Advice for remodelling advisers and extended school remodelling advisers (ESRAs) in local authorities

Strategy guide Meeting your strategic goals in England through study support Advice for remodelling advisers and extended school remodelling advisers (ESRAs) in local authorities Local authorities are always facing challenges over how to secure the best for the children in their areas, and how to meet government education targets. But funds are limited, and identifying the most effective ways of tackling key issues can be confusing. Study support (also known as out-of-school-hours learning or oshl, or extended, informal or extra learning) is a single approach that can help you meet these objectives. It offers informal, imaginative ways to help pupils learn by participating in clubs, group activities and community projects. Study support benefits children in many ways, such as boosting their enthusiasm for reading, reducing behavioural problems, raising attainment and increasing motivation and self-esteem. The government recognises that study support and informal learning can make an important contribution to educational strategies, including the development of extended services, the 8 to 6 agenda (which includes wraparound childcare) and workforce remodelling. It increasingly wants to see schools and local authorities working together to embed study support firmly within their development plans for extended services. Ofsted already inspects schools’ study support provision and, increasingly, under its common inspection schedule for schools and other post-16 provision (2005), study support will be inspected in the context of schools’ extended services and Every Child Matters. This guide will help you find new ways of incorporating study support into your broader extended schools and remodelling work, and show you how the development of study support offers one of the key ways of engaging schools in this agenda. About study support What is study support? Study support can include: • breakfast clubs – providing nutrition, a sociable atmosphere and learning opportunities, leading to improved attendance and concentration levels • homework clubs – help with homework in a calm, informal atmosphere • subject-based activities – such as reading or science clubs, or joining with adult learning to help prepare for additional external examinations • creative activities – such as DJ workshops, street dance, steel bands • physical education and sports – working on areas from numeracy to behaviour improvement or healthy schools, through physical activity. Study support activities are a key part of the ‘core offer’ of extended school services, which the government wants all schools to provide access to by 2010. Visit www.continyou.org.uk/8to6 for ideas and practical information about how local authorities can work more closely with schools to develop, run and sustain study support activities as part of their extended services between 8am and 6pm. The benefits of study support Study support contributes to the remodelling agenda by providing opportunities for non-teaching staff to run a range of activities. This boosts their professional development and frees up teacher time. Evaluations of study support have shown that it can help raise standards, improve behaviour and attendance, encourage parental and community involvement, and tackle social exclusion. It can help raise the attainment of all students, and can be especially helpful for those with particular needs. The relaxed atmosphere can help teachers or non-teaching staff engage with children who are very shy, for example, and makes it easier to include parents or carers. Study support can also provide opportunities for non-teaching staff and (volunteer) teaching staff. The grid on page 4, showing the key elements of Every Child Matters, the national agreement on workforce remodelling and the extended schools prospectus, gives more information. To find out more about study support evaluations, visit www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/studysupport and www.continyou.org.uk/onlinereference. Study support can improve pupils’ attitudes to learning Study support recognises the connection between children’s educational achievements and what they learn through their informal pastimes when these are linked to core learning and activities in their classrooms and communities. A key point about study support programmes is that they are strategically designed to focus on meeting the learning needs of individual pupils by, for example, tackling issues such as exclusion and low self-esteem through a carefully targeted approach. Children can be involved at every level of study support: deciding which activities will take place, choosing what to participate in, and being consulted about how the activities or schemes are run. This increases their learning opportunities. How is study support funded? Remodelling advisors and ESRAs can work with schools to find funds for study support within the School Development Grant or funding for personalised learning. Also, the most recent school funding arrangements include other sources that offer schools the potential for working with local authorities to provide ‘a varied menu of study support’ as part of their extended services. To find out more, visit www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/schoolfunding or www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/extendedschools . How does study support development help remodelling advisers and ESRAs? As a remodelling adviser or ESRA, you can help schools identify and develop the strengths and skills of their support staff and identify other opportunities to bring in outside providers or community partners who can lighten the load of teachers and develop and enrich their study support programme. This will enable them to: • provide study support activities run by teaching assistants and other support staff rather than teachers, which frees up teacher time while still ensuring that study support is firmly embedded in the curriculum (note: teachers can and do deliver study support, but are under no obligation to do so) • offer children who take part in study support activities one-to-one support and attention, without the time pressures that teachers have • provide opportunities for professional development for all staff, which can boost their creativity, enthusiasm and job satisfaction • draw in voluntary sector providers with particular coaching skills, for instance, to enhance the opportunities available to pupils and to enable them to develop wider relationships with adults • draw in statutory agencies (for example, the police) to share particular interests or skills and help break down barriers in the community and enhance community cohesion • train senior pupils (especially those over 16) to act as leaders or support to other supervisors in a wide range of study support opportunities • sustain a range of flexible activities that will contribute towards achieving your remodelling targets, from those in the extended schools prospectus to those in Every Child Matters. You might support activities that focus on the needs of particular groups of children, or you might find ways of incorporating study support into a range of different strategic objectives in education, and in other areas, such as crime prevention or health. Overall, the benefits of study support activities can be fed back into whole-school provision and can therefore provide many opportunities to raise pupils’ achievements, aspirations, motivation and self-esteem. How can study support help remodelling advisers and ESRAs to meet their objectives? Policy document Key elements How study support fits with these elements or complements them Every Child Matters* • Being healthy • Staying safe • Enjoying and achieving • Making a positive contribution • Achieving economic well-being Study support can enable schools to address each of the five aims of Every Child Matters in an enjoyable and engaging way. Study support is an invaluable tool that can help achieve objectives in the remodelling, workforce reform and extended services agendas through tackling many of the issues affecting young people. It offers high levels of one-to-one involvement for young people from a wide range of services, and provides a space for their voices to be heard. National agreement on workforce remodelling** • Progressive reductions in teachers’ overall hours • Guaranteed planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time for teachers • Reform of support staff roles to help teachers and support pupils Study support is an ideal area in which schools and local authorities can develop remodelling and workforce reform. It can enable non-teaching staff and adults other than teachers to deliver learning activities, which boosts their own continuing professional development, frees up teacher time and enriches the mix of activities that schools can offer. Extended schools prospectus*** • High quality wraparound childcare from 8am to 6pm • A varied menu of study support activities, such as homework clubs • Parenting support, including information sessions, parenting programmes and family learning • Swift and easy referral to a wide range of specialist support services • Providing wider community access to ICT, sports and arts facilities, including adult learning Study support is one of the five elements forming the extended schools ‘core offer’, but can also contribute to each of the others. For example, study support activities can add value to wraparound childcare. They should be strategically designed to meet a range of objectives, such as raising attainment, re-engaging disaffected learners, improving behaviour and providing family and adult learning. When staff work with young people in a different context, this can reveal new strengths and identify problems that the school may need to refer to other agencies. Linking to other agencies, in particular those in the voluntary and community sector (for example, the YMCA), can provide young people with access to a wide range of opportunities that can complement those provided by schools. * Every child matters: change for children (2004): visit www.everychildmatters.gov.uk ** National agreement on raising standards and tackling workload (2003): visit www.teachernet.gov.uk *** Extended schools: access to opportunities and services for all – a prospectus (2005): visit www.teachernet.gov.uk/extendedschools Case studies These case studies demonstrate how each school is using study support to meet elements of Every Child Matters, the national agreement on workforce remodelling, and the extended schools prospectus. Enrichment Wednesdays Sutton Veny C of E Primary School is a small rural school in Wiltshire which has beacon status. It is also an Investor in People, so headteacher Christine Folker is always looking for ways of extending professional development and raising standards. As in many schools, teachers were finding it hard to get all their work done by grabbing 20 minutes here and an hour there. As a result, staff agreed to restructure the school week: Wednesday afternoons would be designated as ‘non-contact’ or dedicated planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time. Every Wednesday, lessons finish at lunchtime. Over the course of a year the children now have the opportunity to experience a range of exciting enrichment activities that enable them to focus more deeply on areas of the syllabus in which they already participate, from languages and music to ICT and sports. Outside providers run the activities, which are overseen by teaching assistants and student staff. Meanwhile, the teachers can catch up with lesson plans, evaluation work and meetings. The school’s teaching assistants have played a vital role in the success of the scheme. They are allocated activities strategically, depending on their strengths and skills, and receive additional training. Similarly, any outside providers are vetted and evaluated, to ensure the sessions are of high quality and are relevant to the curriculum. To maintain standards, the headteacher monitors the programme closely and holds termly meetings and end-of-year performance management meetings with everyone involved. The scheme is funded from various sources. The outside providers are paid via a range of funding, including grants from the British Council and the School Development Fund, and the Graduate Teacher Programme provides a student teacher. Other funding has come from the headteacher’s extra work for organisations such as the National College for School Leadership. The school is currently trying to encourage the Friends of the School to provide additional funding. ‘This model of providing PPA time has been a win–win initiative. It has enriched the children’s learning and has had an immense knock-on effect on the children’s levels of interest and learning,’ says Christine. ‘The overwhelming success of the programme has been teachers having the chance to meet together for planning and assessment during daylight hours, giving them back their weekends.’ The effect As well as giving designated non-contact time to teachers, the scheme has led to more community involvement by bringing in outside coaches and instructors, and recognising the key role that teaching partners play in supporting learning. The children’s learning has benefited through contact with specialist staff, raising standards across the curriculum for all. Thanks to its increased range of modern foreign languages and greater global awareness, the school has won the International Schools Award, and the extra sports input has increased interest and participation in community sporting events. Parents have been delighted at the range of activities offered. Christine says: ‘It’s a whole-school initiative that’s been a very worthwhile investment.’ Increasing non-teacher involvement Teaching assistants have been playing an increasingly pivotal role at Fordham School in Cambridgeshire – particularly in providing study support. Teaching assistants, rather than teachers, now run a number of out-of-school-hours clubs. One example is the after-school ‘booster sessions’, for children needing extra input in certain subject areas. The teaching assistants work with teachers to identify who could benefit, and to develop informal activities – from games to written work – to help meet their needs. The healthy eating club is another example of the achievements of teaching assistants – this time, it’s an after-school club run alongside parents, to broaden children’s experience of healthy foods. It links in with other school activities via the science curriculum, presentations in assembly and ‘circle time’ discussions. The club taps into the enthusiasm of the teaching assistants and parents, to provide a positive approach to healthy eating that permeates the whole school – and it does all this without using up teacher time. To ensure that standards are maintained, all the teaching assistants involved in study support activities have received training developed by the school, and are appraised using Ofsted criteria. They often attend all-staff meetings to gain a strategic overview of their work, and they are briefed on current issues and assessment data. As a Remodelling Consultant and a Primary Strategy Consultant leader for the local authority, headteacher Kevin Bullock has a particular interest in putting thinking about remodelling into practice. ‘We’re using remodelling to help us identify and fill gaps in our study support provision as an important part of the whole picture.’ The effect ‘Our study support activities are extending education beyond subject boundaries and classroom boundaries. They involve other stakeholders who sometimes are better suited to teach a particular aspect of a subject or area of learning than a qualified teacher,’ says Kevin. ‘Remodelling is facilitating that, because it’s stopped us thinking that the teacher–pupil relationship is the only effective model for learning. It’s moving learning into the future and widening achievement beyond a narrow, formal education. It’s also enhancing the opportunities of other people in the community, to contribute to their own development, and that of the pupils.’ Supporting schools in remodelling Cornwall County Council has seized on remodelling as an important way of freeing up time for teachers and headteachers, and study support has been an obvious place to start. Many schools now use accredited coaches and support staff to run out-of-school-hours activities. To prepare them, they receive appropriate development and professional support to ensure that the activities are firmly embedded into the curriculum. The county also encourages teaching assistants to attain higher professional status. This award recognises their talents in contributing to pupils’ achievements, giving schools the confidence to use them to support after-hours learning where appropriate. One example of remodelling in action is Callington Community College, where the curriculum finishes two hours early on two days of the week and students opt into ‘extension studies’ (study support sessions), which are facilitated by a range of practitioners, including many non-teaching staff. ‘This is a great example of how study support can be used as a true entitlement for all young people – and as an opportunity to develop the skills of teaching assistants, community coaches and others,’ says Chris. Because of its ability to take a strategic, geographical overview of the whole area, part of the local authority’s job is to offer schools strategic advice and expertise, and to help them make links by sharing resources and staff. This might range from advice on arranging transport to and from clubs – a key consideration with many children being transported some distance from surrounding and distant villages – to the more fundamental business of embracing remodelling as an approach, and developing wraparound and other extended school services. In one example, it has helped arrange for children from surrounding schools to be transported to a hub school at the end of the school day, so that a cluster of schools can share in coaching sessions for a range of sports. ‘Part of the challenge has been to encourage schools to have a wider view when prioritising resources,’ says Remodelling Adviser Chris Mitten. ‘But the real value of remodelling is the enrichment – helping schools to have the courage to do things differently. Working collaboratively to share ideas and resources provides schools with new opportunities and greater efficiency.’ The effect ‘What remodelling has achieved above all is to encourage school leaders to take a step back and find out what talents lie in their staff, and in the broader community,’ says Chris. ‘Remodelling is giving schools the confidence to do what many of the best have been doing already – reviewing the professional development opportunities across the community and identifying key players among support staff, who may be able to extend their role and help teachers focus more on teaching and learning, especially through activities such as study support.’ Developing professionalism and enriching provision At lunchtime once a week, children in Years 5 and 6 at London’s Poplar Primary School gather for a computer club with a difference. They have fun building websites, designing posters and creating animations. This helps to develop the skills the pupils have learnt in ICT. ‘The club is not a lesson,’ emphasises co-ordinator Adelle Conick, an ICT classroom assistant. ‘It’s informal, and they listen to music while they work. They can ask me questions about how they go about a certain project, but I try to encourage them towards a more independent approach. Their skills are developed through experimentation, in a safe and supportive environment.’ Initiating a club like this was a natural extension to the way Adelle has worked and progressed since she joined the school three years ago as a classroom support assistant. Then, she had a City and Guilds in computers and maths as well as CLAiT (computer literacy and information technology) qualifications, but it didn’t take long for her technical skills to be recognised and for her to fill the new role of ICT classroom assistant. Now, apart from using her skills outside school hours, she also works closely with teachers to ensure that learning objectives link in with the KS2 curriculum. Her knowledge of the curriculum has obvious benefits for the lunchtime computer club. In addition, by running the sessions, she helps to free up valuable time for teachers to focus on their other work. The effect This is an example of how schools might develop their classroom assistants to carry out a range of other work. In Adelle’s case, the school has drawn on and developed her obvious technical flair to the advantage of teachers and pupils. ‘Teachers tell me what they want to do, and I show them and the pupils how. I also look after the system, which means that, if something goes wrong, it’s fixed immediately – and the teacher doesn’t have to go off looking for an IT person instead of getting on with teaching.’ She also takes small groups of Year 1 children to the ICT suite for a grounding in basic computer skills. ‘Even with 60 children in reception, we are able to offer individual tuition and ease their transition into KS1. It’s had an impact on the pupils’ skills and abilities, and Year 1 teachers have commented on this.’ Where to now... What you can do next • Contact the study support or out-of-school-hours learning co-ordinator in your local authority. Alternatively, talk to the extended schools team in your authority as the team may include a study support co-ordinator. • Include study support activities in your remodelling plans. • Find out what study support activities the schools in your area already provide and how these can complement your remodelling plans. • Consider how community partners could add value to your remodelling work. • Support schools in embedding study support by including it your INSET provision. • Host a workshop for headteachers to discuss how to develop study support and best practice that supports the remodelling needs of all schools. Useful websites and resources ContinYou supports the strategic development of study support activities in schools, local authorities and their communities. ContinYou’s Extra Time services include the 8 to 6 online resource; the new Schools ETC (Extending to Communities) subscription magazine, which will have an advice sheet in each issue; and the ‘Seeing is Believing’ network, which will keep key local authority staff up to date with the latest developments relating to extending school services and study support. Visit www.continyou.org.uk/extratime or telephone 020 8709 9900. Department for Education and Skills Study Support Team – www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/studysupport/ 4 Nations Child Policy Network For information on latest policy developments relating to children and young people across the UK – www.childpolicy.org.uk National Remodelling Team – www.remodelling.org Quality in Study Support (QISS) – www.qiss.org.uk teachernet – www.teachernet.gov.uk University of the First Age (UFA) – www.ufa.org.uk Other countries Northern Ireland Northern Ireland Department of Education – www.deni.gov.uk Scotland Scottish Executive National Priorities in Education – www.nationalpriorities.org.uk Scottish Study Support Network – Tel: 0141 950 3186 or 01968 678 985 Wales National Assembly of Wales (children and young people pages) – www.wales.gov.uk/subichildren/index.htm Re:Model For case studies and a forum on workforce remodelling in Wales – www.baglanit.org.uk/remodel Publications Building excellent schools together, download from www.wales.gov.uk Building the future of learning, Big Lottery Fund, 2004 A third space for learning: the future of study support/out-of-school hours learning, Demos report, 2005 This publication was researched and written by Eleanor Stanley, (www.eleanorstanley.co.uk) and Jenny Evans (jennyevans66@btinternet.com). It was edited by Paddy O’Dea (ContinYou) and desk-top published by Christine Knight (ContinYou). Special thanks to Tony Kirwin of Quality in Study Support (QiSS) for invaluable advice. Extra Time Strategy guides are published by ContinYou, a charity dedicated to building learning communities and promoting lifelong learning. ContinYou produces a variety of publications that support people working in the field of study support. Strategy guides are free and can be downloaded from www.continyou.org.uk. Find out more from ContinYou: 17 Old Ford Road, London E2 9PJ Tel: 020 8709 9900 Fax: 020 8709 9933 Email: info.london@continyou.org.uk Website: www.continyou.org.uk A registered charity: number 1097596