Research School Network: Case study: learning behaviours in a primary setting A deliberate focus on school culture to enhance learning behaviours

Changes in school leadership are often a catalyst for change; new eyes and fresh insights into challenging and complex problems. Clifton Green Primary School in York was no exception as a new leadership team reviewed existing approaches to effective learning behaviours across the school.

School context

Clifton Green Primary School is a two form entry school located close to the centre of York. The school is organised into fifteen classes, including a nursery and specialist Nurture group. The 2019 English indices of deprivation (2019) show that the school is located in amongst the 20% most deprived neighbourhoods in the country. The neighbourhood data shows that the school is within the 10% most deprived areas in the country when considering education, skills and training. 33.3% of pupils are eligible for Free School Meals which is higher than the national average (21.6%) and Local Authority average (12.6%). The proportion of disadvantaged pupils (35.8%) is also higher than national (23.5%) and local averages (16.0%). The school serves a predominantly White British community however 13.7% of pupils speak English as an Additional Language (higher than the Local Authority average of 8.9%). The proportion of children with SEND (other, not EHCP) is 19.9% which is higher than the average in the Local Authority (10.1%) and nationally (12.6%). There are 15 children in school in receipt of an Educational Health Care Plan. 9.5% of children in school (38 ch.) are vulnerable as they are Looked After or adopted; under a social care plan or in temporary accommodation.

The problem

The school’s approach had become too reliant on some key individuals with high levels of expertise and experience. Children with the highest levels of need were offered provision within the school but away from their class base. Lots of things appeared good about this model: the children were happy and settled, they had some expert members of the staff team working with them with high child to adult ratio and this allowed other teachers to focus on teaching the rest of their classes. When high levels of challenging behaviour presented, these too were also responded to by a small number of expert practitioners who had developed excellent relationships with children. However, senior leaders started to spot the problems with the system:

Children: some children resented the system because of the perceived lack of parity, others recognised that there was a way to ​‘play the system’ (bad behaviour got them time with an adult they wanted to spend time with) and ultimately the system was not preparing children adequately for the next phase of their education

Staff: were becoming deskilled in supporting those with the most complex needs, the opportunities to build those all-important relationships with the most vulnerable members of their classes were missing and there was a lack of clarity over ownership and accountability in relation to outcomes for these children.

Leaders: despite having been involved in the evolution of the system, leaders found it hard to reconcile at policy level – what was the rationale? Which children get what support?

A Local Authority review of the school helped to clarify the position in leaders’ minds. This wasn’t about changing a few systems or structures, this was about going to back to the school’s core values, its purpose and its culture. The school set out on a new part of its journey – to deliberately and carefully shape a culture that would best meet the needs of the whole community.

Anticipated barriers/​challenges

Making changes to culture and values take time. The team anticipated that this could be a barrier and that they would need to find a way to ensure ​‘buy in’ to the changes. The school values were re-launched and referred to each week during weekly briefing sessions and on ​‘blueprint’ posters around school. Initial training was provided with follow-up sessions, monitoring and coaching as required. Training was needed to ensure staff felt confident with what was being expected of them and this required additional resource (time and money) and careful planning as well as engagement with specialist professionals/​services. Staff were asked to complete self-reviews and given opportunities to vocalise concerns and ask questions. Opportunities for CPD were planned into the school calendar and specialist input was included as necessary. Another potential challenge could have been the response from families of those children who were reliant upon the small group provision being offered. This was mitigated through strong communication and sharing of the purpose and evidence-base behind the changes being made on a 1:1 basis with each family directly affected. The developments relied heavily on staff maintaining the strong relationship already fostered with families at the school.

The approach

Central to this has been the school’s ​‘Blueprint’ (pic above) which articulates the school’s values, routines, rules and responses. Developed collaboratively by the whole team (staff and governors) so it means much more than just the brief summary on the poster, the blueprint can be found throughout the school environment as a high profile reminder of the core work of the school.

The leadership team have thought carefully about the balance of activity required to gradually shift the culture of the organisation:

- Over communicating and highlighting examples of the schools values: every weekly briefing with the head teacher starts with a focus on mental health and wellbeing and finishes with celebrating staff who have displayed exceptional examples of the schools values, often nominated by other members of the team. Leaders not being afraid to demonstrate their vulnerabilities and how team solutions are the response to this.
- Internally developed professional development – taking a number of forms that recognises the many strengths of the school including the range of expert practitioners and ensuring greater consistency of approach across the school. For example, the inclusion team worked with staff across the school to make sure that every classroom had a ​‘safe space’ for children to use when they need it, alongside the explicit instructions of tools and techniques to support with improved regulation – such as the 5 point scale and zones of regulation
- Carefully timed external training – from experts in behaviour management and evidence based pedagogical practice has brought fresh impetus when needed. This has always included all adults working in school – not just teaching staff but the many and varied auxiliary staff across the school too. Consistency has been a key ingredient and this couldn’t be achieved without the full team. For example, after one such training day the head teacher reports being sought out by a midday supervisor to tell her ​‘I get it now. I understand what we’re trying to do and where I fit into all of that’.
- Systems and routines to support – embracing technology to support but also focusing on the consistent application of routines. For example an online management system is well used by the staff team to record all aspects of children’s pastoral development. At a basic level this means that more of the pieces of the jigsaw are in the same place and those who are in position of providing support or ​‘looking at the big picture’ can do so more effectively. Similarly, the school’s ​‘blueprint’ help maintain consistency of response to across the school so that children see that the adult may change but the expectations and fundamental response won’t.
- Ensuring clarity of roles alongside distributed leadership – ultimately the school’s ethos is now one where ensuring good holistic outcomes for those with the highest needs is everyone’s responsibility. Staff are clear about their roles but also about the support that is in place for everyone – open door policies and frequent coaching conversations are some of the formal examples which have supported the development of less formal practices that provide equally strong support such as flexible groupings across year groups. Senior leaders report ​‘you can tell when it’s been a challenging day because at the end of the day teams are out in the corridors chatting, debriefing, sense making…in the past they would have just gone home’
- Recognising that the school ​‘can’t do it all’ – For example, a multi-disciplinary team meet every week to pick up any emerging issues and plan a response. Everyone knows this is will happen and feels supported by its response which includes an NHS funded clinically trained practitioner being a key member of the team

Impact

Senior leaders describe consistency and higher expectations as the main impact of the school’s work so far. Consistency of teaching and learning and consistency of approach across all classrooms in age appropriate manners. Behaviour has improved across the school significantly and vulnerable, disadvantaged and children with high needs are now thriving in classrooms alongside their peers. There are individual case study examples of children who might previously have been struggling who have gone onto begin to achieve greater academic outcomes than similar children previously e.g. a child in Year 5 who was previously educated in a small break-out group for half of the school day on a curriculum below age-related expectations, now works in class with peers full-time and accesses Year 5 expectations. The school is ambitious to translate this into cohort level academic outcome improvement and see this is most likely with the youngest children – those that have been part of the new culture and approach from their first days in school.

The school has also been recently inspected (May 2022) and received a judgement of ​‘good’ for Leadership and Management and Behaviour and Attitudes and ​‘outstanding’ for Personal Development. Inspectors recognised that, ​“the headteacher and senior leaders are passionate advocates for the pupils” and ​“teachers are ambitious for all pupils, including those with SEND…pupils rise to the challenge.” The report also states that, ​“parents and carers are overwhelmingly supportive of this inclusive school” and ​“pupils state they are treated fairly and equally.” Summer 2022 internal data also shows that the majority of children with SEND and those Disadvantaged are making good progress from their individual starting points although the gap in attainment between them and their peers is still evident. There are also gaps in attendance between SEND and Disadvantaged children and their peers and this is key priority for the school moving forward.

Next steps

As with any improvement journey in school, it’s never complete. School leaders articulate their next steps ambitions under three broad headings:

Fine tuning and monitoring the work done to date – recognising how important sustaining change is
Greater focus at child level on the value ​‘Striving for excellence’ – developing a better understanding of what this looks like for children and what more children can do to embody this value
Broadening the scope of the work on culture so that the values begin to infiltrate into the community, beyond the school walls both now but in the future.

The team are ambitious that the school is at the heart of the community, playing a key role in supporting and enhancing life for those that it serves As the head teacher nicely summarised; ​“When I meet a child from the school in 10 or 15 years time I want to hear from them about the ways in which our school values have helped shape their life both whilst they were here but also after they left.”