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.

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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.

NACE Challenge Award Adviser Elaine Ricks-Neal reviews emerging trends from the first round of Ofsted reports under the new education inspection framework (EIF).

There’s certainly a very different feel to the new Ofsted reports. Whilst they are clearly written with parents in mind – reflected in the use of accessible terminology and avoidance of too much detail in the published reports – there is no doubt that schools’ curriculum design and delivery is under forensic scrutiny. And although there is little explicit reference to more able learners, the importance of high-quality provision for this group is implicit in the strong focus on curriculum planning, subject-level provision, and breadth and depth of learning.

Style and structure of the new reports

The reports are written in a surprisingly simple style which Ofsted has said is intended to be parent-friendly, getting right to the point and largely steering clear of education jargon – for example, “The school is not a results factory.”

Both section 8 and section 5 reports look very similar, each opening with a short paragraph addressing the question “What is it like to attend this school?” – summing up the school ethos, behaviour, attendance and day-to-day opportunities. In most cases, the report’s opening statements are positive, but any issue linked with behaviour or low standards will be simply – even bluntly – highlighted; for example, “Pupils enjoy school, but they should be doing much better.”

The reports then move on to the main section: “What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?” – bundling together judgements for the quality of education, personal development, and leadership and management. This can make it quite hard to tease out the reasons for any difference in section 5 judgements of any of these strands.

Finally, there is a paragraph on safeguarding, followed by improvement points.

What key themes are emerging?

·         Focus on curriculum design and subject plans

The reports may have a simple style, but it’s clear that curriculum plans and schemes of work have really been unpicked to check how well “subject leaders plan the curriculum so that pupils build on their knowledge so that they know and remember more”. If your curriculum is not coherent and well thought-through, there is no hiding place. Not surprisingly, a very frequent weakness is that subject planning is not “precisely planned and sequenced.” In primary schools this is often in foundation subjects. There is also real drilling down into phonics, the reading curriculum, mathematics and the quality of SEND provision.

If standards are referred to, which is not the case in all reports, it is usually a simple broad comment – for example, “pupils achieve well” – and linked back to how well subjects are planned and taught. This doesn’t mean results are not deemed important, and schools which have dropped a grade will usually have a critical comment about standards, but the emphasis is on the impact of curriculum and the way it is planned and taught in bringing about those outcomes.

·         Warnings against curriculum narrowing

In secondary schools, there is the same focus on sequential planning, but also criticism of any perceived curriculum narrowing or lack of entitlement, especially for SEND and disadvantaged pupils. Also under scrutiny are the two-year KS3, low EBacc uptake and sixth-formers who are not accessing work experience. This may be unsettling for many secondary schools who might feel they will now need a curriculum rethink to avoid Ofsted disapproval.

In primary schools, if pupils miss lessons for intervention sessions, a judgement may be made as to whether they are missing out too much on the full curriculum.

What about more able learners?

Tom Cragg, vice principal and line manager of the more able coordinator at Chelsea Academy, describes the steps taken to maximise the feedback given by NACE following the Academy’s successful Challenge Award assessment day.

I am vice principal at Chelsea Academy, a Church of England Academy situated just off London’s famous King’s Road, with a vibrant and highly diverse student body of just over 1,000. A high percentage of our students are pupil premium, but they have great ambitions, which makes the Academy a fantastic place to work. We believe that we have given our more able students a great platform to go on and achieve success through bespoke curriculum pathways, targeted intervention and by exposing them to opportunities that have broadened their horizons.

After the initial euphoria of achieving the NACE Challenge Award, all of the relevant post-holders sat down together and read through the report, highlighting where development points related to their areas of responsibility, for example, higher-level questioning for the Lead Practitioner Team or embedding intervention strategies for the overall Raising Standards Leader. Two weeks later, we revisited the report in a leadership team meeting, and agreed where the most significant areas for development would fit into next year’s Academy development plan.

Sustaining the momentum

Naturally, a lot of hard work went into presenting the Academy in its best possible light on the assessment day, so it was important to celebrate all of the positive feedback we received, as well as highlighting the points for improvement. Rather than present this in one whole staff meeting slot, we thought it would have more impact using our weekly “sharing good practice” briefing slots over the course of one half-term. So for five weeks in a row, we shared one “www” (what went well) and one “ebi” (even better if) with the whole staff.

This information was also published on our learning cloud so that essentially, the more able agenda was “marketed” in as many places as possible and as often as possible to keep it fresh in people’s minds. In order to sustain this momentum, we will be co-planning our weekly CPD sessions for the next academic year with the Lead Practitioner Team, as well as recycling tips and examples of good practice relating to our feedback in our weekly staff bulletin.

Engaging parents in more able provision

The NACE audit was highly effective in bringing to light areas for improvement and as we compiled our evidence, we realised that it had been a while since we had undertaken a parental survey. So we asked for parents’ views on a range of more able-related questions. There was a clear pattern of overwhelmingly positive feedback from the upper years, but a less consistent level of positivity as we read through the survey results in the lower years. So it was clear that we needed to engage with the parents of our more able learners in Key Stage 3 in particular.

For this reason, we will be running a more able parents’ information evening in June for parents of students in Years 7-10. In my next blog post, I will share full details of the event, along with some reflections about how it went.

All of the above has helped not only to ensure that the momentum gained from achieving the Challenge Award is sustained, but also raise the profile of the more able agenda on our colleagues’ list of priorities.