Janet Edwards, MAT Coordinator at Cwmclydach Primary School since 2009, shares three key factors in developing – and sustaining – excellent provision for more able and talented (MAT) learners, and for all children at the school.

Cwmclydach Primary School is in the village of Clydach Vale near Tonypandy in Rhondda Cynon Taff local education authority. There are currently 210 pupils on role, aged between 3 and 11, and the school also houses one of the local authority’s Foundation Phase nurture classes. Nearly all pupils are of white British origin and English is the first language for nearly all pupils. FSM stands at 42%, which is currently much higher than the local and national averages. 

The school has recently achieved NACE Challenge Award accreditation for the third time – the third school in Wales to achieve this and the 25th overall – recognising sustained commitment to and excellence in meeting the needs of MAT learners, within a whole-school context of challenge for all.

Below are three key factors that have helped us to achieve and sustain this, and that remain central to our ongoing development as we prepare for the new Curriculum for Wales.

1. Engaging the whole school community 

Good communication and working in partnership with our whole school community are essential to our success at Cwmclydach. 

Governors have been involved in planning for the new Curriculum for Wales, and in deciding the range of experiences our children should have throughout their years in school, alongside the visions shared by our Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLE) leads. 

Parents are regularly informed about provision for more able and talented (MAT) pupils within our setting and are given guidance on how to support MAT pupils at home. Regular use of questionnaires for staff, pupils and parents, has ensured that each child in our care is challenged to fulfil their potential in all aspects of life. Results of the questionnaires are analysed and planning for children is adjusted accordingly.

Pupil voice is central to our development. Learners are encouraged to believe in themselves and are given a variety of opportunities where they can become good role models and develop a sense of ownership. Pupil groups have been set up that reflect the new curriculum, and pupil voice plays an extremely active role in engaging our parents and other stakeholders; we find that parental engagement is far higher when children are leading their learning.

We provide opportunities for children to lead the learning through enquiry and research. For example, children are given four “missions” per fortnight; they choose which to complete, how, and what tools they need. These are completed independently whilst the teacher works with a focused group. We use focus questioning to home in deeper on a particular topic so we can draw the information out, either individually or in groups depending on the topic. This has helped us to direct children and further develop their critical thinking and leadership skills.

2. Identifying – and providing for – a broad range of abilities

Each member of staff is responsible for developing the child as a whole – not only in academic subjects, but also nurturing talent in the fields of music, art, ICT, Welsh and other curriculum areas.

We have found it particularly useful to send out a yearly questionnaire seeking the views of parents and carers to help us identify MAT pupils, particularly in areas beyond traditional academic subjects. In previous years, some of our quieter children were not so forthcoming about their talents, so we have found this an effective way to discover otherwise “hidden” abilities.

The key point is to ensure that – once identified – we then provide opportunities in school to enhance and develop these abilities, providing a wide range of activities to ensure all talents and abilities can be catered for, alongside enrichment days and visitors to the school. We have also held twilight sessions with teachers and support staff to ensure everyone is aware of early identification criteria and how they can develop the children’s skills.

3. Regularly revisiting our audit of provision

We have used the standards in the NACE Curriculum Audit to discuss the various ways children can be taught at Cwmclydach, within the context of the new Curriculum for Wales. We focus on both independent and collaborative learning, with the needs of each child taken into consideration. 

As a whole staff at Cwmclydach, we have found the NACE Curriculum Audit an extremely effective way to plan for the new Curriculum for Wales, and to engage all stakeholders in our school community. During recent Covid times, meeting in person has been extremely difficult, but we have overcome this by sharing ideas through frequent virtual meetings and regularly looking at our self-evaluation – using the NACE Curriculum Audit – to see how we are able to move our children forward. By examining the audit together, we make sure this is a whole staff responsibility. 

We are continually updating our audit and we believe the key to using this successfully is through a whole school approach with all stakeholders’ opinions valued. We will continue to use the audit when planning for the new curriculum, as we feel it is highly beneficial to meet the needs of not just our MAT pupils, but every pupil in our care. It is a framework that we have found most beneficial as a working document to meet the needs of all our learners.

About the NACE Curriculum Audit©

Available free for NACE members (£250 +VAT for non-members), the NACE Curriculum Audit provides a comprehensive tool to support curriculum review at whole-school, subject or departmental level, with a focus on ensuring high-quality provision for more able learners and challenge for all. It is designed for use across all phases and contexts, with two versions available: one for schools in England/overseas (aligned to key aspects of curriculum considered by Ofsted), and one for schools in Wales (aligned to the new Curriculum for Wales and available in both English- and Welsh-medium). Learn more.

Kevin Sexton, Acting Headteacher at Challenge Award-accredited Chesterfield High School, shares the school’s use of learning journeys to support the development of character, culture and challenge throughout students’ career in education.

In our recent presentation at the NACE National Conference, we spoke about our use of learning journeys to support our focus on the three 3Cs used by the PiXL Club in school development – Currency, Character and Culture – as well as supporting our work with the NACE Challenge Framework to improve provision for more able learners and provide challenge for all.

For examples, you can view our school’s overall learning journey here and our learning journeys by subject here.

Looking beyond “currency” to focus on character, culture and challenge

The DfE’s 2017 report “Developing character skills in schools” found although 97% of surveyed schools claimed to promote desirable character traits, only 17% had a formalised plan or policy for this, less than half dedicated any time to staff training for character education, and fewer than a quarter had a dedicated lead for character development.

Currency (all data about the individual learner) will always be important. However, we also want our students to be better people. A newspaper article alerted me to statistics in the latest OECD report on health behaviour in school-aged children, which shared data on the percentage of 15-year-olds who agree that classmates are kind and helpful. The figure was 84% in the Netherlands, 82% in Iceland, 81% in Portugal 81%... and just 59% in England.

What success is it to have very academically successful students who do not know how to be kind or helpful to each other or those in the community around them? We wanted to plan a learning journey for our students that would give them opportunities to be challenged as they developed their character and culture. We asked ourselves:

• How do we ensure every young person has a chance to develop their character in this school?
• How will we celebrate young people developing their character?
• What work do we need to do with parents and other stakeholders?
• What will be included in a challenging character development programme at our school?
• What do we want more able learners to be like when they leave our school and move on?

The fourth C: adding “challenge” to the mix

Our involvement with NACE and use of the NACE Challenge Framework provided clarity on how character and culture could support currency; in some cases, it matched existing thinking and in others it inspired refreshing thinking. We used CPD time to look at key characteristics of more able learners across each subject. When completing the Challenge Framework audit, we looked at how we were enabling more able learners to show and develop their talents. We agreed that students who have developed key skills of leadership, organisation, resilience, initiative and communication (LORIC) do have better currency – both in terms of exam data and personal development data.

We discussed how we could use a learning journey to review our current character and culture programme, ask whether it leads to our “desirable end state” for students, identify gaps and introduce new strategies to bridge these gaps. Within this, we created learning journey opportunities that would match key aspects of the Challenge Framework and key characteristics that we were trying to develop for our more able learners. The learning journey model has also proved effective in keeping parents of more able learners involved in their performance both inside and outside the classroom – aligning with the focus on partnership, communication and rounded education emphasised by the Challenge Framework.

Developing a learning journey for your school

The learning journey model is designed to create a plan based on the 3Cs, spanning a learner’s whole school career. It should be understood by everyone in the school community, deliberately and explicitly shared and taught using a common language. It should create sequential activities and challenges which are open to everyone, of all abilities. Students are recognised and rewarded along their journey through schemes such as Duke of Edinburgh, Sports Leaders awards, and so on.

Here are five steps to develop a learning journey for your school:

1. Lead a session on character education for all staff, exploring its importance within subjects and across the whole school.
2.  Plot your current character and culture programme. As a group of staff or SLT, identify the gaps. What’s missing? Where does the new careers strategy need to be included (for example)? Does your learning journey lead to your school vision? Does it lead to the “desirable end state” for students?
3. On a blank learning journey template, plot out your school’s learning journey across all year groups ensuring all students are catered for.
4. Repeat this process for each year group, adding more detail.
5. Share your learning journeys with students, parents and staff so all stakeholders can see where learners are heading – in our case, from the start of Year 7 to the end of sixth form.

In line with the new education inspection framework, a learning journey gives you and your school a clear map of where your personal development work is going and how and why it is sequenced in such a way. When new demands come along or as cohorts change, you can review year by year to ensure you don’t lose direction. We have now used the same structure within specific departments, mapping out the 3Cs journey at departmental level and using this to support thinking around the “intent” aspect of the new framework.

Whole-school leadership

Within the classroom

Beyond the classroom

The Gold Programme was established for Year 9 students in 2012, aiming to:

• Give students every opportunity to broaden their intellectual experience well in advance of applying for university;
• Expose them to discussions and thinking beyond GCSE;
• Introduce them to universities, courses, and university alumni;
• Model a passion for learning and intellectual rigour.

In 2013, following our reaccreditation with the NACE Challenge Award, the NACE report recommended that Maiden Erlegh School should “create opportunities for younger [more able] students to work together as a group in the way that older students do through the Gold Programme”. In 2014, the school launched the KS3 Gold Programme, which has now evolved into the Silver Programme. This programme aims to:

• Provide students with the opportunity be stretched and challenged beyond the classroom;
• Help them become independent, higher-order learners;
• Celebrate their academic ability.
  

Students and parents are invited to a launch event at the beginning of Year 7 (Silver Programme) and Year 9 (Gold Programme). They are invited to join the programme if they are interested in the events that will be run throughout the year. Participation is not compulsory; the emphasis is on the student to engage with the opportunities provided. Each student is given a badge to wear on their blazer if they are a member of the Silver or Gold Programme.

The Gold and Silver Programmes offer a selection of sessions run voluntarily by staff after school, including:

• Studying… grade 9 skills which are subject-specific and include debating, critical essay writing, questioning
• Introducing… Latin, Greek, Italian, Chinese
• Exploring… psychology, criminology, philosophy, scene of crime officer (SOCO)
• Informing… medicine, Oxbridge, careers, developing resilience and using failure
• Thinking… “Gender neutrality: the way forward or PC gone mad?”; “Will we get a white Christmas?”; “The Lightning Process”; “The Palestinian Israeli conflict”; “Siege of Kenilworth Castle 1215”; “The Economics of Brexit”
• Reflecting… “If only I’d known then…”
• Visiting… Reading University, Thales, Tech Deck, STEM challenge days, Cambridge University

What has been the impact?

Learning walks and lesson observations indicate that there has been a noticeable shift in the pedagogy being used. Staff ensure students have enough time to think, question and explore ideas. At every data collection point, the more able data is analysed separately and included in the self-evaluation form for governors, senior leadership and teaching staff to evaluate. From this data it is clear that over 90% of the more able Year 7 students are making at least good or expected progress, or are now above national or well above national levels. KS4 and KS5 results analysis has also shown that students involved with the Gold Programme have performed well.

How is your school developing provision and support for more able learners? Contact us to share your story.