PARTNERSHIP:   Catholic                                                                                        

PARTICIPANTS: - Wendy Parker, Natalie Douglas, Lyn Horton,

Mark Lillico

VISIT DATE: 9/12/2009

REPORT DATE: 9/12/2009

DATE OF NEXT VISIT: Summer 2010

1. REVIEW OF SUMMER TERM PROGRESS VISIT

(a) FULL CORE OFFER STATUS

• Following on from completion of the electronic audit in your schools please explain what you are doing to support any schools not yet delivering full core offer (identified on page 1) – please provide specific details of actions being taken including a time line for completion of this work. N/A
• Please provide feedback on your experience of completing the audit with your schools. This audit will have to be done again next year; therefore your feedback will be valuable in helping us to get the process and the questions correct.

The partnership had gone out to schools with a hard copy in order to create a discussion which may help give a better picture of their partnership, add to SEF and tie in ECM outcomes.

• If all of your partnership schools are currently delivering FCO please identify the ways in which any schools that might be identified as ‘at risk’ will be supported to maintain this status.

All Head Teachers have demonstrated a continued focus on future planning and commitments and are presently looking at sustainability.

(b) IMPACT

• Please provide specific evidence to illustrate how you have measured the impact of extended services delivery in your partnership, based on the use of the TDA impact tool. This evidence must be related to at least one planned activity and where possible there should be both qualitative and quantitative evidence.

Evidence has been continuously collected on projects, which have run, e.g. attendance on the project, evaluations by pupils/parents and staff at the end of the scheme, which is used to inform further schemes. However an overall impact review of Extended services is also looked at, with uptake for school places being looked at (some schools have had double the requests for places where family learning and ambassador work has been focussed), attendance within school, impact on individual pupils shown through teacher comments, classroom performance and data, and also via anecdotal evidence. One parent who had been on a volunteering course subsequently got a job after being long term (15 years) unemployed. His statement said that this turnaround was all due to the opportunities provided by the partnership’s extended services work.

• Please describe how the evidence collected has been used to inform the delivery of current/future provision.

Methods of engagement which are shown in the evidence to be successful are built upon and used within other projects, such as finding key people within a family learning group and asking them to disseminate information and promote the activities. 

• Please provide an overview of further planned evaluations lined to your current partnership plan – these will be discussed at a your next progress visit (2010)

Impact of ES on schools via use of the TDA sustainability tool.

Global awareness within schools with staff as well as parents and pupils.

(c) CONSULTATION

• Describe which forms of consultation were used to develop the current EXS partnership plan

Consultation with HTs and external agencies

• Please provide evidence of consultation that has taken place (e.g. school consultation using SIPF tools, partner agencies, OFSTED questionnaires)

The partner ship has held consultation events with parents in each town where there is a Catholic school, with good attendance. They have also trained 50 high school Youth Ambassadors in the TDA tool, and sent them into lower schools in the tiers to assess the blockers and enablers in attending the high school, thus aiding transition. The results of this consultation are to be put into the form of a play with year 4 pupils and performed for parents. 

Parents have been involved in using dinner halls in schools in order to give opinions on the layout, systems and whole experience. 

The partnership have excellent web site systems including a forum and an enquiry database so that information can be distributed only to those interested, as well as being posted on the site.

2. Partnership Plan Review

The central team member carrying out your visit will refer to the review sheet sent out when your plan was approved and will seek clarification on any points of concern or areas requiring clarification.

After this visit coordinators will be asked to submit a final version of their plan and it is these which will be used for RAG rating during subsequent visits – NA

3. Safeguarding

(a) Please provide evidence that all staff members, employed as part of your partnership team have received safeguarding training within the last two years

All staff, ambassadors, and volunteers have been given training in the last two years. Lyn Horton is the designated person for Child Protection and the partnership have rewritten the CP policy to ensure that there is a clear structure for disclosures and referrals with regards any Extended Services activities.

(b) Have all schools in the partnership been provided with information about all of your team members to add to their central CRB record?

The partnership have rewritten the CP policy to ensure that there is a clear structure for disclosures and referrals, as stated above, this dovetails with school policy and ensures that all schools have CRB records for all team members. The information was passed out the week prior to writing and all but three schools have acknowledged receipt of the list at time of writing.

(c) Does the partnership use a collective approach when

  (i) Completing risk assessments prior to the delivery of any EXS activities

The partnership along with most schools within the partnership use the NCC Evolve System.

 (ii) Ensuring all providers delivering extended services activities in your schools are aware of the procedures to follow if a safeguarding issue has to be reported?

As with part (a), all schools in the partnership have a clear policy for safeguarding, which is shared, with all those taking sessions including staff, volunteers and ambassadors.

Please provide copies of paperwork used where appropriate

4. Sustainability

(a) In terms of sustainability planning what actions have been taken since the TDA training session in October?

Meetings are being set up with all HT’s to grade themselves based on the TDA tool, with whole cluster meeting arranged to discuss the performance of the cluster in Jan 2010. The main outcome of these talks would be what can be sustained solely by schools already and what functions of Extended Services may need to be funded in future.

This process will lead to a sustainability proposal being put to all HTs and multi agency stakeholders for discussion early in 2010.

(b) Please provide an initial overview of how the partnership plans to address the issue of sustainability

The partnership are looking to

Increase the current per capita levy on schools in the cluster.

Find funding for projects within the voluntary sector charities and trusts.

Increase income via enterprise schemes within the new community building at St Benet’s, including a public café, mentor ran clubs, crèche and social enterprise projects. This work will be conducted through the formation of a limited company.   

Promote the partnership with high profile events, continued community and family involvement and involvement with high profile work such as fellowship of Sennet Trust for Global Awareness.

(c) In terms of sustainability please provide any examples of good practice undertaken in the partnership which you are willing to share with other coordinators

Family learning schemes over the last year aimed to improve awareness of numeracy were exciting fun events with little mention of mathematics – including “ Am I smarter than a 7 year old?” “Beat the credit crunch” and “mathemagicians” created good PR. One huge success of the scheme however was the extensive involvement of the youth ambassadors with the parents and children. The ambassadors showed positive role modelling in an acceptable (cool) way – when a request for new ambassadors was made 140 pupils applied! The desire to be part of the ambassador scheme has filtered down to the Middle schools via the family learning events, and now the middle school have a plethora of pupils wanting to help out within the school in order to better place themselves as a potential ambassador in High School.