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They
went to pupils’ homes and got them out of bed Campus
Notes
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They went to pupils’ homes and got them out of bed How Victory Academy was transformed from a non-performing school to one of the ‘most-improved’ schools in the UK with strong, innovative leadership, involved teachers and students who now strove to perform better. Head
teacher Rachel de Souza knew her pupils needed a wake-up call — literally — to improve standards. As a result, she arranged for teaching staff to go round to their homes during the Easter holidays and drag them out of bed to come in for maths revision classes. It is just one of the innovations which has transformed the failing Costessey secondary school in Norwich into the thriving Victory Academy within 12 months. When exam league tables are published in the new year, it will be a strong contender for the most improved school in the country. The percentage of pupils getting A* to C grades in English has shot up to a remarkable 98 per cent — on a par with leading private schools in the neighbourhood. On the traditional measure that schools are ranked on five A*s to Cs including maths and English, it has seen a year-on-year improvement from 38 per cent to 65 per cent.” By Christmas time, we knew we were getting to where we wanted to be in everything except maths,” Mrs De Souza says. “We were at 52 per cent there — so we had a brainstorming session about what we should do.” Dusting down the school minibus and taking it round to children’s homes to corral them in for extra revision seemed the best idea. “We discussed it with the parents and only two objected to it because their children were working,” Mrs De Souza adds. “We literally did have to get some of them out of bed.”
Mixing fun with revision The staff decided to mix in some fun with the revision — providing the pupils with lunch and then taking them bowling afterwards. It is a recipe that has been used before in the school — mixing hard work with pleasure. Another example is arranging pizza nights to help students to complete their English coursework. Rachel de Souza is no stranger to turning around failing schools. Her first headship was at Barnfield West Academy in Luton, one of the first academies to be launched under Labour. It was sponsored by the local further education colleges. The recipes for the two schools were not the same, though. Barnfield served an ethnically mixed community, with the majority of its students coming from ethnic minority groups. One of the biggest problems was dealing with a gang culture. “My first exclusion there was for a gun crime,” she says. It suffered from dire staffing shortages — it had not seen a qualified maths teacher for four years, had had five head teachers in three years and only 16 per cent of its pupils obtained five A* to C grades at GCSE including maths and English. That put it firmly on the Government’s hit list of failing schools. Within a year, this had risen to 47 per cent and it had cleared that hurdle.
Code of conduct Instilling a sense of pride in the school, though, was common to the rescue missions for both, but at Victory one of the biggest problems to overcome was a sense of isolation in the community. On the outskirts of Norwich, it was missing out on any facilities for the pupils to enjoy in the community, there was no sense of what Mrs De Souza would call a “can do” spirit, and poor behaviour went unchallenged. Luke Sycamore, aged 15, who has been at the school — both before and after the new regime — for five years, sums up the attitude of the majority of pupils. “The difference was in the consequences for poor behaviour,” he says. In the past, students had often been allowed to get away it, with the result that, in the end, the school had to resort to more than 300 fixed-term exclusions a year. Under the new regime there was a code of conduct. Students knew there was a line that was not to be crossed and the number of exclusions fell by 39 per cent.
Discipline and uniform A strict school uniform policy was brought in. Prefects stand by the door at assembly and have a quiet word with pupils not conforming to it, such as those with their top shirt buttons undone or shirts hanging outside their trousers. The uniform was designed by a Savile Row tailor and the prefects have gold braid around the lining — two strands, which makes it look reminiscent of a sailor’s uniform. Which brings one back to the new name of the school — Victory was chosen because of Lord Nelson’s association with Norfolk. Some historical research in the village showed that it was an apt choice as some of the villagers had been recruited (or dragooned) to serve on HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar.
Striving to be outstanding Victory also, it was argued, would conjure up the aspirational nature of the school. “Striving to be outstanding in all we do”, as the motto on the school bus — used to transport the pupils to their maths revision classes — proclaims. To emphasise further the good-behaviour policy, all pupils always stand up when a visitor enters the classroom. Victory is one of the old Labour academies (actually New Labour, but it conforms to its original blueprint for academies). It has a sponsor — the Ormiston Trust, a low-key education charity that already has around 15 academies on its books. It specialises in science and health and also has the local hospital as a co-sponsor, ideal for forging work experience links. Misbehaviour is now dealt with via a pupil-referral unit on site. It means that the troublemakers still get a full day’s attention. They start their school day at a different time, have lunch separately and go home at a different time to make the point they are there for a reason and cannot mix with the other pupils. They can be returned to mainstream classrooms once they show evidence they will respect the learning culture of the school.
Role models “Previously the system wasn’t consistent and it failed,” says Laurence Cross, the teacher in charge of the unit, who is himself an old boy of the school. “If Johnny misbehaved, his parents could phone up the school and offer an explanation like ‘his cat’s died’ and he would be exempted and allowed back into the classroom,” he says. “Everybody knew it was a soft touch.” One of the major innovations has been developing links with role models in the community — ridding the school’s pupils of their sense of isolation. David Prior, the chairman of the local hospital trust, has become vice-chairman of the school’s governing body and he has enlisted the support of former England cricketer Matthew Fleming, who lives locally, to serve and work with the school — helping to develop leadership skills and sporting prowess. Fleming is an old Etonian and former Army officer whose four children have all attended private schools.
Gloomy picture “I wanted to do more than just sit on committees and keep Rachel under account,” he says. “The adjectives used to describe the school in the past had been very negative — low discipline, failing. They conjured up a gloomy picture. But after becoming an academy, it managed to make great strides in a very short space of time. It was all to do with the atmosphere and the culture and the leadership of the school. If I compared the academy to Eton — where I went to school — at first sight the similarities are few and far between but it has been an incredible turnaround and the teachers here are every bit as good as the teachers at Eton.”
Not quite Eton, yet So, if he had his time at school again, would he be happy to come to Victory rather than Eton? “No,” he says honestly. “Academically, it would be fine and I’d be happy with everything Rachel and her team could do but I’d want those sports facilities — Eton has about 50 cricket pitches and the rowing lake.” That, though, could be Victory’s next story. All right, it will never be able to match Eton, but a £13m development scheme has survived Education Secretary Michael Gove’s cull of building projects and Matthew Fleming wants to go into bat to secure an Astroturf pitch for the school. “That could make all the difference,” he says. “You could have football, rugby, cricket.” Rachel de Souza is in agreement. Having got Victory to start performing on the academic front, she now wants both its staff and pupils to have a healthier lifestyle and is launching a weekly one-mile school run for all concerned with the school. Sport would give that project a huge boost, too,
though. — The Independent |
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Campus Notes HARYANA Haryana Agricultural University Vice-Chancellor, Dr. K.S. Khokhar has called upon newly appointed faculty of the university to work with zeal and devotion. Addressing the concluding function of a month-long induction training course organized by the Directorate of Human Resource Management for the recently recruited Assistant Professors and Assistant Scientists, he said that these two were essential attributes of a teacher. He said that agriculture was facing new problems every day. “To prepare yourself for meeting the challenges of agriculture you should introspect and overcome your short comings, if any, first”, he added. He asked them to keep abreast of the new developments taking place in their field of activity and make extensive use of the library. He distributed certificates among the trainees and released a CD made on the activities undertaken during the course of training. Speaking on the occasion, Dr. R.K. Kashyap, Director, Human Resource Management said that new recruitments had taken place after a gap of 15 years in the university. He pointed out that the varsity administration was very keen on its teachers updating knowledge and sharpening skills. He said that the participants were apprised of newer concepts of teaching, research and extension education, administrative procedures and act and statutes of the university. Guru Jambheshwar University of Science &
Technology, Hisar The Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology, celebrated the Ozone awareness week. On this occasion the department organized an exhibition depicting various posters and slogans prepared by the students of the university was organized. R.S. Jaglan, Registrar of the university was the chief guest on this occasion. He highlighted the need for phasing out HCFCs and protection of Ozone layer for the benefit of humanity. Prof. C.P. Kaushik, Dean & Chairman of the department briefed the audience about the international theme for the year 2011 “HCFC Phase Out: A Unique Opportunity”. Aparna Bhardwaj made a presentation on Ozone awareness. Mona Sharma, Teaching Associate conducted a quiz on Environment and Ozone. The winners of the quiz were Albert Maxwell and Rishabh Dua of M.Tech (Ist Semester), Environmental Science & Engineering. The first and second prizes in poster competition were won by Priyanka Yadav and Alka Kumari of the department of Environmental Science and Engineering while the third prize went to Monika Punia of Chemistry department.
Workshop on laboratory animals ends
Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology organised a workshop on Laboratory Animal Care. Inaugurating the workshop Registrar RS Jaglan, said laboratory animals were required for research purposes and it was necessary that they were kept in germ free and congenial atmosphere within the laboratory. He lauded the department of pharmaceutical sciences for organising the workshop which was the first of its kind in this part of the country. As many as 70 scientists participated in the workshop. Scientists of the local Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences acted as resource persons for the workshop.
— Contributed by Raman Mohan
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How
Victory Academy was transformed from a non-performing school to one of
the ‘most-improved’ schools in the UK with strong, innovative
leadership, involved teachers and students who now strove to perform
better.