St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive School has achieved the Inclusive School Award with Centre of Excellence status.
Pushing Inclusive Practice
St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive School has certainly continued its inclusive journey since its IQM award, in 2021. There is a wide range of evidence to show that the school is pushing inclusive practice on all 8 elements of the IQM award.
Reviewing new accountability structure for all teachers, not just NQTs sharing good practice, was an area for development from the IQM review. Now the Deputy Headteacher monitors Quality First Teaching Practice through a learning walk. They then discuss points with heads of departments and individuals. The learning points for focus are shared beforehand, and then teachers are graded on emerging, developing or strong. Those at the emerging stage of a focus can then observe a colleague who has been observed as having a strength for this learning point of practice. The Deputy Headteacher leads bi-weekly teaching and learning focus sessions for staff, mainly teaching, but all points covered and discussed are shared the next day with TAs by the SENCo.
Staff talked about an open-door policy where heads of departments walk through. They said that the Headteacher often visits classes to talk to students and were pleased to share that this was in foundation subject lessons also. The Headteacher also has his own weekly teaching commitment.
Useful Practice
Staff feel that this smaller focus, learning walk approach is a much more useful practice than the previously lengthy formal observations.
Our Assessor did raise concern that this means that only one member of staff is undertaking any formal observations and was told that this aids consistency of judgement. The Assessor shared that this also meant lack of upskilling, moderation, dialogue and succession planning for Quality First Teaching monitoring, not to mention the workload for that one member of staff.
Another area for development from the IQM assessment was that support staff had indicated that new guidelines are needed for teachers on how to collaborate with a Teaching Assistant or LSA in the classroom.
The school has addressed this in a number of ways:
• At the start of the year, Teaching Assistants were involved in helping teachers plan classroom sitting plans.
• All learning assistants are referred to as TAs now, no longer either a TA or LSA.
• All TAs are observed.
• All TAs attend INSET days.
• Biweekly meetings are held to review practices and share initiatives.
As part of the Assessor’s learning walk, they spoke to a newly appointed TA and they spoke very confidently about onboarding support, peer work and engagement with teaching staff.
Pupils Undertake Huge Amount of Charity Work
The school Chaplain offers chapel support and guidance for those who want it and leads school prayers. They also support and coordinate the huge amount of charity work the pupils undertake. As is the St Thomas More way, students in their own forms choose what charities they will support and how they will go about that support.
The Chaplain feels that “inclusion is fabulous at this school in terms of support and training.” They went on to share that there have been conversations at Diocese level about inclusion and about allowing pupils to use their voice and wanting to change things with the hope that their young people are informed and feel able to ask questions, so that they can better piece their thoughts all together.
The fact that St Thomas More is a relatively small school means that each member of staff wears many hats. The class sizes are large, with many observed above 30. Senior staff talked about recruitment difficulties, not just in terms of staff of colour, but also filling vacancies for teaching and non- teaching staff.
The Headteacher shared the fact that the school was doing so well, they fared better than many in the surrounding area where recruitment of teaching staff is concerned. Staff shared the anxiety that can be real for some people of colour in terms of physically travelling to the school’s location.
The school is carrying some TA vacancies currently, so this does mean that TAs are supporting large groups of children. This work is intense, and our Assessor suggested that a system of supervision might be considered to support them. The school counsellor already has supervision support in place.
Staff Feel Valued and Cared For
Staff did talk about how valued and cared for they all feel. There are some wellness initiatives in place like a “no work” zone in the staff room, the school counsellor running a wellbeing committee, local social events, a sensible marking books policy, and of course exemplary pupil behaviour. A topic of discussion included using what the school has to offer staff as recruitment enticement. The discussion also included thinking about where they advertise and to maybe consider making relationships with diverse, community and faith groups and sharing opportunities through these relationships.
Our Assessor did discuss, the notion that commitment and passion can be a non-renewable fuel and that overload should be monitored acutely, especially in light of the lead St Thomas More will take on rolling out the inclusion agenda and IQM application across the MAT.
A School Which Listens
St Thomas More shows evidence of a school which listens, learns and applies, then listens and learns again, always asking what difference have we made? They have excellent results; they do not need to work on anything major for Ofsted acclamation.
However, as the Headteacher explained, they have reviewed their admission policy so that each year more vulnerable pupils will be successful in their application to join the school. They have looked at how they can keep giving their pupils extra life relevant experiences, over and above what any realistic expectation of a school is. One significant example of this is their approach to the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Every pupil is put through the Bronze DoE Award; St Thomas More has made it accessible to all. They are now the biggest Duke of Edinburgh Centre in London.
St Thomas More walks the walk. They want their students to be informed to make choices. Every Thursday from 8.40-9.40am, Personal Development is the curriculum focus. Where behaviour management is concerned, their sanctions are based on educating pupils about the impact of their choices, not just punitive. Our Assessor asked what is the impact of this approach? They were informed that their tracking shows very few repeats of inappropriate behaviour from that pupil.
This school is like an Inclusion stick of Rock, cut it open and you will see listening and learning written all the way through it. The commitment from the Headteacher and inclusion team to lead this and support their colleagues in doing so is exemplary.
Find out more about the IQM Inclusive School Award
If your school is interested in obtaining the IQM Inclusive School Award or you wish to talk to a member of the IQM team please telephone:
028 7127 7857 (9.00 am to 5.00 pm)
or email: [email protected] for further details.
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