation and improvement planning. 

Regular departmental quality assurance meetings ensure that staff across the school are involved in evaluating the standards of pupils’ work and provide further opportunities for staff to exchange ideas and share practice.  These procedures have helped to strengthen the capacity of middle leaders across the school and to ensure that senior and middle leaders have a common approach to evaluating standards and identifying priorities for improvement. 

The school views data on pupil progress, the outcomes of pupil voice activities and work scrutiny as the key indicators when evaluating teaching and learning in the school.  Leaders feel these activities provide a much more reliable and informative source of information to identify the school’s strengths and priorities for improvement than relying on the outcomes of lesson observations alone.

Outcomes

The school demonstrates the strengths of its approach to developing high quality teaching through the consistently high outcomes pupils achieve.  In lessons and over time, pupils at Y Pant Comprehensive School make consistently strong progress.  At the end of key stage 4, performance is consistently above modelled outcomes, and compares very well with that of similar schools based on free-school-meal eligibility.  Pupils that are more able do extremely well.  Boys, girls and pupils eligible for free school meals perform better than these groups of pupils in similar schools (Welsh Government, 2017c).

The Estyn inspection report of January 2017 judged that, overall, the quality of teaching at the school is excellent.  Inspectors reported that the school places a strong emphasis on professional learning and this results in highly consistent and effective classroom practice.  The school provides many valuable opportunities for teachers to improve their skills, including participation in research, which benefits both their own practice and that of other colleagues.  The school actively supports and collaborates with other schools.  This has strengthened the practice of teachers within the school.

Next steps as identified by the school

As it moves forward, the school is clear about the challenges it faces and the need to continue to evolve and refine its practice to ensure the best possible outcomes for its pupils.  Its next steps include:

  • ensuring that learning walks and teachers’ professional development focus on strategies to improve boys’ engagement in learning
  • developing collaboration with cluster primary schools regarding common approaches to securing excellent learning and teaching, including cross-phase learning walks
  • developing the role of pupils and governors in learning walks
  • ensuring that the school’s key principles regarding learning and teaching are shared more effectively with parents
  • developing robust progress measures at key stage 3 in line with the approach used at key stage 4 and key stage 5