Effective Practice Archives - Page 66 of 66 - Estyn

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Context

Cornist Park Community Primary School is in Flint, North Wales.  There are over 300 pupils on roll, of which around 17% are eligible for free school meals.  The school strives to equip pupils with the lifelong skills that they need as modern 21st century citizens.  The school provides pupils with access to an extensive range of digital technology devices and experiences during their school life.  The devices have become digital tools used to engage and inspire pupils to be creative and independent learners.

Action and sharing the practice

Cornist Park C.P. School understands that digital technology can only enhance teaching and learning if staff are confident in using it.  Each year, staff complete a skills audit to provide the school with valuable information to guide the continuous professional development (CPD) planning cycle.  The audit informs an annual digital action plan, which also feeds into the school development plan.  The school’s Staff Digital Lead organises professional learning opportunities for staff.  Individual members of staff then evaluate its impact on pupils. 

Since the introduction of the Digital Competence Framework (DCF), the school has adapted its staff skills audit procedures.  It provides staff with training on each strand of the DCF each half term.  This enables them to build upon their existing understanding and skills and become fully confident at delivering each strand of the DCF.  The school also gives teachers additional time out of class to provide them with the opportunity to work closely with the Staff Digital Lead to utilise skills, encourage creativity and adapt their medium-term plans to include the DCF in meaningful and creative ways. 

The school believes that digital citizenship sits at the heart of embedding digital technology into school life.  A key aim of the school is to enable pupils, staff, parents, governors and the wider community to connect, collaborate, and communicate online in a responsible and safe way.  All staff receive annual up-to-date eSafety training and sign acceptable use policies.  Induction training for new staff includes an additional safeguarding session that covers eSafety and digital citizenship issues. 

To raise the digital competence of its pupils, staff and the wider school community, including parents, governors and community members, the school has groups of pupils who lead on digital learning.  These Pupil Digital Leaders assist the Staff Digital Lead in training and offering ongoing support to staff within the school and schools across Flintshire.  The school has also developed the role of an eSafety governor who helps to raise awareness of digital learning amongst the governors and works closely with the Digital Leaders and eSafety group.  To encourage parental engagement, the school has also appointed an ‘eParent’ who supports the school’s ‘eCadet’ and digital leader teams with their events and meetings.

Parental surveys designed collaboratively by the Staff Digital Lead, Pupil Digital Leaders and eSafety group identify the training needs of parents.  From analysing the results of the surveys, the school has organised events such as a ‘Freaked Out’ parents’ evening, ‘Digifest’ and ‘Digi Family’ workshops to educate parents about using digital technology at home to help their child’s learning and to ensure that they keep their child and themselves safe online.  Through these events, the staff have discovered that parents listen and respond most effectively to being taught by the pupils.  As a result, the children lead on presenting and teaching under the supervision of the Staff Digital Leader.  In addition, the school’s team of eCadets and digital leaders organise a ‘digi desk’ where parents drop in and ask eSafety or technical issues at every parents’ evening.

The school’s eSafety team has also held a drop in session at a local bank in Flint for customers to learn about how to keep their banking details safe online.  They taught the customers about phishing emails, how to spot one and what to do about it. 

Impact

The school has successfully enhanced and developed the digital competency skills of pupils, staff, parents, governors and the wider community, with pupils at the heart of successful training events. 

Teachers have embedded digital technology and learning across the curriculum through a range of rich experiences for pupils in the classroom.  This enables pupils to make rapid progress and achieve outstanding standards in information and communication technology.

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Brief contextual information about provider/partnership

The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) is an industry body that represents the construction sector.  It works in partnership with a significant number of employers, most colleges of further education across Wales and a small number of private training providers to train apprentices across a wide range of construction programmes.  The provider delivers higher apprenticeships, apprenticeships and foundation apprenticeships across Wales.

Context and background to excellent/sector-leading practice

The provider identified a need to continue to improve the performance of their college sub-contractors and learners across Wales.  As a result, they developed a comprehensive learner and sub-contractor progress tracking strategy.  The strategy led to the development of a detailed performance management system that collects a wide range of information relating to learner progress and the performance of each college sub-contractor.   

Description of nature of strategy or activity identified as excellent/sector-leading practice

The provider has developed a performance management system to track learners’ progress and monitor the performance of their college sub-contractors.  It has been highly effective in identifying and tracking the effectiveness of support given to those learners at risk of under achieving or leaving their training programme.  As a result, learner retention and success rates have continued to improve and the number of learners who completed their training by the scheduled completion date is very high.

The provider has produced a comprehensive guide for training staff.  It clearly highlights the main causes and indicators of under-achievement and leaving training programmes before the scheduled end date.  This guide sets out in simple terms the actions that should be taken and questions that should be asked by training staff to determine the level of risk of learners leaving the programme.  The guide was developed by a team of practitioners using feedback from learners and analysis of data relating to the reasons why learners leave training programmes early.  The document asks four key questions for staff to use during the early days of the training programme to determine risk, by ensuring:

  • that all learners are still happy with their choice of programme

  • that all learners have and understand their learning or training plan

  • that all learners are comfortable in the workplace and at college

  • if there is anything additional the provider can do to help learners settle into their training programme

What impact has this work had on the quality of provision and learners’ standards?

The strategy has been highly effective in improving learner retention, progress and success.  It has highlighted the importance of constant learner progress monitoring and rapid intervention to address identified concerns.  Training staff have developed their skills and confidence in being able to meet individual learner support needs and are effective in supporting them to achieve their qualifications and training.

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Information about provider

Coleg Cambria was formed in August 2013 following the merger of Deeside College and Yale College to become one of the largest colleges in the UK, serving three local authority areas.  Deeside College had merged previously with The Welsh College of Horticulture in 2009 and Coleg Llysfasi in 2010.

Description of nature of strategy or activity

The two critical factors in ensuring an effective merger and formation of Coleg Cambria are strong leadership and effective governance.  Twelve months prior to merger, Deeside College and Yale College formed a shadow governing board, which acted quickly to appoint the Principal and Chief Executive, shortly followed by the senior post-holder team.  Early appointments, expert governance and detailed planning enabled critical operational infrastructure to be in place well before date of merger, including data management systems and the wider leadership team for Coleg Cambria.  Prior to merger, the college developed a Vision for Excellence following extensive staff, governor, student and stakeholder consultation events to develop the vision and values for the new college.  This Vision for Excellence clearly outlined the mission statement, the vision and values of the new organisation, plus strategic priorities.  Staff created the college name and governors agreed the brand, based on the concept of diversity and cohesion.  Coleg Cambria was created as a clear over-arching brand, but with sites still able to retain their unique identity with local communities.  This extensive pre-merger work by leaders and governors ensured that from inception the new college had a clear strategic purpose that staff were aligned to, plus the critical infrastructure that enabled the college to operate effectively immediately post-merger.

Immediately following merger, the senior leadership team prioritised the professional development activities that would bring staff together and have quick and clear impact.  All teaching and assessing staff undertook training, which helped in sharing an agreed understanding of what makes effective learning.  Business support team training focused on improving learner/customer experience and developing maximum efficiency of processes in a large college.

Merger enabled the college to look afresh at core policies and, rather than adopting the strongest practice from the pre-merged colleges, leaders took the opportunity to seek out new approaches and used staff task and finish groups to develop these into policies for implementation.  These groups enabled purposeful opportunities for cross college team building and created quick wins with high impact.

Communication has been critical to establishing a clear ethos in the college.  The Principal’s weekly updates share college and sector news, and senior leaders communicate regularly and very effectively with their teams using a range of social media tools.  This enables all staff to feel connected and to be part of what the college calls, ‘team Cambria’.

Within six months of merger, the college translated its new core values into a set of ten behaviours.  These behaviours enabled staff to see how the values they had chosen and included in the ‘Vision for Excellence’ were integral to the college’s daily operations and could be demonstrated in their actions.  The behaviours quickly became a very useful tool for staff, managers and governors, supporting leadership and informing decision-making at all levels.  They are visible in all areas of college; all new staff have induction based around the college’s behaviours and staff regularly reflect on how they have demonstrated the behaviours in action in team meetings and in their appraisals.  The college recognition scheme also celebrates and rewards staff and teams that exemplify a particular behaviour.  The use of behaviours has enabled the college quickly to establish a strong ethos and culture.

What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?

The actions outlined have ensured a very successful large scale merger.  The college has demonstrated high success rates over time, which place the college in the top quartile of all colleges in Wales, and which demonstrate an upward trend over three years.  The college has made effective progress against all its key results and has an A grade financial health categorisation.  Effective pre-merger actions, and the establishment of a robust identity, ethos and culture, underpin the college’s excellent current performance and prospects for improvement.

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Information about provider

Coleg Cambria’s hair and beauty department delivers a wide range of full time courses from entry level to level three, with courses in hairdressing, beauty therapy, spa therapy, nail services and theatrical and media makeup.

Description of nature of strategy or activity

The college’s strong commitment to meeting the needs of all learners ensures that learners at all levels, regardless of their background, achieve their hair and beauty qualifications and gain the range of skills they need to progress into employment or higher levels of learning.  The curriculum is carefully developed around the needs of the sector and employer priorities, both locally and nationally.  Effective partnerships with a wide range of employers provide a wide range of learning opportunities for all learners and staff.  As a result, hair and beauty learners are highly skilled and meet employer needs.

The college’s vision for excellence aims to ensure the success of all learners by ‘embedding a supportive culture of innovation and creativity, challenging everyone to develop the skills they need to build successful futures’.  The hair and beauty team use digital technology particularly effectively to engage and challenge learners.  Teachers use digital resources exceptionally well to promote learning, support assessment and monitor progress.  Learners use digital learning communities to record and reflect on their learning and create high quality digital portfolios to showcase their skills.  The college has invested in a range of software, which enables the hair and beauty team to monitor the progress of all learners, and to implement quickly any support needed to keep learners on track to achieve their potential.  Learners learn how to set their own effective learning targets and develop independent learning habits.  Teachers also closely monitor the progress of learners from at risk groups, using college support and additional learning needs services well to ensure that all learners achieve. 

The hair and beauty curriculum embeds a range of higher level communication and thinking skills and learners apply these successfully and confidently in their vocational context.  Learners develop their ability to use probing questions when consulting with clients to elicit what clients require and learn how to give advice, applying their vocational knowledge to suggest styles.  Learners also develop strong retailing skills, and apply their numeracy skills particularly effectively via monthly targets and analysis of their productivity and sales performance.  Learners also benefit greatly from entering regional and national skills competitions.  These learners develop wider valuable skills, including confidence, resilience and self-belief.

Highly effective partnerships, developed with a range of employers and national companies, inform curriculum design.  Labour market intelligence is used purposefully to inform curriculum planning and employers help shape the curriculum to ensure that learners’ occupational skills meet industry needs.  This has a positive impact on outcomes as nearly all hairdressing and beauty therapy learners develop high quality professional skills in their practical work.  The close links partners have forged with the college further enrich learning experiences via work experience opportunities, visiting speakers, skills coaching and practical demonstrations.  The partnerships established with leading professional brands enable staff to keep up to date with industry developments and to enhance their commercial skills alongside industry professionals.

What impact has this work had on the quality of provision and learners’ standards?

The skills-focused curriculum, together with the robust tracking and support for all learners to achieve, has had a demonstrable improvement in the success rates.  Hair and beauty long course success rates at Coleg Cambria are excellent at 89%, nine percentage points above the national comparator.  There has been a three year upward trend, and a 13 percentage point increase in the last two years, placing the college at the top of the first quartile of all colleges in Wales for Hair and Beauty long courses.  Nearly all learners successfully achieve their Essential Skills Wales qualifications in application of number, IT and communication.  Learners from more socially disadvantaged backgrounds and learners with additional learning needs successfully achieve well above the national comparator for learner outcomes.  In regional and national skills competitions, Coleg Cambria learners regularly achieve the highest level of awards.

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Information about provider

Coleg Cambria was established in August 2013 as a result of the merger between Deeside College and Yale College.  The college has a strong reputation for its innovative use of digital technology and is an active member of several national technology groups.  It is also involved in two European projects on effective blended learning. Coleg Cambria staff have won several national teaching awards for digital learning and use of technology.

Description of nature of strategy or activity

Prior to merger, both colleges made significant investment to ensure that all sites had full wi-fi coverage.  Both colleges shifted resources away from equipping IT rooms and towards purchasing chromebooks, enabling many more students to have access to computers in flexible digital learning environments.  The merger brought best practice together.  Yale College had developed the use of learning apps and Deeside College had developed cloud based technology tools.  In the year prior to merger, the Deeside College Director of IT worked across both colleges to ensure that the necessary infrastructure was in place, with all staff and students using one cloud-based platform that had office, social media and education tools.  Both colleges had a significant number of enthusiastic staff, highly confident in using technology.  Coleg Cambria’s ethos is to ‘inspire, innovate, succeed’, and from the outset there was a strong commitment from all leaders to use technology to develop innovative learning opportunities and effective business practices.

Most learners at Coleg Cambria have access to chromebooks in their classes and regularly use blended learning approaches.  College leaders used the teachers who were already embracing new technology to try out new digital learning tools.  These teachers shared best practice with each other, and the following has emerged as popular applications of technology, now used by most teachers:

  • social media ‘communities’ for sharing

  • ‘classroom’ tool to share resources and submit assignments

  • cloud technology for collaboration

  • learner blogs to record and reflect on skills and to create digital portfolios

  • online quizzes and games apps to check learning and to engage learners

College managers share best use of digital learning via team meetings.  Many staff and learners use the communities tool regularly as their quickest and most effective form of communication to share resources and ideas.

Reliable wi-fi means that learners can use learning apps and web-based platforms on their mobile devices.  All learners have their own individual learning planning tool, and use this to set and monitor their learning targets.  In induction, all learners are introduced to the college ‘guidebook’ app to access their learning apps, personal information and student services.  News updates for students are streamed via a social media page.  Student leaders use a bespoke app to regularly ‘take the temperature’ and gain feedback from fellow students on a range of issues through the year.  This information is used by managers and student voice groups as part of quality improvement.

The pastoral programme is taught across the college via a bespoke web-based programme, which enables all teachers to access high quality resources on personal and social education, and models best practice in blended learning.  Coleg Cambria digital badges reward all learners for excellent attendance and progress, and accredit enrichment activities including e-safety training and entrepreneurship activities.

Teachers’ professional development is also blended, with teachers engaging in college developed packages that model new tools to spark more professional creativity.  Digital technology has improved many business operations, including performance management.  Key data is streamed into live dashboards, enabling staff at all levels closely monitor a range of key performance measures and to identify and address issues quickly.  The college is largely paperless, using shared cloud-based folders and documents for meetings.  Web based conferencing is used daily for all cross-site meetings to avoid unnecessary travel between sites and to enable virtual face to face meetings.

What impact has this work had on the quality of provision and learners’ standards?

Nearly all Coleg Cambria learners develop the digital learning skills needed to progress to higher levels of learning and into employment.  They use a wide range of technology with confidence and as a natural part of their day to day learning at college.

Technology is used very effectively in all operational aspects of Coleg Cambria.  Technology enables the college at all levels to share best practice and key information quickly together.  It ensures effective communication and management of data and learner information, which is used by all staff and learners to manage and improve performance.

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Information about the school

Ysgol Plas Brondyffryn is a local authority maintained co-educational special school for pupils with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and associated learning difficulties from the age of 3 to 19.  It has a 38-week residential facility, which is open from Monday to Friday.  The majority of the children and young people are boys, due to the higher prevalence of autism diagnosed in males.  Due to the nature of the pupils, the school uses alternative methods of communication such as a picture exchange communication system, Makaton and communication aids.  The school is based on four different sites and strives to maintain a whole-school ethos across all sites.

Context and background to sector-leading practice

The widely differing needs of the pupils call for a holistic view of the support they need in order to achieve their full potential.  The school pursues an active and inclusive strategy of engaging all stakeholders around the learners.  This engagement involves bringing in the expertise of fellow professionals and agencies while at the same time going out into the community of parents and professionals to offer support, guidance and training.  There are four strands to this strategy, which has been developed over the past seven years, and which is now referred to as Working Together:

  • Working together in school

  • Working together with families

  • Working together with other schools

  • Working together with other agencies

This case study will focus on Ysgol Plas Brondyffryn’s work with families and other schools.

Description of nature of strategy or activity

Working together with families

The school works hard to maintain excellent communication links with parents and carers.  This is particularly important as most pupils live a considerable distance from school and many are resident in its residential provision.  Communication channels include daily diaries, telephone calls, parents’ evenings and annual reviews.  In addition to this, the school provides training for parents in all aspects of the issues that parents of pupils with ASD might face.  The school holds coffee mornings, staffed by teachers, behavioural support staff and speech and language therapy (SLT) staff.  The school also provides expert speakers on subjects requested by parents and carers.

Working together with other schools

The school’s aim in the Working Together with Schools programme is to share expertise in working with pupils with ASD and thereby raise the level of expertise around supporting pupils with ASD in all schools.  The school offers two levels of outreach support, using teachers and experienced teaching assistants (TAs) and SLT staff.  A weekly drop-in clinic held at the school is free to all teaching professionals in the county.  The school has developed an extensive library of literature, DVDs and sensory equipment, which can be borrowed by any school in the county.  The school supports the professional development of its own staff and the staff of other schools by encouraging Ysgol Plas Brondyffryn staff to visit other specialist education providers and by welcoming visiting professionals from other schools to enable the sharing of good practice.  The school works in partnership with the regional universities to provide placements for undergraduates and postgraduates in the area of additional learning needs education (ALN) and ASD in particular.

What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?

Parents and carers report that they feel more able to support their children effectively and feel more confident in meeting the challenges they face.  They see the progress that their children make when they apply what they have learned and this success creates a circle of positivity around their own skills and progress.  This can be evidenced through various feedback routes, including parental questionnaires, coffee morning feedback and training evaluations.

Through working with other schools, the outreach team and the expertise they share have enabled staff to develop and refine how they support individual pupils with ASD in the mainstream school environment.  All visits are evaluated by the client schools and these are extremely positive.  The outreach service has played an important role in keeping pupils in the mainstream school setting and in helping schools to create a positive, supportive and constructive environment in which pupils can thrive.

How have you shared your good practice?

Developed initially for staff, the school now offers a wide range of training courses to different client groups, including parents and professionals.

Improvement Resource Type: Effective Practice

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Information about the school

Pontarddulais Comprehensive is an 11-16 comprehensive school in Swansea.  There are 780 pupils on roll and the school is close to capacity.  The school is situated in the village of Pontarddulais.  It has five partner primary schools within the catchment area.  Around 7% of pupils live in the 20% most deprived areas of Wales.  Thirteen per cent of pupils are eligible for free school meals. 

Pontarddulais is currently a Curriculum Pioneer school and a Creative Pioneer school.  This means that the school is working with the Welsh Government and others to develop and pilot a new curriculum for Wales.

Context and background to sector-leading practice

The school recognises that high quality middle leadership is an important factor in school improvement and raising standards.  Over the last three years the school has been successful in building a professional learning culture amongst colleagues. 

The headteacher set up a professional development programme, called the `Aspiring Leaders Programme`, to empower teachers and middle leaders to effect whole school change while simultaneously developing professionally.  The aim of the programme was to develop the skills of all teachers and staff within the school whilst building a sustainable school improvement system.  

The professional development programme has become a highly successful vehicle in creating a learning culture amongst colleagues, which gives key staff the opportunity to lead on whole school development priorities.  As a result, many staff at all levels make a significant contribution towards the leadership of the school.  It has resulted in a feeling of cohesion and collaboration that is central to improving outcomes for pupils. 

Succession planning is highly developed and is a successful part of the work of the school.  The practical support and the opportunities provided mean that highly skilled colleagues are confident to take on more challenging responsibilities.

Description of nature of strategy or activity identified as sector-leading practice

The Aspiring Leaders Programme provides a structure for teachers to focus on improving aspects of the work of the school, with the ultimate aim of improving pupil performance.

There are three main areas of professional development for staff:

Staff have the opportunity to take a leading role on whole school development.

Middle leaders and aspiring middle leaders are given the opportunity to lead on a clearly identified aspect of whole school improvement.  Training is provided by a member of the senior leadership team in how to build a whole School Development Plan.  They formulate and agree on specific strategies to address the key priorities for the year.  This coherent and collegiate approach ensures that the School Development Plan is fully embraced by middle leaders, who then drive improvement at all levels within the school.  As a result, teachers gain a better understanding of the school’s strategic aims and how their department and their role contributes to outcomes.

Staff are given the responsibility for running a working party for their colleagues, which supports and launches a whole school development.

Each working party is led by two middle or aspiring leaders, who use this experience as part of the Aspiring Leaders Programme.  The middle leaders research the background information for their working party.  They work collaboratively with their middle leader partner in deciding on the direction to be taken by their working party.  They then lead their working party through a series of five developmental sessions.  This culminates in a launch by the working party to the whole school, as well as in a presentation to the Governing body.  The school is then expected to adopt the recommendations of the working party into their teaching and learning practice.  Examples include the development of the now highly consistent lesson evaluation process, improving teaching and learning through developing high level questioning, and leading strategies to improve the teaching of literacy and numeracy across the school.

Middle leaders are involved in a structured programme of school-to-school self- evaluation.

Through their involvement in collaborative self-evaluation, colleagues have shared professional knowledge and expertise with middle leaders from two other schools.  The skills developed through these interschool departmental reviews have given colleagues motivation and self-confidence as leaders of learning within Pontarddulais Comprehensive.

What impact has this work had on provision and pupils’ standards?

There is an exceptional learning culture in the school.  Middle leaders are very innovative in their work and support the development of whole school processes and developments in teaching and learning very well.  This means that teaching and learning are a clear strength of the school.  

Due to developments initiated by middle leaders, nearly all staff have an in depth understanding of the self-evaluation processes which support excellent teaching and learning.  All lessons observed are good and excellent.  This makes a significant contribution to outstanding outcomes for pupils.

Excellent working relationships, high levels of trust and highly effective communication between middle leaders and their link member of the headship team have been significant factors in ensuring consistency and in raising standards.

How have you shared your good practice?

Schools from across Wales have visited Pontarddulais to share the work of the school.  In addition, colleagues have presented in iNet events as well as events organised by the ERW region.  Colleagues who teach in `Challenge Cymru` schools have been supported closely by staff from Pontarddulais in many aspects of their work.