Newham Community Learning - what we do - DRAFT - May 2024

What

Reference - School Improvement summary

Also see TES recruitment pack - Director of School Improvement Strategic Objectives 2023-2026 - an overview of which is available on the Trust website

Who we are

Newham Community Learning is a family of 6 schools in the west of the London borough of Newham, which exists to provide an excellent education for all young people in our community. Our schools educate over 5,500 children and young people from 2-16 years old, offering access to excellent teaching, pastoral care, and opportunities for personal development across all phases of education. The schools are physically close together - all of them are within a fifteen minute cycle ride of the Trust offices at Eastlea School, which helps to ensure collaboration happens at many different levels, and with staff from different schools regularly meeting in person

We continuously improve our teaching through collaboration among staff, enabling us to offer a broad curriculum across our six schools At our primary schools, we offer an engaging and challenging curriculum tailored to ensure that every child is able to reach their full potential This provides a strong foundation from which children are able to move to our secondary schools and excel. Our secondary schools deliver breadth as well as depth, with students having access to a full range of options Curricular and co-curricular development across all phases of education is further enhanced through the sharing of our excellent in-school facilities with students attending any of our schools.

Our schools are rooted in, and responsive to, their local communities We offer secondary education in either single sex or co-educational settings, with our primary schools both offering co-education Partnership is key to our operation as a group of schools. As a Trust based solely in Newham, we have strong relationships with our local authority and other local partners, ensuring that we are able to secure the best possible provision for every child and young person attending our schools While our focus remains local, our outlook is global, with our school curricula designed to reflect the broad range of perspectives that our hugely diverse student body brings.

NCL’s Core Purpose

To provide an excellent education for all young people in our community

The education we provide will be:

★ Ambitious - for our young people, encouraging and supporting them to excel

★ Caring - where all members of the community treat each other with kindness and respect

★ Inclusive - meeting the needs and aspirations of all young people

★ Broad-ranging - giving access to a broad and rich range of experiences to prepare them for an active role in the next stage of their education or life after school

Our schools

number of pupils (Oct census)

Latest Ofsted grading Requires improvementApril 2023 (November 2019 as maintained school was Inadequate)

December 2018

March 2019

January 2019

November 2022

March 2019

Newham Community Learning is also the Lead School Improvement Partner for Carpenters Primary School, a local maintained school with which we have strong existing links, and Carpenters colleagues participate in a wide selection of the Trust’s activities

Each school has a Headteacher, and all schools receive support from the Trust’s Central Team. The Central Team structure includes the CEO, Director of Education, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and HR Director From the Autumn term of 2024 this structure will include a Director of Staff Development and a Director of Student Support and Safeguarding.

Each school retains its own distinct identity and ethos, and has its own Local Governing Body, while being an integral part of the wider Trust The Trust Board, with its three main Committees (Standards and Community, Finance and Resources, and Audit, Risk and Development), maintains oversight and is ultimately accountable for standards, finance, safeguarding, estates and health and safety Ensuring strong governance in all these areas is also a key part of the Board’s responsibilities

Eastlea Lister Portway Rokeby Sarah Bonnell Selwyn

Summary of current Trust school improvement activity

Our core focus as a Trust is always on how we can work together to improve the quality of teaching across all our schools, in order to provide the best possible educational outcomes for all our children and young people

In the last year the Trust CPD group, led by the Trust Director of CPD, has coordinated our cross-Trust programme for Early Career Teachers, and supported the delivery of a range of NPQs, and laid the groundwork for the introduction of the Newham Community Learning SCITT, established to encourage more members of our local community to come into teaching, particularly some of our outstanding alumni

We regularly bring together subject leaders, with a particularly strong focus on literacy and Maths Building on our primaries’ expertise in phonics, this year we have trained 30 staff in the ReadWriteInc and Fresh Start Phonics programme, bringing major improvements to the literacy of many new arrivals in our secondary schools We are also working in partnership with HfL who are delivering ongoing training to the Literacy Group to support the development of pathways to fluency. The Year 5 to 8 Maths project, in partnership with the North East London Maths Hub, brings together the expertise of primary and secondary Maths teachers to ensure continuity and high challenge in the transition from primary to secondary Maths

The annual joint NCL Learning Day is an opportunity for all staff to meet colleagues in other schools and to build relationships that they can draw on Alongside literacy and math, there is a trust-wide focus on quality CPD that enhances the capacity of classroom-based staff to provide high-quality, inclusive education and support that meets the diverse needs of all students This year's Learning Day brought together over 40 experts from inside and outside the trust who delivered workshops based on the EEF Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools Guidance Report

Following on from the learning day, the trust has coordinated further expert-led workshops for all classroom-based staff on how to use technology to support pupils with SEND.

Staff wellbeing is a core commitment at our trust. In recognition of this, we have established the Coaching Leaders Programme This year, 30 members of staff have already taken part in a six-week programme to become internal coaches, providing support and guidance to colleagues across the trust

Headteachers play a critical role in sustaining the focus on standards, and the fortnightly Executive Group provides Headteachers, CEO and Director of Education and the COO with the opportunity to review current activities and discuss where schools can contribute to or benefit from support. Headteachers also receive support from the Central Team through a fortnightly meeting in school with one of the Trust’s Executive Leaders (all of whom are both former Headteachers and Ofsted inspectors), which provides a valuable opportunity to talk through any school issues Termly meetings of joint Leadership Teams are another opportunity to support the development and engagement of senior leaders, and the Trust will shortly be introducing an opportunity for experienced Trust staff to take on a temporary role as Trust Associate Leaders, leading a school improvement project of their choice across the Trust

We believe effective school improvement needs to be based on rigorous analysis of data, and our schools benefit from being able to compare their data with other schools in the Trust. The Trust has a lead data analyst who compiles information on attendance, behaviour and pupil numbers as well as academic outcomes and progress The sharing of this with Governors and Trustees enables much better informed discussion of performance areas at both school and Trust level. The ability to use Fisher Family Trust analysis across the Trust has enabled a closer focus on attendance patterns

School Improvement Boards - a collegiate but rigorous approach to support and challenge

After being early adopters of whole school peer reviews, and having also carried out thematic reviews in recent years, from September 2024 we plan to expand the programme of School Improvement Boards, which is a model previously applied in our predecessor primary Trust.

In this model, at each school in the Trust, the Director of Education will chair the SIB, made up of the Chair of Governors and Headteacher of the school, plus at least one other senior leader from that school, a Trustee, and the Headteacher of another school in the Trust, to review school improvement performance indicators, to hear a presentation from a senior leader in the school on one of the School Improvement priorities from the School Improvement Plan, and to do a learning walk in that area. The outcomes of the SIB are fed back to the LGB and to the Standards Committee of the Trust Board

Safeguarding is a constant focus for Trustees and School Leaders, and is now informed by the Trust’s regular Safeguarding audit, conducted every two years by a different external organisation, to ensure that we never become complacent in this area Our Designated Safeguarding Lead network has established a calendar for school training to ensure that the full range of Safeguarding concerns are regularly addressed in training, and the network also helps to share expertise and provide support for staff who may sometimes be supporting young people in very sensitive and complex situations

All schools in the Trust are proud of their track record in Inclusion - we have three Resource Provisions in the Trust, and Lister also hosts an ASD annex of a Special School from LiHT, another Newham based Trust Our SENDCOs are supported by an expert SEND consultant, supplied by LiHT, and through the Trust SENDCO network have commissioned additional Education Psychology support in some schools, and are currently exploring commissioning Speech and Language Therapy Our partners, South East Psychology, have also provided bespoke training for our staff including most recently a session on Emotionally Based School Avoidance

Because of the close geographical proximity of all the schools, it is easy for staff in all types of roles to work together: this has included visits by new Pastoral Managers to observe the work of counterparts in other schools, experienced Heads of Departments jointly observing and providing feedback in other schools, exam moderation, and visits to learn how PS Financials and other key software is used And students from other schools can use Eastlea’s fantastic sports field for their Sports Day

As part of our commitment to a broad and rich range of experiences for our students, the Trust and individual schools provide a huge array of enrichment opportunities This includes cross-Trust

competitions and events in Music, Debating and Poetry by Heart, as well as a programme to deliver instrumental tuition in primary schools as part of a partnership between Lister School and the Music in Secondary Schools Trust

Highlights of activities in schools this year have included:

- A visit to Rokeby School by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to see the excellent Philosophy4Children programme in action, with Rokeby students using their skills to address

- Sarah Bonnell School was awarded the Team for Life Award by Greenhouse Tennis at the Sport Gives Back Awards 2024

- Two of Selwyn’s Head Girls, Ameerah and Kimberley, along with Mehreen from Y5, had the pleasure of visiting Buckingham Palace to mark the end of the ‘Women of the World Festival’ hosted by Queen Camilla.

- Portway students journeyed to south Devon to visit Nethercott Farm (Michael Morpurgo’s estate for city children). Children became young farmers throughout the week-long residential

- Eastlea delivered their 5th annual "Girls of the World" event These events bring together girls from multiple local primary schools, creating a vibrant space for learning and empowerment.

- Lister students transformed their school into a West End theatre with a fantastic production of Oliver

As a Trust focused on our local community, we believe it is essential to listen to all kinds of stakeholders The annual Trust Survey achieves a high level of response from parents, students and staff and is carefully considered. We also have a newly established Staff Equalities Group, a Staff Wellbeing group, in addition to our Joint Negotiating Committee with the Newham unions.

The Trust Central Team also monitor and provide support for schools in addressing parental complaints and any appeals, helping to ensure that these processes are both rigorous and fair

Our community focus also extends to working in close partnership with other local organisations We work closely and constructively with the London Borough of Newham, with our CEO sitting on the Newham Education Partnership Board and SEND Executive Board, and the Headteacher of

Eastlea on the Newham Youth Safety Board. The Trust and their schools also have a wide range of key partnerships, including with Greenhouse Sports, Place2Be, and the livery companies [insert picture with caption - Rokeby students participating in Sherrif’s Challenge)

Maintaining our estate

The Trust has introduced rigorous surveys of the condition of our premises in order to ensure the most effective use of the substantial School Condition Allocation funding which we receive as a six school Academy Trust We have also introduced the use of a common software system, IAM Compliant, helping us to identify any issues with maintenance of our buildings

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