Category: Brilliant Learning

Responding to the changes that Covid-19 has wrought on learning requires building on what we know works, as well as looking ahead to what we know students will need.

Although it may seem overwhelming, the time to start reimagining the future of education is now.

Learning is not limited to the classroom, and its complex, multi-faceted delivery shouldn’t rest on the shoulders of any one individual. We believe brilliant learning environments are created through collaboration and a comprehensive, whole school approach. 

A Space for Curiousity

Spaces that support a school’s reading culture allow learning to flourish. According to the OECD, “Reading for pleasure is more important for children’s educational success than their family’s socio-economic status.”

Ideally, the future for all schools should include an expansive library boasting the latest ICT resources, stocked with a diverse set of books from a wide variety of types and genres; coordinated by a dedicated librarian. But that simply doesn’t reflect reality. 40% of primary schools have no budget for a school library. Where libraries do exist, competition for funding means they are often under-resourced with inadequate stock and no librarian or staff members to oversee them. 

How can we close the gap and address the inequality of provision? The answer lies in working together. Supporting schools to manage their resources strategically, utilise their space intelligently and maximise independent learning opportunities. By acknowledging the role a physical space – library, reading corner or study area – plays in teaching children to be readers, we can build best-in-class provision within the parameters of what is possible.

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As we approach Anti-Bullying Week this year, it’s important to be reminded that preventing and tackling bullying is something we do all year round – and getting the basics right is key to achieving this.

This year’s theme for Anti-Bullying Week is ‘One Kind Word’.  Schools up and down the country, including yours, will be delivering assemblies and classroom activities, celebrating Odd Socks Day on Monday 15 November, and holding a ‘Friendship Friday’ on the 19^th.

All these things help to shine a light on the issue, but what next? What do you do the week after? Well, it may be a good time for you to consider reviewing and updating your policy and practice and considering how effective your whole school approach to dealing with bullying really is.

Research shows the whole school approach key to success and is what getting the basics right is all about. Involving everyone is the most important way to keep children safe from harm and safe to learn – from parents/carers and school staff (including catering, office, and cleaning staff, not just teachers and TAs) and – front and centre – your pupils. 

To help review your whole school approach, consider the Anti-Bullying Alliance’s ‘Ten Key Principles’:

1. Listen – take the time to consult with your stakeholders. Everyone in the school community will have something important to share, whether it be their experiences, ideas, or concerns.
2. Include all – make sure you involve those most vulnerable to bullying. These can be children and adults with SEND, young carers, and traveller families.
3. Respect – school staff are role models to children and parents/carers alike. It’s their duty to protect children and to treat all fairly. School staff set the tone of the school and embody the culture and ethos.
4. Challenge – words matter, and discriminatory language should be challenged and taken seriously every time it is heard or reported.
5. Celebrate difference – make everyone feel welcome at your school by ensuring all communities are visibly represented and that your school ethos is one that values uniqueness.
6. Understand – ensure everyone in your school community knows what bullying is and what it isn’t. You can do this by following principle number 1.
7. Believe – children and adults must be able to trust that your policy and practice is reliable and robust. Children need to know when they report bullying to an adult they will be believed and taken seriously.
8. Report bullying – it is important pupils and their parents/carers know how to report incidents of bullying. Schools must have an effective system to collect this information. Ofsted inspectors ask for schools’ data and will want to know what you are doing to prevent and tackling bullying as a result.
9. Take action – respond quickly to all incidents of bullying. Make sure children affected are involved in what happens to them. Consider implementing a restorative approach to dealing with conflict and the harm caused, if you haven’t already.
10. Have clear policies – actively involve the school community in writing and reviewing your anti-bullying policy. Make sure pupil voice is loud and clear within it. Make sure it links to other policies, such as the behaviour policy, equalities, online safety, etc.

Support for schools to prevent and tackle bullying, and improve policy and practice is available all year round. 

Now in its 26^th year, the National Gallery stages an annual exhibition called Take One Picture, and invites primary schools nationwide to take part by focussing on one of its paintings and responding creatively to its themes and subject matter, historical context, or composition. The programme aims to put art at the centre of children’s learning across the curriculum, inspiring a lifelong connection with artists’ work, museums and galleries. 

For 2021, the National Gallery selected The Battle of San Romano (painted probably about 1438–40) by Paolo Uccello as the source of inspiration. The painting shows a key moment in the Florentine victory at San Romano in 1432, with the commander Niccolò da Tolentino leading a cavalry charge and wearing a magnificent red and gold hat. Uccello’s painting was chosen for the cross-curricular themes and subjects which can be explored: from conflict and battles, to pattern, perspective and Renaissance Italy.

A selection of work produced by schools, based on the painting, is then shown at the National Gallery and published on the website. In order to be considered for the display, schools submit examples of how a whole class or school has used the picture to inspire projects that are child-led and cross-curricular and through which children have learnt a new process and involved members of the local community.

Alderbrook was one of 30 primary schools chosen this year to have their work displayed at the National Gallery and Mara Grkinic, teacher and Creative Arts Lead at the school describes the creative journey of pupils in Year 5 (Summer 2020) through to Year 6 (Spring 2021) when the project ended. Beginning with an online workshop with a professional animator, collaboration with the City Learning Centre (CLC), to how they resolved some of the practical and technical challenges of remote learning during the periods of lockdown. 

For the last four years, the school has taken part in this national art project, looking at the chosen painting and deciding how to use the image imaginatively, both as a stimulus for artwork, and to make links across the curriculum. Obviously this past year, going into lockdown meant the school could not do the project as normal, because the children did not have access to the usual resources available at school. Throughout May, June and July 2020, each year group explored the painting, focussing on different art skills and what interested them about the painting. In September, each year group then had a focussed art skill to develop.

The project aim was to do something cross-curricular, so looking at different aspects of the curriculum, whether art and media, art with maths, or art with textiles etc. It should also include the local community and the children learning a new skill. Our new skill was to learn all about animation techniques and software. Most of the pupils were already aware of stop animation, so not a new thing. A massive factor in us choosing to do this option was because of lockdown. I gave the pupils a choice, explaining that we were going to do an art project and here is a list of things that you can do. On the list was animations; can you use objects at home to try and recreate the picture; the option of looking at shadows; maybe a textiles project with the armour and hat; another option was looking at colour in the picture and why the artist had decided to put pink on the floor. I drew up a big grid of all the options and then asked the children to choose. Most of the pupils messaged back straight away via Google Classroom saying that they wanted to do animations! It was far quicker and easier for them to do this online, the pupils were already familiar with using Google Classroom, as they had already been doing a lot of online learning throughout the lockdown. The alternative would have meant dropping off painting materials etc to all of their homes. 

The decision to use stop animation was also helped by the pupils having an online workshop with Scott Castles, who is a professional animator from Castles Create. Scott showed us how to sketch something using the software he uses, which is far more advanced, but as a class we decided that as we didn’t have that kind of software, we would need to make a stop motion. It was at this stage that Alex Purssey and David Owens from the CLC came onboard with the project, and suggested that we brainstorm ideas and source a suitable app such as iStopMotion.

The CLC setup a workshop with the pupils on how to use the app and whilst this software was new to the class, some of the pupils were already quite tech savvy having used various other apps, but most of them had not used iStopMotion before. 

The creative and technical input provided by the CLC gave us the confidence and expertise we needed to complete the images and video ourselves. The children were highly motivated using the new technology and we gained fantastic new skills to use in the future!

We had been chatting on Google Classroom during the first lockdown in March and April and had discussed how could we link the story of the painting to what we were passionate about at that time. The children said that they could do our modern day battle with COVID, as this is also an historical battle. 

As a year group of 41 pupils, it gave us a lot of scope to create a great deal of animation footage. We then decided to spilt the COVID story up so far, spilt the historical battle, and then working in pairs to decide how we could recreate both parts of each story. 

My class did the COVID version and the other class in the year group did the other version of the battle with the horses. We decided that if we split the story up, we could include everything that the children had experienced from their own viewpoint. One pupil talked about the massive stock-piling that went on in her family. Everyone remembering the build-up before the first lockdown, going to the Co-Op and Sainsburys in Balham and nothing on the shelves. The pupils had quickly realised they couldn’t go to the cinema, the theatre etc, so they decided to do a animation on that. Once we got all our ideas together on a timeline, we started making the backgrounds.

The children composed the background music using the Garage Band app and they spoke on the piece that links to COVID, creating quite an emotional feel to the whole piece.

I was really conscious that during lockdown many of the children would have extended time at home with nothing much to do, so we decided to also use that time creatively and really threw ourselves into creating a virtual reality gallery on a website called Artsteps VR. This online gallery showed examples of work and how all the year groups had looked at the painting in a different way. We sent a Powerpoint presentation to the National Gallery outlining why we should be one of the schools chosen. We then received the fantastic news that we were one of the schools shortlisted and that we had a place in the exhibition.

Alderbrook school is well-resourced with iPads, chrome books, laptops, interactive whiteboards and has the use of a state of the art Mac computer suite. The school is also fortunate to have the support and expertise of the City Learning Centre (CLC) who are based on site and available to support staff and pupils, ensuring they have the very best computing curriculum available to them. The CLC’s advice and support on this animation project was invaluable and we are looking forward to working with them again on future IT projects.

The CLC also helps schools establish their computing, media, coding and photography clubs that support hundreds of Wandsworth learners develop specific skills that excite and inspire them. These clubs have grown massively across all year groups with some schools running them at lunch time and after school with older students delivering them as Computing Ambassadors.

Digital literacy, creative arts and film-making projects are available to all schools who have purchased a CLC package. The innovative computing curriculum tutors continue to support schools in class and with special stand out projects like this one. The Digital Orchestra, Raspberry Pi environmental challenge and Lego Robot Wars have all been recent projects the CLC has helped schools participate in and to engage pupils with computing and stretch their knowledge.

ANIMATED BATTLES

Alderbrook Primary School, London, 10–11 year-olds.

The pupils used animation to show links between ‘The Battle of San Romano’ 

and our modern-day battle with Coronavirus.

Further information about the programme, related CPD courses for teachers, and the annual ‘Take One Picture’ exhibition at the National Gallery can be found at https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/take-one-picture

I get asked quite often about what is it that successful schools do to improve attendance. Now, I can advise schools to follow a fair and clear process – just like the one we are about to introduce called Fast Track – and there are lots of strategies schools can put in place. Also, with the support of my team, a multi-agency approach to tackling the problem can be highly effective. Lots of support is usually required for more complex cases and these deep-rooted issues aren’t always for just one service to address.

However, fundamentally for me, creating a school that builds attachment between staff, parents and pupils, that promotes a strong sense of belonging and makes positive human connections are key to a happy, safe and thriving place that everyone enjoys coming to. 

Getting the basics right with attendance brings with it all the benefits that being part of a loving (yes, loving) school community can bring, including a healthy attitude to learning that lasts long into adulthood. Schools already foster that sense of belonging in a number of ways; peer support programmes, Circle Time, Rights Respecting Schools, School Council, friendship groups, learning mentors, and the list goes on. It may be that individual pupils and their parents receive more intensive support and a School Attachment Plan is put in place.

If this is something you’d like to trial in your school, please do get in touch. In the meantime, here is some useful research on the subject – Attachment in the Classroom.

Fairy tales are excellent materials to help children understand the story elements such as plot, setting and theme. They teach children to think critically.  

One of the wonderful things about fairy tales is the fact that they have captured the imagination of children for generations.  The opening line ‘Once Upon a Time’ has the unique ability to immediately take the children to a world packed with magic and dreams. 

Twisted tales offer a new and empowering perspective on the well-known stories and characters from fairy tales, adapting them to modern times and themes.  The modern version of fairy tales like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood are very different than their originals.  The alternative fairy tales are all about the ‘what if’ of the story and exploring a new point of view of the classic narrative.  They might include alternative settings, plot twists, funny fairy-tale blend or role reversals.

The twisted tales will not only attract pupils’ attention, entertain them, stimulate their curiosity and imagination, but also correspond with their fears and needs.  Child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, who specialised in the importance of fairy tales in childhood, believed that alternative fairy tales – as equally as the classic fairy tales – can aid children in dealing with anxiety, conflict, and teach them some unexpected lessons.  Young children judge characters and events themselves.  They confront the real world around them with the world depicted in a fairy tale, a wonderful world, sometimes unrealistic. 

The role turnaround in the twisted tales enables the pupils to develop empathy; teaches social skills and skills to understand the importance of acceptance in our lives.

And finally, alternative fairy tales are great fun!

This pack explores five books that put a spin on classic fairy tales. Ignite your pupils’ curiosity and encourage your children to create their own twisted tale. 

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Facilitate activities:

Read

Children should become familiar with the classic fairy tales and have access to twisted tales in the book corner.

Re- write 

Pupils begin reimaging the classic stories and then come up with what is known as ‘twisted tales’.  Encourage your children to introduce new characters, plot points or different scenery that can add a fun twist on the classic. 

Re-enact 

Borrow fairy tale costumes from the Learning Resources Service to act out these stories.

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Go cross-curricular

• Grow beans in jam jars to observe the development of the bean plant  after reading ‘Jim and the beanstalk’.
  
• Build houses with recycled materials after reading ‘Three little wolves and the big bad pig’.
  
• After reading ‘Cinderelephant’ survey the sizes, widths, and areas of the children’s feet.
  

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When we heard that again this year that Statutory Assessment for Primary Schools was cancelled our hearts sank at the REU. Another year without the rich analysis of school performance we were used to providing.

Rethink?

We had time to think and people to talk to, standing back from the end of Key Stage statutory collections and public accountability meant we had time to re-focus our support and look at how we could use our skills to support schools through this difficult time.

A lot of schools still wanted a contextual analysis of internal assessment and testing.  With schools taking different directions, we developed a flexible offer around this so that schools could use an REU tool to get a quick automated analysis of any year group assessments, either test or TA.  For schools who sent the data to us we have been able to provide a more detailed analysis.  Working with our subject consultants we were also able to produce a tool to monitor the Maths National Ready to Progress criteria across the school.

A new initiative this year was to provide a set of data surgeries, where schools could book a 1-1 session with the team and discuss any assessment data management, or analysis questions they had.  We found this particularly interesting and discussions were wide ranging, from capturing writing assessment to extending contextual data.

We want to continue a reflective and dynamic approach to the services we offer.  Some of the things we have learnt this year will continue as we move forward.  Examples are:

• Review the standard REU package for next year to be more focused and flexible to respond to varied school needs.
• Individual 1-1 school specific support
• Continued development of tools to support schools internally.
• Continue to provide regular updated lists of children in your school known to Social Care in Wandsworth
• Introduce more virtual and e-Training and guidance.
• Some virtual meetings and consultation with the Primary Data Steering Group and other forums to steer our work

Exploring national research

The unusual year has also meant we have spent time exploring other types of analysis, keeping a close eye on the work that other education research organisations have been carrying out. For example, we have drawn together findings on the link between KS4 and KS5 outcomes on longer term employment outcomes – and how this differs by deprivation, gender and ethnicity. For example, disadvantaged students are less likely to choose higher earning academic routes, even when controlling for prior attainment.

We’ve also been seeing how attainment gaps have been changing during the lockdown period, and how the impact varies for different cohorts (e.g. disadvantaged) and between subjects. For example, Hodder have recently released a white paper exploring attainment gaps from their optional literacy and maths assessments: https://www.risingstars-uk.com/media/Rising-Stars/Assessment/Whitepapers/RSA_Effects_of_disruption_Summer_Aug_2021.pdf

Please get in touch if you want to find out more about any of this analysis.

The pandemic has altered the way we have all worked over the last year. This impact will continue as we all try to adapt to different ways of working.

Annually, the BEST Team (Business and Education Succeeding Together) supports approximately 1600 young people to access work experience. This opportunity disappeared last year, and future programmes will be shaped by the changes in the workplace. The BEST Team is part of Lifelong Learning and located in the Children’s Services Department.

A work experience placement is usually the first interaction that a young person has with the world of work and the BEST Team is determined that the service should continue for many years to come. The service is in its 28th year!

Wandsworth BEST has now delivered several virtual work experience workshops. The first virtual work experience workshop took place at the beginning of December 2020 and involved a group of students from St Francis Xavier College.

It was a great success, and this was down to the commitment of all involved – students, tutors, several staff within the council and some highly committed local business and employers. The week was packed with different activities and talks from Fulham Football Club, South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust, Wandsworth Borough Council, RAPP (marketing and communications company), Barclays UK LifeSkills, Iqualtech (electronics), NOW TV and Sainsburys.

There are a lot of benefits to the students with virtual work experience and this includes the opportunity for students to speak to employers from a wide range of industries who also may not be based locally. It also boosts their confidence with the opportunity to ask the employers questions in real time.

The benefits to schools include spending a lot less time on arranging placements and using the experience to meet Gatsby benchmark 5 which is ‘encounters with employers and employees’.

If you are interested in being involved in future work experience activities or to find out more about the service, book a Head to Head below.

As we move towards the possibility of social distancing restrictions lessening and the prospect of  a return to “normal”, we are taking a moment here at the Schools and Community Psychology Service to think about and question ‘What does return to normal look, sound and feel like??‘.  

We cannot go back in time and change how things have been, but we can influence the future in ways that do not feel regressive and that inspire us to dream ahead and develop. So, what is the story of our future?

We might start this by asking ourselves:

• Does everything need to go back to how it was?
• What have we learned from the past year?
• What continues to work?
• What new ways of doing and of being did we experience, and can these continue going forward?
• How can we as a collective find the energy to build our resilience and create a vision for the future? 

Building individual resilience- a new item on the to-do list? 

We have all been bombarded by messages to turn this whole experience to one of growth and an opportunity to build resilience. We feel the pressure to create something purposeful when events feel out of our control……how can it be built without adding to the ever-growing list of tasks on the school development plan? 

Resilience is dynamic. It can change across time, context and situation and individual resilience depends on the resilience in other parts of the system (Masten, 2015). However, school leadership teams do not have to feel alone or lost in their efforts to help pupils, families and staff regain their strength. The factors that support the process of resilience for children include: 

• A sense of belonging 
• Strong relationships
• Agency 
• High expectations 
• The opportunity to participate as valued members of the community 

In line with these factors the Schools and Community Psychology Service (SCPS) has helped to promote pupils’ participation in their community through questionnaires at various points during the pandemic. These have explored how children and young people have felt throughout different parts of the pandemic and come up with strategies from what the pupils themselves have shared. 

“I just wanted to feedback on the surveys – I have been through them individually and it has been really fascinating. There were only a small number of children in each year group who flagged concerns, but the majority of those were children who would have slipped under the radar otherwise. It has been a really useful exercise and we now know which children to target the interventions to. Thank you so much for your expertise in this, the questions were spot on in pointing out the children who need extra support” (Feedback from primary school HT)

We have also thought with our schools about how to promote a sense of belonging with the help of the Top Ten Tips poster. The shift in practice and the strategies that come when we give voice to our children and young people are always the most relevant. Examples of strategies that pupils and young people inspired our schools to implement include:

• Playground zones with group activities that promote friendships whilst maintaining social distancing and friendship benches
• Development of participation strategy within a specialist provision with a particular focus on those pupils who present with social/communication difficulties alongside other physical and sensory needs. 
• A secondary school reflected on the limited opportunities children with SEND get to be included in group work and group projects and worked with the EP to think about how different departments could improve in including differentiation as part of their group work planning. 

Building community resilience- it’s all about coming together to think

Here at the Schools and Community Psychology Service, we are in awe of how our schools have remained strong and determined during the pandemic, showing incredible stamina and focus on whole community well-being when it mattered the most. We supported school leadership teams through ‘Wellbeing for Return conversations’, the development of resources for creating resilient classrooms and ELSA check-ins. Throughout the pandemic the SCPS ran free sessions for school senior leaders, SEMH leads and SENCOs. Each session focussed on one of the principles for adjustment as well as staff, parents and pupil wellbeing. It was a great way to bring schools together to exchange ideas and provide support to each other. 

We also created resources for parents and helped schools think about how to best support parents in their community. Some schools used their Educational Psychologists (EPs) to offer parents ‘Space to Talk’ and help them think about how to support the learning and wellbeing of their children whilst juggling the challenges of home schooling and work.  

Schools at the heart of community recovery

Community recovery is a long, slow process. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Despite the challenges, attention to their most vulnerable members of our community was at the centre of our work with schools.  And now it’s time to take a step back, listen to the stories of surviving and focus on the community as a whole and this starts with you thinking about and creating your own story for the future. 

Why? 

When people go through challenges or trauma, they are more likely to recover when they are living in supportive and validating communities. Successful community recovery comes from the vision, dreams, hopes and challenges of community themselves. It is about community choosing what their future looks like, and then acting on it with the support of services. It is about community recovery and it is more than that — it is COMMUNITY LED RECOVERY. 

There are a number of EP led initiatives that have provided support before and during phases of the pandemic that would also support our school communities with rebuilding the future too. Some examples include: 

• Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope (PATH) – A tool to support planning and problem solving for individuals, teams and organisations. ​It is a way for a group of people, who share a common problem situation to align their purpose, understanding and actions and visualise a journey towards a positive and possible future.
• SEMH audit – A process to help schools with identifying strengths and areas for further development in relation to whole organisation emotional wellbeing and mental health
• Reflective Space for teachers – The Reflecting Team approach (Andersen, 1987), has been adapted to offer a unique opportunity to staff to bring an issue to a group of colleagues for group reflection. With the help of group thinking and positive feedback, staff are provided with the time and space to consider a variety of new ideas and perspectives for challenging situations. 

Community recovery requires local knowledge and the belief that individuals and families are inherently resilient and able to recover. The Schools and Community Psychology service comes from a solution focussed and strengths based consultation model that recognises the expertise of the school communities that have already contained our families, day in and day out for the last 15 months and understand their strengths as well as ongoing needs. With our understanding of risk and protective factors as well as the steps towards collective recovery, we will continue to offer our support to schools in order to create stories of growth and hope together.