Northumberland Heath Primary School

The PROGRESS Programme was brilliant, because it was an external person coming in, with no preconceived ideas about our work, and presenting us with a fresh approach to surveying our parents, pupils and staff. It happened without our having to be involved as a senior team at a frontline level. It was worth it and we are going in for a second year.’ Angela Barry, Headteacher

Northumberland Heath started PROGRESS because it wanted a way of asking questions of staff, students and parents that would give them something to work on in developing strategies to make the learning environment even better. They recognised that the presence of an external agency to analyse the results and facilitate the ensuing discussion, meant that the senior team could not be accused of trying to set the agenda.

The headteacher feels that biggest impact of PROGRESS was that it broke down divisions between teachers and teaching assistants and enabled the development of a more cohesive staff group. Even if some chose not to join in, the school had made an effort to include everyone and promote their wellbeing. There had been an ‘us and them’ perspective before, with all the TAs placed in one camp and the rest of the staff in the other. The survey showed that, while there were indeed a few disaffected TAs, they really did not speak for everyone.

‘What it allowed us to do,’ says Angela, ‘was to really support the TAs who were being dragged down by the negative feelings of some colleagues. And it also gave us the opportunity to support those disaffected TAs, to try and bring them on board with our way of thinking.’

Another discovery from PROGRESS was that parents had not taken on board the things the school was doing to promote exercise and a healthy lifestyle. The school was proud of its monthly newsletter to parents, but had to recognise that they were not getting the messages it contained. They decided to produce a termly newsletter that specifically focused on issues around health and safety.

PROGRESS identified that children were having difficulties between younger and older students. This led staff to introduce more cross-age working, with all children swapping class for the first hour on Monday mornings when a large number of volunteers come into the school. The children are partnered across year groups and read together.

Other suggestions from the children that were adopted include:

• grouping people differently in class so that children get to know more people
• empowering monitors to look out for unkindness in the playground
• more ways for boys to let off steam
• more effective strategies for Y6 to calm children in the playground
• ways for children to tell each other more about themselves so that they can become friends.

The headteacher reported that the discussions between students increased the school council’s awareness of their importance – validating the work they were doing and showing how much staff valued their input.