Research School Network: Addressing disadvantage in Enfield schools: sharing project insights Addressing disadvantage in Enfield schools: sharing project insights

This year we have really valued the continued opportunity for partnership working with Enfield Council. The focus of this activity has been on addressing educational disadvantage and ensuring all children and young people achieve to the best of their ability and enjoy their time in school.

Working with a range of school leaders opportunities were taken to reflect on the context they are working in and how they were seeking to mitigate the impact of socio-economic disadvantage on pupils’ learning. 

Through the course of the project colleagues explored and united around evidence based ​‘keys to success’ for addressing educational disadvantage in schools including excellent teaching and learning within a high quality, well sequenced curriculum, enrichment that builds social inclusion and broadens vistas, a personal development curriculum that supports the growing of confidence and agency, and attention to wellbeing in order to support good physical and mental health.

With leaders engaging in this, uniting around principles and beliefs and avoiding presumptions, the project provided the opportunity to exemplify the strength of provision in schools involved. Leaders generously shared insights of how they planned, enacted and evaluated strategies to support disadvantaged pupils.

The recent report collated Addressing Disadvantage in Enfield Schools.pdf provides a valuable collection of case study narratives celebrating the determined work of school leaders and their communities to understand, respond and mitigate for impact of socio-economic disadvantage on pupils’ learning. We hope that colleagues can use them as a window in to the behaviours, systems and cultures having impact within the schools of the project.

We are thankful to Lisa Wise, Headteacher at Wilbury Primary School, and Executive Lead for School Improvement with the Children First Academy Trust for sharing further insights of ​’The Wilbury Approach to Addressing Educational Disadvantage’.

Wilbury is a large three/​four form entry primary school in Edmonton, North London, in an area of significant deprivation and children can start school with us from 2 years of age. We currently have 43% pupil premium pupils, 70% of our pupils speak English as an additional language and the vast majority of our children start school educationally disadvantaged, with very low-level language skills. For us early intervention is key, and we focus on language development in all its forms with a clear emphasis on vocabulary, oracy/​speaking and reading. We are constantly looking to refine and improve our practice in these areas.

Through leadership capacity, there is a sharp focus on the quality of pupils’ learning experiences. Our leadership team play a significant role in evaluating progress through ongoing, and crucially, supportive monitoring and quality assurance. They devote time to our staff for collaborative team planning, teaching, and modelling by spending time in classrooms to provide on the spot coaching, training, and immediate feedback to develop practice. This all happens within an open and enthusiastic culture, where staff at all levels support and challenge each other in a spirit of professional improvement.

We have a strong ethos of inclusion and crucially a compassionate approach towards engaging and supporting our children and parents. There is a collective understanding of the impact of disadvantage on pupils’ learning and staff at every level speak with one voice about our ambition for all our pupils and they all fully understand the part they play in addressing educational disadvantage.

At Wilbury, the practitioner is the intervention and there are no labels put on our disadvantaged pupils. We know that their progress is dependent on the quality of staff at all levels across the school and every moment matters for our pupils.

We are optimistic sceptics. We know we have our priorities right, but we also never assume, and we keep ​‘banging on’ day in, day out. We also have the confidence to be self-directed and say no to things that do not fit with our priorities.

In summary – we see addressing educational disadvantage is a whole school approach and strive to:

• create a happy, open and enthusiastic positive culture, with positive, trusting and beneficial relationships, the highest expectations, urgency and leadership at all levels across the school
• be clear about your key whole school priorities – simple and effective and fewer things
• better be clear about why these are your priorities and communicate this to staff using evidence and data and by banging on…
• ensure the core subjects, and reading and language development, are key
• create collective responsibility for raising standards across the school – make everyone in school feel part of this; empowered to make a positive contribution through an open culture, collaborative progress meetings, PPA sessions and in strong well-led teams. Staff need to know and feel that we are all in it together.
• celebrate success all the time and value the contribution of staff at all levels – success breeds success and positivity breeds positivity 
• not focus on labels or groups focus on improving standards for each individual child and each individual teacher and teaching assistant
• build our leadership capacity with key​‘out of class’ roles/​leadership time… and never assume!
  

Lisa Wise – Headteacher
Wilbury Primary School and Executive Lead for School Improvement the Children First Academy Trust