Case Study

The partnership

The key reason why Cardinal Newman Catholic School wanted to work in partnership with the Polish Saturday school was to develop provision for EAL for students within its own school without damaging, citing from their own words, 'the excellent work' they saw the Polish school undertaking.

The rationale was simple. EAL students, including the Polish students, would drop a GCSE and in its place would undertake additional work on literacy. This takes the form of preparation for the Adult Literacy L1 course; support for GCSE English and general support for GCSE coursework in all other subjects.

In addition to the work on literacy, students also undertake work towards either a GCSE or an AS level in their mother tongue. This is central to Cardinal Newman School’s effort to ensure that all students are able to both enjoy their studies and achieve significant academic outcomes. For one lesson each week these students get to be experts in their field, which increases their motivation and confidence significantly.

Planning the work

The planning stages included:

• A meeting between Cardinal Newman School & the Polish School to discuss a remit for their joint work
• Agreements were developed around examination entries and the collection of ‘points’ for the league tables
• Meeting with parents to discuss the rationale for the course and the advantages to their children– since this opportunity was in the students’ interest it was not presented to parents in Y10 as an option. All EAL students with weak English at the start of Y10 were required to follow this path. The optional element was in the uptake of lessons at the Polish School on a Saturday morning
• Staffing was already in place – Cardinal Newman School have two Polish EAL support teachers, one of whom had already gained qualified status as a teacher in Poland and was well placed to support the Polish GCSE course.

The planning of this partnership was carried out once the opportunity of enrolling Polish students at GCSE level had been confirmed. The need and purpose was defined at the outset, but the time available to roll-out the course was limited. According to Cardinal Newman School it is not the finest example of collaborative planning, although it is an excellent example of creative application of partnerships.

Impact

It is too early to tell exactly what the impact will be for the first group of students. The students will certainly leave with a GCSE/AS level in Polish, but only time will tell whether or not there is a significant impact on English skills as well as their general levels of attainment. They expect an estimated number of students in Year 10 to achieve the L1 Adult Literacy award. Finally, the average points score per student will increase due to the inclusion of the GCSE Polish & AS results.

Successes

• Good lines of communication between the schools based on shared employees
• Explanation of the course to parents – it was worth getting parents into the school to speak to them all as a group. All parents were completely on-board with the idea of the support lessons in Cardinal Newman School.
• Timetabling – integrating the course into part of the school day ensures that there are no catch-up lessons required and there are no difficulties in ‘getting students together’ because they are all scheduled to have this lesson at the same time
• No clash of strategic aims for either schools

Challenges

• A degree of apathy amongst some of the families with respect to taking up the opportunities presented by the Polish School on Saturday mornings
• Concern that introducing the course might dilute the impressive work of the Polish School
• Initial concern at loss of breadth to students’ experience

What could have been done differently?

The partnership could have started off at an earlier stage, possibly towards the end the academic year of 2007. As previously mentioned, the partnership has rather been thrown together more through necessity than design. However, now that it is in place there is great potential for a more considered form of collaboration to emerge from the relationship forged.

Cardinal Newman School highlights the fact that all parties are passionate about engaging students into school life and community life effectively which, in their opinion, is the very foundation of their partnership work.

Future plans

1. Protocols for engagement
2. Combined Development Plan for both schools
3. Defined success criteria – possibly including:

• Reading Age tests
• % Success at L1 & L2 Adult Literacy
• % A*-G & A*-C English GCSE
• Polish GCSE/AS results
• Recruitment and retention rates for Polish Saturday School

Both schools need to carefully consider how they can best engage those students who are not going to attend the Polish Saturday School. The concern is that if GCSE in Polish is offered through the core school curriculum, it will cause a fall in the numbers attending the Polish Saturday School. According to Cardinal Newman School, the Polish Saturday School is doing a fantastic job in terms of community cohesion and helping integrating new members to the local community.

In the Polish community, much like any other, there are an overwhelming number of parents who are keen to support both schools in their efforts to provide the best education to their children. However, there are a number of parents who are not supporting their children as much as Cardinal Newman would hope, and there is a risk of these students ending up not in education, employment or training after the age of 16. Cardinal Newman School is now investigating a way of reaching out to all members of the Polish community and not just those who attend the Saturday School. In doing so, every effort will be made to ensure that the work of the Polish Saturday School is in no way undermined.

About the School