Aligning attainment and wellbeing to track pupils’ progress - Estyn

Aligning attainment and wellbeing to track pupils’ progress

Effective Practice
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Pentrehafod School

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Information about the school

Pentrehafod School is an 11-16 English-medium mixed comprehensive school serving the eastern side of Swansea.  The school’s population has increased gradually over the last few years and there are currently 1,035 pupils on roll.  The school is a lead school in an initial teacher training education partnership.

 
Around 29% of pupils are eligible for free school meals.  Around 34% of pupils are on the special educational needs register, of whom 5% have statements of special educational needs.  A very few pupils speak Welsh at home. Around 84% of pupils are from a White British ethnic background. Around 15% of learners speak English as an additional language.
 
The school has a special teaching facility catering for pupils with speech, language and communication needs.  The senior leadership team consists of the headteacher, who took up post in September 2016, a deputy headteacher, two assistant headteachers and a school business and finance director.

Context and background to the effective or innovative practice

The overarching vision was to build and utilise a whole-school tracking system that aligns attainment and wellbeing to provide a more ‘rounded’ overview of a child’s progress.  This system was created to allow teachers and non-teachers to identify the most appropriate and effective intervention at the earliest possible opportunity in order to support the whole child.  Resources in every school have to be prioritised, and a system like this, providing a wide range of ‘live’ data, allows leaders to maximise the opportunity for every child so they get the intervention they need.

Description of nature of strategy or activity

Leaders’ vision was to develop a system of tracking that draws upon a wide range of information for each pupil to ensure sharp and targeted support for each individual pupil.  The system includes end of key stage predictions, targets for each pupil to raise aspirations, as well as the outcomes of the online wellbeing survey to provide an informative overview of wellbeing and standards.  This overview incorporates pupils’ reading ages and attendance rates.  Teachers contribute to the system regularly sharing information about academic progress and each pupils’ attitude to learning (ATL) on a 4-point scale.  Ideally, there should be a clear link between academic success and a positive ATL.  This tracking data is colour coded against the other key information held on the child to help staff look holistically at each pupil’s progress and identify the precise nature of any barriers to learning or wellbeing. 

 
Staff use the information from this system proactively to provide bespoke support and challenge.  For example, the system enables the school to create effective ‘Pupil on a Page’ overviews for each pupil and these are then utilised as part of Raising Achievement and Progress (RAP) meetings.  During these meetings, around 15-20 colleagues, including teaching staff and non-teaching staff such as teaching assistants and the careers co-ordinator, use the live tracking to discuss no more than four Year 9, 10 and 11 pupils.  Together with wellbeing information, this approach allows staff to agree on specific intervention for specific pupils, with the clear mantra of ‘one size fits one’. 
 
The interventions from this system range from small group or individual literacy/numeracy support to bespoke wellbeing interventions, including mentoring groups and the involvement of outside agencies where necessary.

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

This work has contributed to an improvement in academic outcomes for students and an improved sense of wellbeing for many.

 
The school’s outcomes for 2019, for most indicators, were above modelled expectations and the school continues to close the gap for students eligible for free school meals or with additional learning needs effectively.  One of the key factors contributing to this success, aligned with effective learning and teaching and targeted wellbeing support, is the significant confidence in holistic tracking.

How have you shared your good practice?

Pentrehafod School has very well-established school-to-school relationships with three other Swansea secondary schools.  The school also has robust links with seven partner primary schools.  There is a cross phase student voice working group and a variation of the tracking system runs across the cluster.  The school has shared its sophisticated systems with most of these establishments and wider.  Most recently, a school in mid-Wales is using Pentrehafod’s RAP model as a vehicle for targeting individual student success.