Education Initiative of the Year

Ashford School & Prep

Objectives were to raise reading and spelling ages in Y5-8; provide effective intervention to support those who are behind their chronological age; and develop a culture of reading across the school.

The school purchased Accelerated Reader, a computer-based system for the allocation of appropriate-level books, testing and motivation of wider reading. This included a targeted upgrading of the library stock.

Children spend after-school time in the library, browsing, reading or playing board games. This has led to the library becoming a hub of the school.

There is a record of children who have scored 100 per cent in a book quiz. In the prep school this is linked to school houses so the houses earn points. There is a Millionaire's Club for children who read one million+ words. The libraries have seen significant increases in the circulation of fiction; it has tripled in the prep school and by fivefold in the senior school.

Winner: Caterham School

Caterham School is the only independent school in the top 40 for both results and value-added. But the focus is not just on exam results: students leave able to think for themselves, with a deep understanding of how they learn.

Kim Wells, director of learning and teaching, introduced the Student Lead Learner programme in 2009 (known as Study Buddy), where 28 sixth-form students volunteered, were trained in coaching and mentoring skills, and then paired with younger students.

The scheme now involves 242 students (nearly a third of the school, or half of the sixth-form). The scheme covers every year group and the full ability range.

Students meet formally once every week for 20 minutes to discuss everything from how to memorise vocabulary to managing long-term projects, from making choices for GCSE subjects to adopting study skills that match their preferred styles of learning.

Frederick Hugh House

Opened in only 2010, as the inspiration of Amanda Barclay, Frederick Hugh House is a special school that provides tailor-made therapeutic programmes from onsite speech and language therapy, to occupational therapy and physiotherapy implemented on a one-to-one basis. The therapists and teachers work together to ensure that the children are given every opportunity to learn in their own way. The school is structured, but child-led.

Programmes are based on input from parents, staff and therapists that consider issues of home life. The school has the human and financial resources to make all difference to a child with special needs.

The journey room is a particularly impressive part of the school. It is, along with the science lab, filled with state of the art SpaceKraft technology, with all five senses stimulated to help children develop in an interactive way.

Sheffield High School GDST

The school has developed its portal and VLE to enhance teaching and learning, and support personalised and independent learning: all staff are now completing their European Pedagogical ICT, and the projects have snowballed, including:

Junior School parents can access the weekly curriculum outline through the VLE of what their daughters are covering in each lesson, as well as materials their daughters can use to reinforce or extend their learning.
A-level subjects have discussion-group blogs and wikis to disseminate ideas.
Students work out their own learning style and follow suggestions of how to make their revision more manageable through the portal, including a downloadable app for recording revision materials onto their phone.
One Y7 class members have been issued with iPod Touchs to evaluate having handheld devices for use in and out of lessons.

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