We Did It Here! E-Book

Brin Best

• Herausgeber: Crown House Publishing
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008

Seitenzahl: 328

Beschreibung

Using up-to-date case studies from a range of secondary schools, We Did It Here shows how others have brought about dramatic changes in their schools. It showcases outstanding and inspirational practice from schools throughout the country. During a tour of some of the finest educational practice today, the book details how you too can learn from the schools featured and put meaningful change into place in your school.

Leseprobe

Praise for We Did It Here!

We Did It Here! is a treasure trove of hope and a distillation of wisdom for building successful schools. This outstanding raft of case studies and lessons in leadership is brilliantly written by Brin Best. At the beginning of the 21st Century we are often encouraged to ‘work outside the box’, a very worthy expression of innovative intent. This book offers up much more than dreams and intentions, this is the stuff of current realities. It contains solid evidence of learners and leaders working not just ‘in the box’ and ‘out of the box’, but out to the very corners of the box and the space it sits in. Charged with positive energy, and balanced with rigorous research, this book explores the ways in which contemporary schools are serving their learners at the cutting edge of practice. This is a must-read for every teacher, senior leader and aspirant manager, not to mention an uplifting and stimulating read for anyone with an interest in teaching and learning. This beautifully considered work provides the rules for success for an effective school. It celebrates effective practice and goes on to eloquently challenge the existing system and lay down tracks for the next 50 years of educational history.

Will Thomas

Education Performance Coach, Author of Coaching Solutions

There are few things as reassuring and compelling to teachers and school leaders as case studies of success. All the theory in the world is outweighed by one story that educationalists can relate to in their own context. Brin Best has produced a range of compelling stories which give detailed guidance on how schools have addressed some of the most challenging issues of today. Each study provides credible examples of actual strategies that have worked. The narrative is accompanied by a range of supportive materials and is underpinned by detailed and systematic analysis, explanation and discussion. This is a practical resource that allows schools to explore the possibilities of change.

John West-Burnham

Visiting Professor of Education, University of Bristol

As Harold McAlindon once said: Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. This book celebrates some innovative trailblazers without alienating the less adventurous. It provides creative ideas broken down into ‘doable’ chunks, and is liberally peppered with a ‘can-do’ attitude. I hope that government are receptive to Brin’s challenge to nurture creativity within our system. The more that follow the excellent ideas in the book, the happier our society will be.

David Harris

Author of Are You Dropping The Baton and Principal (designate) of Nottingham University Samworth Academy

If I were a secondary Head Teacher I would want to keep a copy of We Did It Here! in full sight to remind me just what schools should be about; if I were a classroom teacher, I would want a copy to remind me just why I came in to teaching; and if I were training to be a teacher, I would want it to show me just what I was aiming for. Prepared to be inspired and uplifted!

A must for all secondary school leaders and governors.

Lyn Bull

Independent Education Consultant

Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Introduction  

 

Chapter 1 On Home Ground Settle High School and Community College

Chapter 2 Scholarship and Care in the Shadow of the Fells Queen Elizabeth School, Kirkby Lonsdale

Chapter 3 Transforming a School in Challenging Circumstances Northumberland Park Community School

Chapter 4 Let’s Focus on Learning Matthew Moss High School, Rochdale

Chapter 5 An Enterprising School? St Nicholas Catholic High School, Northwich

Chapter 6 Regenerating Education through Partnership Dearne Valley Education Partnership

Chapter 7 Stories from Successful Classrooms and Departments

Chapter 8 Learning the Lessons

Chapter 9 A Manifesto for Real Change in our Schools

 

About the author

Further reading and information

Index

Copyright

Acknowledgements

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the staff working in the schools featured in this book. They have without reservation welcomed me with open arms, have been eager to tell me about their schools and have been extremely generous with their knowledge. They have reaffirmed my belief that this country is blessed with some of the finest teachers and school leaders in the world.

I want to pay a special tribute to those teachers and leaders who have chosen to remain anonymous in this book. I would have preferred to have named them so their work can be attributed properly, but their inspiring stories can only be told if their identities are kept secret, for reasons that will remain clear as you read them. It’s probably fitting that such dedicated education professionals have waived their right to be identified publicly in the hope that others, perhaps in similar circumstances, can be empowered by their testimonies. I take some comfort from knowing their outstanding efforts are generally recognised in their own schools.

I have also benefited greatly from countless conversations with young people attending the featured schools. Their confident and positive outlook is testament to the exceptional work of the staff in their schools, a fact that many of them are happy to go on record to confirm. Thanks are also due to Dan Varney, Isabella Donnelly, Macia Grebot and Clare Smale, who kindly brought to my attention some of the schools and teachers featured.

I would also like to thank various people who have helped to shape the book as it has unfolded. I have especially benefited from the ideas of Gill O’Donnell, with whom I have worked closely for many years. Her creative approach and willingness to ask appropriate questions at the right time have been warmly appreciated. Gill also read the entire manuscript and made a number of helpful suggestions. I also thank Alan Cranston, Linda Edge, Will Thomas and Jane West who provided valuable additional ideas, especially in relation to the final chapter.

As well as contributing a valuable chapter in her own right, Sophie Craven made some timely contributions at a critical stage during the planning of the project, and provided helpful comments on the final two chapters. Her ability to think incisively to find new insights and understandings never fails to amaze me, and has contributed significantly to the coherency of the finished book.

Finally I would like to thank David Bowman and his staff at Crown House Publishing for having the faith and vision to publish a book such as this. It is indeed rare to find a publisher who is prepared to produce unconventional titles that try to address burning issues in education.

Introduction

I first started to think about this book during a train journey across northern England on a grey February day in 2005. I was making my way from my home in Yorkshire to work with a group of school leaders and teachers who had proved negative on my previous meeting with them. Though I always try to remain cheerful in the face of challenges, I was expecting this to be another difficult day.

Following ten years working in the classroom, and in an advisory capacity in education authorities, I’ve been supporting teachers in a consultancy role for the last five years. I’ve also been writing about teaching, learning and school improvement, and carrying out research into effective schools. I had enjoyed tremendously my time in the classroom and was rewarded on many levels, but my move into consultancy work had been fuelled by a desire to work alongside education professionals to develop and share good practice more widely. It has been a privilege to witness the work of hundreds of schools over the years and it has given me the chance to understand what can and cannot work in a range of settings. The whole experience has been terrifically uplifting.

So why was I so hesitant about the training session I was leading that day? In short, because I had become rather tired of hearing teachers say ‘You couldn’t do that here!’ Much of my work centres on helping schools to implement changes that enable them to improve and this often requires me to talk about how other people have achieved success in their schools. My heartfelt belief is that we can all achieve life-changing things in our schools if we believe we can and then carry out creative and determined actions to achieve our goals. But on that February day I was expecting to hear those familiar negative rebuffs when I suggested new ways of thinking and doing that went outside teachers’ comfort zones—and I wasn’t looking forward to this negativity.

Change and constancy

We are truly living in changing times in education—from advances in ICT that are transforming how learning and teachers are viewed, to the overhaul of the professional roles of teachers and others working in schools, for which we have yet to see the full ramifications. Perhaps one constant, however, is that the teachers and school leaders in our country remain an incredibly dedicated group of professionals in the face of these constant changes. But they can also be a sceptical, stubborn and frustrating bunch of people to work with too. Perhaps blinkered by the constraints of their school, department or classroom—or by the external pressures which affect them—they sometimes choose not to embrace the exciting possibilities of change. When they do this their own well-being and, more worryingly still, that of their students suffers.

I made an important decision as I travelled across England that day. I realised I had to begin another journey: a mission to seek out successful schools in diverse settings and to document their stories more fully. My hope was that others would be inspired by the power of what these schools have achieved—empowered to realise that it really is possible to make inspirational things happen in every school. I am fortunate to have enjoyed successes in a range of classrooms, departments and schools, and have received some awards and other accolades for my education work. I feel I understand quite well some of the factors that lead to success in schools and what others can do to create a brighter future in their own institutions. But I realised that this alone was not going to be enough to convince some people that it is possible to achieve their dreams in their schools too. Instead, I had to gather testimonies from schools just like theirs; from people just like them. And as I mulled over the schools I knew that fitted the bill, I realised that the journey had already begun in my mind, a journey that ends with the book you’re now reading.

The scope and organisation of the book

In order to find suitable schools to feature I have toured the country and scoured the literature to find a wide range of schools, travelling to rural areas, leafy suburbs and inner city settings. I was eager to avoid those schools that were especially privileged in some way and have avoided those already well-documented schools that some would claim have an unfair advantage, due to a combination of funding, social advantage or some other preferential characteristics. Instead, many of the schools featured have emerged from challenging circumstances to achieve success. Whatever school issues are currently occupying your mind, be sure that at least one of the schools featured has also confronted—and overcome—that issue.

The book focuses on secondary schools. This is not because I believe that the ideas presented here are unique to the secondary phase; instead I simply feel that after fifteen years of intensive work in secondaries I understand their needs quite well. But I would maintain that there are important principles applicable to colleagues working in primary schools too.

The main part of the book is taken up with the stories of a diverse range of schools. There is also a chapter outlining what a range of teachers and subject leaders have done in their own classrooms and departments, plus a chapter on a collaborative approach to education. But I wanted to do more than just tell the stories of these schools—I wanted to reflect on their success and ponder how as a nation we could embed similar success into all our schools. I bring the book to a conclusion, therefore, with two more analytical chapters. The first, ‘Learning the Lessons’, tries to bring together the key messages from the schools featured—my aim is to crystallise what it is that distinguishes schools that are successful in achieving their goals. My hope is that this big picture look at success in schools can provide a helpful framework against which you can test your own ideas and thinking—or even use as a stepping stone for success. The second part of this chapter explores the barriers to innovation in our schools. Here, I explore why it is that more schools do not feel able to embrace creative change in the manner of the schools featured. By understanding these barriers, it should be possible to determine what needs to be done to help schools overcome them.

I draw the book to a close with a ten point ‘Manifesto for Real Change’. I believe passionately that as a nation we should provide the conditions that would allow the widest cross section of school leaders and teachers to embrace creative approaches, thereby building brighter futures for our young people. At the same time I sometimes cringe at the number of hurdles and ‘new initiatives’ thrown at schools by governments which can seem hungry for change at the cost of real progress. In this final chapter, therefore, I outline what I feel needs to be done at a national, regional and local level that would surely allow more educational professionals to say ‘We did it here!’ This includes suggested actions for schools, the government and wider society.

As well as providing evidence and testimonies that show what is possible in schools, I hope the book will also be seen as a celebration of good practice in education in the first decade of the twenty-first century. My hope, of course, is that you will find the stories and testimonies in this book inspiring. But I would have failed if you do not also find them empowering. No matter what challenges you are facing, given whatever special circumstances your school finds itself in, there are key messages of support and hope in this book. And if you’re ever flagging as you tackle your priorities head on, remember this—the young people who you currently work with, the decision-makers of tomorrow, will not get another chance at their education. For this reason alone I hope you’ll read the book, gather your resources and face whatever tomorrow throws at you with renewed enthusiasm—and a belief that you can make a difference.

Brin Best

Otley, West Yorkshire

Chapter 1

On Home Ground

‘A sense of community comes not from acknowledging common ground, but from realizing what makes us different from others, then working together in order to understand, celebrate and eventually enjoy others’ differences so they may become part of us.’ Jarvis Hayes

I’m going to begin by reflecting on some of the successes enjoyed by the school where I taught for most of my teaching career. As I try to document and analyse success in this book it seems sensible to start with the school I know best, a school whose challenges and achievements were part of my day to day life for the best part of a decade. Though there are several aspects of the school that would be worthy of mention, one area clearly stands out and this will be the focus of this first chapter.

While some school names evolve over time and have no special significance, the insertion of the word ‘Community’ into Settle High School’s nameplate was a very significant development. It heralded the beginning of concerted effort to place this rural comprehensive school at the heart of its community. But let me start with a little background on the school in order to paint a picture of life as a teacher and student at Settle High School and Community College during the 1990 s.

As competition for students gathers pace it is not unusual for schools to draw in young people from ever-wider catchment areas. But few schools can match the 400 square mile influence of the only 13–18 state secondary school in North Yorkshire. About a third of its 600 students come from farming backgrounds and most of the others have parents who are touched by the other chief component of the local economy—tourism. The school itself is perched on the banks of the River Ribble on the outskirts of town, overlooked by impressive limestone peaks which were ground into a multitude of shapes by the glaciers which sculpted this part of the Yorkshire Dales. It’s a beautiful place in which to teach and learn.

Although the school day starts early in Settle (registration begins at 8.30 a.m.) it is not unusual to be teaching children who have already been at work for three hours by the time the bell signals the end of the first lesson—especially during lambing time. The school recognises and celebrates its rural heritage in a range of ways. Rural studies qualifications have been a firm favourite for decades; crops and flowers are grown by students; farm animals are kept on the grounds. I remember vividly a geography lesson in March which was interrupted by the appearance of a lost lamb at my classroom door! This is a rural school and proud of it.

The school has always played an important community role, not least because its students often do not get the chance to meet much outside school hours—their farms or villages may be separated by wide valleys or barren peaks. The school has, therefore, long served as a point of focus in the community and is a place in which people gather and work together, especially in times of need.

‘Through its work within the community it plays an important role in the life and work of the area, and of its students’

Ofsted report, January 2003

No one was prepared, however, for the impact that the foot-and-mouth crisis of 2000 was to have on the rural hinterland of Settle. The foundations of the community were rocked by the financial hardship, widespread animal culling and sense of blackness that descended on the area during those exhausting times at the height of the outbreak. Foot-and-mouth disease also brought division to the community: the haves and the have-nots. Sitting side by side in a classroom one day was a child who could still tend their flock of pedigree Ribblesdale sheep, next to his friend who was facing up to the massacre of their family’s 100-year-old dairy herd. In looking forward to the challenges that twenty-first century education would bring to the area, the realisation dawned that in order to continue to be successful, the school would need to play its part in healing rifts as well as cementing bonds within the wider community.

‘Farming locally was severely affected by the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001 and its repercussions are still being felt in the area’

Ofsted report, January 2003

In the remainder of this chapter, I present examples of the some of the activities that the school organised during an eight year period. It is important to place on record that the activities outlined below were not necessarily designed specifically or solely in order to bring the school closer to its community, though this was certainly an important feature of all of them. I do not wish to give the impression that the school’s efforts were strategically focused just on the community or indeed that a strict master plan guided the things mentioned on a day to day basis; indeed some of the activities just seemed to happen by chance. Nevertheless, together they amount to a series of activities which, combined with the associated communications work described, helped the school to become a leader in its community work.

One thousand make a difference

While many schools plan community activities that try to involve students in their delivery, few strive to ensure that every student on the roll plays a part. And fewer still try to do that by bringing the sights and sounds of the farmyard to the school, complete with a herd of Jersey cows and a flock of Wensleydale sheep. Yet the Settle Environment Fair of 2000 had these far reaching targets as two of its central goals. Over the course of a memorable day in June the school was transformed into a vibrant learning resource for over a thousand children from feeder primary schools. Young people in the area still talk about what they did and saw on that wonderful summer’s day.

This highly innovative event was staged as a follow up to a science fair in 1999 that had been awarded a £10,000 grant from the Royal Society. The science fair had given staff and students the confidence to try things out, together with experience in managing large numbers of children. The following year staff wanted to take things further and celebrate the rural heritage of the school. The Environment Fair of millennium year was sponsored by the charity Human Scale Education, Hanson Aggregates and Skipton Building Society, who together provided the funding and advice that enabled the event to go ahead on such a large scale.

A working group of enthusiastic staff and students had met frequently in the months leading up to the day in order to lay the foundations for the event. There was a lot of planning and preparation to get through. Creative approaches to learning were to be a focus for the event, with staff and students taking a lead role in running workshops in equal proportion. A notable feature of the project was how the whole school pulled together to make things happen—there was a tangible feeling that this was a vision worth working towards. Staff and students worked extremely hard in the days running up to the event to ensure its success—outstanding educational opportunities do not happen by accident.

A noteworthy feature of the day was the active involvement of all subject departments. But interestingly, many staff were eager to cast off traditional subject constraints to work in areas they were not used to. Hence there were science teachers involved in theatre, PE teachers going river dipping, geography teachers greeting and meeting children on arrival. There was a tangible feeling of creativity surrounding the event, which clearly encouraged staff and students to go beyond their comfort zones and try something new.

The atmosphere that was created on the day was quite unique. The thrill of real life learning was written on the faces of children from surrounding villages such as Ingleton, Horton-in-Ribblesdale and Long Preston. As they participated in thought-provoking workshops on paper making or delighted in creatures discovered dipping in the river, as they crawled through elaborate installations on the motor car and a giant plant, there was a sense that a special kind of learning was taking place. Learning which was not limited by bells and the four walls of the classroom, and instead appealed to children’s innate sense of wonder.

The Environment Fair, however, represented far more than one-sided learning. An important emphasis for the day was the sharing of ideas and information. All the primary school children that took part in the visits brought with them stunning project work on an environmental theme that they had carried out in preparation for the day. The school stayed open into the evening to allow parents and the wider public to enjoy this work too, and some of the workshops staged during the day were repeated.

‘The school is popular with parents who are very supportive of the school’

Ofsted report, January 2003

The Settle Environment Fair

Ten workshops were staged during the day and staff from the feeder primary schools selected which ones they wished their children to take part in. Throughout the day as they toured the school the visiting children were accompanied by student guides from the high school who made them feel welcome, showed them where to go and were on hand to deal with any problems.

Inside a plant

Children entered the fair through a giant plant where they learnt about plant functioning with the help of year 9 students, who read poetry and gave explanations of how plants work.

Changes along a river

Children walked and slid through a representation of a river from source to mouth, complete with rocks, sound and wildlife. They spotted pollution hazards and other key features of river valleys.

Punch and Judy on the beach

This was a fun-filled drama event led by year 13 students and a governor about litter on the beach. It was a real success with visitors and turned out to be a magnet for younger children.

Paper making

During this workshop children learnt how to make paper from waste materials, aided by GCSE students.

Sculpture

Art and design students helped children to make environmentally inspired pieces of art using natural materials. A sculpture trail made by the students helped children with their ideas.

Food webs

This workshop, aimed at older children, explored the interactions between species in different environments, such as a pond, a rainforest and a savannah.

Environmental experience

An opportunity to explore the senses and enjoy nature, led by Middlewood Trust volunteers.

River dipping

A chance to catch and examine closely what lives in the River Ribble with the aid of year 12 geography students. The catch included various kinds of fish and some giant freshwater shrimps, and the children concluded that the river in Settle is very clean.

Mini-beasts

Snails, woodlice and other creepy crawlies—many children’s idea of fun! Year 12 students led experiments to learn about how the mini-beasts live and how we can affect them.

‘The motor’

Many children’s favourite attraction—a giant crawl-through engine complete with smoke, to learn about how motor cars affect the environment. Year 9 students took a leading role in the design and organisation of this installation.

‘Students relate exceptionally well to each other. Everyone is included in the life of the school. They become mature, responsible individuals’

Ofsted report, January 2003

Students’ views on the event

The students who organised and led some of the workshops were given the opportunity to write about their experiences in the school newsletter. Many also used these accounts in their coursework.

‘My task was to take small groups of children from the age of seven to eight round a mini sculpture trail that GNVQ students had set up the day before. The different sculptures included bugs made using small stone cobbles, and twigs which were glued together. One of the best sculptures was a dog made from a wire skeleton covered with moss. The sculpture I made with another student was a pattern sculpture using leaves, fixed together and circling a tree trunk, leading into a spiral of stones on the grass. I really enjoyed the day, working with different groups of children, making the sculptures.’ Adam Ralph ‘A teacher, another student and I ran a workshop on paper making for the primary school children. The workshop gave the children a chance to reuse paper in an environmentally friendly way __ our source was waste paper which we turned into decorative pieces of artwork. All the paper used had been collected at school as offcuts and waste. The paper was sorted into different colours, then shredded, before being soaked in hot water and instant starch powder. The paper was then pulped with a liquidiser, which formed a brightlycoloured sludge. The children were shown how to drain the pulp through special fine gauze mesh, removing the excess water to form sheets of paper. They then added extra colours in the form of stripes, shapes and patterns __ even flowers and grasses. All the children seemed to enjoy the workshop and getting messy __ I think it was a great idea.’ Lucy Gledhill

Needless to say this newsworthy and photogenic event attracted considerable media attention, both locally and nationally. However, the school also made the most of these PR opportunities by actively managing the media and arranging photo opportunities. The result was extensive coverage of the day, especially in the print media, including a special feature in the Times Educational Supplement. The school’s own newsletter allowed staff and students to reflect on the highlights of the day and a key theme that emerged was the way it had brought people together to work as a team—staff alongside students.

‘The main sponsor of the Environment Fair, Human Scale Education, places great emphasis on allowing young people to take responsibility for their education and we would like to think that the results of the students’ hard work are a powerful indication of just what is possible when we hand over responsibility to them.’ Settle High School newsletter, summer 2000

‘Thank you for organising the Environment Fair. I thought my guide was very nice. I liked the treasure hunt best because it was quite hard and I liked the car engine as well. It hurt your knee a little bit as you crawled through! All the people were very kind and I liked it when we went in the leaf. Sometimes I had to bend down.’ Olivia, primary school student

Looking back at the event seven years on, it is easy to view things through rose-tinted spectacles. Yet I can still remember the feeling of most observers that this was a ground-breaking event of real significance that should be shared with a wider audience. Nothing I’ve seen or read since then causes me to change this view. In fact the intervening years and my current professional distance from the school now allow me to judge things more objectively and only confirm my initial feelings that educational projects do not get much better than this. Clearly, some profound learning had taken place on that day in June.

A map for the millennium

Millennium year also provided the opportunity for people across the country to get involved in landmark projects that would enable them to remember this milestone for a lifetime. My department at Settle wanted to do something special that would allow us to provide a lasting record of our town in 2000. The idea of producing a special map of the town at this important point in its history seemed perfect, and so the Settle Millennium Map project was born. Now we just had to find some money to get the idea off the ground and convince the head that it would be okay to let the whole of year 9 loose on Settle during the winter months in order to have the map ready for unveiling in the summer!

Financial help came from the Royal Geographical Society who put us in touch with the Frederick Soddy Trust and their field study awards. Frederick Soddy was one of the UK’ S foremost scientists researching radioactivity (receiving a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1921) who later became interested in the study of society. Having had some experience of completing bids for funding, I was able to include the right phrases and buzzwords into our application. But more importantly, I understood the need to stress the innovative nature of the project and the central role that students would play. A few weeks after lodging the application in 1999 we received the good news that we’d been waiting for—we were to receive £450 in order to bring the project to fruition. My vision was that every student in year 9 would play a hands-on role in producing the map. In designing this project we obviously wanted to produce something of value to the community, but our reasons were not entirely altruistic—we were also keen to engender an interest in geography during the key decision year before GCSE option choices were made.

I was eager to involve the students in the plans for the map. I need to emphasise at this point that we were planning to produce much more than simply a map of the town. The completed map was to pick out detailed land use patterns, colour code every building according to use and would be surrounded by project work by the students which sought to cast light on the key features of Settle in 2000. I visited the feeder middle schools to outline our plans in the summer term of 1999, and was able to gain some valuable views on the information that could be collected from students who would join us in the autumn. This was fed back to the students via their teachers, so they could prepare themselves for the work to come. It was also used to design a leaflet about the project that was used to inform others about our work.

The funding from the Frederick Soddy Trust would pay for vital equipment needed for the project, the production of the launch leaflet and the printing of the finished map itself. We were expecting our students to be much more visible in the town when the fieldwork began in the autumn, and thankfully managed to get our leaflet sent out to every home in Settle inside the community newsletter which is delivered each month. This helped us to publicise our work, let residents know what were up to and also resulted in a fair bit of interest from people who offered help of various kinds.

‘The community makes an effective contribution to students’ learning. There are good links with the Settle Festival and a local art gallery. Students have the opportunity to be involved in local charitable initiatives and fundraising for the benefit of their school’

Ofsted report, January 2003

A professionally printed leaflet was used to publicise the Settle Millennium Map

Once approval had been gained for the work from the head—who to his credit was happy to allow an extended period of fieldwork with its associated impact on other staff—all that remained was to divide up the town between the four geography teachers for the fieldwork phase. The students arrived in the autumn eager to begin work and their commitment and enthusiasm for the data collection was impressive. I had wanted to make sure that while a key focus was to produce the map, students should also be engaged in meaningful work of their own. So we devised an enquiry into tourism in Settle which each student would be required to write up, based on information they and their peers had collected. This was an important decision, as it reduced the chance that students would see the map exercise as an excuse to find a quiet corner of Settle in which to while away a lesson with their friends! As the project progressed we kept the community informed through regular updates in our school newsletter, via newspaper articles and on a special project website. The latter was an especially fine medium for posting photographs of students at work, and in due course, extracts from the draft map itself.

Students worked hard to complete their part of the map

Students took great pride in their work on the Millennium Map

A smaller group of students completed the final version of the map

The map was unveiled at the Settle Community Festival

The fieldwork for the map was completed to schedule and a small group of dedicated students worked with us to create the map and associated material that would be unveiled at the launch event—the Settle Community Festival—which took place in June 2000. Our final thank you to the generous funder was to make a presentation, at their invitation, at the esteemed headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society in Kensington, London. It provided us with the opportunity to explain to a wider audience how the Settle Millennium Map had been put together, while also allowing us to showcase the success of the school on a national stage. The Frederick Soddy Trust were so pleased with the results of our work that they also asked us to write up the work for a geographical journal.

Press releases to local newspapers ensured a high media profile for the Millennium Map project Image reproduced with permission of the Lancaster Guardian

Bringing Settle together

‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could produce a large print version of our school newsletter for older people who live locally?’ John Smith, year 9 student

Such helpful and insightful comments by students were a pretty standard feature of life at Settle High School. Yet no one could have guessed where this astute observation from a year 9 student would have taken the school. And no one could have imagined that it would result in the winning of a high profile national award and the school gaining headlines in broadsheet newspapers. The Settle Together! Project, born out of John Smith’s suggestion, achieved just that. But it achieved much more besides—it helped to establish the school as a provider of vital services to the community, and even resulted in a wedding!

‘Students eagerly offer help both in the school and the local community’

Ofsted report, January 2003

One of the challenges of living in an attractive rural community such as Settle is that, for demographic reasons, there is a danger of polarisation. The region attracts more than its fair share of retired people which, added to the indigenous community of older people, results in an age structure skewed in favour of the mature years. The presence of several thriving schools in the town, with a cohort of children in excess of a thousand, means that there’s the potential for the divide and tensions between young and old to be acute. Young people can be dismissive of older folk, viewing them stereotypically; older people can be suspicious of the young and their unfamiliar ways. So it seemed that the well-meant suggestion of producing a large print newsletter to inform older people about what was happening at the school could go some way to bridging that gap—even though a good number of the retirees in Settle still have perfectly good eyesight!

We hit upon the idea of organising a major project that would see a whole range of events, workshops and activities that would encourage the sharing of skills and knowledge in Settle. The spirit of the activities was that young and older people could come together in order to work in harmony—with benefits for all. Central to our aims as a school, we also wished to ensure that students would play their full part in the project through their work on a student management team that made all the key decisions.

An important feature of the project from the start was the involvement of the local branch of Age Concern, a national charity working to promote the well-being of older people. We found a key ally in Sue Mann, the chief officer in Settle, who understood straight away what we wanted to achieve and committed time and resources to the project. She also agreed to serve on the management team that would steer the project towards its launch, a team that also included staff from the school, a governor, a local community representative and—vitally—students. There’s a sense of camaraderie that comes from working within a cohesive team that makes one feel that anything is possible. Inspired by a shared vision we had several very productive meetings after school and put together a very strong and ambitious bid which found an ideal funder in the form of the Barclays New Futures Award for citizenship. This high profile national scheme was a leading funder of innovative projects in schools in the late 1990 s and early 2000 s. The scheme provided the project with a generous budget of £7,000 for two years of work, but we had big plans and wanted to extend activities into a third year—cue Booths Supermarkets, our community partner, who had just opened a store in the town and wanted to cement links with the community. This family-owned supermarket group generously provided an additional £6,000 that enabled the project to have a wider impact, as well as being extended into a third year.