The Diocese of Bath and Wells selected us as their education consultant of choice.
Opportunity
Our role was to support the conversion of Church schools to academy status, add capacity to the Multi Academy Trust (MAT) and develop expertise to raise standards in schools causing concern.
Solution
To sustain improvement the team took a two-fold approach to increase leadership capacity and improve self-evaluation skills. For short-term issues they clearly assigned responsibility and brought rigour to accountability through the establishment of a Project Board.
For longer-term aims, they built up enthusiasm and commitment by introducing a cycle of analysis, plan, action and review. Working closely with the leadership of each school, the school improvement team helped to develop a Rising Achievement Plan (RAP) to drive improvement against school priorities. They also conducted an audit based on Ofsted criteria to identify non-compliance and develop an action plan to address these issues.
Cambridge Education added value
- Local knowledge
- Partnership Director based in the Diocese
- ational expertise
- Diocese partners in Salisbury & Rochester
- Quality assurance of all self-evaluation
- Development of RAP
- School development planning
Outcomes
The project team delivered rapid and sustained improvement in six schools by creating the right environment of accountability and providing school leaders with a structured approach to raising achievement.
The team has been very good and extremely thorough, providing the required rigour to the process.
In just 5 months, since becoming an Academy, Cheddon Fitzpaine Church School saw pupil outcomes and the quality of teaching improve markedly. In reading, writing and maths, Level 4 predictions for Year 6 increased from 76.5% to 88.2%, and the level of ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ teaching improved from 60% to 80%. In each of the six schools, we saw leadership teams grew in confidence.
Challenges faced by the team included achieving the right balance between monitoring and support; knowing how much detail to share with the MAT whilst not breaking the trust of school; overcoming the legacy of poor performance, low staff morale and limited capacity of school governors whilst introducing new ways of working and setting tough targets.
Positive feedback from the client has shown that both headline reporting and immediate feedback after each school visit established a high degree of professional trust and respect with the schools and the MAT. Establishing clear lines of communication at the outset and reporting protocols helped to manage expectation and maintain focus on pupil outcomes.