Churchill Park School, Fairstead, Norfolk, has achieved Flagship School status.
Network Meetings
Churchill Park remains the lead school in the KWEST trust and as such, is an active member of the monthly SEND network meetings. These meetings enable member schools to update on local issues/developments but now also enables concerns to be brought to the meetings for advice and assistance. Invitations have now been extended to members of the county Inclusion team, educational psychologists and speakers on schools’ projects e.g. literacy project. I would strongly recommend that Churchill Park checks out similar arrangements in other parts of the country where IQM accredited schools operate a similar system. i.e. Local Inclusion Forum Teams (Kent: lead school Goldwyn).
Targets
Targets agreed at the review meeting 2018 were as follows:
Sharing Best Practice
• Support KWEST schools to complete and submit evaluation for IQM and promote good practice across the MAT. Links to SIDP – To develop opportunities to share best practice across KWEST networks.
Working with Parents
• Improving links and engagement with parents through values days, coffee mornings and networking and website. Links to SIDP – Continue to improve support available for families. To build relationships with parents and carers to aid pupil learning.
A Personalised Curriculum
• SIDP – To ensure that the curriculum is personalised to the needs of the pupils for example PECs, communication, functional skills, sensory and more able learners.
Update on Targets
Target one has been fully met as the six trust member schools being supported and advised regarding their IQM accreditation have all now successfully been recognised by IQM as Inclusive schools, one of which has moved directly to Centre of Excellence status. The schools found the interventions and advice by staff from Churchill Park invaluable, which has in turn, further developed the skills of staff from Churchill Park in consultancy and training.
Information is more Parent Friendly
Whilst target 2 was aimed at improving links with and further develop the engagement of parents, the school has far surpassed all expected progress. Following the appointment of the new Parent Support Advisor there has also been a total revision of the existing website, driven initially by an intention to offer more parent friendly information. The Parent section of the website now contains detailed signposting for effective advice such as: access to direct parent support from the schools PSA, useful links and contact details, class team email addresses, Ofsted references (parents), Attendance and school forms/letters to parents, meals and dietary issues, school procedures and public health information. The most innovative and comprehensive section is titled ‘Ideas and Strategies.’ The initial statement, ‘We want to enable parents to have a positive impact on their child’s education,’ is a clear explanation of the content. The huge range of topics include: Communication, visual aids, social stories, OT, English, Maths, Science, Attention Autism, Intensive interaction, App List, Online safety and more!
Highly Engaging and Informative
Each section gives user friendly information together with embedded video clips to make the user experience highly engaging and informative. The school is now developing analytics which will enable them to track the use of the website and the impact on parental engagement. The website is an outstanding example of technical expertise directed towards a powerful educational tool to inform and engage parents into children’s learning.
A Curriculum Review
Target 3 has similarly been instrumental in the school making significant changes. Following a curriculum review conducted over the past 12 months, SLT determined that the current curriculum was not meeting the individual needs of all learners. Lesson observations and teacher feedback confirmed this particularly noting those learners at the very extremes of abilities. It was also felt that the curriculum as it stood did not include sufficient life skills and vocational training.
Evidence for Learning
As part of the changes the school has decided to change from ‘Classroom Monitor’ to ‘Evidence for Learning,’ Evidence for Learning: ‘provisions are able to evidence, assess, review and plan for meeting the unique needs of their SEND learners, especially in light of the Rochford Review. The app allows ALL stakeholders in a child, young person or adult’s learning and development to quickly and easily gather photo and video evidence, linked to the individual’s learning goals as well as any key skills’ frameworks. Observations can be annotated and tagged to reflect your school’s basket of indicators.’
Tracking and Assessing
The school has also developed a bespoke colour coded system regarding tracking and assessing making the whole process more parent friendly. SLT and teaching staff have developed comprehensive descriptors which now organise learning groups into, Pre-formal, Semi-formal and Formal.
Individualised Pathways
These groups follow individualised pathways which are able to mix and match in the upper school groups. The rainbow curriculum began using descriptors from the National Curriculum and has now been modified to match need. The school now has full curriculum expectations in English, Maths, Science, Humanities, RE and PE.
Point in Time Assessments
The overall impact of the changes, including the Point in Time Assessments has been to provide a much broader curriculum which meets the needs all learners, EHCPs are now broken down into personalised learning goals and considerably reduces the number of possible interventions when reassessing learners’ progress.
Exceptional Progress Against Targets
Churchill Park has, over the past 12 months, made exceptional progress, far in excess of expectations, against the agreed targets from the review in 2018. The school has placed itself as a Centre of Excellence within the KWEST trust and has indeed met all of the expected criteria for an IQM Centre of Excellence. As the SLT has indicated their wish to now be considered for accreditation as an IQM Flagship School, I can, without hesitation, offer my complete support. In support of their request the school has prepared a Flagship project proposal for 2019-20. The project focusses around an exciting development for the school, that of establishing an offsite sixth form provision which would be instrumental in providing pathways to adulthood as a curriculum to improve employment, good health, independent living and community inclusion.
Expertise and Commitment
It was a privilege visit to Churchill Park School again and see at first hand, both the expertise and commitment of teaching and support staff in their continuing drive to provide the very best possible teaching and learning environments which, with clear links to the Inclusion agenda, challenge and engage all learners giving them clear pathways into further education and/or employment.
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