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| NACE Challenge Award: case study, first school |
| Rushcombe First School, Dorset |
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Rushcombe First School has pupils from Foundation Stage to Why did the school decide to undertake the Challenge Award? How did you get started? The school had already begun looking at A, G&T provision with the substantive head teacher and put some strategies in place to support our more able pupils. So, when Dorset LA put on a day’s introduction to the Challenge Award, we leapt at the chance. It gave us just the impetus we needed to further our provision. We started by going through the framework as a senior management team by completing an initial audit. We identified our strengths, the “Even Better If” bits and the key areas in which to move forward. We then drew up an action plan. Initially we had an informal staff meeting to introduce the Challenge Award and staff identified strengths and areas for development. What became obvious, very quickly, was that we needed to develop a common understanding of the terms we were using – gifted, talented, able, underachieving etc. We took some time to do that but now have an agreed Rushcombe version! This was really important for us as we didn’t feel we could move on successfully until we were all talking the same language. Has your provision for A, G & T improved since undertaking the Challenge Award? Absolutely! It’s given us a continual focus on the provision of challenge in the experiences of every child. We have particularly concentrated on Element 4 (Teaching and Learning). The WIGT (What is Good Teaching? matrix) is a fantastic tool and it has helped us refine our monitoring and observation methods. We also use it to demonstrate to new staff what exemplary teaching and learning looks like. We want to equip our pupils with a comprehensive learning toolkit. We have introduced Building Learning Power (BLP) and Philosophy for Children (P4C). We have developed the “Rushcombe 5 Rs” based on the BLP programme – resilience, resourcefulness, reflectiveness, reciprocity and responsibility. The Challenge Award framework has helped us to pull together these two excellent programmes and now have a coherent package for the pupils. The Irresistible Curriculum Irresistible? Well yes, irresistible to our pupils who cannot wait to get stuck into their learning and are enthusiastic in everything they undertake. We are one of a few Leading Learning Schools in Dorset who have been working together on enhancing our current practice by creating stronger links across the curriculum. Our approach has been to move away from a compartmentalised subject-based timetable to have an integrated in-depth focus, for example on a period in history. Sometimes we do this by having a question of the week. This approach enables us to integrate the work we have been doing with P4C and BLP. It is inspiring our teachers who are finding ever more interesting ways to start the topic off with a bang. The pupils are really enjoying it – I often hear about the positive impact it is having with pupils sharing their successes - “I absolutely love learning about Queen Victoria”. How have the staff reacted to the Challenge Award? Having a focus on ‘challenge’ has had a massive impact on staff, particularly in looking for, recognising and developing children’s potential. Colleagues are now clear on what pupils are achieving, where they are going and how to create learning journeys with them. They are constantly giving pupils the opportunity to surprise them. Just the other day there was a conversation in the staff room about a “new” pupil discovery – one of the boys had independently produced a 3-D pyramid-shaped book on Egypt. Staff are seeing the impact and their enthusiasm is catching. The Challenge Award assessment day was surprisingly a development opportunity for us all. There are few opportunities for experienced colleagues to study your school as a critical friend and give you expert advice to further your ideas for enhancement and enrichment. What about the pupils? The programmes we have put in place have brought about a real thirst for learning in our pupils. We have always consulted them about enjoyment and challenge through an annual questionnaire. Now we carry out a termly questionnaire, with adult support for our youngest. One of our discoveries from this questionnaire was our children’s understanding of the word “challenge” –
P4C has had a huge impact on our children’s ability to express themselves. They have developed respect for each other and their differing ideas and they know how to share their ideas without offence. This has had such a positive impact on collaborative work. It has given our pupils the tools to learn effectively and the language to access that learning. BLP has really empowered our children – they are self-aware learners who know their personal strengths. We have pupil Lead Learners in the “5 Rushcombe R’s”. Interestingly, it is not always the A, G&T pupils who have the best skills in every “R” but it helps them to see where their strengths lie and what “Rs” they need to further develop. We pride ourselves on an open-dialogue with our pupils and take into account what they tell us. We have learned to see challenging questions from pupils such as “Why are we learning this?” as an opportunity to relate their learning to the wider world. We work with families to support our pupils’ learning at home - with parent workshops, guidance and information. We have Extended Education Plans (EEPs) for our gifted pupils which we created in discussion with the pupils. These individual plans lay out how the pupil will be challenged in school and how he or she can be supported at home. We also have an Education Support Plans (ESPs) which are for pupils with great potential but who are underachieving. The Personalised Toolkit One Year 4 boy had superb verbal skills – so much so, that he had co-presented with the head teacher at a NACE National Challenge Award Conference workshop. However, he lacked confidence and skills when recording his ideas in writing, and had become increasingly frustrated. When we talked with him we discovered that it was a real bug-bear for him - most of the time he was just putting pen to paper at the point that everyone else had finished. He needed more time and better strategies to organise his thoughts. We agreed to formulate an ESP for him with support from his parents. One strategy we used was to give him the objectives for his written tasks in advance so that he could discuss these at home and come to the lesson better prepared. We saw an immense improvement. He has now moved on to middle school, taking his ESP with him. He visited us recently and told us “I love writing!”. Sometimes you just have to find the right tools for the right toolkit! What advice would you give to schools setting out on the Award? Rushcombe Top Tips
On reflection, when we began we believed we had developed good practice. The Challenge Award has helped us recognise that we are on a continuous journey to achieving further successes. For information and advice on using the Lyn Bull, NACE Researcher |
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