Introducing
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Rationale: As a trust and as individual schools we recognise that everything we do is predicated around the concept of family. Our community is a community of families and our schools in our stewardship belong to those families. The events of the past few years have created strains as well as opportunities, offering various perspectives from which to view the relationships between schools and the families, opportunities to understand more deeply and to adjust practice to improve our ability to reflect the priorities of, and meet the needs of, the families in our care. As the wider social community engages in the healing process, post-pandemic, there is an urgent sense that we must attend to our relationship with our precious families, underlining that the success or failure of the professional team hinges entirely on our capacity to meet the needs and wishes of families and to meet these demands.
1. In every facet of our development programme we will identify a level of involvement with, and impact upon the families of our children and young people. Systems will be reviewed and the views of families sought to evaluate their effectiveness in meeting the needs of our community and reflecting our core values.
2. Working groups established within the school will seek parental representation, enabling parents to participate in the decision-making processes of the school at strategic and operational levels.
3. A wide range of activities will be initiated to promote both social and learning outcomes for families. Parents will be invited to participate in our CPD and induction programmes. Social events will be held in order to consolidate our sense of community and to enable families to support each other.
4. Both schools will offer a comprehensive and growing extended schools provision involving after school club, play schemes and overnight provisions. This is in order to support our families to live ordinary lives.
5. A communication strategy and protocols will be put in place to guarantee a minimum standard in relation to the transfer and processing of information within school systems. This will include communication at individual family, class, department and whole school levels, and will include a logging system to ensure timely and accurate management of information.
Rationale: Always envisaged as being a single entity, the schools have diverged in their paths, partly as a result of leadership decisions but greatly exacerbated by the effects of lockdown and ‘bubble life’ whereby barriers of safety also functioned as barriers of isolation. While events of the last 12 months have been traumatic they have also presented the ideal opportunity to marry the schools in culture and in practice. Notwithstanding a continuing febrile quality in society at large and in the schools we will grasp the opportunity to merge and consolidate the Kingsley Learning Foundation schools.
2. CPD & induction: the programme for both schools will be developed collaboratively by both SLGs to reflect both the distinctiveness of both schools and their common purpose (including a ‘half-and-half’ model on both sites).
3. Subject coordination: subject co-ordinators will be paired and encouraged to mutually support each other. This will include a minimum of one day per coordinator spent on the partner school site, focused on their subject area. By the end of the year all teachers will have spent at least one day in their partner school. (RT to oversee and to host whenever possible).
4. SLGs will meet as a joint leadership group at least six times during the year. The agenda will be developed by the Headteachers, the Education Development Officer and the CEO, and will encompass both common and diverging priorities. The principle is one of continuous mutual support in all areas. Furthermore the Assistant Headteachers and Deputy Headteachers will also be paired, with opportunities to jointly reflect on their responsibilities and performance.
5. Directors and governors will have a hugely raised profile focusing on DLD and DLG roles. Each director and governor will have at least one visit to each school within the year (not always hosted by the Headteacher as the time commitment would be overwhelming). Director and governor meetings will incorporate a site tour at least once in the year – each committee of the board will have a specific site tour scheduled.
6. Joint Year 6 residential: A 4 night / 5 day residential visit, co-planned by both schools and open to all Year 6 children. There will be a maximum charge to families of £120 for this residential.
7. Parent training: a broad-based package of training for parents will be provided at both sites (i.e. parents travelling to both schools for events, not just their own child’s school). This package will include culture and ethos, behaviour, communication, ASD provision, EHCP and statutory reviews, a curriculum, financial advice and support (your rights as a parent of a child with a disability), and a Thrive session. We will explore the possibility of doing mental health and well-being training with the clinical psychologist.
1. Community events for staff and families of both schools with the emphasis on providing a worthwhile social experience (one that participants would seek to repeat).
Rationale: Red Kite and Kingsley Special Academies are enormously proud of the expertise and commitment of our workforce, without whom none of our ambitions could be fulfilled. For various reasons over the past couple of years we have experienced a lot of difficulty with retaining cherished and highly skilled staff and recruiting new people of equal calibre. Many were disillusioned by the treatment of the Education workforce in the aftermath of the pandemic, people who had risked their own health and that of their families at the front line and who had every right to expect that their bravery and sacrifice would be recognised by society at large. This was followed by a cost of living crisis in which many of our workforce are amongst the most poorly paid, resulting in them struggling to afford even a relatively basic standard of living. This was further complicated by relentless overwhelming demand for placements within our special schools, increasing the complexity and exponentially adding to workload. As a result, highly skilled staff have elected to follow alternative career paths, taking with them the training and expertise during their time with the KLF. Whereas in the past we might have expected a great deal of interest in our recruitments, we now see that a career in education is no longer as attractive as it was. Both schools have resorted to standing ongoing recruitments simply to maintain safe staffing levels.
These factors have all contributed to a compelling need to revise our approach to the retention of our own cherished team members and to develop a new strategy for recruitment highlighting the rewards on offer for being a KLF champion.
1. Conduct a comprehensive audit of the well-being support on offer to our staff on a day to day basis as well as intermittently in response to circumstances. This audit will result in an action plan to further enhance our systems for supporting and demonstrating the enormous value that the Trust places on their contributions.
2. A framework for solution-focused coaching will be created which will enhance the coaching skills of all members of the team and ensure that every member of the workforce has routine opportunities to reflect on aspects of their working lives and their future prospects. Training in this approach will be offered on a whole-school basis, led by members of the SLG.
3. Revise our advertising strategy, refreshing the language used in order to emphasise the rewards of working in our very special schools. Advertisements will be written in a style that reflects our values and our outlook with a core message of: A life-changing career, a career changing lives.
4. We recognise that there are inflexible limitations in relation to financial remuneration so our emphasis needs to be on career development and on the quality of the working life. The business of the schools will always be conducted in a respectful and professional manner which recognises the journey of each individual within their career with the KLF. This needs to be reflected in our CPD package and in our facilitation of career advancement through specialist training and qualification. At every level within the staffing frameworks there needs to be clarity and support in relation to the pathways that any individual might wish to pursue.
5. It has always been the case that we have sought to make appointments based on the character and values of the candidates over and above qualifications and experience. We will continue to seek to recruit people whose ethos and beliefs will be a good organisational fit and subsequently provide the training and enrichment that these people may need in order to further progress.
Rationale: We take great pride in the culture espoused in our schools and it continues to be of major importance that core messages are reinforced. We will seek to make our principal values highly visible in our environment and embedded within the vernacular of our communities. We recognise that morale has been damaged in recent years and, as a consequence, there has been enormous turnover of staff. It is crucial therefore that we should ensure that key elements of our philosophy and methodology should be profoundly understood by all members of our teams.
1. Creation of a working party, with parent membership, to take stewardship of culture and ethos, ensuring that our core documentation reflects the values of our community at every level and that they are fit for purpose in terms of our overall objective i.e. the service of our families.
2. Identify the key phrases from our mission statements and Ethos documents that carry the essence of our approach. By means of decals, displays and livery we will ensure that these phrases are visible in key locations across the schools.
3. Audit our systems to ensure compliance with our stated principles and values. Where non-compliance is identified the systems will be adjusted.
4. Induction and CPD programmes will always explicitly reconcile to the culture and Ethos of the trust. This will include 5-minute focus elements within team and whole-school meetings where individuals at every level of our staffing team will present their understanding of an element of the culture (5-minutes on a key phrase).
Rationale: A great deal of work has gone into devising an appropriate curriculum for our key stage 4 and key stage 5 young people, designed to optimise their life chances and ensure that they are well equipped for adulthood, with skills and knowledge individually linked to their pathways. Although many of these learners are unlikely to acquire independence, their learning at this vitally important phase will seek to minimise dependence and equip them with leisure, social and basic functional skills to make the most of their cognition and to build on the programmes of previous years.
On the Red Kite site we will construct a Learning and Enterprise Village, an outward-facing facility that will afford every individual a context for the development of their functional skills. This will not exist as an add-on provision but will be integral to the life of the school, providing a coffee shop (SEN Café) and plant nursery that will serve the community. The EHCPs of the young people will reflect this development illustrating how each learner will benefit from the experience. Gatsby Benchmarks
Commission the installation of the modular buildings.
Analyse the accredited syllabus to identify equipment needed to meet goals
• Embed the use of this facility in each young person's pathway
• Devise a timetable for opening hours, including the identification of appropriate uses of the facility when not required for our KS4 & 5 students.
Rationale: The Early Years Foundation Stage is a distinct Ofsted heading and will be rigorously inspected. We need to ensure that there is a cohesive interpretation of our approach to EYFS in all appropriate classes and an overall view of the curriculum offer in terms of intent implementation and impact. This must also reconcile with the Trust's Education Plan.
• Compose a statement of curriculum intent for the early years and ensure that practitioners can articulate all elements, including the ability to articulate how EYFS is delivered in cross-phase classes.
• Ensure that all teachers who are teaching children in the early years and Foundation Stage have been appropriately trained.
• Monitor and record the quality of the implementation of the curriculum across these classes.
• Using a range of evaluative approaches, evaluate the impact of the curriculum offer (multi-directionally).
Rationale: Over the course of the past 12 months we have moved to establish a robust provision in respect of phonics and literacy. We need to ensure that a similar standard of provision exists in respect of mathematics and that all of our structure and systems a sufficiently embedded to withstand Ofsted interrogation.
• Identify a Mathematics lead who will take responsibility for overseeing the subject across the entire School. They will establish a coherent statement of curriculum Intent ensure that this is well understood and implemented in all departments.
• SLG will monitor the implementation of this curriculum across the school ensuring that all teachers fluently describe the teaching and learning and its immediate relevance to each group of students.
• The mathematics coordinator well ensure that means for assessing impact are well established and implemented, interpreting statistical outcomes and developing plans to address shortfalls.
Rationale: Our approach to the use of pupil premiums (those identified for families in receipt of free school meals and those for children in public care) has been in place for a number of years and has served as quite well. Nonetheless, scenarios have been identified where the impact might be improved and it would be timely to address these now. This timeliness reflects the addition of additional premium based funding streams e.g. Covid recovery premium, tutoring premium etc. Our position must be expanded to take account of these additional funding opportunities and ensure that accountability is maintained in our use of this resource.
• Comprehensively audit the entirety of premium based income for the school and map against the range of opportunities available for its use.
• Engage with parents whose children have been identified against these premiums to ensure that our strategy is aligned with their views and priorities.
• Audit the strategy for each of the premium sources to ensure compliance with the statutory requirements.
• Compose an overarching strategy document detailing a plans for the use of these monies including the mechanism for accountability that demonstrates impact.
Rationale: The provision of a comprehensive extended schools offer was always part of the vision for the trust in respect of both schools. Positive feedback from our initial venture into this area in the form of this summer's playscheme provides an excellent platform to extend further including the institution of after school club, playscheme in every holiday and overnight stays (Camp Red Kite).
Identify a cohort of staff who are committed to the delivery of extended schools provision. This will enable us to determine the scale of the offer that we can make during the coming year. Based on the number of staff available to us we can design accordingly, assigning the specific days and events throughout the year's calendar.
Once the scale of the offer has been defined we would need to determine the financial viability including the level of charging for parents.
The contractual basis for this work needs to be formalised including the possibility of offering time off in lieu.
In light of the current budgetary situation it is likely that a sustainable model will be reliant on some element of fundraising. For the current year we will direct incidental charitable donations to supporting the extended school while the Trust addresses the recruitment of a fundraiser.
Rationale:
It has not been possible to offer a residential experience for several years. A residential visit is a significant milestone in the learning journey of any young person and for many of our learners will be the first significant time they have been away from home, practising their independence and social skills and enriching the curricular offer of the school.
A four night residential experience will be planned and delivered for two year groups in the school, years 6 and 10. The Year 6 residential will be shared with the Kingsley Year 6 cohort. The year 10 residential will offer an appropriate level of experience within a manageable radius. The residential offer will be inclusive of all learners in the year groups. It is hoped that in future years this model for years 6 and 10 will continue to be offered
Rationale:
The SLG of red kite is still in a formative process and as we head into the new school year there remains considerable work to be done to consolidate the school leadership. We await the new headteacher taking up her post in January and this will have significant ramifications for all of the school leaders in due course. In the meantime it is vital that we make a permanent appointment at assistant headteacher level (that post being currently occupied through a secondment from Kingsley). It is yet to be determined whether or not a further assistant head will also be required.
A detailed induction plan will be composed with the incoming Headteacher to enable her to ‘hit the ground running’ upon her arrival in January. This will include opportunities to engage with senior leaders both collectively and severally as well as opportunities to meet all staff. This work will be scheduled across the dates she has already committed for the Autumn term.
Complete a RACI analysis for school leadership, ensuring identified leadership is in place for every aspect of the school's operations. This RACI will simultaneously reflect the current situation with an acting headteacher and the evolving position with the new headteacher in post. The RACI analysis will also take account of the teaching commitment of senior leaders. At the end of the process it is imperative that the school have sufficiency of capacity and expertise to lead in all aspects, as well as having a succession plan in place to ensure sustainability for future years.
Guided by the outcomes of the RACI analysis a recruitment campaign will be conducted to employ an additional assistant headteacher whose skills and experience will address an identified shortfall.
Rationale: Since the publication of the new code of practice there has been considerable reshuffling of responsibility in relation to the updating and maintenance of EHCPs. It is becoming clear that the burden will fall more and more upon schools to take the lead in ensuring that the EHCPs continue to reflect the needs and contexts of the young people in the care of the schools. This is an enormous administrative undertaking and we will have to streamline our approach to the holding of statutory review meetings. We place high value on the person-centred planning approach and have no wish to drop or dilute this element. If we are to execute this process to our own satisfaction, we will need to engage with parents to play a more active role in contributing their views and this will require a deepening of their understanding of the nature of the EHCP and of the statutory review process.
We have adjusted the calendar for statutory review meetings, grouping the Year groups to fit better with the administrative calendar of the local authority and with our own admissions procedures.
We will need to brief teachers about the changes in the process and the impact this will have on the rhythm of their workload.
We will need to create a series of short videos, which will be run in parallel to year group parent meetings that will be held in order to explain the process and encourage parents to proactively submit their elements in advance of meetings.
We will need to engage with our administrators and those of the local authority to ensure efficacy in the management of this information within our new timeline.