North West Essex Rural Consortium

Brief description of the project

Q. What was the situation before the project took place and why was the activity undertaken?

The North West of Essex is a surprisingly rural portion of the county. Many of the secondary schools are small and relatively isolated, their sixth forms lacking the size needed to mount events such as careers fairs. At the same time the need to inform students of career opportunities locally, raise their expectations and encourage higher education and vocational training were an ongoing requirement and one that schools had difficulty fulfilling. It was also recognised that within each of the consortium schools were students likely, for a variety of reasons to under-perform at Level 2. One reason for this being the lack of IT in their homes. The first major initiative engendered by the rural consortium will address 40 students in this category.

Q. What were the initial aims and timeframe?

A. To overcome the rural barrier and build professional links between teachers at all levels. Also the development of information technology capacity between schools in the form of an intranet. The initiative has also had the added impetus of seeing to reduce the competition between schools and boost collaboration.

Q. How was the work planned and shared out (in terms of resources: staff and money?

A. Following a one-day conference in July 2003, it was decided each school would nominate a consortium representative. These then get together on a regular basis – once a fortnight. In addition to this liaison group, there is also an overall steering group. The money for organising the conferences (£10,000) was shared across the consortium between those schools hosting the events and also to assist with transport costs. The £80,000 now allocated the Key Stage 4 intervention has enabled the purchase of internet linked laptops for some 40 students and is supporting the creation of a consortium intranet.

Q. How did the project progress? What did the work involve?

A. There have been regular meetings of the steering group. Saffron Walden has already played to its strengths offering the experience it has arranging conferences for its very considerable sixth form to the consortium. Funding streams have been accessed both from the LSC. An IT specialist who will help in the creation of the intranet has been appointed and e-learning materials are being sought and created. At present industry-links and placements, and student mentoring schemes are still mainly centred on what can be achieved by individual schools, but this is due to broaden and become a burden shared across the consortium.

Q. Who was involved? How many staff?

A. About ten staff are involved at each establishment and they share out the responsibility for attending the fortnightly liaison meetings.

Q. How many young people (if any) participated? What type of students were they?

A. To date about 100 students have benefited from each of the conferences. The lap-top scheme is being targeted at some 40 pupils across the consortium.

Q. When did the project take place?

A. It was launched in July 2003 and is on-going.

Q. Was the work undertaken during normal working hours?

A. Yes

Q. What specialists or associations were consulted?

A. The LSC were involved in the initial planning stages of the consortium and in the evolution of the relevant bids. The conferences and conventions have attracted speakers from examining bodies (Edexel) and a range of local large employers. As Saffron Walden head teacher Mr Hartley points out there is an enormous benefit in having employers point out the value of the vocational courses that young people are embarked on and also the core skills elements of their sixth form studies.

Q. Does the case study illustrate a particular DfES policy?

A. Yes – raising achievement; 15-19 syllabus reforms (raising the status of the vocational offer at GCSE and post-16); personalised learning – for those involved in the lap-top project; inter-school collaboration.

Who can be contacted at Saffron Walden regarding this initiative?

John Hartley
Head Teacher
Saffron Walden County High School
Audley End
Saffron Walden,
Essex
Tel: 01799 513030

Or

Sue Griffiths
Special Projects manager
Saffron Walden County High School
Audley End
Saffron
Walden,
Essex
Tel: 01799 513030

Outcomes of the project

• To develop a collaborative partnership between six rural schools and a sixth form college.
• To enable teachers to work together to develop vocational courses
• To provide for isolated and potentially under-achieving or disaffected students in rural areas likely to perform below Level 2 standards at GCSE.
• To provide work related learning for Key Stage 4 students

Transferability

Clearly, the initiative is an advertisement for inter-school collaboration – helping, for example, to build in economies of scale that enable the provision of effective vocational conferences. This is a lesson that inner-city schools should be just as open to as those forging such links due to the rural imperatives that make them a necessity.

Challenges

The initiative has involved schools overcoming a certain amount of suspicion of each other. Forging links only flows from having the time available, and in the early stages this has proved a challenge.

Lessons learnt

The work that Saffron Walden has undertaken supporting a local school facing more challenging circumstances (the third element of its Leading Edge partnership work) has proved the enormous value of inter-school co-operation. “It is important to realise that forging such links across any number of schools does take time and needs very careful planning and review,” adds Sue Griffiths. “But once the spirit of has been released it can be infectious – there are already mini-groupings emerging among schools in the consortium helping to build initiatives among schools in closer proximity to one another.”

What's next?

• Student induction day for those involved in the Level 2 lap-top project (Summer 2004).
• Launch day for the same project (Summer 2004).
• The development of tailor made courses to support these students via growing intranet (From September 2004).
• Intranet built and steadily extended (September2004- 2006)
• The development of stronger industry links to support work-related learning. One idea to emerge from the liaison group has been to eventually broaden the BTEC offer across the consortium including such courses as leisure and tourism.
• Further conferences to ensure the consortium’s cohesion and purpose continues to build (Summer 04 and 05)

Context

Saffron Walden County High School is a large comprehensive with specialist Technology college status. It is also accredited by the Department for Education and Skills as a training school. It is much bigger than most secondary schools, with 1, 990 students on roll. It has a large sixth form, which was praised in the school’s recent Ofsted as being ‘exceptional’ – both in terms of their academic standards and their commitment to the school community and the community beyond the school gates.

There are few students from ethnic minority groups. A low proportion of students speak English as an additional language and none are at an early stage of acquiring English. The main languages other than English spoken by students are Bengali, Spanish, Cantonese and Finnish. Recent intakes at Year 7 have been of above average ability, but for GCSE examinations in 2002 and previous years they were broadly average. The numbers of students in Years 7 to 11 who have special educational needs and who have Statements of Special Educational Needs are below average. Their disabilities are largely related to dyslexia or emotional and behavioural needs, but a few have other needs. The number of students eligible for free school meals is below the national average. The school is located in a semi-rural area of north-west Essex and has a farm unit on site. Students come from a range of socio-economic backgrounds but overall these are above average.