Visiting a Swedish primary school I was told there was a Special Needs class in the attic. They were not exactly an afterthought in school affections but the classroom atmosphere was indeed rarefied. Eight children and two adults lived and worked as an extended family. Some of the school's best work happened there, a flowering of what informed research always tells of effective teaching and learning. Every child had and played a guitar. One pupil's observations of fruit drying in a bowl had brought exacting experimental investigations and remarkable results in the form of graphs and tables. One wished others to be there.
The NET concept of 'advocacy' owns just such an ambition, and the quality in Frank Wise School, a Special School with Specialist status born of its academic work and community character, exemplifies virtues in teaching and learning that will inform any of us.
The 2006 Ofsted report rated pupil achievement and personal development outstanding, and talking with the Head and one of his assistant Heads induces a strong conviction that Ofsted would say the same today. But there has also been progression. How can outstanding become better?
Teaching and learning, leadership and management were also rated outstanding and it is within these areas that further evolution has occurred, as of course it can and should. Management is richly accountable, using systematic, structured lesson observation as a way to review both individual teaching and overall school performance.
For learning to be effective, teachers need professional competence. Frank Wise has firmly embedded its staff development programme. Support assistants continue to move on to qualified teacher status, often returning to work at the school, filling normal vacancies and meeting the impact on roll of the town's continued expansion. The school has evolved a Graduate Teacher Programme which measures up to anything offered elsewhere, and with the addition of over fifty elements specific to SEN professionalism.
Education is first a social process and getting the 'people thing' right is on the way to guaranteeing effective learning.
There is a happiness and strength about the place that speaks volumes of the teamwork Sean and his SMT have developed and within which they remain respected for their high leadership qualities, however low-key they play these roles. Real trust and respect permeate relationships in classrooms where, though the school consciously eschews grouping by disability in favour of more recognisable age-based arrangements, the forming and re-forming of groups for particular learning purposes is regular and planned.
All 101 pupils (age 2-19) have half a day in mainstream schools every week, nationally exceptional, while four have more than half a day. These links going back over 25 years are so deep and sustained that Frank Wise pupils no longer attract curious stares and attention.
Every two years the school premieres a film comprising three minutes from every class that weaves into a shared theme, for example 'Superheroes'. The school values the self-worth, independence and mature confidence such outcomes reflect, and that national journalists have detected when interviewing older students.
The small-scale atmosphere well serves teachers effectively integrating National Curriculum goals and progression with individual need. Mainstream teachers need to understand this too as they grapple with areas of learning and personalisation. The flexibility of the school's internal working organisation is a highlight, enabling a distinctive approach to cognitive development, such as memory-training, reasoning, de-constructing language, all areas that would extend good mainstream practice.
Its distinctive clientele aside, there is little in Frank Wise School that could not inform teaching anywhere. As a Specialist School it pursues added value for the grants received, and the new I-WISE computer suite will embrace Banbury's popular Animation Station while extending the children's strong ICT skills through audio, video and animation suites. Even the lay-out is designed to provide flexibility and shared working.
The sight of happy children and their parents in the foyer at day's end, mingling with staff while minibus drivers carefully embark their passengers, reflects features cardinal to effective schools: leadership, delegation, teamwork, energy and vision within which human fundamentals of trust, respect, partnership and competence predominate.
The school knows that there is always room for development and accepts the scope for further initiatives in helping parents share their values and efforts. The next Ofsted report should be intriguing.
