Jump to content

Distributed leadership is key to achieving ECM outcomes

Case study

Bournville Junior School is addressing the five Every Child Matters (ECM) outcomes through a range of activities, including distributing leadership to students.

Summary

Bournville Junior School fosters children’s attainment by a range of student voice activities. It also offers extended services, including childcare. It works closely with parents and has formed multi-agency partnerships.

Key learning/outcomes

  • Academic success: Typically over 80 per cent of pupils attain level 4 or above, with a substantial proportion achieving level 5. Over 55 per cent of the cohort achieved level 5 in science in 2007. The school’s contextual value added (CVA) for 2007 for Key Stages 1–2 was 99.8.
  • Low absence rate: The absence rate is about four per cent, with little or no unauthorised absence, suggesting that pupils are well motivated to attend school.

Background

The socio-economic profile is broadly average, with children coming from professional, academic, working, unemployed and single parent low-income families. Nearly a quarter of students come from minority ethnic groups, and four per cent speak another language at home. About 13 per cent on roll are acknowledged as having special educational needs (SEN).

The school is a co-educational, nondenominational voluntary-aided school, and has some 380 pupils. Since 2005 it has won the local authority Learning Achievement Award for ‘learning through collaboration’, its second National Healthy Schools Award, its third Basic Skills Quality Mark and the Sportsmark Award. The Border Busters extended schools cluster, of which it is a part, has gained the Quality in Extended Schools Award. The school was awarded Beacon status in 2001.

Key challenges and issues

  • Divorce: There has been a rise in marital break-ups. Parents’ full-time employment prevents them from being able to offer significant time to their children.
  • Deprivation: The profile of the school is changing, with an increasing number of children coming from disadvantaged or unsupported single families. The number of pupils from minority backgrounds has doubled in four years, and eligibility to free school meals has risen to 15 per cent.

Approach

  • Multi-agency approach: The school is part of the Border Busters extended service cluster of Birmingham Local Authority. Clusters are the main means of implementing the ECM agenda in Birmingham, and there is strong and effective support from the local authority to create collaborative working between education, health and social care agencies.
  • Student voice: Students take ownership of their learning through leadership opportunities, offering feedback and taking part in communal activities. These include a school council, circle time and student questionnaires. The student council meets fortnightly and has an ‘away day’ similar to the senior leadership’s away day, where discussions about the future of the school occur and guest speakers are invited.
  • Study support: Study support activities occur each weekday evening, and during the lunch hour. This includes French, Spanish and science clubs, plus sports, dance and music. Most are run voluntarily by teachers, a teaching assistant and a past pupil, but some are provided by outside agencies. The school also offers enrichment activities such as visiting plays, ballet and opera.
  • Childcare: To meet the needs of working parents a breakfast club is open every morning from 7am. After-school childcare is also provided.
  • Parental partnership: Relationships with parents are good but the school is constantly developing new ways of increasing parental engagement with the school and of enabling parents to better support their children’s learning.
  • Professional development: Teaching assistants are being trained to become learning mentors. There are also workshops for the whole staff to encourage their commitment to the new ways of working involved in addressing the ECM agenda.

Next steps

In terms of student voice initiatives, curriculum issues are to be added to the school council’s remit in the near future.

For further information see: