Vauxhall Primary School has achieved the Inclusive School Award with Flagship status.
Good Working Knowledge of SEND
The school is a small one – a one form entry school so there is a small team who pull everything together. It is part of a Federation of four local schools and there is an Executive Head who has an overall responsibility for overseeing all the schools in the Federation.
The Inclusion Lead came to the school 19 years ago as an NQT and worked across the Federation. She led EYFS in two schools and came back to Vauxhall Primary School after maternity leave and moved into inclusion. She did her SENCo training during Covid but she had already been working closely with the previous SENCo so had good working knowledge of SEND. The Inclusion Lead also returned as Assistant Head and joined the Small Leadership Team.
The Headteacher has been in post at the school for six years but was already working in the Federation. The Senior Team consists of the Head and two Assistant Heads and one Acting Assistant Head. There is no Deputy Head.
Every Penny Counts
Having enough teachers to take on the role of Subject Leads is difficult in a small school and many teachers take on more than one subject. The Headteacher is also overseeing music provision. Funding is a big issue and every penny counts. The school is currently looking at the planned Year 6 residential coming up as it’s costing £300 a child and they know that many parents will not be able to afford it.
Pupil Premium is used to subsidise those who are eligible but even so many families have no spare cash to pay out. They grapple with such issues around funding every day particularly around curriculum visits and after school clubs. Some sports clubs are provided free by different organisations, but others charge.
The school is mostly full but there are reduced numbers in Years 3 and 4 but reception and nursery are full.
The EYFS playground was damaged whilst other building works was going on, this left a lot of repair work to be done (it needs a complete revamp) and the Chair of Governors has been taking a lead on find funding for this project.
The staffing situation is quite tight and there are nine teachers (8 classes). The Assistant Head is also the SENCo and there is a Teaching Assistant in every class but most work part-time. There are about 15 TAs in all spread throughout the school with two in EYFS. There is very little 1:1 support as teachers take-on full responsibility for all children in their class. There are 4 children with EHCPs at the moment and the SENCo is currently applying for another 4. This is time consuming as she has to go back and forth with the Local Authority trying to get appropriate funding to support the children.
The school has had no exclusions for many years as they try to manage children with complex behaviours, but the Head acknowledges that she still has to “preserve my staff” in the face of extreme behaviours from a very small minority of children with complex behaviour needs. The school is looking carefully at Trauma Informed Practice and has had training for all staff on this subject. They have also introduced Zones and Regulation to help children manage their emotions and anxieties.
Community Feel is Really Important
The Headteacher is also the DSL and she is supported by others who make up the Safeguarding Team. The Head said she used to receive external supervision in this role but the person who carried out this role has since retired and has not been replaced. The safeguarding processes in place and the systems to record concerns and actions were discussed. The Team meets regularly to talk about different children and to ensure that everything is followed up thoroughly.
Our Assessor’s next meeting was with a group of parents. There were five parents in all with a number of children in different years. They were asked what they think the best thing about Vauxhall School was and why they had chosen it for their children. They said that the community feel is really important, and they talked about the supportive and friendly ethos and atmosphere. The staff at all levels including the Head, are very approachable
All the parents confirmed that communication between home and school is great, and there is a lot of it. Communication about your individual child (children) along with information about whole school issues keeps parents/carers fully informed about what is going on. They said everybody including the Head and Senior Team are very approachable and are very supportive. They always “ask us how we are” when we talk to them, and they mean it – they want to know. Parents liked the fact that Vauxhall Primary School is a local school and is integral to their community.
One of the parents (who has two children who attend the school) was volunteering in the school and then she decided she wanted to become a teacher because of the fabulous role models she saw who were teaching her children. She is now in her second NQT year and says she has been really well supported.
Another parent said consistency is something that is very important in a school, and she is pleased to note that so many teachers and support staff have been in post for a number of years and are known to pupils and parents. This means they have a stronger bond with the children and their families. She said it is all about the strong relationships staff have with children that makes the school such a positive place
Provision for children with special educational needs is excellent and one of the parents, who has a child with autism, explained her child never used to talk or engage but since being at the school she has really come on and is communicating with staff and children. The school has really supported her well and have gone way beyond what might be expected.
Another parent returned to the issue of positive relationships between staff and children and she said, “I love that”! She really does trust the school staff to look after her child who has serious problems managing his sometimes extreme behaviour. She said they “calm him down.” They help parents think about the next steps supporting their child. They are also helping her choose the right school for the next stage of her son’s education.
Diversity of the School
The diversity of the school is a very important fact that attracted parents to the school. The population is made of many different cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious groups that reflect the local community. This parent said, “they see your child’s strengths and they build on them.”
Many of the parental workshops were halted during the Covid pandemic but there are plans to set these up again this year.
Our Assessor was given a thorough tour of the school by three pupils who are members of the School Leaderships Teams.
They proved to be very knowledgeable about the school and they explained many details about what was happening in different areas of the school whilst they were at work. The atmosphere was calm and productive and children were obviously enjoying their learning. A full tour of the playgrounds was undertaken, and our Assessor discovered that the pupils had been making plans (as a pupil leadership group) for different suggestions and ideas they had for improving the school. These were very thoughtful, and they were keeping notes from ideas they collected from classmates and their own ideas.
Quality Provision
As an inclusive school the quality provision for every child – no matter what their needs is the core purpose and our Assessor met with several members of the Senior Team who were able to outline different aspects of that provision.
The passion for maths from both the Senior Leader and her successor was palpable. They are passionate about all children being proficient and confident with maths.
They spoke about the way Maths Mastery is being (and has been for many years) implemented across the school from reception upwards. They explained how it works and how it is appropriate for every child.
The main point is that all children must understand the concept being taught before they can move on to the next stage. The teachers assess the children as they go along and anybody who has not grasped the concept are retaught it that day (usually by a TA). There is also some pre-teaching to ensure that every child understands the topic in the detail required. Furthermore, the concepts are taught in real life contexts.
The school has been teaching maths through Maths Mastery for about 7 years and staff are really well trained and they have visited other schools also teaching this way. Some of the other schools in the Federation also use Maths Mastery and Vauxhall Primary School has supported them in this. Some staff are also NLEs and support other schools in the Borough and beyond. The outcomes for the school and Federation Schools in maths are amazing and they have maintained this success even through the pandemic.
In order to sustain the remarkable progress in this area there is continuous support and training for teachers and Teaching Assistants. They provide Booster classes (early morning) for children who need additional support. QUAD Planning with teachers is the norm and staff have the opportunity to visit other schools to see their practice.
Reading and Writing
Reading and writing and oracy have not been forgotten and there has been a lot of work in this area also. Read Write Inc (RWI) has been implemented in the for more than 15 years and is now well embedded and is very successful. There is also a Reading Mastery Programme and a Grammar Master Programme that have been developed by the school.
The curriculum is unique to the school and was written and developed by them over time.
Pupils are carefully tracked throughout the school. A baseline test is given after the first three weeks of term just to see where pupils are at with their learning and teachers can plan accordingly with their class and determine the individual level the pupils are at. A programme called Progress Masters is used to track the children and data is collected at the beginning of every term. In addition, Pupil Progress meetings enable discussions about individual children. Here they look specifically at EAL, More Able and SEN learners.
Quality First Teaching is key to the success of the school in supporting all pupils. The SENCo makes it clear that it is the teacher’s responsibility to support all the children in her/his classroom and she always asks, “what are you doing as a teacher first?” before additional interventions or support are made available. Training and development of teaching at all levels is paramount.
Our Assessor was told that children coming into EYFS come in very low and staff have a lot of work to do to get them up to expected standards. This was always an issue is this inner-city school with a very large number of disadvantaged pupils, but the situation has been compounded by the Covid pandemic where small children were virtually house bound and had little contact with other children. Staff in EYFS invite families into school to meet them and to talk about their children and their needs. This gives them the chance to engage with the children and to observe them at play. They still do home visits if there are particular issues that are highlighted. This is particularly important in terms of safeguarding. There are increasing number of SEN pupils coming through.
Provide Children With Opportunities
Out of 220 pupils on roll, 156 are identified as EAL and 100 as Pupil Premium. The Inclusion Coordinator/AH/SENCo also leads on EAL, and she provides specific training for teachers in this area. A school priority is to provide children with opportunities to talk in their lessons. It is all about enrichment for language. The way early language learners are taught and supported was discussed and our Assessor was informed they are not withdrawn from lessons and do not miss out in different subjects.
There are Booster Classes every morning for Year 6 and Year 2. It is part of the Covid catch-up programme. The children are more focussed in the morning and they seem to enjoy these sessions and they are making better progress by attending them. Most arrive on time but sometimes staff go and collect them – if families are a bit disorganised.
Pupil Premium children (who need to catch-up) are targeted and the school have managed to close the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils. They have managed to do this for many years which is an amazing achievement that is not replicated across the country.
Our Assessor asked if they are able to share the many strategies, they are using to address closing the gap and was told many of the teachers (including the AH/SENCo) and SLEs go out and support other schools and facilitate training. They were leading parts of the Lambeth Teaching Alliance (now dissolved).
Phonics Club
The next meeting was with the Literacy and Phonics Lead and the Early Years and Early Reading Lead (Assistant Head). Both teachers have been at Vauxhall Primary School for a number of years and they said RWI has been in place for as many years as they can remember, and they did the ‘original’ RWI training.
The Covid pandemic got in the way of ongoing training. However, work with the pupils continued throughout the lockdowns and bubbles and the programme is very successful and has had good outcomes for many years. Staff have appreciated the opportunity to retrain in this programme.
There is a ‘Phonics Club’ every morning and afternoon as well as phonics being taught in classrooms every morning. They have also run workshops for parents/carers to help them support their children at home. The RWI books are tailored to the children’s interests. There has been a lot of retraining in January this year and they started sending RWI phonics videos home. This gave parents the chance to see how sounds are made.
The Phonics Screening Check was done in June and is administered by the school. Staff are experienced and trained to carry this out. Phonics helps to highlight speech and language needs of individual children. There are mixed groups for children’s different stages in their phonics and there are some groups run in KS2 for children who are not quite where they should be. However, there are lots of other interventions and different resources to meet the needs of every child.
Other developments in literacy include the Early Words Together Project and they work with a publishing house and the school-trained volunteers to work with pupils and then run an activity together with staff and parents. This project halted due to the unreliability of some of the volunteers who cancelled at short notice and was expensive in terms of teacher/staff time organising. The Nellie Project was also introduced to help with speech and language development. In addition, the school library has been revamped and there is a popular lunchtime Library Club.
Two members of the teaching staff organise the different Pupil Voice groups. The school is a Rights Respecting Gold Award School, and the RR Curriculum framework is integrated into the whole school curriculum particularly the PHSE curriculum. The RR Lead oversees the work on the Team 12 group which is similar to a School Council and the Anti-bullying Lead organises the work of the anti-bullying ambassadors.
Our Assessor met with many members of TEAM 12 who explained they are going to be doing assemblies to inform other pupils who they are and what they do. They already made a presentation to the Parent Governor who is also a local Councillor and he told them all about his political role. This was before they went on a visit to The Houses of Parliament for a private tour.
The group are currently campaigning to elect the Head Boy and Head Girl. They learn how to run campaigns as part of the Rights Respecting framework, and they participate on the Outright Campaign every year. This is part of their citizenship education. They help to produce the ‘Vauxhall Voice’ which is a publication for parents/carers to tell them all about the children’s achievements.
The Anti-Bullying Ambassadors were equally passionate about their work and they meet once a term with the teacher in charge. Currently they are preparing for Anti-Bullying Week as part of the PHSE curriculum.
They want to stop people bullying others – although they said there is not much of this going on. They introduced a ‘Worry Box’ in every classroom and the teacher looks at it every day and follows up with any messages from children who express their worries.
Rights Respecting Framework
The final meeting was with the PHSE Lead and the Academic Support Mentor. The PHSE curriculum is very heavily influenced by the Rights Respecting Framework and now the Zones of Regulation Framework. The PHSE produces medium and long term PHSE plans for every class and she also produces many lesson plans and lesson objectives for teachers to use.
She is able to meet with the other PHSE Leads across the Federation and they produce and share resources that can be used in all schools. They produce different ideas for different age groups and also make good use of mental health and wellbeing resources produced by Lambeth.
They also run NSPCC workshops in upper key stages – such as ‘Action Breaks Silence.’ Children have PHSE lessons once a week and it is usually a discussion. RSE is also delivered during this curriculum time. If a particular issue arises in one class or is currently in the news the school can change the programme to ensure it is covered.
The new Learning Academic Mentor started working as a parent volunteer and was quick to apply for the post (of mentor) when it was advertised. She has only been in post since September. She has started working with pupils in Year 2 because many missed much of their reception year during the Covid pandemic and could not even hold a pen when they arrived.
Her role is to work with a small number of pupils who need additional support to help them access the curriculum. She teaches the same thing as the class teacher, but does so at a slower pace. This gives them more confidence in their learning. She plans with the class teacher and just ensures she goes back to basics. This work is going well but it is too soon to measure the impact of this work.
Currently the Academic Mentor is doing her ELSA training as there are so many children with emotional needs. There are two other ELSAs but they work part-time and more capacity is needed across the school.
Vauxhall Primary School is a small school that is making a big impact on its community. Inclusion is a priority and this is obvious to anyone who enters the school. Staff at all levels are committed to including all children and to ensuring they achieve their very best.
Talented and experienced teachers have high expectations and achieve very good outcomes. Pastoral care for children and their families is not forgotten and staff wellbeing is achieved through targeted activities and a collegiate ethos and approach.
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.