The Holmer Green Journey

The Headteacher, Michael Jones, reflects on three key strategies that have led to improved attainment and in particular the highest GCSE results in the school’s history.

Staff Recruitment, Development and Retention

“Getting the right people on the bus!”

The first step on the road to achievement has been the recruitment of highly skilled and motivated teachers and support staff. September 2004 saw the arrival of a significant number of NQTs, Middle Leaders together with the expansion of the Senior Leadership Team. Each member was selected for their belief in the ability of all young people to achieve, together with a commitment to high standards in their area of expertise.

In response to the opportunity afforded by the workforce reform initiative, key non teaching staff were promoted to key positions developed to support student learning and development. The Pastoral System that had hitherto followed a traditional model of 5 Year Heads was transformed and expanded into a model in which two Key Stage Leaders (in KS3 & 4) were supported by a team of non teaching staff. New roles included:

• Pastoral Managers at Key Stage 3 & 4 – Non teaching staff able to respond to student and parental concerns on a daily basis together with providing admin support for the Key Stage Leaders enabling them to provide a more strategic role in the school.
• Learning Mentor – Using funding from Aim Higher initiative, support was put in place on a one-to-one basis to transform de-motivated students and raise student expectations of success post 16.
• Examinations Officer – Empowered not only to successfully manage organisation of external examinations in school but also conduct analysis of results to identify issues such as coursework marking as it related to under achievement.
• Data Manager – Put in place to transform the whole school use of data and target setting. Year by year has extended the use of data such that currently all students have current assessment data tracked three times a year against FFT predictions and Senior Leadership and Middle Managers are fully supported in targeting strategies to intervene and raise attainment.
• Cover Supervisor – Introduced in September 2006 - Runs a team of in school Cover teachers who provide teaching whenever a member of staff is out of school. This has removed an onerous burden on teaching staff and non contact time can now be exclusively used for planning, preparation and assessment.
• Site management team – Responsible for leading and supporting the development of the site and the learning environment. They have transformed the physical infrastructure of the school, remodelling classrooms, and installing ICT resources and overseen the development of new building work.

CPD and staff development became a key feature of the school with a focus on staff mentoring and coaching colleagues. INSET days became opportunities to share best practice and for curriculum areas to highlight aspects of their current working in areas such as Assessment for Learning, Gifted and Talented work and Learning to Learn. Across subject areas, staff were paired to enable more experienced colleagues to coach and support the professional development of less experienced peers.

Staff retention has also been a key feature of the success over the past four years. The SLT has worked hard to help build a supportive and nurturing culture in the staffroom and in finding creative ways to say “thank you” and “well done” – leading to high staff morale. This was acknowledged by the retention of Investors in People Status in 2007 and the Healthy Schools Award in December 2009.

Behaviour for Learning

“Catching the kids being good!”

With a new attitude towards staffing came a new attitude towards behaviour management. An antiquated reactive pastoral policy was replaced by a more proactive and positive behaviour for learning policy.

The first step was removing the Pastoral/Curriculum divide that had existed in the school. Instead of Heads of Year there are now Key Stage Leaders and they are leaders of Learning. Responsibility for behaviour for learning rests in the first instance with the class teacher and in the second with the Head of Department or Faculty. Key Stage Leaders model the qualities we look for from our students – respect, tolerance, high aspirations – and respond to whole school issues as they affect or relate to their Key Stage.

An in school referral unit was replaced with the construction of a support timetable in which every member of staff was informed where support within their curriculum area could be found if and when students refused to follow clear classroom expectations. This reassessment of the role of all middle managers gave them far greater status in terms of student development at Holmer Green.

In essence “Getting the right people on the bus” transformed the staffroom culture – from “what can you expect of a Secondary Modern kid?” to “What can we do to help every child succeed?” New initiatives have included:

• Extra Curricular Activity – Since September 2004 there has been quite simply an explosion of opportunities for all our students, be it Sports or Arts activities, Duke of Edinburgh or regular trips to France and Spain. In virtually every curriculum area there has been the introduction of at least one new extra curricular initiative.
• Assembly programme – Since September 2004 a more regular and rigid assembly programme has been introduced led by the SLT but with regular input from both Curriculum Areas and Student Groups. These have been used to reinforce high expectations and celebrate student success.
• Student Empowerment – Student leadership has become a major feature of school life from the Year 10 mentoring Year 7 scheme, through the Young Enterprise groups (featured on BBC Newsnight for winning the group section of the national “Make Your Mark With a Tenner” competition) to the proactive Student Sports Committee that have just been awarded a grant from the Youth Opportunities Fund for £3,500 to equip a new gym.
• Specialist School Status – The award of Specialist school status in Business and Enterprise from September 2006 has had a huge galvanising effect being one of the first major indicators that the school was moving forward and that we should set our sights to compete with the very best Comprehensive Schools nationwide. An enterprise attitude has been introduced as a key component of behaviour for learning identifying and praising students who are proactive and independent learners. This has been made a feature of lesson observations and is an expectation of all teachers in all subjects.

Our highly talented and professional teachers recognise that “catching the kids being good” and more importantly “being successful” and making this evident to the student body is the most effective way of raising student morale so they assume the mindset in order for them to achieve the best results in the school’s history.

Personalising Learning

“If we’re good enough, the kids are smart enough!”

 The Whole School Improvement Plan since 2004 has centred upon a whole school approach to Personalising Learning for every child in a determined effort to raise attainment. Aside from innovative use of workforce reform mentioned above, the key strands have included:

• Assessment for Learning – a whole school initiative launched in 2003 and developed through INSET sessions and County support in 2004. From 2005, good practice in this area has been shared and AfL has become an expectation in all lessons taught at Holmer Green.
• Student Voice – Developed through the Behaviour for Learning agenda mentioned above, SV in the classroom has become a key ingredient of AfL – i.e. students articulating success criteria, peer assessment, student led lesson observations have become an important feature of classroom experience.
• Learning to Learn – launched in 2006 and led initially by the Humanities Department, staff have been trained in learning styles and the student body are now taught to recognise their own strengths and areas for development in these areas. Resources and pedagogic practice have been shared across curriculum areas following Learning to Learn Inset.
• ICT expansion and new Learning Resource Centre – following the new Specialist School Status in September 2006, there has been a transformation of the ICT support and computer/e-learning opportunities for every child in the school. Every child now has considerable out of school e-learning resources and support for their learning with extended hours in school support offered by our new Learning Resource Centre.
• Data tracking, analysis and Target Setting Culture - Since September 2006 this has become an extremely powerful tool for driving up attainment and targeting under achievement and deploying resources and strategies efficiently to support individual learning. Our annual Target Setting and Review Days together with Parents Evenings have now become supported with data evidence of predicted levels and grades measured against FFT predictions. From September 2007 we have been able to produce individual teacher class lists which feature current teacher predicted grades plus expected current attainment (FFT data) and colour coordinated indicators of which students are on track, above or below expectations. Every individual child (their parent and teachers) is/are made aware of his or her progress on their personal learning journey.
• From Good to Outstanding – “Being good isn’t good enough”. Since September 2007 a new lesson observation proforma has been developed for use at Holmer Green – listing our 9 Key Areas for effective teaching and learning. Expectations at Satisfactory, Good and Outstanding levels are clearly set out and this is part of our current drive (alongside our recent January INSET) to raise teaching standards in all lessons and increase the frequency of outstanding practice. Our work on Teaching and Learning was described as “exemplary” by Ofsted 2008.