The leadership of effective school support for disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils
Information about the school
Idris Davies School 3 to 18 (IDS 3 to 18) is an English-medium 3 to 18 school maintained by Caerphilly local authority. It serves the areas of Rhymney, Pontlottlyn, Abertysswg, New Tredegar, Fochriw and Phillipsotwn. There are around 900 pupils on roll, of whom 42 are in the sixth form and 36 in the nursery. Nearly all pupils speak English as their first language and come from a white British background.
Around 34.1% of pupils are eligible for free school meals. The school identifies that around 8.9% of pupils have additional learning needs. A very few pupils have a statement of special educational needs.
The headteacher was appointed to the school in January 2018, which is the date that the school was opened. The SLT consists of an executive headteacher, two deputy headteachers, three senior assistant headteachers along with five skills leaders.
The school’s vision is summarised in the motto ‘Every Pupil - Every Opportunity – Every Day’, which permeates all aspects of the school’s work at all levels.
Context and background to the effective or innovative practice
The school serves local communities with high levels of social deprivation and a significant proportion of pupils are defined as being disadvantaged and vulnerable learners. Disadvantaged pupils normally have barriers to succeeding in school because of detrimental circumstances beyond their control, whilst vulnerable learners are those who may be more likely to experience emotional, social and developmental barriers to learning.
The profile of pupils eligible for free school meals has changed significantly over the last few years and currently stands at 42.7% across both phases. Fifty per cent of the primary phase learners are currently eligible for free school meals, compared with 28.8% when the school opened in January 2018. In comparison, 40.3% of the school’s secondary phase pupils are currently eligible for free school meals, compared with 31.2% in January 2018.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the barriers to learning experienced by disadvantaged and vulnerable learners at the school, which have been further exacerbated by the impact of the cost-of-living crisis. To respond to these barriers and challenges it has been essential for the school to develop an agile leadership structure that is able to respond quickly and adeptly to the evolving needs of disadvantaged and vulnerable learners.
Description of nature of strategy or activity
On establishment of the new school, the headteacher along with the governing body, undertook a full consultation process to design and develop the school vision. It was clear from stakeholders that identifying and addressing the needs of disadvantaged and vulnerable learners needed to be a central ambition of the school’s vision. This led to an ambition to secure the best for all pupils: ‘Every Pupil - Every Opportunity – Every Day’. The school aspires to achieve this ambition in all aspects of its work.
To achieve this ambition a new staffing structure was designed and implemented from September 2018 with clear middle and senior leadership roles and responsibilities assigned to addressing and removing the barriers to learning experienced by disadvantaged and vulnerable learners. In addition, the school governing body was restructured and a senior member was designated as a ‘Disadvantaged and Vulnerable Learner Governor Lead’. All full governing body and committee meetings include strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation activities linked to disadvantaged and vulnerable learners.
The school created a new role, namely ‘Disadvantaged and Vulnerable Learner Lead’, who has responsibility for championing these learners and for leading the development of provision, tracking and monitoring key performance indicators for disadvantaged and vulnerable learners.
The Vulnerable Learners Lead collates all monitoring data linked to the engagement and performance of disadvantaged and vulnerable learners through a ‘Closing the Gap’ dashboard. This is then shared with all tiers of leaders, including key monitoring data, in order to inform the deployment of resources and facilitate monitoring the impact of strategies. The dashboard is a live document and is reviewed on a weekly basis in senior leadership meetings and termly governing body meetings, and shared with all staff in half-termly staff meetings.
The dashboard draws together monitoring data covering all aspects of the school’s work including:
- Skills tracking data (including impact of intervention programmes)
- Subject tracking data
- Attendance
- Rewards and sanctions
- Curriculum engagement (including access to Key Stages 4 and 5 course provision)
- Enhanced curricular engagement (for example access to music tuition and sport club provision)
Using this monitoring data, all strategic improvement planning is undertaken with the ‘golden thread’ of raising the achievement of disadvantaged and vulnerable learners weaved through it. All strategic priorities within the School Improvement Plan specifically address this aspect of the school’s work and clearly identify success criteria linked to raising the achievement of vulnerable and disadvantaged learners.
A comprehensive professional learning programme has been designed and delivered to all staff to ensure the effective implementation of all linked initiatives. Staff have a clear understanding of the needs of all disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils and the individual barriers to learning that they may be facing as well as the role they play in supporting pupils overcoming them.
What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?
Raising the achievement of disadvantaged and vulnerable learners is now fully embedded across all aspects of school improvement planning, which has been fully informed by monitoring data collated within the Closing the Gap Dashboard. The school has reviewed and redeployed the allocation of the Pupil Development Grant to ensure that it is targeted to address the areas of development identified through the Closing the Gap dashboard.
There are clear and comprehensive policies, systems, and procedures in place across the school to support staff in removing barriers to learning and success. The provision for care, support and guidance has been identified as being a significant strength and caters for both pupils’ academic and pastoral needs. The school employs key staff to support the provision, such as Attendance and Well-being Officers and the Pupil and Family Liaison Officer who are funded through the Pupil Development Grant. These roles are central in supporting pupils to overcome identified barriers to them attending school. This includes working with external agencies to support learners’ emotional and well-being needs.
The school closely monitors disadvantaged and vulnerable learners’ access to all learning experiences and ensures that at least proportional representation is achieved in all areas of provision. Pupil voice groups are used to develop curriculum provision and identify areas for development and advise on strategies to reduce barriers. For example, feedback from these groups has led to all pupils having access to universal provision of music tuition lessons with funding for disadvantaged learners provided through the PDG. In addition, the school allocates all departments with necessary resources to ensure that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds can fully participate in activities. For example, pupils are provided with cooking ingredients for food technology lessons and physical education kits have been purchased to ensure that all pupils are able to participate in sporting activities.
There is a clear and well-planned programme of activities across the school to raise the aspirations of all pupils and their families. This programme involves formal curriculum provision where raising the profile of careers across the school is built into phase and departmental teaching and learning experiences. In addition, the curriculum is enhanced through initiatives with universities specifically designed to engage pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, and their families, in order to enhance participation rates and raise their aspirations from an early age.
How have you shared your good practice?
Practice has been shared with both the local authority and regional consortium via their dissemination channels. The school has also made presentations at conferences and has hosted best practice workshops and visits from other schools.
