Developing people and processes to secure effective school improvement
Information about the school
Cwmbach Primary School is located within the village of Cwmbach near Aberdare, with part of the catchment area being identified as a Flying Start area. The school has 247 pupils on roll, from Nursery to Year 6, with nine mainstream classes plus two centrally funded Complex Learning Needs Classes, one in Foundation Phase and one in Key Stage 2. The school provides full time Nursery provision from the September following the child’s third birthday. The school employs eight full-time equivalent (FTE) class teachers, plus two HLTAs and a 70% teacher. These staff are supported by eight FTE Teaching Assistants and 4.5 FTE SNSA.
The percentage of free school meals pupils has increased significantly over the last few years to 21.8%. The proportion of pupils who are identified as having additional learning needs is 25.2%. The proportion of pupils for whom English is an additional language is 2.9%.
Context and background to the effective or innovative practice
Despite a programme of continuing school improvement over a number of years, many changes and initiatives were not sustained and staff struggled to “buy in” to the vision despite high quality training and resources. For example, in September 2018, when asked to give feedback on each other’s classroom environments, very few staff present were willing to give positive or constructive praise to the group; even to peers that they had longstanding working relationships with. When introducing new initiatives, policies or strategies, no-one challenged senior leaders or even asked questions. While most staff would take on board the training, uptake by some was limited and in a minority of cases, there was no change in their practice. Reasons given by staff for not implementing changes varied from their perception of the initiative, their abilities, their home lives and well-being, to how leaders introduced them.
Description of nature of strategy or activity
As part of professional development undertaken by the headteacher and Deputy headteacher, they found that Patrick Lencioni’s ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team’ almost perfectly described the situation that the school was in; a group of people that worked together, called themselves a team, but with very little challenge and egos that fought against the development of a true team ethos. A staff survey identified that almost all staff were happy with the status quo, unaware of what effective teamwork was and the benefits of developing professional challenge.
Throughout 2018-2019, a People Development Plan (PDP) was written, which sat alongside the School Improvement Plan (SIP) and sought to develop the whole staff’s understanding of the importance of their role in school improvement and how to work collaboratively with professional challenge. This plan shaped how the school approached improvement and reference to the staff’s feedback was made regularly. Through structured activities that encouraged discussion and built trust, significant improvement was seen, particularly in the quality of discussion and debate. Several members of staff began to professionally challenge decisions, leading to more staff embracing change.
To encourage teamwork and to introduce academic texts in an accessible way, a book club was introduced, which all staff participated in. Groups chose which book they would like to study, which included ‘The Chimp Paradox’ by Professor Steve Peters and ‘Legacy’ by James Kerr. Book Clubs enabled personal and professional reflection and provided opportunities for collaboration and open discussion, which did not relate to an individual’s role or responsibility within the school. Each group collaborated on their findings and presented to the whole staff.
Due to all school improvement previously being driven by the senior leadership team, middle leaders had very little knowledge and experience of school improvement processes and monitoring, evaluation and review (MER) activities. During 2019 and 2020, School Improvement Teams (SITs) were developed, comprising all middle leaders. A three term cycle was devised where SITs would receive professional development in MER activities; book scrutiny, collecting pupil voice and learning walks. Each SIT was assigned a senior leader to model, inform, coach and mentor their team in relation to the MER focus and school improvement priority. This support included initial data capture, writing an action plan, evaluating the findings and formulating reports using a FADE (Focus, Analysis, Development, Evaluation) approach. At the end of each term, the SITs presented a summary of findings to the HT and shared MER feedback with individual staff, developing their confidence to share good practice and holding challenging but professional conversations. The middle leaders in the SITs then remonitored following a short period of development and implementation time. Each term, the teams rotated to another aspect of MER so by the end of the year, they had experienced the three focus MER elements. Staff meetings were designated to this and a review of the 1265 hours timetable ensured that workload considerations were given.
During 2021 and 2022, the PDP continued. SLT assigned staff to a new SIT, each of which took responsibility for one specific priority on the SIP, implementing the skills and knowledge that they had learnt in the previous two year’s leadership work. Teams were mentored and coached to devise their own action plan from the overall SIP target, breaking down success criteria, actions, deadline dates and budget allocation. Throughout the year, the SITs presented professional development to staff, met with the Head Teacher and Regional Improvement Partner for progress updates, and in the summer term present a review of their action plan evaluation to the Governing Body.
What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?
Staff collaboration and communication skills, both formally and informally, have improved significantly, not only impacting upon their professional knowledge and skills but also positively impacting upon staff wellbeing. All staff have an improved knowledge of school improvement, the process and MER activities undertaken to evaluate the impact.
There has been a direct impact on standards within the classroom, particularly the effectiveness of marking and Welsh language development which were the focus of two of the SITs. Nearly all SITs achieved their intended outcome in the first year. Where SITs did not achieve their intended outcome or action plan fully, staff level of self-reflection increased expotentially to be able to reflect positively on what they learnt personally and professional about their skills, knowledge and leadership and how they would approach this differently to ensure greater impact in future. Staff are now more confident to take risks in their own practice and have become more proactive with school improvement ideas and undertaking action research within their own classroom.
There has been an increase in the number of staff exploring career progression and the school has been in a position to appoint TLRs from internal candidates.
How have you shared your good practice?
The approach to school improvement has been shared with cluster schools, where headteachers and senior leaders have been given the opportunity to visit the school and see the approach in practice. Working as part of a Peer Partnership with the regional consortia the headteacher has shared this approach to leadership and school improvement across local authorities
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