Moving beyond the floor target – Sinclair Primary School, Southampton

Date of issue: Jan. 2008

Theme: Schools Causing Concern (SCC)

School context and profile

The school serves an area with a high level of social deprivation and most pupils are white British. The current headteacher joined the school four years ago, following an unsettled period in the school's leadership. An amalgamation was also planned of a nursery, infant and junior schools and a major building project.

Number on roll: 174. Age range: three to 11 years
Prior attainment of pupils is low
Just over a third have Special Educational Needs (SEN) and this is mainly social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.

The school was inspected in June 2006 and received an overall grade for effectiveness of 3 along with leadership and management and capacity to improve.

Key Stage 2 L4+ results: 2005 English 42%; mathematics 40%
Key Stage 2 L4+ results: 2006 English 44%; mathematics 41%
Key Stage 2 L4+ results: 2007 English 66%; mathematics 69%

Barriers to improvement

An unsettled period of leadership, combined with the amalgamation of two schools, one of which was failing, and the major building project, presented significant barriers.

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The school-based issues – what needed to change?

The leadership of the headteacher and deputy headteacher needed to be authoritative, to provide clear vision, and a relentless determination to raise standards
The learning environment needed to be improved to reflect enjoyment, engagement and achievement
Systems needed to be established for assessment and pupil tracking.

For the purposes of the Raising Attainment Plan (RAP) the following priorities were identified:

quality of the learning and teaching environment
poor assessment and lack of pupil progress tracking systems
poor behaviour and attendance
lack of parental involvement
low expectations of all key partners; teachers of pupils, pupils of teachers and parents of the school and their children's learning.

What was done?

Address at every level the quality of teaching. The local authority (LA) adviser assisted with regular monitoring of teaching through observations and provided training especially to address poor subject knowledge
Inception activities were introduced to stimulate pupils' positive engagement in learning
A behaviour policy was introduced along with training. Other systems introduced had positive impact, such as lunchtime eating in class groups with a particular focus for the conversation led by the class teacher
Rigorous assessment and tracking systems had the effect of increasing accountability and raising teacher expectations. Three pupil progress targets per year of three sub levels, one for each term, reviewed at the end of each term
Pupil progress meetings and performance management systems needed to be put in place to include targets linked to pupil progress
Moderation and work sampling
Planning became assessment driven and exemplifies the personalised learning agenda
Intervention logs provide systematic addressing of learning needs. More recently, for one term an extra teacher was employed for Year 6 to provide individually tailored and immediate intervention to overcome misconceptions in learning
Introduction of synthetic phonics approach (Ruth Miskin literacy programme)
Developing trusting relationships between adults and pupils.

Monitoring and evaluation

Success criteria for the RAP included:

Raised levels of attainment using National Curriculum test results and other standard measures
Inclusion Quality mark was achieved (this involves a behaviour and attendance audit)
Improved quality of teaching including improved subject knowledge
Staff professional development, including higher level teaching assistant status for all teaching assistants, middle leadership training from the National College for School Leadership and National Professional Qualification for Headship status for the deputy headteacher.

What has been the overall impact?

'The enhanced RAP was the vehicle by which success was measured. This was especially useful for providing more organised management of the complex initiatives needed to move the school forward.'
'Significantly enhanced standards, ethos and attitudes which are evident today speak for themselves.'

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Local authority support and challenge

Support for the headteacher to manage the turbulence caused by the amalgamation of the two schools and an unsettled prior history in one of those schools
A full LA review was conducted and found attainment and progress was minimal, teacher expectations were low and the quality of teaching was very variable
The Intensifying Support Programme criteria, structures, procedures and protocols were introduced to build a productive learning environment
The RAP identified climate for learning and pupil behaviour as key priorities.

What was done?

The LA inspector carried out monitoring of the quality of teaching
Competency procedures were used in the case of some staff
Consultants for English and mathematics provided much input for inexperienced staff especially the English and mathematics coordinators who gained these promotions early in their career
The consultant for Pupil Engagement in Learning (behaviour support) provided support for teaching staff including coaching, especially for managing the learning environment for pupils with challenging behaviour
Routine LA supportive evaluation visits were provided, focusing on key areas of the self-evaluation form such as attainment and pupil progress, teaching and learning, and the quality of leadership and management
Building and property services assisted with the building project
Training and support for the governing body, especially clarity about their role.

Monitoring and evaluation

Initially the target was set for 50% of lessons good or better; this was later raised to 75% plus
Reduction of and ultimately the absence of exclusions
Eliminating low level disruption in one or two classes
Ensuring the leadership below the headteacher and deputy headteacher level was effective, especially building the competency of the leadership of mathematics and English.

What has been the overall impact?

'The respect of the community for the school has risen immeasurably.'
'The school is now a coherent purposeful school where children know about learning and want to learn. Attainment and pupil progress show the results of this change in climate and attitude.'

Sustainability – what next?

ISP processes, procedures and protocol will remain in place. The LA is committed to the use of ISP for all its schools causing concern and believe this strategy of embedding ISP over a number of years in these schools is critical to success in keeping them out of, or removing them from, the Hard to Shift category.

What will the school do?

'Succession planning is vital; you need to enable the school to carry on without you. Leaders below the headteacher have to understand their roles and responsibilities. All our leaders are home grown. Every teacher needs to be able to take up his or her leadership role regardless of his or her stage of career.'

Continue to raise expectations of parents for their children's learning.

What will the LA do?

Future LA support will be strongly focused on building further capacity, particularly with leadership below the headteacher and deputy headteacher
School self-evaluation evidence will be drawn from the whole senior management team and phase leaders so that the judgments and impact of all leaders can be evaluated. Planned activities include regular interviews with various leaders reporting on their own self-evaluation, joint observations and so on
The focus is now on quality assurance.

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