Improving wellbeing and standards of attainment
Information about the school
Ysgol Bryn Deva is in Connah’s Quay in Flintshire. The school has 273 pupils aged three to eleven years on roll, including 30 who attend the nursery on a part-time basis. There are 10 classes, including nine that are mixed-age.
Nearly all pupils are of white ethnicity. Approximately 15% of pupils are new to the English language. Very few pupils come from Welsh speaking families. The school has identified about 34% of pupils as having additional learning needs and around 26% of pupils are eligible to receive free school meals.
Context and background to sector leading practice
Ysgol Bryn Deva runs several highly effective programmes aimed at improving care, support and guidance, and enriching pupils’ wellbeing. The school has developed these through working closely with a range of outside partners. Two contrasting initiatives in particular have had a very positive impact on pupil wellbeing and standards of attainment. These are ‘Clwb Seren Bach’, the school’s nurture group and ‘Touching the Sky’, a project aimed at improving fitness and combatting poverty through tackling childhood obesity.
The school’s core-values reflect the fact that it nurtures each child as an individual, and develops an inclusive approach through welcoming parents, wider teams of professionals and the local community as partners in ‘learning together, forever’ (the school’s motto). The school focuses strongly on increasing the life-chances of pupils through improving their wellbeing and standards of attainment.
Description of nature of strategy and activity identified as sector leading practice
During the last three years, the school has aimed to increase wellbeing and standards of pupil attainment through developing a range of initiatives in collaboration with a number of community partners. Staff working at various levels within the school lead these projects and the senior leadership team monitor them. These two very contrasting initiatives have had an extensive impact on standards of pupil wellbeing and attainment.
The school set up ‘Clwb Seren Bach’, its nurture provision, in order to improve the academic and social performance of identified pupils in the Foundation Phase who were struggling to cope in whole-class settings. Three appropriately trained members of staff run the project, which it funds through the school’s Pupil Deprivation Grant. The provision has its own small group intervention room, which is highly visually stimulating and resourced well. This intervention is short-term, inclusive and clearly focused. However, it aims to have a long-term effect on improving pupils’ confidence. As pupils enter ‘Clwb Seren Bach’, staff assess their social, emotional and behavioural skills. They remain active members of their own classes but attend the nurture group for two to four terms. Staff re-assess their needs termly. The organisation of each nurture session is dependent upon the individual needs of the pupils. However, an important part of each session is the meal that pupils share, which provides them with a high quality opportunity for social learning and developing trusting relationships with others within the group. The school invites parents of pupils in the nurture group to a coffee morning with their children each six weeks.
The school’s tracking data shows that the initiative is highly effective and pupils’ skills improve very rapidly. Pupils in key stage 2, who have previously attended the group, have a ‘nurture pass’ in case they feel the need to re-attend. They rarely use them, and standards of behaviour across key stage 2 are consistently good.
The school set up ‘Touching the Sky’, its health and fitness initiative, to improve the wellbeing and academic attainment of all pupils in key stage 2. Both the school and the local authority (through survey data) had identified that a minority of pupils were overweight and many struggled for fitness compared with their peers in other settings. Improving this was critical to improving the life-chances of these pupils. Two members of staff lead the project, which all practitioners in the key stage run. There have been no significant financial costs in running the programme. All pupils in key stage 2 take part in a variety of fitness activities, including the ‘100 mile club’, which involves pupils running laps of the playground on a daily basis. Together with various other incentives, this leads up to a gold award for pupils completing 100 miles of laps. Working in collaboration with a local university, staff benchmark pupils in terms of their fitness at the start of the project and again every two terms. Parents have taken part in healthy cooking workshops, which helps them support their children effectively. Pupils’ learning across the curriculum has focused on developing fitness and the importance of healthy living. Pupils who make the largest improvements in their fitness trek up Mount Snowdon as a reward.
What impact has this work had on the provision and on learners’ standards
All pupils accessing nurture have made very good improvements in their social and emotional skills. All pupils also made progress in national assessments, which is substantially above what is expected (compared with their targets set in reception year). Sixty per cent of these pupils achieved the Foundation Phase indicator. Parents of pupils in nurture are more strongly involved in their child’s learning and more positive about their own parenting capacity. Teachers across the Foundation Phase report improved behaviour and engagement throughout their classes.
Teachers in key stage 2 have noted strong improvements in pupils’ concentration and engagement in lessons immediately following fitness sessions. Three quarters of pupils in key stage 2 improved their fitness score extensively in two terms. A similar percentage also showed an improvement in their raw scores in the national numeracy tests. Pupils in Year 3 showed the greatest increase in their stamina. This group also showed the greatest increase in their raw scores for their numeracy procedural and reasoning tests. Teachers in key stage 2 also noted that pupils showed strongly improved engagement in their lessons when learning about health fitness topics. Attendance has improved by 0.9% in one academic year since the implementation of the project at key stage 2.
How have you shared your good practice?
The school has supported many teachers from various settings and other practitioners, such as local authority personnel, by mentoring them and providing them with guided visits to ‘Clwb Seren Bach’.
Six schools, including primary and secondary, and one university in north Wales have been involved in planning and implementing the ‘Touching the Sky’ project at Ysgol Bryn Deva. The school has shared its success through headteachers’ meetings. It has also made extensive use of social media and local press to publicise regular articles about both the nurture provision and the fitness project.
Useful links
Other resources from this provider
The professional learning continuum: mentoring in initial teacher education
pdf, 3.13 MB Added 15/10/2018
Curriculum innovation in primary schools
pdf, 896.02 KB Added 17/05/2018
