Keeping in Touch with the AAT www.albanacademiestrust.org.uk [email protected] NEWSLETTER AUTUMN TERM 2019 ISSUE 003 WELCOME Welcome to the Autumn edition of our AAT Newsletter and I hope you find it interesting and useful in keeping up to date with the activities across all of our schools. It is not possible to cover everything that takes place and for this edition we have organised items under headings rather than by school. The most important news is to welcome Sarah Mitcherson to the AAT as the new headteacher at Ridgeway Academy. She takes over from Jed Whelan who has retired following a lengthy and highly distinguished time in education. Jed did an amazing job overseeing the start of Ridgeway Academy and leading it through its first year. Not only did we see a significant improvement in examination results, but the learning environment was transformed and the popularity of the school in its local community leapt from being under subscribed to being full after year 1. Sarah is very familiar with the community having worked at Sir Frederic Osborn School as a senior leader before moving on to a school in Luton. We are delighted that she has returned and wish her every success. We have been preparing for Wheatfields Junior and Wheatfields Infants’ and Nursery Schools to join the trust and most of the work is now complete. Bringing the primary phase into the trust and widening our horizons is a very exciting development and we look forward to welcoming the new members in 2020. Alan Gray, CEO Sharing Educational Excellence STAFF/WORKING TOGETHER Peer Review On 23rd and 24th October, a team of middle and senior leaders from Ridgeway and Sandringham schools completed the first Alban Academies Trust peer review of Verulam School. The peer review process is built around a professionally led review focused on teaching and learning. The peer review identifies areas for development, bringing key challenges to schools within the AAT for the coming year. It is a joint exercise between the review team and the school; this approach enables open and honest conversations about where the school is and where it is going, to the benefit of all concerned. Our aim is to complete a peer review of each AAT school annually. It is fair to say that the experience was a mutually beneficial one for both Verulam staff and the peer review team, not least because of the professional and warm welcome offered by Verulam School and the openness with which the staff there embraced the whole process. Thanks go to the senior leadership team, and especially Mark Freakley (Deputy Headteacher) who gave freely of their time and supported the logistics of the days and all staff at Verulam who welcomed the team into their classrooms. Below are some reflections from the peer review team and Mark Freakley on the process. As a middle leader, being a part of the peer review team was an amazing CPD opportunity: all the staff were incredibly welcoming and I learnt a great deal. Identifying the key lines of enquiry and being able to share our findings was a valuable experience which I believe future peer review schools will be able to embrace and use as qualitative feedback to help move their school’s development priorities forward. Having been involved, I am now looking forward to the peer review process taking place at our school. Sarah Merrigan Subject Lead for Business Studies and Head of Sixth Form Ridgeway Academy It was a great opportunity to be part of the AAT Peer Review visit to Verulam in October 2019. Such processes can cause additional work and stress for the schools involved but our aim was that the two days modelled a positive approach to support school self-improvement. None of the team were trained inspectors and there was no intention to replicate a visit from Ofsted; instead the aim was very much to use our professional experience to investigate lines of enquiry agreed in consultation with the school. It was a very positive experience to visit so many classrooms and talk to staff and students across the school about their work. I can see how future peer review visits will both build on the expertise across the AAT and provide further opportunities for collaborative working. Mark Nicholls Deputy Headteacher Sandringham School Sharing Educational Excellence STAFF/WORKING TOGETHER The peer review was a fantastic opportunity for colleagues across the three schools to spend two days taking part in lesson and form time visits and learning walks which covered every year group and every subject in Verulam School. Each visit was completed jointly with senior leaders from Verulam and a member of the peer review team; this led to excellent discussions, sharing of good practice and a monitoring of Verulam’s School development plan. Teaching and learning, assessment, engagement and behaviour were all part of the review and the feedback from this have been used by Verulam to revisit targets and action plans and as a tool to improve practice. The peer review was a superb tool to prepare for the new Ofsted framework in a supportive and reflective way and also has significant professional development opportunities for the staff involved. Mark Freakley Deputy Headteacher Verulam School The opportunity to be welcomed into a colleague's school is a wonderful experience and one which is made all the greater by a warm welcome, a supportive leadership team and the chance to visit a variety of lessons and to see students working so hard. The peer review experience was beneficial for Verulam in that it allowed staff at the school to share good practice and reflect on their approaches but it was also excellent personal CPD and allowed me to reflect on practice and policy within my own school. I have a renewed sense of purpose after spending two days at Verulam school and have embedded examples of great practice that I saw there, specifically ‘silent starters’, into my own department back at Ridgeway Academy. Lucy Hyde Assistant Headteacher and English and Literacy Subject Lead Ridgeway Academy When we first met as a team we were all adamant that we wanted to reflect the name ‘peer review’ and not be seen or behave as an unofficial Ofsted. Our initial focus was how we could support and help to develop Verulam as part of the AAT and how some fresh eyes could perceive strengths and suggest areas of development. What I did not fully contemplate is how having time away from my own faculty allowed me to reflect on what we were doing well at Sandringham, but also how we could improve and how we might implement some of the strategies I saw. Furthermore, it was not until after the two days that I stopped to reflect on a personal level, as to how I had benefitted from the experience and in what direction my next career steps might be. The peer review process is underpinned by collaborative approach which is supportive and not critical, therefore I would welcome colleagues into Sandringham for a similar process and would value their feedback on our approaches and practice. Sam Head Director of Science Sandringham School Sharing Educational Excellence RESULTS Verulam School—Examination Success I would like to congratulate students on their success in GCSE and A-Level examinations this summer. Verulam pupils surpassed their targets this year and achieved a predicted Progress 8 score of + 0.238 meaning that on average they achieved nearly half a grade higher than boys nationally in 2018. (Boys national Progress 8 Score 2018 -0.25) John Tromans, Head of Year 11, congratulated all the boys on their impressive results and was particularly pleased with strong results in a wide range of subjects. “I am delighted with our haul of 67 Level 9 grades – these really show how hard our boys have worked.” Head of English, Phyllis Avery, was delighted by Year 10 pupils who sat their GCSE English Literature examination a year early and achieved an 88% pass rate at level 4 or above and with a third of pupils achieving the highest 7 to 9 grades. A number of pupils’ performance was particularly impressive as they achieved a grade 3 or 4 levels higher than their targets. A–Level results were positive with 40% of grades at A/B level which enabled pupils to gain prestigious University places and apprenticeships. 83% of the year group moved onto university study with over 40% of places at top universities. Other students are pursuing apprenticeships, travelling abroad and training as a journalist and a pilot! Paul Ramsey—Headteacher Ridgeway GCSE Results 2019 Ridgeway Academy is reporting their first set of GCSE results and the school is delighted with the achievements of its students, especially in English and Maths. Excitement was in the air as the students collected their results and there were lots of happy faces as the students opened their results envelopes. We are so pleased that our results reflect some outstanding performances by our students and as well as acknowledging those results, we would like to celebrate the many success stories of all the individuals who have worked incredibly hard to achieve what may appear to be relatively modest grades by comparison, but which actually represent phenomenal progress. We would also like to praise the work of the primary school teachers who laid the foundations for the achievements of our students.” Sharing Educational Excellence RESULTS Sandringham School—Examination Success The summer examination results were outstanding once again. At GCSE, 90% of students achieved a level 4 or above in English and Mathematics and 76% a level 5 and above.