introduction | students
| staff | parents | facilities
| exams |curriculum
|personal tutors
|year linked progress managers | key staff consultative groups | community | extra-curricular activities | specialist status | our future
The City School has a long and distinguished history.
The City School - a mixed 11-16 community school with approximately 1460 students located in the south east of Sheffield – is a well established and well respected, regularly oversubscribed, secondary school with specialist status in Business and Enterprise.
It was quite a shock to the school to be placed in an Ofsted category of Notice to Improve following an Ofsted inspection in December 2005 and an even greater shock to be placed in Special Measures following a re-inspection in March 2007.
The school’s response to this has been positive, speedy and extensive. Under the direction of a new interim headteacher (appointed for the period from April 2007 to August 2008) the school has managed extensive staff changes, introduced many new curriculum and qualification pathways, and a new approach to the Inclusion agenda that maximises accessibility to appropriate pathways for our students. Summer 2007 saw the school achieve its best ever GCSE pass rates and was recognised as one of the most improved in the city.
Interim HMI and Local Authority inspections in the autumn term resulted in positive feedback with regard to our progress and we are confident that we shall be out of special measures in the very near future.
The school is included in the city’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) Phase 2 programme, meaning that we should be largely rebuilt/refurbished in the next few years. This presents a quite rare opportunity for a new Headteacher to have a major input into the planning stages of new build/refurbishment to best meet the future needs of the school.
The City School has developed a strong environmental, global and ethical ethos. Developments over the last 2-3 years have included forging strong links, including two school expeditions, with the village of Malealea in Lesotho where our students and staff have helped with community water projects. We have also worked with a number of external partners to secure funding for the recent installation of a small wind turbine and the imminent installation of a biomass boiler.
Together with our main feeder primary schools we have taken an innovative approach to the extended school agenda that is attracting regional and national interest, working closely with ‘Refresh, Renew, Regenerate’, a local charitable community development trust to develop sustainable extended school initiatives.
Our students come predominantly from four local primary schools: Intake, Stradbroke, Woodhouse West and Woodthorpe, supplemented by a number of parental options from outside the catchment area. Over the last 3 years we have received children from as many as 36 different primary schools into our Y7 cohort.
The school population contains students drawn from the full range of ability. Baseline tests conducted with Year 7 pupils on entry show that there is a significantly greater number of pupils of lower ability however than would be located within ‘broadly similar’ schools. Over the last 3-4 years the number of students with some form of identified Special Educational Needs, albeit not all statemented needs, has increased from 17% to over 50%. Very few students are from ethnic minority groups. The percentage of pupils eligible for a free school meal currently stands at just under 20%.
The school is well served by a very talented and committed Senior Leadership Team supported by a committed and enthusiastic staff of almost 100 teaching staff and a full range of professional and dedicated support staff colleagues. There is a mentoring programme for all colleagues who join the school. We have Investor in People status that was reviewed and confirmed in the autumn term 2007.
Summer 2007 saw a high staff turnover, approximately 30% teaching staff turnover at that time, but an extensive and successful recruitment programme has been managed positively as an opportunity to appoint many new colleagues, including appointments to a number of senior and middle management/Head of Department posts, who are committed to moving the school out of special measures and then continuing to progress as an exemplar school.
The school enjoys excellent relationships with, and receives extremely positive commitment from, the parents of many of our students. A newly established parents as partners group meets regularly and the introduction of a programme of ‘progress days’ has been well received by parents with over 90% parent attendance at our autumn term progress day. A new approach to our parent newsletter has been introduced in the last term and the development of a new Behaviour and Attendance Team and the use of new technologies have helped to ensure that parents are more directly informed and involved in these and other aspects of their children’s education.
As well as specialist classrooms, we have refurbished science laboratories, Design Technology workshops, sports hall and gym, art and music studios. There has been extensive expansion of our ICT infrastructure over the last two terms. There are over 600 computers connected to the school curriculum network. This network serves six specialist ICT classrooms, an ICT resource in all curriculum areas and a Library resource area. We have two specialist Music technology rooms. All classrooms have at least one networked computer and attendance is recorded electronically. All network machines have 24-hour access to the Internet; all staff and students have access to personal e-mail facilities. The staff workroom has several computers connected to both the curriculum and administration networks. Development of our school intranet is ongoing.
Built integral to the school is the South-East Sheffield City Learning Centre (CLC), funded via the DfES Excellence in Cities initiative. This superb facility supports the work of The City School as well as other secondary schools in the South East of the city and our feeder primaries as well as offering adult/community ICT related courses in the evenings. We are currently working closely with the CLC on the development of Learning Platforms. This exciting project is providing a platform to review and develop the culture of learning and teaching in the school. We were delighted a couple of years ago to receive the award for the first national Centre of Excellence in the use of interactive whiteboards and we continue to encourage and extend the use of technology to enhance learning and teaching across the curriculum.
In GCSE examinations in summer 2007, 46% of the cohort obtained 5 or more passes at grades A* to C or the equivalent (up from 34% in 2006), 27% obtained 5xA*-C’s including English and Maths (up from 24% in 2006, 90% obtained 5 or more passes at grades A* to G (up from 88% and 96% gained at least one pass at grade G (up from 88%).
Of this cohort 54% of our students went on to Post-16 Education, either at Sheffield College or at one of the city’s remaining sixth forms; 27% chose training schemes; and a further 5% went directly into employment without training.
The school has achieved, and recently retained following a 2007 review, the Sheffield Careers Standard in recognition of our commitment to preparing students for life beyond school
Curriculum Management and Organisation
In order to engage ALL students and to maximise opportunity for all students to realise their personal attainment potential, many new curriculum pathways have been introduced since April 2007 to supplement the traditional academic curriculum. New opportunities include a range of BTec qualification routes, Certificate of Personal Effectiveness (CoPE), Adult Literacy and Numeracy, and work with Skill Force. The school also offers a well established range of work related/vocational qualifications as well as out of normal school hours opportunities for students to complete the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL).
The school timetable is based on a 25 period week. A variety of student grouping arrangements is employed in both Key Stages according to the needs of the students and individual departments’ requirements. Students with Special Educational Needs are supported in mainstream lessons by colleagues from the Inclusion Team. We have also developed a new Learning Base, and CoPE base, and in conjunction with Woodthorpe Development Trust, supported with funding from Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) we have developed an off-site Personalised Learning and Enterprise Centre (PLEC) to engage students experiencing difficulties who without this resource might be vulnerable to exclusion, in meaningful enterprise focussed learning activity.
Almost all the teaching staff and a number of support staff are Personal Tutors. Tutors are responsible for the majority of social, welfare, disciplinary and general academic concerns and are encouraged to deal directly with parents and outside agencies. The morning tutorial period is used to support these activities, to compile RAEs and for Student Reviews as well as reinforcing the learning ethos.
The work of the Personal Tutors is supported by Year linked Progress Managers and by Assistant Headteachers responsible for Learning and Teaching and Behaviour and Attendance. Each year term is supported by a member of the Senior Leadership Team.
The Senior Leadership Team (SLT) comprises Headteacher, 2 x Deputy Headteachers, 3 x Assistant Headteachers, and Business Manager. This team has more recently been supported by attendance at SLT meetings of our newly appointed Inclusion Manager and by our Head of Science to provide real input and to offer personal development opportunity. SLT is responsible for the overall strategic management of the school with individuals having specific areas of whole school management responsibility as well as departmental links.
The Strategic Planning Group (SPG) is a longstanding consultative group that originally comprised Heads of Departments but that more recently has been extended to include all teaching staff with TLR/Management responsibilities. This group is responsible for advising on and implementing a wide range of whole school policies.
During the last year we have developed a Learning and Teaching Team, A Behaviour and Attendance Team (BAT), a Learning Inclusion Strategy Team (LIST), and a Monitoring and Evaluation Team (MET) to ensure that we have groups responsible for ensuring that we maintain and sustain ongoing school improvement over a whole range of issues, initially of course informed by HMI inspection feedback.
We have a formally constituted and elected ‘Internal Finance Committee’ advised by the Business Manager that is responsible for allocation of capitation to departments albeit the work of this committee has been temporarily ‘on-hold’ this year as a more ‘whole school’ financial management approach has necessarily been adopted by the Business Manager as we address our Special Measures agenda.
In house Trade Union representatives/shop stewards meet regularly with a member of SLT and also as appropriate to any specific issues.
Other working parties and steering groups are set up as may from time to time be needed to meet specific needs.
We work very closely with Woodthorpe Development Trust/Refresh, Regenerate, Renew on many development initiatives. We enjoy close working relationships with our family of primary feeder schools and also with our neighbouring secondary schools. We work closely with our community police and students have met with our local Tenants and Residents Association. Our students also get involved in local community projects that have recently included bulb planting in Woodhouse Village and nature conservation work in the Shirecliffe Valley.
Our global enterprise work with the village of Malealea in Lesotho has generated interest and support from many local community and church organisations.
We have structured links with industry, business and commerce and our City Challenge week (suspended timetable week) towards the end of the summer term affords our students the opportunity to engage in a choice of out of school activities locally, at other venues in England, and oversees.
Our gymnasium and Sports Hall are let to community groups in the evenings and The City Learning Centre further extends opportunities for wider community involvement.
The City School is proud to boast that our extra curricular P.E offer is amongst the best in the county in terms of the range of activities offered and participation levels. At local and regional levels our students participate and compete with great enthusiasm and skill. Dance, drama and musical performances are regular features of the school calendar and a range of off-site and residential experiences, at home and abroad, are offered each year.
The school acquired Specialist Business and Enterprise status in September 2005. This has been particularly helpful in developing our enterprise culture and in developing enterprise learning and real enterprise opportunities. Ofsted following their inspection in March 2007 reported positively on the impact that our specialist status was beginning to have. Following a ‘Specialist School HMI inspection’ in December 2007 the school has received positive verbal feedback (final report awaited) indicating that we will retain this status. It is currently in our thinking that we might apply to change specialism when we are out of Special Measures, probably to Performing Arts and Enterprise in order to better meet the particular needs and aspirations of our students.
- We are confident that we shall very soon successfully ‘get out of’ Special Measures
- Thereafter continuous improvement in all aspects of Learning and Teaching and student attainment must be maintained
- Access to suitable curriculum and qualification routes will continue to be ensured in order that all of our students can realise their potential in order to move on to successful post-16 education and/or skilled employment
- New BSF build/refurbishment will present new opportunities for our students, staff and wider community
- We will develop as a hub for our local community, addressing the Extended Schools and Full Service District agenda in partnership with our family of schools and community partners