Education Magazine issue 54

Edition 3, 2013

Excellence at The Springfields Academy p10

“The buck stops here” for academies’ governors & principals p16

Meet the school governors making WAVES in Hull p20

Procurement Strategies – ICT Products and Services p18

What can Development Offices learn from Bradley Wiggins and a Persian emperor? p24

www.education-magazine.co.uk - for ar ticles news and pr oducts

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Education Magazine Edition 54 Annual Subscription £10

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Contents 2 News 10

Excellence at The Springfields Academy

16 “The buck stops here” for academies’ governors & principals

18 Procurement

Strategies – ICT Products and Services

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Meet the school governors making WAVES in Hull

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Efficient energy use during the long winter months

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What can Development Offices learn from Bradley Wiggins and a Persian emperor?

26 Funded Travelling

Fellowships For Aspiring Head Teachers

If you are building, developing new ideas or have some excellent examples of ‘good practice’, spread the word about them and contact PIR Education Magazine on

01234 348878 or

email info@education-magazine.co.uk We are always looking for good news on Education issues.

We approve all articles prior to press.

Look forward to hearing from you!

28 The

importance of learning languages in school

30 More than 100

free schools applications approved

32 More News 33 Product showcase Main cover picture is Springfield Academy in Calne

For details on how to sponsor covers for future editions, telephone: 01234 348878 The Publisher holds all copyright and any items within may not be reproduced in any way, for any purpose, without the written permission of the Publisher. While every care has been taken to ensure accuracy, the information contained within this publication is based on submissions to the Publishers who cannot be held responsible for errors and omissions. The publisher does not necessarily agree with the views expressed by contributors and cannot except responsibility for claims made by manufacturers and authors, nor do they accept any responsibility for any errors in the subject matter of this publication.

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Celebrations mark first milestone in major academy building project A £12.7m building and refurbishment project, which is transforming a Brighton & Hove school, has reached its first major milestone with local councillors, MP’s and Governors joining students and staff to mark the occasion.

A ‘Topping Out’ ceremony took place at the Portslade Aldridge Community Academy, in Brighton, to mark the completion of the main structure of the Academy’s brand new sixth form and science centre, as well as the internal refurbishments, which are being carried out to substantially

improve existing buildings at the same time.

The work will not only improve the overall environment for students and staff but also bring sixth formers, who are currently based at a separate centre in Portslade High Street, into the heart of the main school site.

Representatives from the Academy’s sponsors the Aldridge Foundation, cosponsors Brighton & Hove City Council, and regeneration specialist Keepmoat, which is carrying out the building work, also attended the ceremony.

Representatives from the Aldridge Foundation, Portslade Aldridge Community Academy, Brighton & Hove City Council and Keepmoat pictured at the Topping Out ceremony, held to mark the completion of the first stage of a major building project taking place at the academy.

Students achieve excellence at top construction competition

competitions since 2008 and is now World Skills Deputy Chief Expert for Painting and Decorating, said: “It’s a huge accomplishment to achieve a place in the top three and we’re very proud of both Lee and Hayley and all of the students that took part.

CONSTRUCTION students from Stoke on Trent College are celebrating their success after competing in this years’ SkillBuild competition.

“The college has been taking part in the competition for over a decade, as it teaches our students to strive for excellence and motivates them to continually develop their skills.”

Bricklaying apprentice Lee Buxton and Painting and Decorating apprentice Hayley Grindon beat off stiff competition to achieve second and third place within their chosen areas.

This year the college put forward students from Brickwork, Carpentry, Joinery and Painting and Decorating, to take part in both the junior and senior categories.

SkillBuild is the UK’s largest multi-trade competition for construction trainees and is run by CITB, the Sector Skills Council for the construction industry.

Each student was given a scaled working drawing, a specification and a task to complete, in just a few hours. The top three places were awarded on high standards of practical skills, accurate measurement, health and safety and completion of the task.

Lee is a third year student at the college and is completing an advanced apprenticeship in bricklaying with builder Peter Fearns.

Hayley, who came third in her area, is employed as an apprentice painter and decorator by Richard Prentice.

The students now have a nervous wait until all of the regional heats have taken place, to find out if they have scored highly enough to gain a place at the national final competition, held later this year at the Birmingham NEC.

Stoke on Trent College chose 12 of their best students to compete at last week’s regional heat, held at West Nottinghamshire College.

For more information on SkillBuild, visit www.citb.co.uk/en-GB/ Careers-in-Construction/SkillBuild

Pete Walters, a lecturer in painting and decorating at the college, who has been a training manager for the actual World Skills

The wheels on the history bus go round and round - Free School Visits AND Free School Transport - Donations to English Heritage Enable Free School Trips to the National Heritage Collection Schools across England which previously could not afford to travel to the country’s greatest historic sites can now do so, thanks to a new scheme made possible by donations to English Heritage. From Stonehenge to Hadrian’s Wall, admission to the 400 plus sites in the National Heritage Collection has always been free for schools but for some, the cost of hiring a coach was a significant obstacle. Now, the English Heritage History Bus scheme will go a long way to removing that barrier.

The new free school bus scheme is open to non-fee paying English primary and secondary schools. More than 10,000 schools are eligible to apply and 30,000 children will benefit from the scheme this year. The scheme is expected to cover the cost of approximately 7,500 coaches per year.

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British sign language improves communication for staff at children’s home Staff from a West Yorkshire children’s home are praising the impact Deaf awareness training has had on them being able to communicate with young Deaf people who live there.

The training was commissioned

by Kirklees Council for staff working at the Elm Grove Children’s Home in Heckmondwike. Staff are now part way through the 64 hour in-house British Sign Language (BSL) Signature Level 1 course, which is being delivered by award winning workplace training and consultancy company, HearFirst.

Staff at the home had limited signing experience having supported only one other deaf young person some time ago. They were keen to learn new skills and develop both their signing ability and deaf awareness generally.

This home has obtained ‘Outstanding’ status from Ofsted for consecutive inspections over the last six years. The home’s manager, Claire Morgan stated: “The eagerness and enthusiasm of the staff in wanting to develop new skills and knowledge has always been a strength at this home. Staff have high aspirations for the children and always go the extra mile to ensure they meet the needs of all children and young people in their care. We expect the best.”

Kelly Smith, Deputy Manager at Elm Grove, said: “Right from the start, by attending the BSL Level 1 sessions with HearFirst, our communication with Rachel was completely different. She was very excited, it helped to extend Education Magazine

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her vocabulary and we noticed that her behaviour and general wellbeing improved.”

The course is being facilitated

by HearFirst tutor, Kate Brierley, who is a born Deaf BSL user and like all other courses delivered by the company, the purpose of this is to add relevance and depth to the training.

Kelly continued, “The fact that the course is delivered by a profoundly Deaf person allows us not only to learn the language but to learn and understand the culture too. This helps all the staff understand that some of the signs and certain behavioural patterns shown by Rachel are in fact, quite normal for a Deaf child and it allows us to see the environment from her perspective.

“After a few training sessions and understanding the signs, we found that it was the little things that made a big difference to her life and she started asking us questions.”

Young people live at Elm Grove because they are unable to stay at home with their family, for lots of different reasons. Some young people live there while they are getting ready to move into a foster family and others may live there for a year or two while preparing to live on their own.

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HearFirst provides a full range of equality & diversity training courses to organisations across the UK. For more information on Deaf, disability awareness and BSL training, please contact Julie at HearFirst on 01706 872 816 or visit www.hearfirst.org.uk.

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IOG apprenticeship scheme spurs Harefield students’ success in horticultural skills Eight students from The Harefield Academy in Harefield, North London, have just been successfully assessed for City & Guilds Level 1 in Horticultural Skills as part of the Institute of Groundsmanship (IOG) Apprenticeship scheme.

As result, one student has already secured a job in the horticultural sector, while others say they have been “inspired by the course” and will now go on to higher level studies or apprenticeships.

The ongoing success of the IOG-inspired programme – which started at Harefield in September 2010 – is solid evidence that young people can and do show a positive and enthusiastic approach if they are supported correctly by education providers, tutors and industry organisations like the IOG. The Year 11 teenagers – one girl and seven boys who initially started the course on a Special Education Needs programme as part of the school’s main curriculum – have gained their Level 1 Certificates via accreditations from a choice of 61 units. Their Level 2 accreditations will include plant biology, soil science, organic vegetable growing and the maintenance of horticultural machinery.

Some of the Harefield students show their certificates at the allotment plots ‘on site’ at the Academy

Harefield tutor Louise Dunton said: “We went down this route to provide students with the opportunity to achieve and remotivate themselves, to help them achieve.

It was also building on an interest they already had in an allotment, which has now increased even further.

“As students they became a team and it changed their self-belief. Indeed, some have said that without the course – which involves three hours a week throughout term times, though some also attend during holidays – they doubt whether they would have stayed in school!

“We are very proud of them, both in the way they behaved and in what they have achieved,” she said.

Louise explains how the City & Guilds course, which is facilitated by the IOG under its Apprenticeship scheme and involves a maximum of eight Harefield Academy students each year (and has gained eight new students at the start of each new school year), has blossomed since its introduction and is now acknowledged as an excellent vocational course for any pupil aged 14 and over.

IOG CEO Geoff Webb said: “On behalf of the IOG, I extend our appreciation of Louise and her outstanding ability to motivate and encourage these students. Each student I hope will go on to a great career. It is vital that we continue to develop young people and promote opportunities in our industry.”

Badgemaster Gains ISO 14001 Environmental Accreditation Badgemaster, the UK’s largest name badge manufacturer, gained the ISO 14001 Environmental Accreditation on 21st February. It is the only company in the industry to have done so.

Since Badgemaster started trading in 1992, directors John and Vicky Bancroft have aimed to make Badgemaster as environmentally aware as possible. This includes ensuring that all waste materials are Reply No. recycled and disposed of responsibly; everything used to make the 4 products and run the business are energy efficient, from energy saving light bulbs to state of the art laser engraving; staff are trained on environment awareness - going hand in hand with health and safety, and manufacturing processes and machinery are efficient in order to use less electricity. In short, everything the company does is as good for the environment as possible, so Badgemaster’s customers can be satisfied that its products are of the highest quality, the highest level of efficiency and the best for the environment.

Badgemaster is proud to have had its efforts recognised through gaining the ISO 14001 from the British Standards Institute, the highest level of environmental accreditation possible. Alongside the ISO 9001 accreditation gained in 2010 for quality management, this is an additional mark of Badgemaster’s mission to operate to the highest standards.

of the same coin for us. They both show our commitment to our customers and what is important to them. Part of this is an obligation to continually improve processes, keep up to date with new technology and to always strive for the best. This is integral to the way we operate. It is important to us personally and it makes us stand out from the competition.”

John Bancroft explains, “the ISO 9001 for quality management and the ISO 14001 for environmental standards are two sides

For more information, contact Badgemaster’s Customer Services team on 01623 723 112 or visit www.badgemaster.co.uk.

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The government has announced a £2 million apprenticeship bursary scheme for the early years profession.

Those aspiring to a career in early education will be able to apply for a bursary worth up to £1,500, with a further £300 available for more training, from September. There will be up to 1,000 bursary places available.

In January, in ‘More great childcare’, the government said it would build a stronger and more professional early years workforce with more rigorous qualifications.

The apprenticeship bursary will be a transitional scheme ahead of the early years educator qualifications in 2014. The apprenticeship bursary scheme will also seek to support the delivery of the early learning places for 2-year-olds.

To be eligible, applicants will need to secure an apprenticeship position in a nursery or other provision that delivers the early learning places for 2-year-olds and hold at least a GCSE, at grade C or above, in English and maths, to help ensure that a more skilled workforce delivers better quality early education.

Elizabeth Truss, Childcare and Education Minister, said: Caring for and educating young children is a fantastically rewarding job.

The bursaries announced today will make it easier for talented people to start a career in early education.

Providing good quality early education is proven to help young children get a head start in life, especially those who are from poorer backgrounds.

I hope these bursaries encourage students to consider working in early education.

The scheme, which will be run by the National College for Teaching and Leadership, will be open to applications from this September.

Apprenticeships are expected to last an average of 20 months. They will consist of employment and study to gain a recognised qualification through various routes, including further education colleges.

Andreas Schleicher of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said: Results from PISA show that high performing education systems consistently prioritise the quality of their staff over the size of classes.

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OECD’s work on early childhood education ‘Starting strong 3’ underlines the importance of having staff with proper educational qualifications and that staff qualifications are the best predictor of the quality of early childhood education and care.

The main bursary payment will be subject to tax and national insurance deductions.

Since September 2010 every 3- and 4-yearold has been entitled to 15 hours per week of funded early education. From September 2013 the government will introduce early learning places for around 20% of all 2-yearolds. Children will be eligible if their families meet the income and benefits criteria also used for free school meals, or if they are looked after by their local authority.

From September 2014, this will be increased to around 40% of 2-year-olds. The government recently consulted on eligibility criteria for new early years qualifications, which will be available from 2014. We will publish the findings and new criteria soon.

The scheme will be administered by the National College for Teaching and Leadership and details will be published on its website shortly. More information can be obtained by emailing the NCTL apprenticeships team.

Applicants will need to be undertaking the level 3 advanced apprenticeship in children and young people’s workforce to be eligible.

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New construction degree is built to last Bespoke courses designed to give employees at one of Britain’s biggest housebuilders the chance to study a degree, have been introduced at Sheffield Hallam University.

Barratt Group has pledged to put 100 students through the new foundation degree programme in residential construction at Sheffield Hallam, with the first cohort of 50 starting in January 2014.

Working in partnership with Barratt Developments, teaching staff in the University’s Built Environment department have developed the tailormade programme to equip future employees with the skills and expertise to help strengthen the firm in the future.

The course will contain elements of work-based learning with each student being assigned to a mentor.

It follows the University’s successful partnership with construction company, Kier.

Professor Paul Watson, head of Sheffield Hallam’s Built Environment department, said: “We are committed to working closely with businesses to produce skilled professionals that can help their organisations to strengthen and grow.

“Our new partnership with Barratt has come on the back of our successful work with Kier, who gained real benefits from the combination of work experience and academic study.

“This new course will give Barratt students the chance to have an input into the success of the business and I’m looking forward to welcoming our first intake in the new year.”

Rob Tansey, Barratt Developments Group HR Director, said: “We have seen a significant increase in the pace of demand in the property market and it’s vital that we maintain our highly-skilled workforce.

“We are extremely impressed with the work Sheffield Hallam does with local businesses and we are delighted to be working in partnership with them to provide this fantastic opportunity for those keen to make their mark in the property market.”

Applications for the foundation degree will launch in June and successful candidates will be invited to an induction ceremony later this year.

To apply or for more information visit www.buildingcareerstogether.co.uk

Education and commerce join forces to uncover design talent ‘hidden’ in schools A national schools competition which aimed to highlight the impact of greater involvement from businesses in preparing young people for work, has uncovered top talent hidden in the nation’s classrooms.

The judging panel which included Amber Burton, Advertising and Digital Media Lecturer, Bournemouth University, were so impressed with the quality of entries from schools that the winner and the runners up will also get to work with the competition sponsors, human resources firm Advanced Resource Managers (ARM) on the global rebrand of its International business, ARM International.

Amber Burton, Advertising & Digital Media Lecturer, Bournemouth University commented: ‘Undoubtedly digital media, advertising and brand image have become massively important in today’s very visual world both in education and in the workplace. Designing Tomorrow is a great way to engage with and fire up the creative minds of this age group and to demonstrate how the design skills and ideas they learn at school and in further education can be adapted and used in the work place; ultimately the winning design will be used as part of a real commercial campaign.”

Overall winner of the design competition, 15 year old Katarzyna Pazik from Aylesbury High School said: “Entering the ARM Designing Tomorrow competition provided me with an excellent opportunity to broaden my horizons. The award ceremony at Aston Martin was truly inspirational and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. A big thank you to ARM and the judges for this incredible experience!”

Lynda Ennis, Managing Director at ARM International said: “The Prime Minister’s recent announcement that he intends to make apprenticeships the “new norm” for school leavers who choose not to go to university is the start of a new era for the workforce of engaged young people where education is blended with real life experience. It is partly down to business that will offer employment, to help schools identify that talent and nurture it. Designing Tomorrow has uncovered

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some amazing talent that exists hidden in our schools. I hope that other businesses will take it upon themselves to encourage young people to get involved in commerce early on and help students to gain the skills they will need to compete for work in an ever tougher economy”.

The Designing Tomorrow Competition received a high response rate from schools looking to encourage pupils to get practical experience in the world of design technology. Judges had to choose a winner from more than 400 entrants. “There is a real hunger within schools for this type of joined up initiative where pupils get to put their skills into practice in a commercial environment. We are certain that the schools and pupils have learned a great deal about what it’s really like to work to a brief in a competitive commercial environment and that businesses can see how they can be involved directly in helping to prepare

young people for the workplace by giving them experience they otherwise wouldn’t get. Hopefully we can help reduce the number of young people that are knocked back by the no experience, no job cycle.”

Added Ms Ennis.

Recent research carried out for ARM showed that 70% of young people know someone who has been frustrated by the no experience, no job cycle – when employers tell applicants they don’t have the experience needed to get a job.

“The success of the Designing Tomorrow Competition has laid a firm foundation for future programmes to encourage schools, colleges and universities to think ahead and help pupils to get ahead of their careers, next year we will be launching a new contest for universities.” concluded Ms Ennis.

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The Digital Youth Academy launches Social Digital Apprenticeship in London New Partnership Announced with The Skills People at LeSoCo The Digital Youth Academy (DYA) is pleased to announce its Partnership with The Skills People to deliver the first Social Digital Apprenticeships in London. Launched at LeSoCo on Monday 29 April, these Apprenticeships provide a way of harnessing young people’s natural acumen in social media to meet the needs of employers in developing their digital marketing and social media activities.

Apprentices will learn how to use their social media skills in professional and business environments and gain skills in digital marketing. This will be critical in helping employers to increase customer bases, build online relationships with key stakeholders

New randomised controlled trials will drive forward evidence-based research

and open up new routes to markets in a cost effective way for their survival and growth. At a time when youth unemployment is a major issue, the Apprenticeship offers an innovative solution for getting young people into work.

Apprenticeships are a fantastic way of enabling people to earn and learn. By gaining L to R: Mark Cook – Vice Principal,The Skills People; Penny Power – Founder, national vocational Digital Youth Academy and Maxine Room – Principal, LeSoCo. qualifications, technical certificates, rapidly advancing and technical world. improved numeracy and literacy and work Employers wishing to find out more about skills young people can make themselves Social Digital Apprenticeships can register much more employable and effective. their interest here via our online form: Moving Apprenticeships forward by bringing www.digitalyouthacademy.com/employers in newer and digital topics such as social media supports businesses in competing in a Dr Goldacre said high-quality research into different approaches should be embedded as seamlessly as possible into everyday activity in education. He said this would not only benefit pupils but increase teachers’ independence.

Drawing on comparisons between education and medicine, he said medicine had ‘leapt forward’ by creating a simple infrastructure that supports evidencebased practice, making it commonplace.

The two RCTs announced are on school attainment in mathematics and science and Safeguarding Assessment and Analysis Framework (SAAF) child protection assessment tool.

School attainment in mathematics and science

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) will raise the bar in education and children’s services by increasing the use of quantitative evidence.

The Department for Education announced it would run 2 new RCTs. RCTs are most often associated with medicine but their use in other fields, including education, remains relatively low.

The decision to run the trials follows recommendations made by ‘Bad science’ author Dr Ben Goldacre in a report which examined the role of evidence in the education sector. The report was commissioned by Education Secretary Michael Gove and published in March 2013.

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This project will see 480 schools shown how their pupils’ maths and science exam results fit against those of schools with similar intakes. Participating heads and teachers will then be able to compare and collaborate to raise standards. The project is led by the Institute of Education and funded through the Department for Education Research Centre, the Centre for Understanding Behavioural Change (CUBeC). The project will start later this month and will report in summer 2015.

Safeguarding Assessment and Analysis Framework (SAAF) child protection assessment tool SAAF will be randomly assigned to social workers in trial areas. Their child protection

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results will then be compared with those using alternative existing approaches. The first outputs are expected in spring 2015.

The Department for Education has also allocated £135 million to the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) to improve quantitative data available in education.

The EEF has funded more than 55 successful projects covering both primary and secondary schools, many of which use RCT methodology.

The EEF’s main aims are:

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to fund innovative approaches and interventions to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils in underperforming schools

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to robustly evaluate all funded activities

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to share the results with schools and others in an accessible ways

The Department for Education has also published its analytical review, conducted

by Dr Ben Goldacre and Roger Plant, Director of So Direct Ltd. The review looks at the role of research, analysis and data in the Department for Education, schools and children’s services in England. The chapter by Dr Goldacre was published in March 2013.

The recommendations from Dr Goldacre and Roger Plant on how data can be used and shared to improve outcomes have been welcomed by the Department for Education.

Excellence at The Springfields Academy

part of the week for therapeutic interventions. I visited the school as I wanted to know how they use sport to improve the outcomes for SEN pupils: EM Can you define what you mean by ‘gifted children’ in the context of the specialist coaching you offer?

Trystan Williams, Principal at The Springfields Academy, grew up in North Wales and is the son of a successful SEN headmaster; his mother ran a pre-school assessment unit. A relative was autistic so he was aware of the pressures of special needs from an early age.

TW This refers to the top 10% high performers by sports ability within this school community that is totally made up of SEN pupils. These are children who can perform at junior county level for their chosen sport, a good example is one of our pupils, Calum Carter, who plays rugby at tight head prop for Bath rugby academy and also plays for the Welsh Exiles; he is a possible candidate for schoolboy honours within the sport.

Educated in Bangor at a school called Ysgol-y- garnedd, he then went to university in Cardiff where he studied ‘Human Movement’, now known as Sports Science. During Trystan’s Master’s degree, he carried out a study into children with asthma.

EM What is the legal status of the school and do you have a sponsor, as do many academies?

Trystan specialised in swimming and rugby, his position was open side flanker, which he played as an amateur for the Menai Bridge club. He was involved with Welsh elite rugby for a few years before cancelling an educational trip to New Zealand when he met a lady who was later to become his wife.

TW We are a ‘Specialist Academy’, so we are a special school that is funded and run on the same basis as an academy. In fact, we were the first school of this type with residential facilities to convert into an academy which was in September 2011. We were also involved in formulating the legislation that brought about the ability for SEN schools to become academies. We do not have a sponsor as we were deemed to be ‘outstanding’

by Ofsted so we were able to convert as a stand-alone school. However, we do work alongside other sponsors that are helping local schools that are undergoing the process of getting out of special measures.

Trystan’s teaching career started at Pontypridd then onto Bridgend. It was at Mounton house School, near Chepstow, where he first achieved promotion to Head of Physical Education. Three years later he was on the management team and after seven years in that post, the role of Principle at The Springfields Academy became available. Trystan Williams has been the Principle at The Springfields Academy for 9 years.

The Springfields Academy is located on the outskirts of Calne in Wiltshire. The school promotes itself as a ‘specialist academy’ and a SEN establishment and specialist sports college that delivers high level specialist coaching for

gifted children as well as delivering ‘sport for all’. The Academy has a headcount of 94 boarders who stay five nights a week and they also support almost 500 pupils from 34 local primary and 22 local secondary schools, who attend for all or

One of the many signs that appear around the school.

EM All schools have to provide sports lessons of one type or another, so why do you class yourself a specialist sports academy and does this affect what staffing do you have? Also what sports do you provide and how do you use your enhanced sports status to assist the pupil’s education?

TW We play just about every sport we can. This is because we adapt around the needs of the individual. For example, If a pupil has issues around autism and they cannot progress within a group setting, we will ensure that they have PE on a one to one basis. Most children with autism have great problems with team sports so to help them gain much needed confidence with their physical abilities, we have the flexibility to let them do individual sports such as table tennis, badminton, BMX, rollerskating, and gym work. We also have a martial arts school here that teaches Taekwondo and every 6 weeks we run a grading so that the children can have the opportunity to advance their official grade.

We use just about anything it takes to help the students build up the confidence they need and have, we even used a Nintendo Wii to build a child’s confidence towards them taking part in physical exercise. We developed this approach because nearly every child who comes here has a negative approach to Physical Education. In response, we have developed a policy we call ‘active learning’. Once a child’s confidence in their physical ability has begun to grow, then we move them on to

The sports hall, its not a new facility however its used to capacity.

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team sports if it’s appropriate.

However, if we find that the child has real ability, in a particular sport, then we will change their curriculum so that they can progress within it. We can do this because each child here has their own educational programme that has been designed to bring out the best in them. No two children are the same, so no two programmes are either.

We have five members in the PE department, two are Qualified PE teachers, the other three are qualified PE instructors, which seems a high ratio of staff to pupils until you realise that we oversee the competitive sport for 10 of the local primary schools (pupils are from year 3 to year 6) every Wednesday and Thursday. Also the PE staff go out into local schools to help improve their standards. We also run festivals where games like tag rugby are played which helps to improve the standards of the competing schools. In addition the Youth Sport Trust have always been of all our sporting developments. They have involved myself and the school in most of their strategic leadership groups and we will be eternally grateful to them for allowing us to function as a sports college.

EM That is a lot of organisation and a lot of sports input. How do you provide that level of support without compromising other key subjects and with the pressures on staffing that are inevitable these days?

TW I expect every pupil here to make outstanding progress, no matter what their personal

Above:The Springfield Academy main building, extensive sports facilities are to each side.

Right:The mechanics workshop.

circumstances are. What I mean by that is they achieve more than two national curriculum levels per key stage. In fact we expect all our pupils to make three levels per key stage in every subject. Every child is constantly monitored and so we know what the child needs to achieve their potential. If they need more of a particular sport to assist their progress, then we make sure we have the capacity to deliver it. If a teacher comes to me and explains that a particular pupil needs more of a particular activity then it’s built in to their timetable, we don’t allow key subjects like literacy and numeracy to be side-lined

so the extra activity time has to have these key subjects embedded in them. I am not concerned how a child achieves the literacy and numeracy requirements, as long as they do achieve them.

Its educating children by alternative means, some children cannot learn science in a classroom, so we take them out of the classroom and into an environment where they can learn science. We have continues overleaf u

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The construction training areas.

£2.8m funding allows further growth at The Springfields Academy SEN (Special Education Needs) award winning school, The Springfields Academy, has been awarded £2.8 million by the Education Funding Agency (EFA) to build 16 new classrooms for students with complex learning difficulties and challenging behaviour.

The funding will enable The Springfields Academy to expand and make its world class standards of education available to an increased number of vulnerable pupils.

The EFA provides revenue and capital funding to support the education of learners between the ages of three and 25 and for people with learning difficulties and disabilities.

One of the buildings that is used to inspire the students.

found that this method inspires children to learn.

I can give an example using our rugby star. He likes the sport and is good at it so we provide more of it to include core skills and subjects within his learning process we take him to other schools to help them learn the sport, so that helps him with his social skills, he has to set out training scenarios, so maths comes into it as does English and science. So by giving him more of what he is good at we improve his skill level and at the same time his education in other subjects is also brought on too.

EM What type of results is this bringing you, and how do you measure them?

TW On admission here 50% of the students have always been in the lowest 2% for literacy and numeracy. Four years ago our benchmark of 5 ‘A to C’ grades were at zero. Over the last three years we have improved, so we are now consistently achieving 40% of our pupils gaining 5 ‘A to C’ grades including English and Maths. So in the last four years we have improved the outcome

Commenting on the award, Trystan Williams, Principal of The Springfields Academy, said, “If the planning goes ahead, this money will allow us to build the best possible classrooms – including IT classrooms - and therapy suites. We are delighted to be awarded such a large sum of money to invest in the academy.

2013 has been an exceptional year for us so far and the grounds at Springfields will soon reflect the growth that the students have accomplished.”

for students that attend the Academy from zero educational attainment to nearly 40% attaining the benchmark.

EM You strike me as a highly driven individual who does not take failure as an option, I suspect your staff reflect that drive too.

So how much of the improved attainment is down to you not accepting failure and how much is due to the systems and approach you have brought in?

The initial planning ideas will be submitted in mid-May. The expansion process promises not to cause added disruption to traffic or increase noise in the local area.

The vision of The Springfields Academy is to inspire self-belief among vulnerable children. The academy provides extensive academic and vocational opportunities for pupils, nurturing their education and interests. Pupils are empowered to develop their self confidence by demonstrating and building on their abilities and sharing their achievements with their peers.

TW The systems are as crucial as the approach. For example, the methodology of using sport to produce achievements in unrelated subjects would be pointless if we did not carry out the constant monitoring and assessment of each student. So the testing and assessment are as essential as the methods. It’s all inter connected and none of them will work without the others being in place. We have to all have the same collective vision, a system, the facilities and the drive to make it all work. All of these are crucial. I tell my staff that if they don’t share my vision of not accepting lower standards from SEN pupils then this is not the place for them to be.

EM You have been here nine years and much has changed for the benefit of the students, the Academy system now gives you enormous freedoms so where will you take this school over the next 5 years?

TW We already work with schools as far away as Brighton and Birmingham and also with a swathe of educational establishments across the south west. I wish to share and spread the model of SEN education

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that we have created here to a wider education base. I also wish to involve the Educational establishment in the Extreme Classroom concept that we have successfully developed here. It’s designed to engage and involve the disaffected learners from all walks of society and in all countries.

EM I’ll come back and talk to you about that for the next edition!

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Save the date!

Sport Relief, the nation’s favourite sports day, is back on Friday 21 March 2014 Sport Relief is back on Friday 21 March 2014, providing the perfect opportunity to bring the whole school together to get active, have fun and help others. So put the date, Friday 21 March, in the school calendar now and make sure your pupils don’t miss out.

Last year, thousands of schools across the country fundraised for Sport Relief 2012 – from pupils running a sponsored-mile dressed as their favourite sports star to ultra-competitive teachers vs. pupils footie matches. Sporty or not, everyone was a winner, because not only did pupils feel good when they got involved, they did good too. A staggering £5.8 million was raised by schools in total, changing countless lives at home in the UK and across the world’s poorest countries, forever.

Primary pupils miss out on the outdoors

Outdoor play and learning can make an important contribution to helping children make the transition from early years education into primary school, an innovative research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has concluded.

According to the project’s findings, pupils’ opportunities to spend time outdoors decline sharply as they move from early years education into more formal schooling.

The study highlights the potential for some of the tensions created by formal classroom learning to be mitigated by the more independent, less supervised periods children spend playing together outdoors.

Researchers from Plymouth University, the University of St Mark and St John and the Institute of Education equipped 32 children

In Control awarded DfE funding National charity, In Control, pioneers in the concept of self directed support and personal budgets in health and social care, has been awarded grant funding for the next two years for a nationwide programme to improve outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and / or disabilities. The grant awarded under the Department for Education’s National Prospectus Grant programme for 2013 - 15 is in the region of £150,000.

Jo Robertson, assistant head teacher at The Deepings School, reflects on their involvement: ‘For me, the engagement and enjoyment that Sport Relief brought was some of the greatest I have experienced as a teacher. By getting involved with the campaign, we found that at the same time as raising money for others, we were reaping rich rewards as a school. Our pupils grew in confidence as they stepped up to take the lead in organising events and coming up with fundraising ideas. They developed in new and exciting ways and we were reminded of how much they are capable of. The pride they felt when they realised the impact they’d made was palpable. Plus they now see us, the staff, in a different light as we shared in some of the sillier moments!’ in four Foundation Stage classes with digital audio recorders which they wore in brightlycoloured pouches. Fifteen of the children were then followed into Year One, and in total 192 recordings were made of their play and their conversations.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) of the National Curriculum endorses outdoor play as a means of supporting children’s development and sense of wellbeing, yet the research showed a change occurring as pupils moved up into more formal primary education. While over two thirds of recordings took place outside the classroom during the EYFS, in Year One that proportion dropped to less than one third.

The researchers argue outdoor lessons and free play offer opportunities for children to learn independently, something which has become less common as schools focus on attainment and pupil testing. The study also suggests not all learning is necessarily planned, and important foundations for learning are laid through more playful approaches.

The lead researcher on the project, Sue Waite, said, «Outdoor learning had a different quality from the teacher-led lessons which took place in the classroom. Outdoor In Control’s Director for Children and Young People, Nic Crosby said: “The DfE funded work will allow us to develop a simple ‘userled’ approach to recording and measuring the outcomes for disabled children, young people and their families from their single Education, Health and Care plan and linked personal budget. It will provide support to families to allow them to make their own judgements and provide local authorities and their partners with a clear report setting out what works and what does not work locally set against national data.”

Be the first to get all the latest Sport Relief 2014 news and free resources by signing up for emails at www.sportrelief.com Sport Relief is an initiative of Comic Relief, registered charity 326568 (England/Wales); SC039730 (Scotland) spaces offer opportunities for children to be more creative, inquiring and socially skilled, as they can pursue their own lines of interest and talk together. In classrooms, dominated by specific learning outcomes and teachers talking, it›s very easy for learning to become something which is spoon-fed».

An ongoing review of the National Curriculum is likely to lead to primary schools working to detailed programmes of study for English, Maths and Science, although academies and free schools can choose not to follow these. The study suggests that elements of the curriculum can be achieved successfully through learning outside the classroom, but teachers need to feel confident of how best to support that.

The new Early Years Foundation Stage framework emphasises ‹school readiness›, which may increase reductions in opportunities to learn outside the classroom.

Yet the researchers found readiness to learn was more evident when children experienced a longer transition of play-based outdoor learning.

For further information contact: Sue Waite Email: s.j.waite@plymouth.ac.uk Telephone: 01752 585341 tried and tested Personal Budgets Outcomes and Evaluation Tool (POET) in adult services, currently being sponsored by the Department of Health and used to develop personal health budgets. It was used in the first national personal budget survey which reached over 2000 personal budget holders and carers, the biggest survey on personalisation undertaken in England to date.

For more information about In Control’s expertise and work, visit: www.in-control.org.uk

The work will build on the use of In Control’s 14

Education Magazine

001 Limited is an independent energy consultancy focused on cost reduction and refunding money where clients have been overcharged. Utilities, including energy, are specialist areas and to that extent they have a specialist audit team which work across their client base in this field. They work on a no win no fee basis, to achieve mid-contract savings, make sure their clients are on the right tariff and also audit historic energy invoices to uncover inappropriate charging and follow the projects to the point where the monies are refunded back to the client.

They won an award in July 2012 from the charity, Barnardo's, for their service and for securing them 6-figure refunds on utilities expenditures.

Obviously obtaining rebates for this large charity was a great achievement Reply No. which they are proud of. They take great pleasure in refunding any 8 overcharging to charities, hospices,care homes and schools as this money can be re-invested back into a great cause.

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Some of the schools they have worked with are as follows: • St. Josephs in the Park • Wolverhampton Grammar School • Regent’s College London • Birchfield Educational Trust • St Francis College

4 Cedar Court, Parkway, Porters Wood, St Albans, AL3 6PA If you would like to take advantage of 001’s expertise and see if you have been overcharged in the last 6 years, contact Sunny Glasson today on 0845 3892 001.

For more information, visit our website: www.001ltd.co.uk T: +44 (0) 845 389 2001 M: +44 (0) 7720 741 977 F: +44 (0) 845 389 2002 E: sunny.glasson@001ltd.co.uk

Sticking to Construction Schedule – Essential for Project at The de Ferrers Academy Fosse Contracts install 12 courts with associated works in summer holiday break.

The specialist Technology College, de Ferrers, achieved Academy status in January 2012.

It has two campuses about ½ a mile apart.

Attendance is split by age range with Years 7 to 9 taught on the Dove Campus and Years 10-13 on the Trent Campus.

Following a tender process, Fosse Contracts won the initial contract for work on Dove Campus to restore good drainage to the base layer, resurface the courts, install new perimeter fencing and line-mark for tennis and netball.

Recognising that the courts on Trent Campus were in need of the same treatment, the six courts there were added to the contract.

The total value of remedial work at each site was around £100k which was wholly met by funding from The de Ferrers Academy.

One of the reasons Fosse Contracts were selected to carry out this extra work was their ability to plan and schedule work to fit within the fixed time constraints of school term times.

Placourt installed at The de Ferrers Academy

Around eight years ago, six tennis courts were built on each site.

By 2011, these courts were showing signs of age. The surface was breaking up and the perimeter fence components were in a bad state of disrepair. Standing water also collected after rain in many areas. It was time to restore the courts to first class condition.

Education Magazine

Maureen Evans, Finance Director at the Academy was impressed with the way that the work was completed, “On time in spite of adverse weather conditions last year and ready for the September Term.”

The surface chosen for the courts was Fosse Contracts’ Placourt. This economical and hard-wearing porous macadam surface – often finished with a textured acrylic colour coating - is ideal for tennis and netball use. The surface can be installed over new or restored base formations. The 15

Fence detail of installation at The de Ferrers Academy

use of different colours for line marking allows different sporting activities on the same surface. Maintenance for this type of surface is fairly minimal and usually within the capability of existing resources at educational establishments.

Derek Gilbert of Building Design Group, consultant on the project says, “Fosse Contracts have a good reputation for working on projects where time is limited to installation during holidays at educational establishments. The project completed at The de Ferrers Academy shows that the reputation is well deserved.”

For more about Fosse Contracts Ltd please visit www.fossecontracts.co.uk.

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“The buck stops here” for academies’ Governors & Principals The solutions are to ensure the right financial systems, and the right skills for key staff and Governors.

The Education Funding Agency (EFA) has now issued its first “Financial Notice to Improve”.

What can academies do to ensure that they are not next?

Tim Borton is a specialist academies partner in the leading education accountancy firm, Bishop Fleming. Amongst its education clients are 150 academy schools. In this article, Tim uses his experience to look at the common themes that he sees as the main routes to sound financial management.

Financially, schools are not complicated businesses, but nevertheless, things can and do go wrong.

There are two strands that can lead to financial difficulties. First is the environment in which academies operate; there are inherent problems that the Department for Education (DoE) and the EFA need to consider further. Second is how individual academies respond to those problems and how they manage their finances around them.

The inherent problems Academies are financially independent organisations. When boards of governors chose to remove their schools from local authority (LA) control, they gave up the safety net. I was running some financial training for a board of governors recently. When introducing me to his fellow governors, the chairman summed it up quite succinctly when he said “we are no longer a sub-committee of the LA, the buck stops with us now.”

Most academy schools, and certainly most convertor academies, do not have significant reserves when they are first established.

Some have none and some actually open with a commitment to pay back a previous deficit. Academies receive income in the form of general annual grant (GAG) which, by and large, is there for the education of children at the academy in the year to which the grant relates.

Many academies will set a balanced budget, just as they did when they were part of the LA. It sounds obvious, but if expenditure exceeds expectation, with no reserves and an intended zero surplus, the academy will be in deficit. That could mean it is insolvent.

There are two definitions of insolvency; the academy’s liabilities exceed its assets, or the academy cannot pay its debts as they fall due. If governors allow an academy to continue operating whilst they know it is

insolvent, they are in breach of the law and expose themselves to personal liability.

The balance between breaking even and making a surplus to build reserves is a dilemma that faces many charities - how to square the needs of current beneficiaries (ie the pupils at the academy now) with the needs of the future. Principals and governors will want to provide the finest education they can now, but have a duty to ensure the school succeeds for the benefit of the pupils that are at the school next year and beyond.

Contrarily, with nearly 3,000 academies, if each one were to build average reserves of, say, £500,000, that would be £1.5bn of public money sitting idle in bank accounts.

And that is where I believe the DoE and EFA need to give some consideration to the funding structure - rather than each academy building sufficient reserves, perhaps there could be a central contingency pot. But even if there was, the EFA would need to ensure that it does not become an excuse for academies not to exercise good financial management in the first place.

Tips for academies Systems - although schools are not complicated businesses (they receive income and spend most of it on staff and premises), what they do have is a number of income streams. Often each one has specific purposes and conditions attached.

GAG itself has to be spent only as permitted by the funding agreement. Therefore, it is essential that an academy’s accounting system is capable of tracking the different income streams, matching the relevant expenditure to them.

Many academies find themselves cash rich - they receive income in advance and have some delayed expenditure (PAYE, pensions, purchase ledger suppliers are all paid monthly in arrears). So, just monitoring cash will not be sufficient to highlight underlying problems brewing. Add to this some substantial awards under the Academies Capital and Maintenance Fund or other capital grants, then positive cashflows on building projects can mask deficits accruing in respect of revenue expenditure.

The old adage of “rubbish in, rubbish out” applies as much to academies as it does to any organisation. Consistency and accuracy of the posting of income and expenditure is vital in the quest for reliable management accounts and other information. That information needs to be in a format that the senior management team and the board can use to manage and govern. It is unlikely that what used by an LA school will be sufficient and relevant to an academy’s needs.

Where governors have brought us in to help when they have had concerns about potential 16

failings, it often follows that those vital monitoring measures were not fully in place to provide them with an accurate picture of the school’s underlying financial health.

The issue is less with which accounting software is chosen and more with the way that it is set up and used. Ideally, that set up needs to be addressed at the start of an academy’s life, or even better, beforehand.

Balance sheets did not feature in LA school accounting. For academies, monitoring balance sheets rather than just income and expenditure is fundamental. At the end of every month, the balance sheet should be reviewed and understood.

Staff - this goes hand in hand with systems.

It is essential that school business managers and/or finance managers are appropriately qualified, formally or by experience. The aptitude to analyse and interpret financial information is key. The ability simply to follow instruction to produce information is not sufficient.

Under the funding agreement, the Principal of each academy is the “Accounting Officer”, and should be totally familiar with the guidelines for the role (available on the EFA website). Where financial matters are unfamiliar to principals, appropriate training should be undertaken.

Governors - financial skills are not just a matter for the senior management team, they are just as relevant to the Board of Governors. It is a good idea for boards to undertake a skills audit. Academies demand a greater breadth of skills than is often the case in LA schools. Often best done in an “away day” type setting, boards should brainstorm what skills are required of them, establish what skills current governors have and, if there are any shortfalls, target relevant governor recruitment and training.

Governors should demand regular and timely financial information, that they then scrutinise and challenge. Information produced late, tabled at a finance committee meeting by a school business manager that cannot explain it to a committee that does not understand what it is looking at, is not conducive to sound financial management!

Reserves, as hinted above, it is important for academies to establish a reserves policy and to build a buffer for those unexpected scenarios. Academies should identify the risks which they face. By putting a value on the impact of those risks and assessing their likelihood of occurrence, the academy can judge what level of reserves it should aim to maintain. The policy cannot operate in isolation. Rather, it should integrate with the risk register and longer term forecasting and budgeting.

Education Magazine

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Procurement Strategies – ICT Products and Services In this, the first of a regular series of guides to make procurement more effective, we will be looking at how schools and academies can achieve best value when procuring ICT products and services.

be confirming a toner order that has already been placed.

Should you place or confirm an order, the invoice you receive is likely to reflect a higher price than you might have expected.

This whole scenario is totally avoidable as toner should always be included within any reputable photocopier contract and there should never be any need to buy it elsewhere.

There have been many examples of contracts sold by unscrupulous suppliers employing high pressure sales tactics and offering irresistible incentives. In one case, a Council was forced to pay almost £350,000 to cancel a photocopier agreement for two schools after they closed because they could not break the agreement. These suppliers have failed to deliver on their promises, charged exorbitant rates and diverted money from the frontline of education.

Contract Support

Lease forms can be extremely complicated and schools and academies are easy prey for some salespeople who skip past the small print and don’t explain details of leases in language that can be easily understood. It can also sometimes be difficult to establish exactly how much you will be paying, how often you will be making payments and for how long, especially when salespeople leave parts of lease forms blank enabling inflated figures or lease terms to be filled in later. You can be easily can be caught out by signing up for long term leases or for leases that roll over continuously, leaving you having to continue paying for worthless equipment. They can also include “copy inclusive” deals that can result in having to pay for copies you will never use.

Another common scam is being carried out by companies selling toner. They telephone giving the impression that they represent the company from which you have leased or purchased your printer or copier and try to tempt you with special toner promotions or claim to

The drive to convert to academy status has meant that the availability specialist advice and guidance from local authorities on a wide range of financial, business and procurement issues has reduced as education departments close to save money. Whilst some academies may already have the relevant skills in all these areas, many still require independent expertise to ensure that awarded contracts offer best value and comply with all regulatory requirements.

Public sector procurement organisations such as ESPO are stepping into the breach, providing an independent resource to help protect schools and academies against signing financially punitive contracts, preserve budgets and avoid wasting public money. They have industry specialists with extensive experience in the procurement of ICT contracts, who know what to look for in terms of pricing and contractual arrangements, and can benchmark proposed charges from private sector firms against established public sector contracts.

A Safer Alternative Better still is to use the latest freely available collaborative frameworks for procuring multifunctional devices (photocopiers in simple terms) which eliminates all the worry over the small print in contracts. One of the most interesting was pioneered by ESPO for the procurement of small numbers of photocopiers including all supplies,

consumables and support.

Available nationally, this new contract offers market-leading prices and eliminates the need to undertake further costly and time consuming tendering processes. Contracts are also available for non-standard or specialist requirements including managed print services, print room equipment and print audits.

Developed through a collaborative partnership between Government Procurement Service and public sector procurement organisations, these frameworks are fair and fully EU compliant, unlike many of the contracts currently being offered by private sector firms seeking to maximise profits from the public purse. They provide the public sector with the confidence that suppliers have been subjected to rigorous tendering processes comparing price and quality as well as their ability to deliver a high level of service and support throughout the full contract term with no hidden costs.

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The contracts also offer considerably better value enabling the public sector to make significant savings. For example, Benthal Primary School has been able to save 90% on the MFP contract and over 80% on the service contract whilst Victoria Infant & Nursery School has been able to reduce its costs by 54%, saving £939 a year.

Using established public sector frameworks ensures that schools and academies get the best possible price with the assurance that all procurement guidelines are being followed and hidden costs won’t arise. They enable head teachers to focus on raising standards of education, enhancing pupil performance and improving the school environment.

For more information about these frameworks, visit www.espo.org Written by Kevin Willsher of ESPO

Education Magazine

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Meet the school governors making WAVES in Hull

The opening last September of the Thomas Ferens Academy, a new £25 million secondary school in Hull, has given the opportunity for a fresh start to the education of many of the city’s young people.

The academy’s ethos and values are summed up in its motto “Making WAVES together” – with WAVES an acronym for Wise, Adventurous, Valiant, Exceptional, Students. Devised by Principal Juliet Strang, the maxim has now been adopted not only by pupils and staff but also by the academy’s governing body.

Here, Steve Benfield, of performance and organisational specialists The Beech Consultancy, explains the work being done to ensure WAVES is embraced by all involved in the academy and Richard Heseltine, Chair of Governors, gives an insight into why the governors are taking a unique approach.

“Ill-informed and not able to make good decisions.” recent comments about some school governors may have been controversial but they also served to highlight the vitally important role a governing body plays in the running and success

Sir Michael Wilshaw- Ofsted Chief.

of a school. Crucially, Sir Michael also praised the best governors for focusing on the “big issues”, such as “the quality of teaching, the progress and achievement of their pupils, and the culture which supports this”.

This is the approach being followed at the Thomas Ferens Academy where, recognising the importance of a positive culture, the governing body is uniting with staff and pupils and positively seeking to make WAVES. WAVES – Wise, Adventurous, Valiant, Exceptional, Students – is the motto at Thomas Ferens

Academy which last September opened its doors to its first 550 students with the capacity to take up to a total of 1,250. Not only money, but enormous amounts of time, effort and hope have been invested in creating the academy: it’s viewed by many in the city as pivotal to Hull’s social and economic regeneration.

The WAVES motto, created by academy Principal Juliet Strang, was chosen to reflect the close association between Hull and the sea – and to communicate the academy’s ethos and values in a straightforward way.

in a vacuum. What we’re looking at doing at Thomas Ferens Academy is ensuring the governors are not anonymous but that they are part of the academy and share the same approach, encapsulated in the WAVES motto. There’s enough data to show that values and ethos can modify and impact on the behaviours of whole communities. What we are doing is building on that.

Ms Strang explains: “I wanted to create a motto that represents all that we stand for and above all, that is inspirational. It’s very important that the motto speaks to the students, that it’s in English, not Latin, and that it connects to everyone involved in the academy.”

To start this process, the governing body spent a recent Saturday working with me to examine how WAVES can play a part in how they fulfill their roles and responsibilities. The experience was exciting and also humbling. All the governors are committed to making the academy a success. They embraced the idea of how they could do things differently, more adventurously. One immediate outcome was a decision to hold some meetings of the governing body outside the academy in community buildings.

That’s where my company, The Beech Consultancy, comes in.

Whilst The Beech Consultancy serves clients across the UK, our roots are in East Yorkshire. Our HQ is nearby in South Cave. I am Hull born and bred and am privileged and delighted to be working to benefit such a ground-breaking venture in my home town.

The academy is drawing on our expertise in coaching, consulting and leadership development to support the leadership team in its new building at the start of this major new enterprise. In addition, under the leadership of Dr Richard Heseltine, the governors have started to examine how the WAVES maxim can be included in the way they carry out their roles.

In the longer term, there are some gains to aim for: supported by staff, governors and members of the wider community, individual students should begin to understand that they do have worth and that they can have aspirations and achieve them. More widely, a change in culture and values creates the possibility of some other really big wins: reducing teenage pregnancy rates, for example, or cutting crime.

From my work in education over several years, I have observed that often in a traditional school system, the governors don’t connect; they can be isolated and work

For me, what makes this work 20

both exciting and important is that the Thomas Ferens Academy and its new approach, encapsulated

by WAVES, gives so much opportunity to improve lives.

By Dr Richard Heseltine, Chair of the Governors at Thomas Ferens Academy and the Director of Library and Learning Innovation at the University of Hull.

My role on the governing body reflects the strong connection between Thomas Ferens Academy and the University, the main sponsor and one of the anchor institutions behind the academy. Hence the academy is named after Thomas Ferens, a wealthy benefactor who, amongst other gifts to the city, was the principal founder of the University of Hull. Other partners in the academy are Hull City Council, Wyke Sixth Form College and Wilberforce Sixth Form College.

The University’s motivation in getting involved in the academy is to help raise the expectations of the young people in Hull and encourage them to realise what they can accomplish. As main sponsor, the University is determined to bring its influence strongly to bear in the future by providing opportunities for learning that would not otherwise be available, by bringing people into the academy and pupils into the University, and by leveraging its contacts to the benefit of the academy.

Thomas Ferens Academy is in one of the most “challenging” postcode areas in the country.

Education Magazine

It sits next to one of the largest housing estates in Europe with high levels of social deprivation.

On entering the academy, levels of achievement, literacy, cognition, emotional and social skills are well below average.

From the university’s perspective, we want the academy to become part of the whole system in Hull, to break patterns and cycles which have had negative impacts and to build new traditions which foster a culture of ambition, confidence and aspiration. We want students to achieve thanks to, not despite, their schooling and environment.

From close working with Ms Strang, the academy’s principal, it’s clear she values having a governing body that both supports and challenges what’s happening within the school.

“It makes such a difference in so many ways if the governors are connected and engaged. It is so important that governors put any “ego” to one side, that they don’t use being on the board as a platform to demonstrate their individual expertise but instead work together and are positive about the school succeeding,” she says.

Cue taken. Including Ms Strang, Thomas Ferens Academy has 14

governors: one staff member, two elected parent governors, four from the University of Hull (one of whom, now a Professor of Chemistry, grew up on the neighbouring Orchard Park estate), plus representatives from the city council, the two sixth form colleges, a former primary school head teacher, an assistant curate who runs a local youth project, a theatre director who recently founded a new arts venue in the city and the finance director of The Deep, Hull’s award-winning aquarium and visitor attraction.

now excited by school and describing it to a visiting local MP as “the best, the best!”

And I was overwhelmed by the sense of possibility awakened in a child who told me excitedly about his experience on a school trip to London and now wants to go straight from the academy to university.

It is individual successes like this – as well as the aspiration of achieving huge improvements in the lives of students and the wider community – that has motivated the governing body to embrace WAVES. A well run school, with an engaging curriculum and excellent teaching are clearly priorities, but neither of these will achieve very much unless the underlying ethos and culture in the academy is right and firmly established.

We’re right behind Ms Strang’s belief in the importance of a motto like WAVES. It’s a dictum that speaks to the students and “paints a picture” of the individual they are and the people they want to be; respected, inspiring, confident and with strongly developed feelings of self-worth.

As governors, we believe it is vital that we connect and engage with the values and lives of the staff, the students and the surrounding community. That’s why, with the support of The Beech Consultancy, we’ve been asking ourselves what WAVES means to us, as a governing body, and how can we do things better.

From my own anecdotal evidence, it is clear that WAVES is already having an impact across the school. If a wave is defined as a disturbance transferring energy through time and space, then it’s definitely happening at Thomas Ferens Academy. There’s a real buzz and excitement about the place. Last week I came across a one-time “trouble-maker”

We want to enable the governing body to communicate more effectively and forge new partnerships. It’s also crucial that the governors themselves

feel inspired by what they are doing and appreciate the difference they can make.

The workshop we’ve already done on WAVES with The Beech Consultancy has encouraged the governing body to look outwards and look at practical ways we can use our role and remit to connect the school with the local community.

Further work will explore how these principles underpin our processes and approach.

Of course, I am not claiming that WAVES has turned the tide of underachievement and disengagement which has often swamped this part of Hull – yet.

Like Ms Strang, the governors are realistic. There are still the Year 11s who rile against the new uniform and the students whose frequent resort to namecalling and bullying behaviour has created habits which may be hard to break.

“Our work here is a process of conscious learning,” says Ms Strang. “We have just started a long journey for all of us.”

It is early days at Thomas Ferens Academy. But these WAVES are heading in the right direction so let’s go with the flow.

By Steve Benfield, Managing Director of The Beech Consultancy

Recycling citizens of tomorrow Leafield Environmental, UK manufacturer of recycling products has awarded three young recycling citizens at Stone with Woodford School with Smiley Face Novelty Bins featuring their winning recycling designs.

The recycling competition organised

by Leafield Environmental formed part of a wider recycling scheme at Stone with Woodford School. Different age groups took part in the competition to design a poster on recycling during their lessons. The winners Robyn, Daisy and Eve received a large Smiley Face Bin for their classroom and a mini Smiley Face Bin for them to take home. The winners were picked by a selection of Leafield Environmental employees.

Education Magazine

to put their designs on one of them.”

David Bray, Design Manager at Leafield Environmental picked the winning designs and said: “We have really enjoyed working with Stone with Woodford School to encourage and educate their pupils about recycling. We designed and manufactured our Novelty Bins in-house using feedback from children and teachers at Stone with Woodford School, so we were pleased to give their pupils a chance

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Miss Berry, Reception Teacher & Environmental Leader and Mrs Jones, Art Teacher at Stone with Woodford School discusses how this competition formed part of a wider recycling scheme and said: “Our pupils already recycle paper in their classrooms and compost food waste for our school garden, so the children are already aware of the need of recycling through the work we do, but this competition reinforced the theme of recycling. The children were very excited at the idea of a competition and seeing the winning designs on a real bin. We feel this competition has refreshed the children’s awareness of the need for recycling and having a bin to hand in the classroom will reinforce the recycling message and make it easier for the children to remember to do it. Children are the citizens of tomorrow and need to learn about not wasting products.”

Efficient energy use during the long winter months

At Highfield and Brookham Schools, we are always looking for sustainable and cost-effective ways of maintaining the buildings and grounds, and environmental sustainability is very important to us. With that in mind, the schools recently invested in Biomass energy with a woodchip burning heating system; a sustainable system which utilises the woodland on our estate to produce energy and heat the entire school.

renewable heat technology with financial incentives.”

The woodchip burning heating system is considered to be carbon neutral as trees take carbon out of the atmosphere as they grow, which is replaced in the atmosphere as they are burnt, so there is no increase in atmospheric Co2 levels. The system is sustainable as the woodchip used for burning is derived from Chestnut coppicing on the Highfield & Brookham estate.

Chestnut is a naturally self-replenishing woodland and requires little, if any, replanting to maintain its levels.

The schools sit in 175 acres of beautiful land and currently require 1.3 million kWh per annum. “Before the new installation, the schools consumed an astounding 140,000 litres of oil a year. With the installation of the new woodchip burner, we are making an instant saving on oil consumption, which can now be re-invested in many other areas of the schools” says Paul Harris, Estate & Facilities Manager. “In addition we are also able to benefit from the Government’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme which encourages the installation of

The installation has been introduced over a period of time to ensure minimal disruption to the school during term time.

Brookham Pre-Prep and Nursery installed their pipes during the long summer break and the boilers and interfaces were up and running at the Prep School, Highfield, by the Christmas break – just in time for the really cold weather that followed! The schools have also taken the opportunity to install other systems including solar thermal, solar PV, ground source heat and air source heat systems, leading the way in sustainable, efficient energy use.

While the financial and environmental benefits are clear to see, the children are also benefitting. The woodchip burning process, along with other forms of sustainable energy, are being incorporated into the school curriculum. “All pupils are able to visit the renewable energy installations, and Year 8 scholars are presently using their school iPads to find out about Biomass as part of a current project” says Highfield Headmaster, Phillip Evitt. “We hope to inspire this generation to lead the way in looking after our natural environment for future generations to enjoy.”

If you are interested in finding out more about the new heating system and for queries and further information, please contact Paul Harris on email: estatemanager@highfieldschool.org.uk For more information about Highfield & Brookham, please visit www. highfieldandbrookham.co.uk

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Education Magazine

Lessons in sustainability give educators much to consider Wind energy helps youngsters learn about environment and economy NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME – Environmental studies have come a long way since students first learned about recycling and picking up litter. These days, thousands of youngsters are being given a window on sustainability thanks to facilities like Staffordshire’s Apedale Energy Centre.

Set in Apedale Community Country Park – a former open cast coal site – the £850,000 centre offers what, for local children from deprived backgrounds, “may be the only opportunity to see green in action”, according to Ian Wykes, Head of Sustainability for Staffordshire County Council. “It’s the only piece of public open space for miles around.” .

The brand-new energy centre, “a showcase of renewable technology and low carbon building techniques”, was created with natural materials like hemp and wood and is powered by solar panels, thermal heating and two 5 kW wind turbines. Visitors can see how the building is functioning and how much energy it is exporting. Wykes hopes it will encourage both domestic users and schools to take advantage of the government’s Feed in Tariff scheme.(FiTs) The scheme, launched on 1 April 2010, means that licensed electricity suppliers pay a tariff to small-scale, low-carbon energy producers for the electricity they generate, as well as an export tariff when that energy is exported to the national grid.

Staffordshire County Council is deeply involved with the eco-schools programme, and has prepared learning resources for schools highlighting “the implications of leaving a whiteboard on or leaving lights on.” Wykes believes that wind energy is ideal for schools with suitable sites, and has already been in discussion with local head teachers about the value of renewables.

“In any school, energy use is always the second biggest cost after staff, and given that the budgets are all very squeezed, and you can see we’re looking down the barrel of fairly substantial rises in energy prices, it’s an area that’s going to become more and more on headteachers’ radar,” he says.

At Denes High School in Lowestoft, Suffolk, wind energy is more than on the radar – it’s been helping to power the site for a year. As part of a progamme to be fully sustainable

Education Magazine

by 2015, the school installed a 5 kW turbine in the summer of 2010. Students were intimately involved in the project, with sixth formers driving both planning and funding applications.

“They really did take it to heart,” says Denes Operations Manager Justin Smith.

“Because it’s such a long project, we had to get planning permission, we had to do a bat survey and one or two other things, as well – it’s very easy to lose heart with these things, so they needed a little bit of refocusing from time to time but they were really, really fantastic.”

Much of Denes’s 800-strong student base also comes from an underprivileged background. “Lowestoft has got a number of challenges,” says Smith. “It’s a seaside town. The fishing industry, of course, has pretty much died away, so it’s economically deprived: a number of our students come from challenging backgrounds and homes.”

All the more reason to get them involved in a project in which they could really take pride.

“There’s no way some of these students would ever consider a project like this,” says Smith. “They just wouldn’t have it in their thoughts. So to say, ‘actually, you can play a part, even if it’s just helping come up with the name of it, or collecting some of the data and understanding what it means, you can be part of this project’, that’s really important for us.”

Named ‘Centurion’, to represent both strength and the school’s 100-year history, the turbine sits in the school field and is a “visible, visual landmark,” says Smith.

Its output represents 3-5% of the school’s electricity cost. “The point was to show that actually students can achieve something that most schools don’t have and it’s there to stay as a legacy” he explains.

Funding for the £37,000 project came from the Low Carbon Building Fund and from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. Data from the turbine is already used in maths classes and will be used in other subjects in September, when the school becomes an academy.

Smith, who is now looking into installing solar panels at the school, believes renewable energy is a growing trend amongst educational institutions. Two or three schools have already asked if they can draw on Denes’s experiences. “It all snowballs a little bit, because we’re commenting on our experiences and other

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schools are thinking, ‘well, actually, it may be worth following through.

“I think going forward, schools have to become more sustainable institutions. In the past, they’ve been large buildings. Some of them are quite old and inefficient in terms of energy, but sustainability is more than just energy efficiency, it’s about caring for each other as well as for the environment, and that goes to the heart of what a school is all about, as well.”

That’s a view shared by Gill Harper, Business Manager at St. Columb Minor Academy near Newquay. The primary school has its own sustainability action plan, and installed a 6 kW wind turbine in December 2008. Its solar programme is ongoing, and students are treated to yearly workshops on climate change and renewable technology.

“It’s having that visible opportunity to actually see it working,” says Harper. “It brings home technology, really, and gives children a better understanding.”

Already, St. Columb students have been involved in making presentations about their school’s renewable resources to the community and to other schools all over Cornwall. “It’s all part of the expanded local sustainability programme in schools, looking at renewable technologies, turning off lights, recycling, and so on,” says Harper She hopes that eventually, meter readings can be uploaded to school computers so that students can have access to what the wind and solar units are generating and what the school is using them for in maths, science and environmental studies.

St. Columb received funding for its turbine from EDF Energy and from the Low Carbon Buildings Programme. Because it was installed before the FITs scheme, and any returns won’t be backdated, it will only earn the school 9 p per kilowatt hour exported.

Still, says Harper, “We’re pleased – it’s been really efficient. We’ve saved 10 times the CO2 and it’s 6% of the school’s energy costs.”

The school already has 400 pupils and is always expanding, so in terms of cost savings achieved by the renewables, “it’s just balancing out,” says Harper. “But at least we’re making a contribution.”

For staff and students alike, that’s the most important thing.

For more information visit www.eco-schools.org.uk

What can Development Offices learn from Bradley Wiggins and a Persian emperor?

James Plunket of Velocity Worldwide explains how the long-term commitment of the GB Olympic cycling programme and the trading systems inspired by the Persian emperor, Darius, can be adapted to bring new funds and committed advocates to your school.

Planning to win We are all familiar with the astounding success of the British Olympic and Paralympic cycling teams at last year’s games. Their achievements were not made by luck or chance. Success came through long-term investment in a strong team, training facilities and coaching programmes that focus on the individual physical and mental needs of each rider. Every member of the coaching staff knows every aspect of every rider’s personality, habits, strengths and weaknesses. It is this systemic approach that led to the string of medals and subsequent world championship titles.

Dave Brailsford, Performance Director of British Cycling, pursued an “aggregation of marginal gains” – small improvements in a number of different areas that, combined, made a huge impact to the overall performance of the team.

Realising your own marginal gains For your development office to realise its own aggregation of marginal gains, what improvements could be made to benefit your communities, campaigns and communications?

Schools would do well to know more about their customers, to communicate in a tone of voice that is more suitable for them, on channels that are more appropriate, engaging them in programmes that are more meaningful and to speak with them, not at them.

Understanding your supporters Friend-raising results in fundraising. Without an engaged community of supporters and

friends to talk to, fundraising will always be an up-hill battle. Marketing and Development relies on relationship management and requires effective intelligent systems to support your team and their many functions.

We are all familiar with community-building initiatives used by organisations such as supermarkets, football clubs and airlines.

They create strong emotional connections with their customers by making them feel special and a part of the “tribe”.

Organisations turn this customer loyalty into increased revenues. By understanding and connecting with their interests and habits, customers are more likely to respond positively to sales promotions. The “ask” is a natural conclusion to a series of soft conversations that have developed over time. Loyalty has been created. Advocacy has been established.

By definition, development is a process that improves over time. Whether your school is launching a bursary fund or planning for capital projects, any meaningful results will not happen overnight. It takes time and effort to build a strong supporter base. It requires empathy and understanding. It takes commitment and patience.

Taking on the competition It’s true that development offices have a captive audience of pupils, parents and alumni. After all they are nobody else’s pupils, parents and alumni. However, there are many competing pressures on the money that you are asking for. Besides mortgages and household bills, consider holidays offering escapism and bliss, new technology delivering efficiency and capability, or cars providing status and prestige. In the greater scheme, you are in a very competitive market place indeed. It would be ideal, therefore, if your supporters feel more emotional connection to your bursary and capital campaigns than they do for the holiday, computer or car.

Whilst successful companies really understand their customers, there is no reason why schools shouldn’t adopt the same systems to engage their own supporters. Know what interests them and what motivates them. Understand their social networks and their connections across your community. Most of all, engage each person in one-to-one conversations using the most relevant channels for them. For some, this will be letters, magazines and mailings.

For others, success will come from emails, alumni communities on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn as well as text messages.

Don’t differentiate between digital marketing and other forms of marketing – they are all part of the communication mix.

Simply find the right way to speak to each person and then provide the right content for them. By relating your campaigns to their

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All images © British Cycling

personal experiences and interests, your supporters will be more inclined to engage.

Once engaged, their loyalty and commitment will follow.

As supporters like to know that their involvement is valued and their contribution meaningful, it is important to report on the success of funded projects and explain the benefits they provide to the school community. Similarly, analysis of campaign budgets against new funds and supporters are essential for day-to-day campaign management as well as maintaining support from Governors and the Head.

In pursuit of excellence Whilst size isn’t everything, the development budget, the number of staff and the computer systems committed to the task will have a significant impact on what a school can achieve.

As schools draw up their development plans, it is important that ambitious and long-term goals are given adequate financial, moral and technical support. Systems that manage your community, campaigns and communications are vital. Whilst Excel might serve well for the young development office, more sophisticated systems are required

Education Magazine

to develop, distribute, manage, track and analyse every individual engagement against funds raised and social commitment given.

With that in mind, we can look back to 500BC when Darius built his empire from Egypt to Central Asia. In order for tribes and nations to communicate and trade easily, a common language, common currency and road networks were established so that people could work and trade with each other. These systems connected communities across boundaries and enabled value to be exchanged.

Today, our systems are computerised and web-based. They enable communities to be built and understood, for advocacy to be enhanced, for communications and campaigns to be run over the right channels and for reports to be generated detailing precisely who engages with which messages and when. The dynamic nature of such systems means that development offices can respond quickly to engage their supporters in a more personal and appropriate manner.

These systems are simple to implement and manage. They let you know what isn’t working so that precious budgets can be allocated to the most effective channels for each campaign type. They are highly cost effective for delivering new funds and more committed supporters.

In conclusion In the same way that the GB Olympic cycling programme achieved great success by

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Belonging: People like to feel that they belong. Listen to them and develop close relationships based around shared interests.

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Discovery: People like to discover new things and connect their learning to their interests. Develop relationships based on common goals and aspirations.

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Connection: People want to be involved with different issues in different places at different times. Understanding your audience ensures that the development office connects with individuals about pertinent issues, communicating with the appropriate media across the most relevant channels.

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Understanding: Supporters need to know that you listen to them and respond to what they tell you. If a particular campaign is not driving the expected response, it should be modified and resent with a more dynamic and engaging proposition.

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Insight: Reporting is essential for all parties. Analysis of campaign activities against funds raised and long-term commitments of support will cement relationships within the school as well as with pupils, parents and alumni.

Detailed insights will pay dividends in the future.

making small improvements in different areas of activity, so development offices can also achieve significant benefits by improving different areas of their activity.

The online Darius platform is a cost-effective way for schools to engage all of their different stakeholders, building strong advocacy and delivering increased funds. In these challenging economic times, Darius helps you focus your resources on what activities work best, and identify which need to be adapted or stopped.

Together, we can increase the capability and capacity of your development office, saving you considerable time and money whilst helping to realise the long-term objectives of the development office and school.

James Plunket, Market Development at Velocity Worldwide. www.velocityww.com/ education

Supply2Schools.co.uk School Decision Makers need to make choices with cost, safety and practicality in mind.

Reply No.

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We at supply2schools send exclusive emails on behalf of our clients who wish to contact and supply schools with a variety of products and services at the best price, with quality and reliability at their heart.

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Our clients send their emails to both supply and inform schools of their latest products.

When schools receive an email sent from supply2schools, they can be confident that they are getting up to date information, from a reliable company, who have experience in supplying the education sector.

For more information about supply2schools please visit

www.supply2schools.co.uk Education Magazine

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Funded Travelling Fellowships For Aspiring Head Teachers Are you an aspiring Head Teacher, who aims to be a future Head? We are looking for aspiring Head Teachers at secondary level, to research educational values and standards, new developments in teaching, and to improve their leadership skills. If you would like to travel overseas to experience, observe and research best practice in other countries, to improve your ability as a future Head Teacher, then why not apply for a life-changing Travelling Fellowship.

membership of the Institute for Childhood Trauma and Recovery, where Chris is the only secondary Principal on the committee.

The knowledge gained from his Fellowship has enabled him to make his school a national leader in this area. He has been approached by a teaching school in Coventry to be a strategic partner for education for vulnerable learners, and has completed plans to run a seminar on this work. Chris has also completed pedagogy research at Oxford University, and he is currently completing a PhD at Warwick University. Chris has also written articles on his teaching experiences for the Guardian Teacher Network.

Amongst those travelling this year, in this category, is Aidan Dowle, visiting the USA to investigate inspired school leadership in areas of deprivation.

Each year The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust awards over 120 Travelling Fellowships to British Citizens from all walks of life and from all over the United Kingdom to gain experience abroad in a wide range of interests, in order to bring back the benefit and positive change to their profession and the UK as a whole. A travelling sabbatical for those with experience, ambition and the desire to help others, will add real value to your skills and to your CV, as well as furthering your leadership and role model abilities. This year we are hoping to award over 130 – a record number of opportunities.

Applications are judged purely on project merit, and these opportunities are available to adults of any age, gender, religion or ethnicity.

The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and The Farmington Trust will be awarding 4 Travelling Fellowships in their 2014 Education category, and the application process is now open.

This collaboration is the second year of a three year partnership between the two Trusts. It aims to encourage aspiring Head Teachers to develop their moral leadership skills, in order to have a positive impact on their pupils, and to gain a wider experience of best practice.

Successful applicants will become part of the Farmington network of Fellows, and some costs of replacement staff may be covered if you are selected to travel abroad.

As a newly appointed Deputy Principal during his Fellowship, Chris Gabbett was appointed to become Principal of Trinity Catholic School in Warwickshire within 2 months of completing his final Fellowship report. Shortly after his return to the UK, he was invited to join the Best Practice Forum into the attainment and inclusion of children in care. This has now evolved to committee

Successful applicants will receive an average Fellowship grant of £6000, covering travel, food, accommodation and insurance for approximately 6 weeks overseas.

The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust was established shortly after Sir Winston’s death in 1965. Since then it has awarded over 4820 Travelling Fellowships. The scheme enables British Citizens from all walks of life to acquire knowledge overseas for the benefit of Community and Country. Subjects cover the widest variety of topics including Arts and Older People / Creative Ageing; Communities that Work; The Creative Industries; Education; Environment and Sustainable Living; Medicine, Health and Patient Care; Prison and Penal Reform; Science, Technology and Innovation; and Young People. As well as promoting greater understanding between people, the experience makes them more effective at work and in the community. Past award winners include nurses, artists, scientists, engineers, farmers, conservationists, carers, craft workers, artisans, members of the

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emergency services, sportsmen and women and young people.

Applicants need to be over the age of 18 and British Citizens who must also be resident in the UK. The deadline for the 2014 applications is 5pm on 24th September 2013.

The Farmington Trust The Farmington Trust was founded in the 1960’s by the Hon Robert Wills. The Trust so far has given over 600 Fellowships to people in this category. The Trust also provides Fellowships for Head Teachers in values and standards, and Fellowships for Senior Members of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces in moral and ethical leadership.

These Fellowships can be taken at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, with which the Trust enjoys a close relationship.

For further information call The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust: 020 7799 1660 or visit www.wcmt.org.uk, or call The Farmington Trust: 01865 271965 or visit www.farmington.ac.uk

Incentivising excellence: school choice and education quality Opinion piece by James Croft , Director, The Centre for Market Reform of Education @ The Institute of Economic Affairs England’s education reforms will have little quantifiable impact on education quality unless government makes significant reforms to increase school autonomy and competition, and lifts the ban on for-profit schools, says the author of a new book on market reform of education.

The majority of parents cannot exercise school choice effectively because:

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Proximity remains the key tie breaker device in admissions, so that it is generally only wealthy parents who can gain access to the best schools.

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An excessively political free school application process, burdened by overly stringent regulations and unnecessary planning restrictions discourages new schools providers from applying, and limits their ambition to expand.

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Poorly performing schools are kept afloat through additional investment, making entry to local markets difficult for new providers and muting any incentive they might have to improve.

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Parents themselves are not supplied with the information they need and in a format that is accessible to them.

Though the English system is ostensibly based on parental choice, these and other constraints interfere with what could be a highly effective mechanism for raising education quality. As Gabriel H. Sahlgen demonstrates in a new book published by The Centre for Market Reform of Education, to increase education quality significantly, a series of mutually re-enforcing reforms are necessary. Incentivising excellence: school choice and education quality proposes:

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should not depend on their ownership structure or ability/willingness to conform to artificial frameworks of governance. For school competition to be effective, government needs providers that are willing to expand and replicate success in different markets. For-profit organisations have the strongest incentives to do so and it is conspicuous that such schools are ineligible to receive public money.

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The introduction of a national and universal voucher system. Vouchers should be redeemable across the variety of educational settings, both statefunded and private. Choice should be mandatory, with no default school, and should entail involvement in the actual financial transaction process.

Differentiated funding. In so far as the real cost of educating children depends on their ability and background, the voucher should be differentiated. Several brackets based on family income, similar to the current progressive income tax brackets, should be adopted, extending the basis of the pupil premium to account for the fact that privileged and/or high-achieving pupils are correspondingly cheaper to educate. Placing an effective premium on educating underprivileged and low-achieving pupils would discourage cream-skimming and help to attract new providers to difficult areas.

A radical change in the government’s approach to free school licensing.

To expand supply, and increase competition, the complex bureaucracy associated with the approval of new schools should be cut back. Applicants should have only to meet minimum requirements and to provide their own capital. State capital funding would thus only be required in exceptional circumstances, obviating the need for the complex and opaque procurement and tendering process we have currently.

Expansion of online learning opportunities. Access to online learning could be expanded through the voucher. Such opportunities could be extended to pupils in existing school settings, to enhance learning in these contexts, but might also provide an important alternative in areas where school supply is unlikely to increase radically. In cases where there are no viable short-term alternatives to persistently low-performing schools, pupils should be allowed and funded to enroll in e-learning courses.

Ownership-blind admission of new providers. Approval of new providers

Education Magazine

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Closure of failing schools. Failing schools managed by public authorities are rarely closed down, despite the detriment they cause to pupils’ education and the costs involved in maintaining them. Turning such schools around usually entails radical changes in staffing – a practice which emulates school closure. Despite being politically difficult, preparedness to actually close failing schools is crucial to improving standards.

Performance-related funding. Successful schools should be rewarded. This would make it easier for both new and existing school providers to target areas where provision has historically been poor.

Competition and choice would thereby increase where it is most needed, giving parents of pupils in failing schools better alternatives.

Improve the information and accountability system. The aim of isolating school effectiveness from pupil ability should not be abandoned. Better information on background variables such as family composition, income, and parental education, is required to identify the schools at which pupils would be most likely to improve. A range of different metrics, including teacher quality indicators, should be employed. Application statistics, admissions test scores, parental and pupil satisfaction scores would also help in providing a more nuanced picture of value added, as would information about wage premiums, and employment outcomes after school, adjusted for prior achievement and background. Information provision should not be the exclusive purview of government, but should be made available via a number of different sources. This would allow competitive improvements in the presentation and quality of information.

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Commenting on the report, James Croft, Director of The Centre for Market Reform of Education, said:

Increasing school choice and competition ought to be an effective mechanism for raising education quality, but most reforms attempted to date have been hampered by a combination of insufficient autonomy for schools to experiment and differentiate themselves from the competition, inadequate incentives for schools to expand and replicate their successes, and constraints on parents’ ability to make informed choices about

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Gabriel H. Sahlgen

which school is right for their child. Gabriel Sahlgren’s book surveys the international literature and explains the flaws in design that have compromised the effectiveness of reforms attempted to date. The proposals which emerge offer the possibility of liberating choice reform from political expediency via a longer-term, experimental approach to raising education quality.

An executive summary and discussion paper outlining the author’s policy recommendations may be downloaded from www.cmre.org.uk/publications.

The Centre for Market Reform of Education (CMRE) is a new education research and policy unit based at the offices of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). Its purpose is to explore the benefits of more diverse, competitive and entrepreneurial provision in the education sector and the feasibility of market-led solutions to public policy issues.

CMRE works in cooperation with the IEA, but is financially independent. It has no corporate position as such, and bears no political affiliations.

The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. The IEA is a registered educational charity and independent of all political parties.

The importance of learning languages in school Fiona Dunmore has been teaching Spanish and English as a foreign language for over eight years and runs Viva Language Services based in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire which provides foreign language tuition for private and corporate clients of all ages and levels. http://www. vivalanguageservices.co.uk/ She even teaches via Skype and has some very definite opinions on why languages should be learnt, if not at school then later in life.

Since we are part of the European Union, we can work, study and live almost anywhere we choose. If we can speak the language of the country we stand a much better chance of living a happy and full life. Economies such as China, Brazil, Russia and India are becoming increasingly important for business, therefore speaking the language of these countries is essential if we want to compete internationally.

The UK’s export industry has declined over the past ten years, so if we want our economy to recover, we need to look towards international trade with these stronger nations, away from our recession-hit country.

Being able to communicate in other languages is not just important for work, it also offers many more opportunities than if we were monolingual. Languages help us make friends across the globe and learn about other countries and cultures. Foreign travel becomes more rewarding and we are able to experience things that would otherwise not be possible.

Given that languages are a highly valued skill, it is worrying that we lag far behind Europe when it comes to learning languages in school. In 2012 a report by the European Commission on “Language competences for employability, mobility and growth” found that only 9% of pupils in England had reached a level of “independent user” in a foreign language compared with 82% in Sweden. It is for these reasons that we need to acknowledge our lack of foreign language skills and start promoting language study in schools as soon as possible. Education Minister, Elizabeth Truss clearly summarises this: “We must give young people the opportunities they need to compete in a global jobs market - fluency in a foreign language should be another asset our school leavers and graduates are able to boast.”

How can we encourage language learning in schools?

• Allow pupils to choose which language they would like to learn rather than forcing them to learn one they are not interested in. Maybe they have relatives

from a particular country or plan to work there in the future. Perhaps they already travel to the country on holidays and would benefit more from studying that language.

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Help students to recognise how valuable speaking another language will be. There are many career opportunities that need language skills, not just translators, interpreters or teachers, but also bilingual secretaries, airline crew, international lawyers, health workers, social workers, engineers and science experts. By explaining to students that they stand a better chance of finding a job or being promoted and earning higher salaries if they can speak other languages, they will be more motivated to succeed. Perhaps the reason why pupils in other European countries are more successful at languages is because they understand their usefulness in later life. In the UK languages are not considered important.

How can we improve language lessons?

Make languages achievable for pupils of all abilities. Having spoken to many students on this subject, the general opinion seems to be that foreign languages are just “too difficult” in which only the highest achieving pupils can hope to excel. However, learning a language should be something that anyone can achieve since we all managed to learn our first language! If class sizes were smaller, children would be more eager to participate and feel less intimidated by the more confident speakers.

Keep it simple. Introducing the language gradually and keeping it as straightforward as possible may be the key to maintaining long term interest. If complex grammatical terms are used too early, often when such terms have never been studied in English, this can be extremely off-putting. Perhaps the reason other European countries do better than us at learning languages is because they study grammar in their own language which then helps their understanding of how other languages work.

English grammar and foreign language study are very much interlinked. Maybe this is one of the ways we are going wrong as we rarely teach English grammar. Under the right conditions, learning a language should not be any more difficult than learning any other subject in the curriculum.

Dedicate more time to language lessons.

We only give pupils half the time that they do in continental countries. Ideally learning a language needs practice every day if possible, therefore two or three lessons per week is inadequate to reach a good level.

One UK school that decided to devote more hours to French and German lessons has noticed considerable improvements, as Head teacher Tom Sherrington, of King Edward VI 28

Chelmsford claims, “In the five years since we’ve devoted four hours per week at KS3 to either French or German, we’ve seen a phenomenal impact: our year 9s are more confident speakers and all-round better linguists than our year 11s ever were before with GCSE results to match.”

Make learning realistic. The aim of learning a language should be to communicate in real-life situations. I have tutored Spanish A-level students who could discuss racism quite comfortably yet were unable to order a drink or check in at a hotel in the language.

It seems that language teaching has become too “exam-driven” as Dr. Jim Anderson, senior lecturer at Goldsmiths University says, “The GCSE exam is very narrow: it lacks interesting content and appropriate tasks. This probably contributes to the fact that fewer than 10% are doing any sort of language learning after GCSE.” Creative ways to make language learning enjoyable: • Encourage class discussion by using topical material such as the online news service aimed at schools, “The Day” which publishes translations of daily news stories into key European languages.

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Study contemporary foreign films, books, songs and artists. Use foreign magazine articles and online websites on subjects that interest young people today.

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Incorporate interaction and immersion into lessons. Some schools allow students to prepare a typical dish from the country by following the recipe in French or Spanish and listening to instructions given in the language by the teacher. At the Royal School, Bath, students have created videos for the school website such as a fashion show in Spanish.

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It is easier to master grammar rules and retain new vocabulary if they are taught within a context. For example, the verb “to want” could be introduced through a dialogue ordering food and drinks – create practical scenarios that pupils could see themselves in on their next trip abroad. It is all very well learning lists of words; colours, fruits or clothes but the next step is teaching how to build a sentence with these words. If the words appeared alongside a picture and a sentence, this would aid visualisation and retention of the object or phrase.

Technology in the classroom: • Blogging: Set up a class or school blog whereby pupils are encouraged to add their own articles they have written in the language. The British Council has created a guide to class blogging.

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Video conferencing: Tools such as Skype allow students to easily interactive with children in schools in other countries, Education Magazine

practising their language skills without constraints of travel expense and time.

What better way to give students an incentive to learn a language than direct communication?

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Podcasts: Most computers allow you to make recordings and with programs such as Audacity you can edit and create mp3 files. This is particularly useful for pupils who may not have good written skills. It is an effective way to improve speaking and listening skills and podcasts can be saved for later revision.

E-publishing: Apps such as “Book Creator” on iPad allow pupils to create their own e-books. By creating, editing and proofing their own written work they will become proud of their achievements, more motivated to succeed with more confidence in the language.

Social networks: Schools could set up a Twitter feed with words and phrases

Many teachers are discovering that using elements of British Sign Language in the classroom is an effective tool in stimulating learning of language and numeracy skills. Find out why with SignSpell.

Beyond phonics Schools Encouraged to Explore British Sign Language in the Classroom Many teachers are discovering that using elements of British Sign Language (BSL) in the classroom is an effective tool in stimulating learning of language and numeracy skills for hearing children. It encourages physical expression of words helping to reinforce learning through visual and kinetic association, and it enhances vocabulary and retention of words and spelling.

While BSL can integrate easily into most reading programmes, the challenge remains that teachers are often too busy and have limited resources to either undertake additional study, or to build sign language into their classroom curriculum. But learning resources that encourage schools to think beyond standard phonics-based teaching in early years education are strongly endorsed by the Education Department Service.

Research has shown that reinforcing spoken language learning, with visual and tactile information, can help increase children’s memory.

Dr Marilyn Daniels, a professor at Penn State University undertook several studies involving over 400 primary level pupils which revealed a range of benefits of learning Sign for hearing children.

Dr Daniels found that ‘By associating [the] words and symbols with actions,

Education Magazine

in the language with links to interesting videos and audio in foreign languages.

“Operating effectively in a global economy relies on the right language skills – and the UK has the worst foreign language proficiency in Europe.”

(The Confederation of British Industry, CBI).

Studying the culture: To bring languages to life it would be a fantastic idea to study the country’s culture; such as traditional festivals and celebrations. Show students video clips over the Internet of how festivals are celebrated so that they can see how fun they are. Have a “Spanish fiesta day” or a “French Bastille Day” whereby the students dress up as natives.

What is most apparent is that the sooner we take responsibility for our nation’s lack of language skills the better. The best way to do this would be by starting earlier and reforming the way we teach languages in schools. Perhaps we would do better by recruiting and training more native speaking teachers and language assistants. There are many potential teachers out there who just need the appropriate training to teach MFL in schools. Who better to teach their language than a native-born speaker who is passionate about sharing their language and culture with the next generation? This would give pupils the opportunity to practise the language regularly with a native speaker and rapidly boost their confidence in the language.

An opinion piece by Fiona Dunmore- of Viva Spanish Lessons… www.vivalanguageservices.co.uk

[the] children can remember things faster and better. This means teaching sign language facilitates the teaching of regular language.’

Findings also revealed that BSL promotes oral language development by providing strong visual clues to words contextual meanings, leads to faster learning through attentiveness and fascination, strengthens reading comprehension and encourages inclusion.

One of the challenges for inclusive education is making sure classroom teachers have the support they need to work with children with all learning styles and levels of ability. A major element in successful learning is enjoyment and fun.

Dr Daniels noted ‘One benefit of preschoolers learning sign language is that it is fun and interactive. [Students] will be using their hands and body to communicate and that stimulates their brains, making it easier to learn…By associating the words and symbols with actions, the children can remember things faster and better. This means teaching sign language facilitates the teaching of regular language.’

In recognition of the weight of evidence demonstrating enhanced results in literacy, the UK’s specialist awarding body for British Sign Language, Signature, has developed SignSpell, an exciting range of educational books and online resources for children at Key Stage 1 & 2. Written for children in their early years up to age 11 years-old, SignSpell uses fingerspelling and signing commonly used in BSL, as a vehicle to enhance children’s language skills, broaden their communication toolset and support emotional and kinetic learning.

Told through a combination of books, online games and videos of words and phrases, SignSpell is the first holistic educational resource of its kind, designed

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to help hearing children in their early years to read, spell and remember words through basic BSL. Competition: We’ve teamed up with Signature to give away Series One of SignSpell worth £199.

For your chance to win, email your details to: info@signspell.co.uk with the reference EDUMAG. (Offer ends 31/08/13) The SignSpell pack is based on a series of 12 beautifully illustrated and digitised character-based storybooks, and is supported by 50 themed lesson plans, teacher notes and learning outcomes for throughout the school year. In addition, a Video Dictionary comprising over 500 clips of humans signing words and phrases is also included. With over 90 interactive digital games for use on the whiteboard, computer or tablet, and a host of printable activities and flashcards, SignSpell encourages children’s imagination and develops key reading and spelling skills.

For more information please visit: www. signspell.co.uk or call 0191 383 7911

More than 100 free schools applications approved Michael Gove gives green light to 102 more free schools that will create more than 50,000 extra school places when full.

Education Secretary Michael Gove approved 102 new free school applications to open in 2014 and beyond, delivering around 50,000 new school places. There are already 81 open free schools, with a further 109 aiming to open in September and beyond.

In total, all currently approved free schools would deliver 130,000 new school places when full.

Many of the free schools approved will be based in areas of deprivation, or where there is a shortage of school places, like the schools open or approved before them:

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72% of all free school approvals and 91% of primary approvals will go towards meeting basic need. Ninety per cent of mainstream schools (excluding 14 to 19 schools) are in areas of basic need or deprivation More than half (64%) of the mainstream schools are expected to be located in the 50% most deprived communities in the country. 44% of the mainstream schools announced are expected to be located in the 30% most deprived communities in the country

Among the free school proposals approved are: The Jane Austen College in Norwich A secondary school for 1,100 students that will specialise in English. It has been proposed by inspirational headteacher, Rachel De Souza. The school will have a focus on cultural literacy and traditional academic subjects, with every pupil studying a language until 16 years of age, with the option to study Latin.

National Autistic Society (NAS) Free Schools NAS has had 2 schools for children and young people with autism approved. One, for 60 pupils, will be in east Cheshire and the other, for 78 pupils, will be in Lambeth. This builds on NAS’s first free school that is due to open in Reading in September.

East London Academy of Music (ELAM) A music school for 16- to 19-year-olds in Tower Hamlets. The school is the brainchild of Will Kennard, one half of production duo Chase and Status, who wants to give talented students from deprived areas the opportunity to be successful.

North Somerset Enterprise and Technology College in Weston-Super-Mare A 700-pupil 14 to 19 free school proposed

by the local Weston FE College. The free school will deliver a full curriculum, with an emphasis on STEM subjects. At KS4, all students will be entered for the English Baccalaureate and additional GCSEs, or will combine their core subjects with vocational level 2 subjects.

In total, 70 of the applications approved are from teachers, existing schools, and educational organisations. Twenty-four of the approved free schools – 8 special free schools and 16 alternative provision free schools – will serve the most vulnerable children and young people. This adds to the 5 special and 12 alternative provision free schools that are on course to open from September 2013, and Harmonize Academy, an alternative provision free school, that opened in April this year. Of the 81 free schools already open, 6 are alternative provision free schools and 3 are special free schools.

There are fewer schools approved this year with a faith designation or ethos. Fifteen will be faith designated, compared with 20 last year. Ten will have a faith ethos, compared with 13 last year.

The announcement underlines the continuing demand for free schools. More local communities want a different or better school to meet the needs of their children and to help drive up standards in their local area.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said: There are many innovators in local communities set on raising standards of education for their children. I am delighted to approve so many of their high-quality plans to open a free school.

Free schools are extremely popular with parents and are delivering strong discipline and teaching excellence across the country.

The groups will now finalise their plans in readiness to open from September 2014.

Chief among their tasks will be to secure their site. The department has co-developed a website - www.gov.uk/find-governmentproperty - with the Cabinet Office that lists all surplus government property available to buy or rent, including those suitable for free schools.

Changes to planning laws at the end of May 2013 will also make it easier for free schools to move into their preferred site.

The list of approved schools will be published on the department’s website. Notable examples include: Perry Beeches III in Birmingham This secondary free school is the latest to be set up by the excellent Perry Beeches

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Academy Trust. The trust has a strong track record with their first school, Perry Beeches I improving pupils’ key stage 4 attainment from 20% 5 or more A* to C including English and maths in 2006 to 75% by 2011.

This proposal aims to provide an outstanding traditional education, with a strong emphasis on behaviour, academic achievement, and smart appearance of pupils.

Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Blackburn It is one of the oldest independent schools in Lancashire and will join the non-selective state sector. The proposal is supported by Jack Straw.

The ethos of the school will be maintained through high aspirations allied with academic breadth and challenge. It will be based on the national curriculum, (and in the foundation stage on the early years statutory framework), with a strong emphasis on developing high levels of literacy and numeracy.

There will be a wide programme of enrichment for all students delivered by well-trained specialist teachers, with 64% possessing a 2.1 or first class degree.

The school’s rich co-curricular life will be maintained through a newly designed extended day and on-going Saturday sporting programme.

Liverpool Institute of the Performing Arts (LIPA) Free School in Liverpool This will be a creative arts primary free school established by LIPA and Edge Hill University. LIPA was co-founded in 1996 by its lead patron, Sir Paul McCartney, and principal, Mark Featherstone-Witty.

XP School in Doncaster This is a teacher-led proposal drawing on the practices of charter schools in the USA. XP will aim to prepare pupils to be successful in the adult world by facilitating authentic, real world experiences. As well as mastery of subject knowledge, the pupils will gain skills critical to readiness for further/ higher education and lifelong success, such as; literacy, numeracy problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, persistence toward excellence and active citizenship.

The Family School in London This will be a 5 to 14 alternative provision free school for children with complex psychological, family and mental health problems. Combining teaching with elements from the most up-to-date CAMHS practice (including the use of multi-family groups), the Family School will both ease behavioural and mental health-related blocks to learning and provide learning opportunities that will keep pace, day-by-day, with the pupil’s ability to learn and achieve.

East London Academy of Music (ELAM) in Tower Hamlets

Education Magazine

This is a teacher-led proposal for post-16 students. ELAM will work in conjunction with the British music industry to educate through the music. The school will bring world class music provision to the heart of east London.

The proposal is supported by Sir Nick Williams, the former principal of the BRIT School, who will be a governor of ELAM. ELAM will develop young musical talents into industry-ready professionals. It is designed to specifically improve the outcomes of young people from the diverse backgrounds found within these east London.

North Somerset Enterprise and Technology College in Weston-Super-Mare This proposal is for 14- to 19-year-olds from all backgrounds and abilities, who can benefit from the partnership with employers and universities. Its focus will be on highquality teaching with an emphasis on STEM subjects. Student will benefit from practical sessions and enrichment activities and apply them to real life situations. Work placements will be built into their timetable so they gain valuable experience and skills which will give them an advantage in future job and university applications.

The Jane Austen College in Norwich This secondary free school will specialise in English. It has been proposed by an existing academy sponsor, East Norfolk Academies Trust, led by Rachel De Souza, its CEO and an inspirational school leader with a track record in transforming schools.

The college will follow the national curriculum, with an emphasis on traditional academic subjects, and pupils will take GCSEs and the English Baccalaureate. There will be a focus on high academic achievement and cultural literacy and pupils will have the option to study Latin. The college will have a joint sixth-form with the Sir Isaac Newton Sixth Form Free School, which is opening in September 2013.

The National Autistic Society (NAS) Free Schools in Lambeth and Cheshire East These are 2 proposals from the NAS for 4- to 19-year-olds with autism. The NAS already has a free school set to open in Reading in September 2013.

They will focus on core subjects - English, maths, science and ICT – and will offer GCSEs and A Levels, as well as AQA and ASDAN functional skills qualifications.

Pupils will also be taught life skills and social communication.

The Seva School in Coventry This will be a co-educational, Sikh school in Coventry for 4- to 16-year-olds. The proposer group, the Sevak Education Trust was formed by a group of parents and community members who have lived and studied in Coventry. The group aims to deliver excellent educational development through a framework supporting the wellbeing of all pupils.

The next application window to open a free school will open in September 2013

Education Magazine

Construction under the Priority School Building Programme starts.

Construction will begin at the first school to be rebuilt under the Priority School Building Programme (PSBP), the Education Funding Agency (EFA) announced.

Whitmore Primary School in Coventry will benefit from a £4.89 million rebuild as part of the government’s £2.4 billion programme.

Contractors from Wates Construction - appointed by the EFA in January this year - arrived on site today and expect to complete the rebuild, ahead of the original schedule, by Easter 2014.

The announcement marks a significant step in the PSBP, the programme to rebuild 261 of the schools in England in the worst condition. Procurement of the work was completed in just 26 weeks.

In total, 261 schools were confirmed in May 2012 to have been successful in their application to the programme, and contractors have been selected for all 8 of the original capital-funded batches.

Wates is also developing the designs for 3 other primary schools, a secondary school and a special school, all of which form part of a £36 million batch of schools in the midlands.

In a ceremony to mark the commencement of work, Peter Lauener, chief executive of the EFA, said: I am delighted to be able to join students and staff at Whitmore Park at the start of construction works for the first school to be rebuilt as part of the Priority School Building Programme. This promises to be an exciting phase in the school’s development.

We are making excellent progress with this programme, with building works starting across the country in the coming weeks and months as we overhaul the schools with the greatest need and help ensure young people can learn in buildings that are up to scratch.

Caroline Kiely, Executive headteacher at Whitmore Primary School, said: We are excited that this badly-needed work is beginning on our school. It is really good news for the local community and will mean the children of Whitmore Park will soon have a lovely new school to learn in.

Phil Harrison, Managing Director for Wates Construction, Midlands and North, said:

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The start of construction at Whitmore Park is the beginning of a new phase in the delivery of the government’s flagship Priority School Building Programme. The building works are intended to deliver much-needed new facilities in Coventry and we have and will continue to keep very close consultation with both the EFA and Coventry Council to ensure these essential works serve to positively impact the educational experience for the city’s teachers and young people.

Schools included in the midlands batch to be rebuilt by Wates Construction are:

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Whitmore Park Primary

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St Thomas More Catholic Primary

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Wyken Croft Primary

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Richard Lee Primary

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Ernesford Grange Community

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Alice Stevens Special School

The 8 batches and their contractors are:

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North East: Sir Robert McAlpine

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Midlands 1: Wates Construction Ltd

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Midlands 2: BAM Construction Ltd

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London: BAM Construction Ltd

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North West 1: Carillion Construction

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South: Kier Regional Ltd

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East: Wates

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North West 2: Willmott Dixon

The Priority School Building Programme (PSBP) is a centrally managed programme set up to address the condition of the schools most in need of urgent repair.

Through the PSBP, 261 schools will be rebuilt or have their condition needs met.

The first school will be completed in 2014.

The EFA announced 5 batches of privately-financed schools to be re-built under the PSBP recently.

Since 2010 this government has allocated £2.7 billion to local authorities to support the provision of new school places and £2.8 billion for the maintenance of the school estate to meet the needs of maintained schools and academies. Over the spending review period, the total capital made available for investment in schools in England will be about £18 billion.

NEWS News News News NEWS News NEWS News

Four thousand more teachers in England than last year Information on increasing teacher numbers and teaching vacancies, which are at their lowest rate since 2005.

New statistics published on 30/4/2013 show that the number of teachers in academies and maintained schools in England is increasing.

The Department for Education figures reveal that as of November 2012, there were 442,000 teachers - 4,000 up on November 2011. That is 7,800 higher than in 2005, and 36,200 higher than in 2000.

Just over 121,000 of the 442,000 teachers in England were in academy schools (up from 79,300), demonstrating the increase in the number of heads and governors choosing to take advantage of academy freedoms.

The figures also show that the teacher vacancy rate remains very low at just 0.1% - remaining at its lowest level since 2005.

There were just 440 vacancies for fulltime teachers. The low rate is the same between academies and LA schools, and between primaries and secondaries.

The number of highly qualified teachers has also risen, including in the key subjects of English, maths and science. Some 96% of teachers hold qualifications at degree level or above:

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77% of maths teachers in years 7 to 13 hold a relevant post-A level qualification - compared to 73% the year before 80% of English teachers - 78% the year before 92% of science teachers - 91% the year before

The Department for Education has reformed Initial Teacher Training to make it rigorous in providing the biggest bursaries for priority subjects including maths, physics and modern languages.

The Department has also invested £4 million to help existing teachers develop their skills and is cutting bureaucracy to allow them to spend more time in the classroom and less on unnecessary paperwork.

A Department for Education spokesman said: Our reforms are freeing up teachers so they can concentrate on what they do best, and what they sign up to do - teach.

It is extremely encouraging to see there are more teachers joining - or in some cases deciding to re-join, what is a highstatus, attractive profession.

Exporting real ideas?

Professional qualifications are not using different skills to those already taught in schools but with the increasing attention and tension between vocational and traditional study this simple truth is getting lost. For example, our professional qualifications are specific to international trade however, the fact tha the skills are cross subject makes it appear to be outside the existing curriculum other than business studies. To send a cargo no matter how small you will need to understand what size your cargo is, this is taught within math’s calculating a cube is essential if you are to share a shipping container or lorry load, you do not want to waste valuable space by not using it all the space you paid for. This in turn relates to a break-even analysis that again is basic math’s. Pricing your goods becomes a little more complicated when you have to add freight and insurance especially freight as it is often sold in dollars to reflect the oil price.

Foreign exchange is the key to both freight rates but also trading in another currency and therefore basic math’s will help any budding exporter.

It goes without saying that geography is vital to any global trading company, as this aids a business in understanding where, and what culture, they will be dealing with.

Understanding the culture you operate in is basic comprehension and listening skills the fundaments of marketing. The demographics of country will help with the big decisions about which markets to try next.

Which brings me on to the next and most vital part of world trade, language. We know that a business cannot possibly learn every language of each country in which he is going to sell but what does learning someone else’s language do? First and foremost, understanding how to form sentences in another language will help a business person to understand how difficult it is to speak in a second language. This will hopefully mean, rephrasing responses or questions rather than simply repeating the same thing, only louder! It helps businesses to show respect for other cultures and to their language by using interpreters and translating literature into a local language.

British businesses, and in broader terms the British, must value the skill involved in speaking another language not simply take it for granted that the world speaks English. Research shows us that if a website is translated into a local language it is 4 x times more likely to sell. We like to speak and websearch in our own language so why shouldn’t others from around the world?

Plymouth-based Real Ideas Organisation harnesses social enterprise to create new opportunities for young people, it has some very real ideas about enhancing understanding of international trade through

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Lesley Batchelor is Director General of the Institute of Export

an exporting project with specialist sports college Plymstock School.

Institute of Export Director General Lesley Batchelor and Joanna Hill, Head of Enterprise Education & Culture at Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) visited the school and heard presentations from year 10 on their plans to act as export agents for local food, drink, surf equipment and jewellery manufacturers.

The 15-year olds had identified the manufacturers as having a strong product to maximise in international markets. They are working with their French teacher to take these products to the region of Brittany – in particular Plymouth’s twinned town of Brest.

The students had planned thoroughly investing huge energy to research and develop the initial proposition to the Brest companies. Food and drink is one of the areas with very low export activity so these young people had unearthed what is a key challenge across the UK. A decision was made to export flavoured crisps to France – on the premise that they are not widely sold in French shops.

The youngsters will next test their market proposition on their business trip planned for June.

Says Lesley: “The creativity and business savvy of the students set me wondering how powerful it would be if small companies across the UK sought out opportunities in towns across the world which are twinned with places where they live?

“Each of these joint international endeavours has amassed a wealth of local intelligence and insider knowledge of market potential which they can transport into the world of exporting and international trade.

“The Institute runs a 10 week programme that will bring all these subjects to life and provide relevance to subjects that are sometimes thought hard. As a charitable foundation we will be happy to help any schools with this subject and to bring to life some elements of the syllabus that will set them in good stead for the future after school.

Education Magazine

News News NEWS News

News

New advice to help schools set performance-related pay The Department for Education has published advice helping schools decide how to pay their teachers.

Advice helping schools decide how to pay their teachers has been published by the Department for Education.

The advice is being sent to all schools in England, alongside a revised version of the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document that reflects reforms to teachers’ pay.

Schools will, from 1 September 2013, be able to link teachers’ pay to performance allowing them to pay good teachers more. This follows recommendations from the independent School Teachers’ Review Body, which last year called on the government to link teachers’ pay more closely to their performance.

By this September every school will need to have revised its pay and appraisal policies setting out how pay progression will in future be linked to a teacher’s performance.

The first performance-linked pay increases will be made from September 2014.

The new arrangements provide increased flexibility for schools to develop pay policies tailored to their particular needs. These freedoms will support heads in attracting teachers in specific subjects based on their school’s needs. It will also help schools across the country recruit and retain excellent teachers.

Evidence shows that improving the quality of teaching is essential to raising standards in schools.

The advice published highlights factors schools could consider when assessing teachers’ performance. This includes a teacher’s:

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impact on pupil progress impact on wider outcomes for pupils contribution to improvements in other

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areas (eg pupils’ behaviour or lesson planning) professional and career development wider contribution to the work of the school, for instance their involvement in school business outside the classroom

Schools could consider evidence from a range of sources, including self-assessment, lesson observations, and the views of other teachers and of parents and pupils.

It is up to each school to decide how best to implement new pay arrangements – and each school must make the link between pay and performance clear.

Heads and school leaders are responsible for developing arrangements for performancelinked pay. Governing bodies will ensure schools adopt pay policies which clearly set out arrangements for linking appraisals to pay progression. School leaders will be responsible for explaining to teachers how appraisal outcomes lead to pay decisions.

Advice to help schools introduce new arrangements for teachers’ pay is available on the Department for Education website.

A revised School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) is available on the Department for Education website.

The School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), which makes recommendations to government on teachers’ pay reforms, called for greater freedom for schools to set teachers’ pay in its report. This is available on the Department for Education website.

Sutton Trust research shows that the effects of high-quality teaching are especially significant for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds is available on the Sutton Trust’s website.

NEWS NEWS News

Deputy Prime Minister announces 2013 pupil premium finalists The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has written to schools selected as regional winners of the pupil premium The pupil premium, announced in 2010 by the Deputy Prime Minister, provides additional funding for schools to help children eligible for free school meals in reaching their potential and help schools reduce educational inequalities. It’s up to schools to decide how best to use this money, with almost £900 allocated per pupil. Evidence shows children from low income families generally do not achieve as well as pupils from more advantaged backgrounds.

Today, the Deputy Prime Minister wrote to schools that have been selected as regional winners of the Pupil Premium Awards. A number of schools also received letters of commendation.

The Pupil Premium Awards offer awards to schools that have used the pupil premium in the best way to help disadvantaged pupils. Schools selected as regional winners have been invited to a national ceremony in July, where the overall winner will be announced.

The awards are jointly run by the Deputy Prime Minister, the Times Educational Supplement and the Department for Education.

You can read more about pupil premium on the Department for Education website.

Product Showcase BPF Furniture Components & Classroom Accessories

New test port for schools simplifies legionella monitoring and prevents vandalism.

BPF Ltd offers a huge range of components, fittings and accessories for the education sector. They already supply many Schools, Universities and Colleges with their fittings; including End Caps & Bungs to refurbish Chair & Table Legs, Exam Table Clips and Reply No. Chair Connectors. They have recently 18 launched a Presentation Board range which includes Dry wipe / magnetic boards, Mobiles and Cork Notice Boards. BPF sell all of these parts and much more through their new website; www.bpfonline.co.uk. As well as offering FOC samples, the site lets you order parts in full bag/box quantities as well as smaller amounts and in many cases even loose! BPF accept payment by credit card, PayPal or if it suits you better you can select to be sent a pro-forma invoice and pay via BACS, cheque or Card.

W: www.bpfonline.co.uk P: 01295 264800 E: websales@bpfonline.co.uk

Education Magazine

Help is on hand for schools premises managers responsible for monitoring water temperature points in public areas which are traditionally concealed or positioned at height to satisfy health and safety, for cosmetic reasons or to prevent vandalism or tampering.

Reply Temperature experts, TM Electronics (UK) Ltd now No. offer the TC Wall Port, a low-cost accessory which 19 allows discrete fine wire sensors to monitor boxed-in TMV’s, concealed pipes and covered water tanks up to 20 meters away.

What is a TC Wall Port? The new test port – measuring just 52 x 52 mm - is actually a temperature sensor monitoring point which facilitates spot checks on any water outlet with difficult or impaired access. This allows temperatures to be taken by simply ‘plugging’ in a standard thermocouple thermometer to tiny fine wire sensors. A much simpler solution than dismantling boxing below sinks or using ladders to access covered tanks necessitating working at height.

Visit www.tmelectronics.co.uk or email: sales@tmelectronics.co.uk

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NEWS News News News NEWS News NEWS News

School funding reforms David Laws, the Minister of State for Schools, laid this written ministerial statement on school funding reforms before Parliament.

Schools across the country are unfairly funded as a result of a historic and outof-date system. In March last year, the Secretary of State confirmed that we would rectify these injustices with a new national funding formula. It will be introduced during the next spending review period. The Secretary of State also announced a number of changes to the school funding system to pave the way for a national funding formula.

These changes took effect from April 2013.

This started a welcome journey towards a fairer and more transparent funding system, but following consultation with the sector a number of improvements to the initial arrangements need to be made.

The Department carried out a review to understand how the changes introduced in April 2013 have been implemented.

We published a document on 12 February seeking views from our partners, and officials also undertook fieldwork in 11 local authorities spread across the country.

We are grateful to the many MPs, head

New grammar, punctuation and spelling test will raise children’s literacy standards Education Minister Elizabeth Truss said the rigorous new spelling, grammar and punctuation test would raise standards for all children.

The new test – made up of a 45-minute grammar test and a separate 15-minute spelling test of 20 words – will be taken for the first time this week, by around 600,000 11-year-olds.

An evaluation by the Standards and Testing Agency in March found that the tests “are rigorous, are in line with international best practice, and ask pupils the appropriate questions needed to assess their grammar, punctuation and spelling”.

Children will be tested on whether they can:

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spell some of the most commonly misspelt words – including separate, preferred and necessary punctuate sentences properly –

teachers, governors, local authority officers and parents who have taken the time to contribute as part of the review.

Today we are publishing a document which sets out the changes we will be making to school funding arrangements in light of the findings from the review.

In order to maintain momentum towards a national funding formula, we will ensure that more money is targeted to pupils. We will require local authorities to allocate a minimum of 80% of their funding on the basis of pupil characteristics and we will also be setting a minimum amount that each pupil should receive.

In our consultation there was concern about the ability of local authorities to support small schools in rural areas. From April 2014, therefore, we will enable local authorities to provide additional funding for schools in sparsely populated areas.

The document also sets out new flexibilities to provide different amounts of funding to cover the fixed costs of primary and secondary (as well as middle and all through) schools. These new flexibilities will ensure local authorities can act to take account of varying fixed costs between different types of school. Schools that merge will also be able to keep some of their funding for fixed costs for at least the first year.

We will continue to target support on deprived and vulnerable pupils. Local authorities will be required to target

additional funding to deprived pupils in addition to the pupil premium. We are also making changes to ensure that those pupils who are less likely to attain well at the end of the primary or secondary phase are identified and attract additional funding.

We also want to encourage local authorities to provide the right level of additional funding for schools to enable them to support looked after children, regardless of how long the child has been in care.

We made significant changes to the funding arrangements for pupils with special educational needs last year so we are not making any further substantial changes in 2014.

We are, though, intending to require all local authorities to provide notional SEN budgets to their schools on the basis that the school will meet the costs of the first £6,000 of additional support required by a pupil with SEN. In the document we are publishing today, we are providing the detailed findings from the review, the approach which will be put in place from April 2014 and technical guidance on this for local authorities. Copies of these documents will be placed on the House libraries.

Taken together, these changes will further strengthen our funding reforms and will help us move towards our aim of ensuring that pupils attract a more consistent amount of funding wherever they go to school in the country.

‘Source DfE’

including the use of colons, ellipses and apostrophes

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use grammar correctly – including the use of subordinate clauses and a range of connectives

It will mean that primary schools will once again place a strong focus on the teaching of key writing techniques and ensure that children leave primary school confident in these skills.

challenging than the existing national curriculum for England

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Alberta’s curriculum also has a separate section on grammar and spelling

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the Singapore curriculum has a very detailed grammar and spelling strand which has a greater level of specificity and challenge than other curricula analysed

Statistics for writing in 2012 showed that:

The proposed primary school curriculum for English

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almost 100,000 7-year-olds were below the expected level (17%)

It includes:

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about 125,000 11-year-olds were below the expected level (23%)

In the CBI’s 2011 skills survey, more than 40% of employers said they were not satisfied with the basic literacy of school and college leavers.

Grammar, punctuation and spelling are also prioritised in the draft primary school English curriculum that will be introduced from September 2014, putting it in line with the level of demand of the curricula in some of the world’s leading education jurisdictions:

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the Massachusetts curriculum sets out the expectations of grammatical and spelling knowledge in detail, and is more 34

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a particular focus on spelling. For instance, there will be a list of words that all children should be able to spell by the end of primary school. There is currently no such list in the national curriculum

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a focus on grammar and punctuation.

Children will be expected to understand how to use the subjunctive, and how to use the apostrophe correctly – for example, not using an apostrophe to indicate plurals such as “I went to buy some apple’s” nor using “it’s” as a possessive

The sample tests are available on the department’s website. ‘Source DfE’ Education Magazine

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