Creating a culture of improvement to ‘do even better’.
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Information about the school/provider
Romilly Primary School is in Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan local authority. There are between 680 and 750 pupils on roll aged from 3 to 11 years, throughout the year. The school has 21 single-age classes with an additional 4 part-time nursery classes catering for 130 pupils. There are 22 full-time and eight part-time teachers with over 70 teaching and learning staff in total.
Most pupils are white, British and come from homes where English is the main language. A very few pupils speak Welsh at home. The three-year rolling average of pupils eligible for free school meals is approximately 15%. This is lower than the national figure of 22%. The school identifies about 4.5% of pupils as having additional learning needs. This is lower than the national figure of 16.1%. Around 3% of its pupils have English as an additional language.
Context and background to the effective or innovative practice
Leaders at Romilly Primary School have invested in the professional learning and development of all teaching staff, as they recognise this as having the greatest impact on ‘closing the gap’ for those pupils who live in poverty, and ensuring equity of provision for all.
At Romilly Primary School, leaders and staff believe that teaching and learning is ‘curriculum’. With the changes brought about by Curriculum for Wales, leaders asked themselves questions such as, ‘Are we doing the right thing?’, ‘What does assessment look like now?’ ‘Do we need more outdoor learning?’ They also identified that pupils needed more authentic learning experiences including through the use of trips and visitors. Leaders and staff recognised that the most important aspect of the school’s work is getting the teaching and learning right and holding on to the school’s shared values and beliefs.
The school holds true to its vision of; ‘Ensuring excellence in access, attitudes and achievement’, which is embodied in its mission statement of ‘Learning, growing and succeeding, together’. Leaders believe that all teachers and learning staff will, and can, deliver excellent teaching and learning with the right culture and support; by seeing professional development as an entitlement for all, with innovation being encouraged.
Description of nature of strategy or activity
At Romilly Primary School leaders recognise that an improvement strategy that may work in one school, may not work in the context of another school, and needs to be tailored to the individual needs of its staff and the pupils.
The ethos of leadership at Romilly Primary school is that of ‘low threat high challenge’, which helps develop the trust needed for staff’s personal and professional growth. Lesson observations by the leadership team have been replaced with learning walks and teacher triad observations as well as teachers filming themselves and reflecting on their practice. All of these focus on specific areas for improvement. Teachers inform the leadership team about the areas on which they want feedback and support. Leaders then provide teachers with the opportunity to re-teach the lessons and review how these changes have impacted on the progress of pupils. In many cases, teachers share their most effective practice with their colleagues through an electronic teaching library. The teaching library platform is a resource bank of effective practice for teachers and support teachers to access to see what good looks like in action, and to identify who they can go to if they want support in a particular area. The type of practice that staff share ranges from the effective use of the silent stop signal, beneficial classroom routines and ways to develop positive attitudes towards learning through peer assessment, self-assessment, silent modelling, partner talk, pitstops, and quality questioning.
Monitoring and evaluation of the impact of teaching on learning and progress is carried out throughout the year through professional discussions, book looks, listening to learners, learning walks, videos, and the discussion of data during progress meetings. These activities are undertaken by the leadership team but also by staff, and governors. Training is delivered to staff and governors on how to carry out book looks, and the types of questions to ask pupils during listening to learner sessions, to find out if they understand their learning and what their next steps are.
Each year, leaders provide teachers with the opportunity to decide upon an area that they want to research, that they feel their pupils will benefit from. They work individually or in teams. They share the impact of their action research with their colleagues and governors at various points of the year, including the successes and failures of the initiatives they have trialled. The focus of their research has included, increasing independence in Year 6, improving the quality of peer assessment, improving attendance of vulnerable groups, and developing speech and language in the early years. They have to give a rationale as to why they have chosen this area, alongside an evidence base to justify it, regarding the individual needs of the pupils they have in their class.
Monitoring of the impact of the teaching on the pupils’ learning is not just a termly activity but integral to everything they do.
What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?
Teaching and learning experiences across the school are strong. The staff provide high-quality verbal feedback to pupils to encourage them to think more deeply and to prompt them to reflect on the quality of their work across curriculum areas. For example, as a result of focused and timely feedback, pupils’ standards of writing have improved significantly.
There is a strong culture of self-improvement and reflection in the school. Creating time and high-quality opportunities for all staff to collaborate, reflect on and improve their practice for the benefit of pupils has contributed strongly to the delivery of high standards of well-being and significant improvements to the quality of teaching.
How have you shared your good practice?
Romilly Primary School has strong links with the local high school. Together they have collaborated to further enhance the professional learning of both their own staff and that of the high school, by sharing excellent practice across the settings. This is a two-way developmental process, where staff observe teachers in each other’s setting to learn and gain ideas that they can then use in their own classes within their own schools.
The school supports other schools within the consortia to help develop the equity of provision and also improve the quality of feedback to accelerate pupil progress. This has been done through learning walks, sharing of learning and professional dialogue and improvement planning.