Case studies
The School of the Future
The Chafford Hundred Story
Chafford Hundred Campus
Ruth Dunn and Ashleigh Arbuthnot
Ruth originally trained to teach PE, but after a year
teaching children in care she realised that she cared more
about the young people than the teaching of a particular subject
and moved into the special needs field.
Ruth has spent most of her teaching career at a large
split-site community college in East Sussex but in September
2002, at the age of 56, she joined her previous head at Chafford
Hundred Campus in Thurrock as Achievement Co-ordinator. To
change jobs at this age and travel up from Sussex might seem
madness, but working at a brand new ‘school of the future’
with an innovative head was exciting and too good an opportunity
to miss!
Ashleigh trained in Secondary History Education before
joining a Fresh Start School in Nottingham to teach Humanities.
This was to prove an invaluable opportunity for her, though
at times eventful!
In September 2001, Ashleigh joined Chafford Hundred Campus
as Humanities Co-Coordinator. The shift between two very different
schools has been a real learning curve in her teaching career.
The focus of the Campus on the ‘learner’ and ‘learning’
has been inspirational, so much so that she is currently undertaking
an MA in Effective Learning, which specifically focuses on
Learning styles and Learning to learn. It has been an exciting
opportunity to put up-to-date research into practice within
the classroom.
Walking through the doors of Chafford Hundred Campus is like
walking into the school of the future today. Sure, it has
the technology that most associate with such claims –
the interactive whiteboards, wireless and broadband technology,
laptops for all and electronic registration – but it
has more than just the hardware of tomorrow’s schools;
it has the thinking that goes with it.
The Campus opened in September 2001 with its first intake
of Year 7 students and the full range of Nursery and Primary-age
students, mainly drawn from the immediate vicinity. The term
‘Campus’ alone signals its uniqueness as an institution,
as it brings together under one roof a nursery, a primary
school, a secondary, adult education, a public library and
facilities for the community at large. Its opening attracted
national acclaim and we believe it will be the model for many
to follow.
The ethos of Chafford Hundred Campus is to meet the needs
of the individual in the 21st Century, and personal tutoring
is just one of the ways we achieve this. Every student is
entitled to a 1:1 day with his/her tutor. In this weekly session,
beginning before school at 8.30am, a student can sit down
and spend quality time with the tutor and Learning Support
Tutor (LST). It is a chance for the tutor to deal with personal
issues that arise, a chance to check on progress and, most
importantly, a chance to get to know each tutee. No other
pastoral system is planned, therefore the personal tutor and
the LST are the central focus for their students. Each tutor
has no more than twenty tutees.
Tutors are also playing an important part in the development
of Personal Learning Plans (PLPs). All students have laptop
computers, allowing the use of ICT to be central to this process.
Building on the good practice developed with the additional
need individual education plan, the PLP’s format is
evolving continuously as tutors use it week to week, together
with other data held on the student, which can be downloaded
into their plan. The tutor has the responsibility of interpreting
all of the data for their tutees, giving them a realistic
view of their future and challenging them to move forward.
Students will be able to detail their achievements in a cumulative
way and a record of behaviour can be added if required. Finally,
the tutee will negotiate targets and review them on a regular
basis. This record will be held by both tutor and tutee and
printed off or e-mailed to parents. With the support of Monsoon
Malabar, an ICT company working with the Campus, a graphical
representation of each individual’s progress is being
developed.
The tutor is not only the main point of pastoral contact
for the student, but also his/her teacher for a large part
of the curriculum. Certainly many children and their parents
are very positive about this aspect, which has benefited a
number of students, particularly those with additional needs,
both academic and emotional or behavioural difficulties. The
opportunity to work closely with one teacher to overcome obstacles
and to reach targets has been of benefit to most students,
as one teacher can get to know the learners’ needs thoroughly.
Progress has also been enhanced through lessons on Learning
to Learn and regular reflection on progress, which is logged
in the students’ Learning Journals, and the use of PRAISE
points for Progress, Responsibility, Achievement, Initiative,
Showcase and Effort when these are demonstrated.
Encouraging students to take responsibility for their learning
will only work if they can see a point to it all and the links
between different aspects of the curriculum. To this end the
Campus is developing an integrated curriculum which marries
in with competences for the 21st century. Although well planned,
rarely do things on paper seem to work out the same in practice.
Consequently, this year has been a steep learning curve for
the Year 7 team.
During the Campus’s first year, areas of the curriculum
were loosely linked together while a KS3 plan was developed.
Initially there were large chunks of subject material, but
this was tedious to deliver and even more tedious to learn.
Both Science and Art had been totally integrated with specialists
inputting to staff and students. In the subsequent terms,
Science skills have been taught discretely. Maths is now setted
with dedicated time. Both planning ahead to accommodate envisaged
problems and altering retrospectively have been time consuming
but certainly interesting and challenging!
Despite some subject areas being taught separately, the Campus
is not moving away from integration but refining it. The aim
has been to develop themes, with specialists contributing
to the development of resources, ‘enskilling’
the tutors and being involved directly with students. Much
of the curriculum lends itself to this approach. At the moment
technology, performing arts and PE are not integrated. Next
year drama will be.
The benefits of this approach have yet to be fully evaluated,
but two partner schools from a Person Centered Education Alliance,
set up with Sussex University and consisting of six schools
altogether, have observed students working and made some interesting
positive comments about the boys’ engagement in learning,
which will be eagerly followed up.
The Person Centred Education Alliance was formed to encourage
schools to work together and share good practice and ideas
with each other. Unlike many other such consortia, however,
this group consists of students as well as teachers. The main
aim of the alliance is to create schools that concentrate
on the LEARNER, and not just on subjects and teachers. Who
better to involve than the learners themselves? Often students’
views can be overlooked in the decision-making processes that
affect them, but because the Campus’s ethos is about
the individual, we believe it is crucial that the students
have a voice in their learning. The process helps the students
to make that connection between learning and life, and thus
education can become self-sustaining and linked with active
citizenship and empowerment in the 21st century. Those at
the Campus who have attended the alliance’s conferences
have found them both enjoyable and rewarding.
Chafford Hundred Campus is also one of the first eight schools
to work with the RSA (Royal Society of Arts) to pilot a new
curriculum, the aim being to redefine schooling and open the
minds of young people in the 21st Century. It has been generally
accepted by many, particularly employers, that the National
Curriculum does not equip young people with the skills essential
for everyday life. One of the most influential advocates of
this argument is Howard Gardner, whose book The Unschooled
Mind presents an impressive body of information indicating
that people with apparently sophisticated knowledge of a subject
often fail to apply it effectively when they encounter problems
whose form or context is unknown to them. The RSA Curriculum,
on the other hand, is founded on five competences that will
equip young people with the essential life skills.
These are:
Learning
Citizenship
Relating to people
Managing situations
Managing information
Each unit of work focuses on one or more of these competences
in the context of the National Curriculum subjects and the
student’s progress is logged in his/her Learning Journal.
The Campus will soon offer a unique KS4 curriculum to suit
the individual student. It will be innovative through developing
fast track options and vocational placements, and by offering
a vast number of GCSE courses to cover and develop all intelligences.
So it is not only technology that makes a ‘school of
the future’; it is the ability and willingness to look
critically at the old, accepted ways; it is being willing
to take on board new knowledge to deal with old (and new)
problems. The core of every initiative here is the individual.
At Chafford Hundred Campus these are the trails we are blazing.
And we’re hoping that others will follow shortly.
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