Contact: Melanie Saunders, Education Officer (Secondary/Post-16), telephone 01962 846364, e-mail : [email protected] Hampshire

Rebecca Kingsland, Excellence Cluster Co-ordinator, telephone 023 9244 1434, e-mail : [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 This report informs members of the progress made by the Hampshire Excellence Cluster in Leigh Park since it transformed from an Education Action Zone (EAZ) in January 2005. It also provides information on how the Behaviour Improvement Plan (BIP) is impacting upon schools in Leigh Park and how the funding for these two initiatives is being used.

1.2 The Hampshire Excellence Cluster supports Aim 1 of the corporate strategy, maximising life opportunities, by providing considerable additional funding as well as focussed improvement programmes for schools in the most disadvantaged area of Hampshire. It also supports Aim 4, building strong and safe communities, because it is a programme in which all the schools in Leigh Park work together for the good of Leigh Park children with the support of Hampshire County Council.

1.3 The Hampshire Excellence Cluster and the BIP are centred around the five outcomes of The Children Act. The aim is to provide support for children and their families so that they are able to enjoy and achieve during their time in school. The cluster and the BIP also assist children and young people in making a positive contribution to society and achieving economic wellbeing through collaborative programmes which support curriculum access, achievement, attendance and the reduction of exclusions from school. The Education Action Zones were originally established in areas of high deprivation in order to remove the barriers to educational success for children. The Excellence Cluster builds on that work and is fundamentally aimed at making the outcomes of what is now The Children Act a reality in communities which face the most challenging circumstances.

2 Background

2.1 In January 2005 the Leigh Park Education Action Zone (EAZ) became the Hampshire Excellence Cluster. This transformation was the subject of a report to members of the Education Policy Review Committee in March 2004. The 14 schools of the EAZ were required to form a partnership with a high achieving school to form an Excellence Cluster. Wildern School in Hedge End was invited to join the Leigh Park schools.

2.2 This Department for Education and Skills (DfES) funded programme aims to support schools in areas of significant deprivation, building on the previous work of the EAZ. The programme is managed through the Hampshire Children's Services Department by the Excellence Cluster Co-ordinator.

2.3 The programme runs until March 2007 and has three main strands:

Learning to Learn - Helping children and their families to overcome barriers to learning, for example, literacy and thinking skills.
Gifted and Talented - Stretching more able students and embedding provision for high ability children in the curriculum.
Inclusion/learning mentors - Ensuring that children who face difficulties in school are provided with appropriate support to attend and achieve.

Within each of these strands there are identified areas for development that build on the work of the EAZ. Each strand has a co-ordinator who is responsible for overseeing the work that schools do within that strand and evaluating the outcomes. The cluster co-ordinator is accountable for the whole programme and is supported in the overall monitoring and evaluation by the Hampshire Inspection and Advisory Service (HIAS).

2.4 The focus of the cluster is on teaching and learning and all outcomes will be measured in relation to this. While the strands all have a different focus, the underlying theme is one of raising aspirations for the young people and their families.

2.5 Schools within the Hampshire Excellence Cluster and BIP

Barncroft Infant School
Barncroft Junior School
Front Lawn Infant School
Front Lawn Junior School
Riders Infant School
Riders Junior School
Sharps Copse Primary and Nursery School
St Thomas More's Catholic VA Primary School
Trosnant Infant School
Trosnant Junior School
Warren Park Primary School
Riverside Special School
Park Community School
Staunton Park School
Wildern School (not part of the Behaviour Improvement Programme)

3 The Excellence Cluster

3.1 The Gifted and Talented Strand
Through a programme of collaboration, support and challenge the schools are working to develop further provision for the gifted and talented pupils at the schools. This has involved an audit of current practice, an ongoing professional development programme for staff, collaborative enrichment opportunities and a comprehensive summer school programme, including two residential activities. The strand co-ordinator takes a lead in organising and monitoring this work.

3.2 Inclusion and Learning Mentors
Each school within the Cluster has a learning mentor, trained within the national framework. These learning mentors offer support to children in overcoming the barriers to learning, focusing on support in school. A professional development programme is available for the learning mentors, managed by the strand co-ordinator.

3.3 The Cluster supports the work of the Family and School Support Team (FASST). This is a multi-agency team that works with all children and families at risk in Leigh Park. Each school is funded to employ a home-school link worker as part of this team, who works with children and families in challenging circumstances.

3.4 Learning to Learn
The schools are working through structured development programmes focusing on functional literacy, development of thinking skills in the curriculum and assessment for learning. This is collaborative and designed to develop the curriculum to meet the wide ranging needs of all pupils. Progress within this strand is being supported and monitored by the Hampshire Inspection and Advisory Service.

3.5 The Excellence Cluster website, live from 30 November 2005, will enable the Cluster to share its best practice with the wider education community. Through this the schools will also be able to access a virtual learning environment (VLE) that will enable them to share best practice with each other and across the authority. This is managed by the technical staff at Wildern School and follows the model that is already established there. All staff will have access to training to enable them to use this developing technology.

3.6 Achievement and progress
The schools have worked hard to meet the rigorous requirements of the programme. The development in collaborative work has started and benefits can be seen in terms of sharing best practice to enhance opportunities for all members of the schools' communities. The majority of cluster programmes began in April 2005 and BIP programmes in September 2005 so assessment of impact is ongoing. Information on examination performance is included in Appendix 1.

3.7 The work of the Excellence Cluster is being evaluated through a process of self evaluation and through linking with two other clusters, Medway and Thanet. The Cluster Co-ordinator and Strand Co-ordinators will be working with the other two excellence clusters to validate the judgements that have been made locally and this information will be used to inform members and the DfES of progress made.

3.8 In addition, the impact of the work of the cluster and the BIP will be kept under review by Hampshire Advisory and inspection Service (HIAS). Analysis directly relating to the work of the cluster will be included in annual visits to cluster schools by their School Improvement Partners (SIPs) and by the Attached Inspectors (AIs) in the special and primary schools.

4 The Behaviour Improvement Programme (BIP)

4.1 The Leigh Park schools of the Excellence Cluster are also part of the Behaviour Improvement Programme, Phase 4. This is the final phase of a national programme which has been running for the past four years.

4.2 There are four mandatory elements of this programme :

Reducing exclusions and providing supported provision during fixed term exclusions
Attendance
Key workers for all children at risk
Full Service Extended School

4.3 Staunton Park and Park Community, the two secondary schools in the BIP, have worked collaboratively to reduce fixed term exclusions. There are several preventative strategies that the schools are actively trialling, including the requirement of pupils to attend the other school as an alternative to exclusion in the first instance. At the point of exclusion, pupils are required to attend an alternative day provision (1 pm - 5 pm) and undertake similar programmes of work to those they would have been doing in the normal school day. This has only been in operation since the beginning of this term and effectiveness has yet to be established. The primary schools have few exclusions and are working together on a more informal approach to providing support for excluded pupils.

4.4 The overall attendance figures for the schools have been static for the last two years, with some minimal improvement in individual schools. Individual schools have set targets for improving attendance and reducing the number of unauthorised absence. All the schools are working with the primary or secondary national strategies to make further progress in this area. They have completed an audit of current practice and identified areas for further development. Progress towards reaching the targets set is monitored by the BIP co-ordinator.

When the 14 schools' data is compared to the national and Hampshire figures it is apparent that attendance is a continuing issue. However, data provided by Price Waterhouse Cooper (PWC) about other BIP areas across the country, shows that attendance at the Leigh Park schools is in line with schools in similar circumstances.

4.5 Every school has a home/school link worker and a learning mentor, jointly funded by the Excellence Cluster and the BIP. These experienced members of staff are trained to work with individual children and their families, breaking down the barriers to learning. The BIP inclusion leader is working with the learning mentors to ensure that the support they offer to children and young people is effective and that the outcomes are clearly measured.

4.6 Support for home/school link workers is provided by the Family and School Support Team (FASST), as part of the strong multi-agency approach to working with families which was established in Leigh Park by the Education Action Zone (EAZ).

4.7 The Leigh Park schools are funded through the BIP for a full service extended cluster provision which involves a range of support services being provided out of school hours across all the schools, for example childcare and breakfast clubs. Work is underway to ensure that all provision meets the needs of the local communities and supports programmes and activities that are already available. A steering group has been set up with representatives from the schools, the Local Authority, local voluntary agencies, the police and the health service. This includes high quality childcare provision; a varied menu of activities to support out of school learning; parenting support, including family learning programmes; swift and easy referral to a multi-agency team for families in need and community access to ICT, sporting and arts facilities.

4.8 Achievement and progress
The continued support of the home/school link worker and learning mentor roles ensures that all pupils receive appropriate support. During the time of the EAZ, qualitative data was collected in the form of questionnaires to the families who receive support and the feedback was very positive. The collection of this data has continued with the excellence cluster and the feedback continues to be positive. Quantitative data is now being collated to track pupil attendance and academic progress. Initial benchmarking data has recently been returned and the progress will be tracked over the forthcoming academic year. Appendix 1 provides a brief summary of both performance and attendance data for the cluster.

4.9 The programme is monitored on behalf of the DfES by PWC through termly visits. Feedback from these visits shows that progress within the programme has been good since the start in January 2005

5 Financial information

5.1 The following table provides summary information on the funding for both the Hampshire Excellence Cluster and the Behaviour Improvement Programme.

Excellence Cluster and Behaviour Improvement Programme Funding April 2005 - March 2006

6 The future for Leigh Park

6.1 The Hampshire Excellence Cluster has developed well since it transformed in January. The schools are working collaboratively and monitoring suggests progress in key areas. The cluster co-ordinator returns to headship in January 2006 and it is important that the programmes established are self-sustaining.

6.2 Since January 2005, Hampshire Excellence Cluster has been successfully managed by a full time co-ordinator who is now returning to headship. From January 2006 alternative arrangements for co-ordination will be in place involving a combination of the existing strand co-ordinators and seconded time from staff already working within the cluster. This represents a transitory arrangement to see the project to its conclusion in 2007 and prepare and an exit strategy for when all funding ceases in 2008.

7 Legal implications

7.1 There are no legal implications arising from this report.

8 Financial implications

8.1 Both the Hampshire Excellence Cluster and the Behaviour Improvement Plan rely on external funding direct from the DfES. When this funding concludes, cluster and BIP programmes which have been successful, must either be self-sustaining or funded by the schools themselves if they are to continue. There are, therefore, no financial implications arising from this report.

9 Personnel implications

9.1 Following the return of the cluster co-ordinator to headship, arrangements for the oversight of aspects of cluster work must be made. This will be done through additional time from current consultancy and seconded staff working within the cluster. All associated staffing costs are met by the cluster and the BIP and it is not anticipated that staffing arrangements leading up to the conclusion of the cluster will require new appointments or additional expenditure.

10 Crime prevention implications

10.1 The Hampshire Excellence Cluster and the BIP are intended to support the schools and their communities. The intention of these projects is to improve attendance, reduce exclusion and help children and their families overcome barriers to learning. It is anticipated that, if successful, the Hampshire Excellence Cluster and the BIP should have a positive effect on crime prevention in the Leigh Park area through encouraging more children to be regular school attenders and making school more accessible and enjoyable for children and their families.

10.2 Staunton Park Community School has a police community support officer working within the school for three days per week. This has been supported through the Safer Schools Programme.

11 Views of the local County Councillor

These have not been sought

12 Impact assessment

12.1 No adverse impact in regard to race, culture, gender or disability arising from this report has been identified.

Recommendations

That the Policy Review Committee note the progress of the Hampshire Excellence Cluster and the Behaviour Improvement Programme (BIP) and give support to continuing this work in Leigh Park.

Appendix 1

Summary Data on the Performance of Excellence Cluster schools

2003-2005