I started working at Ryvers School in Slough in January 2014, joining the senior leadership team with initial responsibility for early years. Ryvers is a three-form entry, larger-than-average primary school and had strong results on an upward trend. To ensure this continued, we had become forensic about our data and found that reading attainment for our youngest children was a key area for development, particularly for our most vulnerable.
We have above average numbers of children with English as an additional language (EAL), in receipt of Pupil Premium, and with SEN. The school has an autistic resource base on-site and dedicated EAL and speech and language teams working to overcome the different barriers.
We noticed that children seemed to be entering the school with greater speech and language difficulties and that more needed to make accelerated progress to read and access the other areas of the curriculum. Data also showed that there were large gaps in achievement in early years and key stage 1 between disadvantaged children and their peers.
In September 2014, I joined Future Leaders, a leadership development programme, and I was made associate deputy headteacher with wider responsibilities across the school. As a result, I began to work on a whole-school improvement strategy: early reading was a clear focus, particularly to ensure that we closed the gap for our disadvantaged children.
My work was based on three key areas. In Reception, we found that only 64 per cent of children reached the expected standard in reading; in the year 1 Phonics Screening Check we found that there was a significant gap between disadvantaged students and their peers; in year 2 we saw that too many disadvantaged children were not passing their Phonics Screening Check retake.
I started with a detailed data analysis to establish every child’s reading ability and identify who would require additional support. I evaluated teaching and learning, particularly looking at the effectiveness of phonics and early reading.
I devised tracking and progress evaluation systems for every child, had regular meetings with key members of staff, looked for inspiration by visiting a school with impressive early reading outcomes, and requested advice from other school leaders in the Future Leaders network.
Working with the teachers, we devised a fresh approach to the planning and assessment of phonics in the early years, resulting in the appointment of a Phonics Champion. Our Phonics Champion was a highly skilled member of support staff whose responsibility was to work with the children who required additional support, work closely with me in tracking children’s achievement, and train other members of staff in the teaching of phonics.
Our teachers were used to talking about how well the school was doing, so it was initially challenging to re-focus on improvement and ensure everyone was committed to revising the teaching and assessment of phonics.
Fortunately, the staff were highly skilled and motivated. Looking back, I think the clarity about our objectives and that we were building staff capacity to make it achievable meant that I could obtain the significant buy-in needed to improve outcomes.
The real challenge came when we started working with the individual children who needed extra support on a daily basis. When I sat down with the Phonics Champion, we realised these children might be struggling with phonics but they were also our most vulnerable children in terms of SEN, home life, behaviours and attitudes to learning. When the paper becomes the people, that’s when the real hard work starts.
Over the course of the school year the teachers were great and the other members of the leadership team supported me, while giving my team the freedom to get on with it. The new early years phonics programmes were loved by all and delivered with the energy and commitment that you get from great teachers. The key stage 1 leader that I worked with closely was fantastic at ensuring a consistent message to staff, the teachers delivered the new phonics programme with energy and commitment, and the Phonics Champion turned out to be a vital part of the project’s success.
Best of all was the response from the children. Those who worked closely with the Phonics Champion loved their targeted support and looked forward to this aspect of their school day. The pace must have been extremely challenging but their relationship with the Phonics Champion was so strong that they were eager to please and worked really hard.
One of my favourite memories is when I caught up with the key stage 1 leader and asked whether she felt it was really making a difference. She told me that those children getting individual support were not just improving their phonics, they were returning to class as different children. Their behaviour had improved, they were happier and more engaged because they could access the entire curriculum more easily. This all had a knock-on effect on raising standards across the phase.
By the end of the academic year, we had achieved our goal for early years with 84 per cent of children reaching the expected standard, a rise of 20 per cent from the year before. The year 1 Phonics Check saw 85 per cent of all children passing the test, and with 80 per cent of disadvantaged children meeting the required standard. This was a 24 percentage point rise on the year before and narrowed the gap from 23 to five percentage points.
In year 2, 71 per cent of children taking the retake passed, a rise of three percentage points. Most significantly, only 29 per cent of our disadvantaged children had passed in 2014 but this increased to 67 per cent in 2015, a 38 percentage point rise that reduced the gap from 39 to just four percentage points. Most important is that we targeted three year groups of children at a very young age, supporting them to progress with the reading ability they need.
This fantastic impact was in no small way down to the enthusiasm of staff and the key role of the Phonics Champion. She was a part-time member of support staff who had previously mentioned wanting to be involved in something more.
When writing my strategy I sought her out because she had demonstrated a desire to go above and beyond her role for the benefit of our children. I gave her ownership over how some of the interventions would work and I believe this is what made her continue to develop and come up with new ideas each time we got to a monitoring and evaluation point.
The great thing is that there are people like her in your school now. They are everywhere. The value of support staff is questioned by some but there is huge potential if you are willing to look for it. So instead of just looking at the teachers who are breaking the boundaries of outstanding, look closely at those who keep things going every day, who are often closer to the children, and who, with a little bit of empowerment and support, could be the difference in raising standards for our most vulnerable children.
The Future Leaders programme showed me how to lead sustainable change by working through others. While I have now moved to a different school, the Phonics Champion is still in place and the children of Ryvers can look forward to a continued programme of support.
I will always remember the headteacher at Ryvers telling me when I joined that nothing was more important than securing children’s ability to read. If you get that right, they can access the vast and varied challenges that they will face as they go through their education and beyond.
- David Harrison is now vice-principal at Woodside Academy in Bradford, leading on teaching, learning and assessment.
Future Leaders
Future Leaders is a leadership development programme for aspiring headteachers of challenging schools. To apply or nominate, visit www.future-leaders.org.uk. The Future Leaders Trust is also recruiting for Talented Leaders, a programme to place exceptional school leaders into headship roles in the areas that need them most.