Ethos and Spirit
The Inclusion team at Holte School in Birmingham serve an ethnically diverse and culturally rich, predominantly Muslim, community. Within the Lozells area, gang activity, elevated levels of crime, poor housing and a drug culture impact on pupils and their families. The area is classed as one of the most deprived in the country and is a first point of settlement for many economic migrants, refugees and displaced persons.
The demographic trend is for economically successful families to move out of the area, leaving the most vulnerable behind. This all leads to big challenges for the Inclusion team in terms of attendance, punctuality, behaviour, safeguarding and the mental health and well-being of pupils and has been exacerbated by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and a recent surge in incidents of violence in the local community.
The ethos and spirit of Holte School are both promoted and represented by five core values; collaboration, aspiration, respect, equality and responsibility. These are expected to be demonstrated by staff and pupils and strive through education, extra-curricular opportunities and CPD to allow all members of Holte School to excel.
These values are visible throughout the school community, through assemblies, PSHE and Citizenship, the SMSC curriculum, including SMSC Newsletters, posters, displays, desktops, core values cards and through student leadership applications.
The school is committed to promoting fundamental British values through the five core values and students SMSC development which permeates all aspects of the school’s work and its ethos. The Inclusion team is an outstanding, established and experienced team who have significant experience of outreach work and have been recognised locally and nationally for their work.
Welcoming Environment
If you visit Holte School you will find a welcoming environment where good relationships exist between pupils/pupils and pupils/staff. The school has high standards and high expectations and has worked very hard to ensure that these are consistently met across the school. All pupils understand the high expectations of them and the calm environment experienced during lesson time is testament to this.
There are clear policies for dealing with poor behaviour and these are well understood by staff. Staff are asked to model the behaviour Holte School wishes to see in students and to demonstrate how respect and positivity can work for everyone. Data on behaviour is readily available to all staff via the Sleuth behaviour management system and this is used widely by our pastoral team to get the right interventions in place with the right pupils.
When things do go wrong for individuals and sanctions have to be put in place, they will be supported after by the impactful inclusion team to address the reasons for the issue they became embroiled in and how they can put things right moving forward.
Holte School has created an ‘internal Early Help team’ that consists of a School Nurse, Counsellors, a link Police Officer, a Learning Support Centre staffed by five mentors, an Educational Welfare Officer, a Student Soical Worker, City Year mentors, a Yr7 Health and Wellbeing mentor and Step Together youth workers who patrol the pupils’ journey home at the end of the day.
Positive Peace Project
The Positive Peace project Holte School is engaged in with Cambridge University is helping to double down on creating that culture of peace and respect across the school. Incidents of bullying and discrimination are traditionally low but staff are sensitive to them happening and record all incidents thoroughly. They are rigorously followed up and dealt with to ensure, as much as possible, that there is no repeat. Pupils are well aware that bullying, discrimination and sexual harassment will not be tolerated in Holte.
Holte School has a very structured and detailed form tutor programme that includes a check-in at the start of the week and a check-out at the end of the week, discussion around the SMSC newsletter, academic mentoring, an assembly programme etc etc. The SMSC Days also cover a broad range of topics allowing students to learn about many vital issues in a quest to make them effective citizens in today’s modern world.
Staff make use of a wide range of external presenters on these days to add to the delivery, and the development of an in-house SRE team has helped make provision in this area ever more effective.
As an ‘early adopter’ school for RSHE, Holte developed an outstanding curriculum for relationships, sex and health education in conjunction with the school’s Umbrella Sexual Health Nurse. Provision exceeds national expectations and has been developed in conjunction with all stakeholders. This includes addressing LGBTQ+ issues with all students Y7-13.
Holte operates a large range of excursions and trips during the school year which helps broaden the horizons of the young people who have often not travelled outside of Lozells/Newtown. There is also a range of student leadership opportunities and clubs/activities that pupils can access to develop their resilience and confidence.
Calm and Nurturing
Holte School makes a big deal of the mental health and wellbeing of all students and the Student Wellbeing Charter, which was constructed by pupils and staff together, is an effective reminder of how much effort goes into ensuring our pupils are effectively looked after when they are in our care. The school is confident that it has created an environment where pupils can flourish as individuals, safe in the knowledge that they are in a calm and nurturing environment.
The school has been the recipient of many awards recently including the Safeguarding Alliance’s ‘Safeguarding Leadership Award’, the Anti Bullying Alliance’s ‘United against Bullying Award’ and the Carnegie Centre of Excellence for Mental Health Award.
The leaders within the Inclusion, Pastoral and Safeguarding sphere have developed a local and national reputation for their work and sit on many committees and advisory groups locally while also supporting schools further afield and regularly make presentations to national audiences.