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  • Agenda item
  • Agenda item

    Sue Nicholson (Executive Headteacher, The Brent Primary School)

    Minutes:

    1)         The Chairman welcomed Sue Nicholson and Deb Unsworth to the meeting and invited them to introduce themselves.

     

    (2)       Sue Nicholson said she had been the Headteacher at The Brent Primary School for 13 years prior to becoming the Executive Headteacher.   She was currently also working for other schools in the Dartford area. She was a member of the Primary Forum and the Kent Association of Headteachers and a Non-Executive Director of The Education Company.

     

    (3)       Deb Unsworth had been the Deputy Headteacher at The Brent School for 8 years until August 2017.  During this period she had led on Assessment and English and had been responsible for tracking vulnerable pupils. 

     

    (4)       Sue Nicholson explained that she had developed the “Ignite” curriculum at The Brent Primary School as a means of tailoring education to the individual needs of the pupils whilst ensuring that the requirements of the National Curriculum were being met.   The “ignite” curriculum needed to accommodate pupils from contrasting social backgrounds in order that they could all be progress towards maximising their potential.   One example of this was that The Brent School gave Years 1 and 2 pupils the entitlement to use the swimming pool even though the National Curriculum itself did not require this activity until Key Stage 2.

     

    (5)       The Chairman noted that there were 98 pupils at The Brent School who received Free School Meals and that the funding stood at £142k. She asked whether the School sought to distribute this money equally.  

     

    (6)       Sue Nicholson replied that although economically vulnerable pupils were tracked, they did not necessarily all need financial support at the same time.  Pupils who were not in receipt of the Pupil Premium, but were economically, socially or educationally vulnerable were also tracked.  Money was allocated to families at the rate of £152 per year, which could pay for uniforms, clubs or for activities such as the Year 2 Sleepover, the Year 4 school trip to the Rippledown Environmental Centre or the Year 6 four nights in France trip.  The fund was held by the Family Liaison Officer (FLO), which enabled the School to provide budgetary training for parents if necessary.   Experience had shown that parents were reluctant to apply for Free School Meals before the child entered school, but that they did so afterwards. In preparation for admission, the Early Years Team visited every Nursery and met the families in their homes in order to talk to them about school readiness.  This function was carried out by the Family Liaison Officer (FLO) in respect of casual admissions.   Families sometimes experienced changed circumstances. Whenever this happened, the School would talk to the parents and explain what the support that they might be entitled to.   Personal contact of this nature was reinforced by a leaflet, which was also made readily accessible by being placed prominently within the School itself.

     

    (7)       Sue Nicholson moved on to give examples of non-financial support that was provided.   If the parents did not have the reading skills to support their children, the child’s reading book would be accompanied by a set of questions inserted in the front cover that they might wish to ask about the book.  Reading was regarded as the key skill, so the most vulnerable Year 1 pupils and sometimes the oldest Year Rs and the youngest Year 2s would be offered a hundred focussed daily lessons by the highly skilled and experienced Reading Recovery Teacher, to enable vulnerable pupils to catch up with their peers.   Additional support was provided by older pupils reading to the younger ones on a one-to-one basis.  This had the additional benefit of giving the older pupils the sense that they were contributing to general welfare of the school community.

     

    (8)       Sue Nicholson discussed the recent change in the inspection regime, with inspectors better trained.   She said that the Inspection Team in 2012 had not been able to consider the impact to The Brent School of admitting excluded pupils. This had meant that the excellent work that had, for example, enabled a pupil excluded at the start of Year 6 to turn his academic career around had not been fully appreciated.  She believed that some schools excluded pupils in order to achieve a positive inspection rating.   The new OFSTED framework specified that children with a Pupil Premium needed to be doing well according to the inspection criteria, which was a challenge, but should be every school’s responsibility.

     

     (9)      The role of the identified Champion was crucial.  Sue Nicholson had therefore kept that role for herself (in her capacity as Headteacher) in order that action could be taken very quickly if progress was not being made.  All 98 FSM children, plus other vulnerable pupils were tracked on a termly basis, marking them in red, amber or green for attainment, progress, attendance, access to interventions, club participation and other areas.  This enabled her to see at a glance whether it was necessary to intervene.  Weekly Vulnerable Children Meetings were held, involving herself, the Deputy Headteacher and the FLO, agreeing who needed to take action.   If appropriate, the FLO would visit the parents.   

     

    (10)     Sue Nicholson asked the Committee to note that vulnerability did not always mean that a child was under-achieving academically.   Many Pupil Premium pupils achieved the higher academic levels. She cited one child who was a high achiever and had gained a grammar school place, despite both parents being alcoholic.

     

    (11)     The ethos of The Brent School was that every single pupil needed the support to give them the best access to the educational opportunities provided. The barriers were a lack of aspiration and experience as well as access to the richness of the language.   The School had therefore built a culture where children were strongly encouraged to always use technical or mature terminology rather than childlike phrases such as “please can I go to the Loo.” 

     

    (12)     Sue Nicholson referred to the two other schools that she currently supported. One of these was a middle class school with a handful of PP Pupils where no one seemed to be clear about who had responsibility.   She was in the process of correcting this because everyone should know who it was. 

     

    (13)     Sue Nicholson replied to a question by saying that the role of primary school education was to encourage the growth of the mind and skill set to access learning. It was not a matter of Reading, Writing and Maths. Nor was it a matter of child minding or knowledge implanting.  Teachers needed to improve life chances by engaging their hearts and minds.   They needed to be highly skilled and passionate.  They needed to metaphorically be able to keep all the plates spinning (although some needed to be spun faster than others).  Sometimes, teachers had acquired their qualifications without realising how difficult the job could be, only realising at a later stage that this was not the right career path for them.  There was currently a shortage of trained teachers. The Brent School ameliorated this by helping the development of staff within the School and employing Graduate Tutors as a route into teaching. 

     

    (14)     Sue Nicholson said that Educationalists often felt isolated when working with disadvantaged children.  Social Workers would close cases if their families did not engage with them.  This could lead to the School working in splendid isolation with the pupils between 9am and 3 pm for 38 weeks in a year without support from either Social Services or Health.   There was still a need for joined-up services across the county, with common vocabulary and expectations.

     

    (15)     Sue Nicholson said that KCC should look deeply at school exclusions and managed moves.  She said that one School had excluded 25 pupils since September 201, and this had not been acted upon.

     

    (16)     Sue Nicholson said that she supported the grammar school system by chairing a Headteacher Assessment Panel each year.  She felt that holding the Kent Test in the first week of September was particularly disadvantageous to PP Pupils.  It would make a difference if the Test could be held as little as two weeks later in the year as, typically, these children needed the routine of school to be able to perform appropriately in a test situation. Many other children would have accessed a tutor over the summer break, whereas Pupil Premium children, typically, would not have done so. Therefore, the test timing led to greater disadvantage to these children. 

      

    (17)     Sue Nicholson was asked whether children at the less disadvantaged end of the spectrum might feel that they were not being pushed as a result of the concentration on PP Pupils. She replied that The Brent School set out to be a fully inclusive school which helped each child to do as well as possible.  It had succeeded, as evidenced by the data which placed it well above the national average.   The School’s “growth mindset” approach could be summed up by using the formula: “There is no such thing as can’t do it, rather can’t do it yet!” Thus maximising the learning potential of each child.   

     

    (18)     Sue Nicholson was asked for her comments on the views of some schools with a small number of PP Pupils whether it would help if they were grouped together in order to share best practice. She replied that this was less important than the development of the ethos that every child needed support, including the identification of barriers to their education.   She considered that if a school considered that it had a problem with the Pupil Premium, it would most likely be because it had a problem in its outlook.  She noted that some Headteachers, due to workload, did not attend important meeting and considered that not doing so risked not being able to network effectively. 

     

    (19)     Sue Nicholson said that the Pupil Premium should never be used to support a child in taking the Kent Test.  Its purpose was to support children’s ability to access and make best use of the National Curriculum. 

     

    Supporting documents: