System redesign / system leadership in action: the Yewlands’ Family of Schools case study

The Yewlands’ ‘Family of Schools’ (YFOS) has been developing a skills-based curriculum that meets the needs of all the children in the area for four years. The purpose is to provide a personalised skills-based curriculum that meets the needs of all learners from 4 – 19. This development has been characterised by a unique approach to partnership working and a long term commitment to systemic continuous professional development (CPD) provision across all the schools. The work of the YFOS is constantly evolving as the needs of the community they serve change. The work of the YFOS spans all of the ‘four deeps’ and, in reality, this has been simultaneous and a continuous developmental process.

The Yewlands’ 'Family of Schools’ cluster is situated in the North of Sheffield, serving a diverse community. From one primary in an affluent area with free school meals (FSM) of 3%, to three of the schools serving a recognised area of deprivation of twice the national average, and FSM at 50% - the social context and mix of the family is interesting and challenging. The schools all serve a majority white British population, although this is also changing. It is also important to note that the schools face a number of challenges in terms of standards and outcomes. In terms of Ofsted, outcomes range from ‘Notice to Improve’ to ‘Outstanding’.

The schools included are:

• Fox Hill Primary
• Grenoside Primary
• Mansel Primary
• Monteney Primary
• St Thomas More RC Primary
• Woolley Wood Special Primary
• Yewlands Technology College.

It is perhaps beyond the concept of complementarity and is more akin to a positive feedback mechanism, for as one project grows and supports a particular aspect of the work, (i.e. curriculum redesign) other aspects are co-evolving. Sometimes this growth is incremental and sometimes the growth is exponential.

At the heart of process is a systemic approach to developing distributive leadership across the family of schools in a coordinated fashion. The latest thinking has been to develop a partnership model to address the following issues that has benefits to all students and all schools within the YFOS. Five key areas have been identified these are:

• leadership and governance
• safeguarding of children
• learning and teaching
• business management
• widening community engagement

Leadership and governance and the development of new models of business management

The commitment of the YFOS to develop leadership capacity is both impressive and significant. A recent development is the formation of a ‘soft’ (non-statutory) focus group of governors who will work right across the YFOS. Governors involved in this development will make strategic decisions regarding recruitment, curriculum, strategic direction and finance. Although this structure is in its infancy the YFOS is envisaging a potential leadership structure that involves growth of two to three ‘hard’ or ‘tight’ federations that may lead to new models of leadership and governance across the YFOS. This is building upon existing practice that has involved the appointment of an executive headteacher across two primary schools and two associate headteachers in post at Yewlands itself.

The commitment to succession planning and distributive leadership at all level is exemplified by the fourteen school leaders who have undertaken the consultant leadership course delivered at Yewlands in collaboration with NCSL. Thirteen ‘leaders of the future’ are also going on an international visit to Bulgaria over Easter 2008 to bring back their contribution to driving forward the vision across the Family.

Further initiatives in this area include the development of business managers who manage all aspects of YFOS business agenda this ranges from finance, recruitment, resource allocation and estates management. This workforce reform development is supported by an NCSL pilot programme that is seeking in partnership with YFOS to develop new models of practice that ensure that business needs of schools and therefore its students is best delivered as part of a systematic ‘whole’ rather than a fractured approach. Whether such developments lead to new models of leading schools with business managers leading groups of schools within the YFOS with headteachers or lead learners taking a sharpened focus upon learning and teaching remains to be seen.

Safeguarding of children

The YFOS has developed a number of strategies to help provide better quality safeguarding for the students in its care. Working together they have produced a toolkit, policy and website that help schools understand the important issues in this area and this is being adopted city- wide in Sheffield. A joint appointment has been made across the YFOS to help support and advise headteachers with families that are identified as being at ‘high risk’. The appointment has worked on two levels:

1. It has reduced the amount of time headteachers have to dedicate to such issues. This has been particularly valued in the primary sector effectively freeing up headteacher time to focus upon learning and teaching.
2.  It is a more proactive strategy allowing early intervention work to be undertaken that is both meaningful and sustainable.

Further evidence of the commitment to tackle such issues has been the development of the family learning pathway. This involves supporting up to twenty families who have been identified as ‘vulnerable’ and at risk of disaffection. Generally, the families have students in all phases of education and the support offered to families involves a coordinated response from all agencies involved in supporting children and families.

One of the distinctive features is that the programme engages the parents in developing their own capacity for learning and development this has resulted in a positive effect upon their own children’s learning. The YFOS has a number of case studies that not only augur well for reducing the number of students who may be classed in the NEET category but may also reduce the deleterious effect of social exclusion for the wider community.

The traditional method of trying the engage disaffected students often fails because the root problem of disengagement may reside within the students’ home and normative culture. This process attempts to reverse the traditional model by attempting to engage the parents learning ‘in concert’ with student. This is particularly powerful if the parent/carer has a number of children for which they are responsible with the potentially positive impact being sustainable.

Learning and teaching

Perhaps the best developed aspects of the YFOS collaborative work has been the development of a common skills framework that has been evolving over a number of years.
The group that are developing this work have been regularly meeting for a number of years to ensure that a consistency of approach is adopted in all phases including schools that cater for students with special educational needs. The commitment to cross phase CPD that is inclusive of all is demonstrated by the YFOS organising events for up to 300 staff from across the YFOS. Staff now have a shared understanding of the skills framework and have developed a common language for learning across all phases this obviously aids transition for students and hopefully promotes learning. The next step is to ensure that all parents have a clear understanding of the process by developing resources that ensure that the learning dialogue that occurs in the classroom also takes place at home. Plans are well advanced to develop high quality professional resources that both explain and market the skills framework to parents. YFOS are working in partnership with Edunova to develop material that is novel, interesting and fun to use in both the classroom and home.

As part of their work as a Specialist Schools and Academies Trust Development & Research School for Deep Support, Yewlands are working with the YFOS and Warwick University on a piece of action research that examines whether students who struggle with the acquisition of motor skills required for hand writing acts as a barrier to learning.

The hypothesis posited by Professor David Wray and his team is that students who struggle with handwriting utilise so much of their short term memory capacity that the fluency or flow of learning is interrupted.

Professor Wray’s team suggest that a simple diagnostic ‘alphabet test’ maybe be able to predict performance in SATS. The YFOS in conjunction with Warwick University are developing an action research project that will be carried in out in five schools to see whether the test is indeed an accurate predictor of progress by monitoring progress of students over a ten week period. Students will be tested before and after with the diagnostic tool with a control group (receiving no extra motor skill work related to handwriting) and pilot groups (receiving extra tuition) being monitored. As well as the diagnostic tool being used students will complete extended writing tasks and the team of researchers will moderate the data from all five schools to ensure the results are both reliable and valid. The consequences of such a trial will provide for interesting reading and analysis, if improving motor skills in relation to handwriting is proven to be a key indicator of success, it may challenge current pedagogical assumptions relating students learning.

Other areas being researched around language development with Professor David Wray include speaking and listening, boys’ engagement and writing to learn. YFOS recognises that literacy and language development are significant barriers to learning and are looking for collaborative ways to address these issues.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Ms Angela Armytage is Headteacher of Yewlands Specialist Technology College (one of the schools in the Family), has worked in challenging schools for 23 years, with 13 years experience at senior leadership level. Prior to her headship at Yewlands, Angela was recruited to the senior team of a ‘Fresh Start’ school in Sheffield that saw the school transform from ‘Special Measures’ to ‘Outstanding’ in three years.
Mr Ed Fitzpatrick is an Innovation Coordinator at the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT). He works for the Personalising Learning team at the Trust and has principal responsibility for developing next practice in the area of Deep Support. Prior to joining the SSAT, he was Deputy Headteacher (in charge of curriculum) at a secondary school in Lancashire for six years. He has also held posts as subject leader for science at two secondary schools in the North West. Before entering teaching, he had a long career in medical research at the University of Liverpool.

 

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