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What works for white British boys – Case study: Beech Hill Primary School

Leadership and management

  • Date: December 2010
  • Programme: Narrowing the gaps
  • Topic/theme: White British Boys
  • Number in series: 10
  • School name: Beech Hill Primary School
  • Phase: Primary
  • Our headteacher has a strong vision and aspirations for all pupils. There are well-defined roles for members of the senior leadership team (SLT) amongst whom there is unanimity of purpose.
  • We set very high expectations, expecting our children to make two sublevels of progress every year, so ensuring that children make better than expected progress. Tracking data for every pupil in the school is displayed on the conference room wall and regularly referred to in order to ensure no child 'slips through the net'.
  • All teachers and teaching assistants are encouraged to be reflective practitioners – teachers record their evaluation of the learning taking place in the areas of Literacy, Numeracy, Inclusion and science as well as information regarding vulnerable groups and gifted and talented children. The evaluation book provides a dialogue between teacher and headteacher focused on teaching and learning, with guidance and support offered in the form of a comment by the headteacher.
  • Our SLT have a thorough overview of the characteristics and distribution of our pupils and ensure we deploy our resources to best effect. For example, we currently have a large weighting of free school meals (FSM) pupils in Years 3 and 5: in light of this we have re-evaluated our teaching assistant deployment to ensure these classes continue to make progress and barriers to learning are removed wherever possible.
  • Tracking is used extensively at Beech Hill. Data from across the school is displayed in the conference room and is referred to regularly to ensure we are targeting the right children. We access Newcastle Local Authority's data package which provides us with detailed information on every child's achievement and relative progress.
  • Quality Assurance has a high priority. There are regular observations by senior leaders which provide detailed feedback to staff. Staff are provided with opportunities for team teaching joint planning, observations of good practice as well as the more traditional in-service training model of continuing professional development (CPD). The deputy headteacher is now introducing coaching across the school to further enhance teaching and learning.

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