Hear from two mental health leads at the Ormiston Academies Trust (OAT) talk about the central role of leadership and management in supporting and championing efforts to promote mental health and wellbeing, as part of a whole school approach.  I’m Cherelle Lawrence, the inclusion manager and mental health lead at George Slater Academy in the West Midlands.   Our School Our journey to embedding a whole school approach to mental health began in 2017, when we applied for the ‘Sandwell Wellbeing Charter Mark’.  By reviewing whole school data and gathering staff, student, paren ..read more

Jayne Kumi is the designated safeguarding lead and senior mental health lead at Woodmansterne School and Sixth Form, an all-through school in London. She reflects on her leadership role in the journey to implement a whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing.  Implementing a whole-school approach to mental health is a journey, rather than a task with an end point. At the beginning of the journey, I asked myself, ‘what is our vision for a whole-school approach - and how can I ensure that both senior and middle leaders buy into this vision?’ We began by setting up a trained menta ..read more

Executive headteacher at The Green Way Academy, Simon Bush, shares his experience of using the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) to support disadvantaged pupils during the school holidays. Our ambitions At The Green Way Academy, we have an ambitious target to get 90% of our year 6 pupils meeting the expected national standard by 2028. NTP gives us the opportunity to reach those who need extra support in getting there. Ultimately, our aim is that disadvantaged pupils achieve in line with their more affluent peers and are being given the same learning opportunities and experiences to enable the ..read more

Executive Deputy Headteacher, Lyndsy Killip, at Queen’s Park Federation tells us about their experience of being an early adopter of wraparound childcare and the benefits wraparound has brought to their school community. The Queen’s Park Federation Community Queen’s Park Federation comprises of Dorothy Gardner and Mary Paterson Nursery Schools, Queen’s Park Primary School, and Queen’s Park Family Hub. Set within one of the most diverse communities in Westminster with high levels of deprivation, we cater for children aged 2-11 within our schools and support children and young people up to the ..read more

The Imperium Federation is a community of two special schools in London; Waterside Social Emotional Mental Health Needs (SEMH) Primary and King's Oak School, previously called Moatbridge. Executive Headteacher, Meic Griffiths, shares his experience using the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) to support pupils at the federation. Selecting pupils for tutoring When selecting which pupils to bring forward for tutoring, we firstly considered our disadvantaged pupils in the year groups that had missed the most learning during COVID-19. We looked at assessment data to identify knowledge and skills g ..read more

The Monitor Your School Attendance (MYSA) Service is a free, secure tool that helps schools to monitor pupil attendance. Schools, their local authority and trust can use the service. In this blog, we hear from attendance leads from a school and a trust explain how they are using the service to improve strategies to attendance and have more meaningful conversations with families, head teachers and local authorities. Sam, a multi academy trust executive leader shares how they use MYSA data to improve school policy I’m Sam, an executive leader of a trust with 10 urban primary schools, some in ar ..read more

The Harvey Grammar School in Kent is a selective grammar school for boys aged 11 to 18. Assistant headteacher, James Chamberlain, shares how he used the school’s National Tutoring Programme (NTP) funding to introduce holiday tuition. Why we delivered tutoring during the school holidays We’ve been using NTP since it began in 2020, in response to the educational challenge presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Having observed the benefits it had on our pupils, and identifying further areas that needed intervention, we expanded our tutoring offer and delivered a ‘Head Start’ tuition programme durin ..read more

Liz Kenny, english hub lead, and Vanessa Hill, headteacher, at Whiston Worrygoose Primary school in Rotherham talk about their approach to encouraging reading, and the benefits it’s brought their pupils. Reading is at the heart of everything we do Whiston Worrygoose is a ‘Reading School’. Reading drives everything we do and it’s at the centre of our whole curriculum offer. Teachers, parents and children all understand the importance of reading and the benefits it brings. Our staff regularly read with all our children, and we really encourage the children to talk about their reading with passi ..read more

Oliver Brotherhood, Curriculum Lead for Computing and Computer Science at Penrice Academy, discusses the importance of adopting a whole-school approach to addressing gender imbalance in computer science. The gender imbalance I began teaching computing four years ago, after transitioning from working in the tech industry. Computer science can be a great accelerator of social mobility, and I want to equip all young people at our academy with a skillset that will enable them to take up the opportunities the subject offers. Since I started teaching, I’ve always seen an obvious gender imbalance in ..read more

Like other schools, Hall Mead School in Havering saw their attainment begin to fall following the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, they’ve been using small group tutoring through the National Tutoring Programme (NTP), and it’s proven to be effective in boosting pupils’ preparedness for exams. We asked assistant headteacher, Martin Leslie, how he, and other staff at Hall Mead, used tutoring to help pupils prepare for their GCSE exams. Why did you use tutoring to support exam preparation? We had some pupils who were looking like they wouldn’t achieve 4s in their GCSEs and so we were committed to e ..read more