Aligning attainment and wellbeing to track pupils’ progress
Information about the school
Pentrehafod School is an 11-16 English-medium mixed comprehensive school serving the eastern side of Swansea. The school’s population has increased gradually over the last few years and there are currently 1,035 pupils on roll. The school is a lead school in an initial teacher training education partnership.
Context and background to the effective or innovative practice
The overarching vision was to build and utilise a whole-school tracking system that aligns attainment and wellbeing to provide a more ‘rounded’ overview of a child’s progress. This system was created to allow teachers and non-teachers to identify the most appropriate and effective intervention at the earliest possible opportunity in order to support the whole child. Resources in every school have to be prioritised, and a system like this, providing a wide range of ‘live’ data, allows leaders to maximise the opportunity for every child so they get the intervention they need.
Description of nature of strategy or activity
Leaders’ vision was to develop a system of tracking that draws upon a wide range of information for each pupil to ensure sharp and targeted support for each individual pupil. The system includes end of key stage predictions, targets for each pupil to raise aspirations, as well as the outcomes of the online wellbeing survey to provide an informative overview of wellbeing and standards. This overview incorporates pupils’ reading ages and attendance rates. Teachers contribute to the system regularly sharing information about academic progress and each pupils’ attitude to learning (ATL) on a 4-point scale. Ideally, there should be a clear link between academic success and a positive ATL. This tracking data is colour coded against the other key information held on the child to help staff look holistically at each pupil’s progress and identify the precise nature of any barriers to learning or wellbeing.
What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?
This work has contributed to an improvement in academic outcomes for students and an improved sense of wellbeing for many.
How have you shared your good practice?
Pentrehafod School has very well-established school-to-school relationships with three other Swansea secondary schools. The school also has robust links with seven partner primary schools. There is a cross phase student voice working group and a variation of the tracking system runs across the cluster. The school has shared its sophisticated systems with most of these establishments and wider. Most recently, a school in mid-Wales is using Pentrehafod’s RAP model as a vehicle for targeting individual student success.