Childwall School

TRUST SCHOOL UPDATE

Childwall Sports College Governors decided unanimously at their last full meeting on 3rd December 2007 to proceed to formal consultation regarding Trust School. The school, in conjunction with partners, will now develop:

· Draft Trust Plan
· Instruments/Articles of Governance
· Suggested Trust Board

The Trust continues to have at its principle themes the following:

a) Health
b) Learning & Teaching
c) Learning opportunities for students 11-19 years
d) Continuing Professional Development

Childwall Governors will next meet in the new year to consider the above and decide on the next steps in terms of the proposed Fiveways Trust.

D.W. Phillips,

Headteacher.

FIVEWAYS TRUST SCHOOL SEMINAR

On Monday, 12th November 2007, a Seminar was held at Zoe’s Place, West Derby. The purpose of the Seminar was to begin to develop a plan for the proposed Fiveways Trust. Those present were as follows:

Childwall Sports College: Mr. D.W. Phillips (Headteacher); Mr. T. Alderman (Deputy Headteacher); Mr. A. Whiteley (Deputy Headteacher)
Childwall Extended Services: Mrs. C. Densmore (Business Manager); Miss M-L. Morgan (Assistant Headteacher); Ms V. Marshall (South Central Liverpool School Sport Partnership)
Childwall Governors: Mrs. S. Griffiths (Chair); Mrs. L. Gilford (Teacher Governor)
Broadgreen High School: Mr. I. Andain (Headteacher); C. Foss; L. Russell; R. Rowe
Liverpool L.A. Mr. T. Warren (AED)
Childwall Consultant: Mr. M. Cox
EEI Solicitors: Mr. P. McPartland
Liverpool PCT: Ms S. Davies
Learning Skills Council: Mr. P. Arista
Fiveways Learning Network: Ms J. Boyce
Liverpool JMU: Ms P. Shenton; Dr. P. Vickerman; Ms N. Hepworth
Connexions: Mr. K. Gordon; Mr. D. Howard
Liverpool Community College: Ms S. Greenhalgh
Youth Sport Trust: Ms B. Wilson
City Learning Centres: Ms D. Barrett-Baxendale
Scottish Power: P. Ross
Land Services Trillium: Mr. C. Denham
Library Services: Mr. A. Johnson

The format for the session was as follows:

Introduction and overview by Dewi Phillips, Headteacher, Sports College
The Broadgreen perspective: Ian Andain, Headteacher, Broadgreen Technology College
Barbara Wilson, Youth Sport Trust: The national perspective on Trust Schools
Adrian Whiteley, Deputy Headteacher, Childwall Sports College: responsible for the arrangements for the day. Colleagues were divided into four groups looking at four separate issues viz:
Health and Wellbeing
Curriculum
Lifelong Learning
Careers/Premises and facilities

A report on the day will be provided by Childwall Sports College and disseminated to all colleagues within the proposed Fiveways Trust.

D.W. Phillips,
Headteacher.

Trust School Status

At the Trust School Seminar held on Childwall Sports College on 27th June 2007. The large audience asked a number of key questions. There follows a summary of those questions and responses:

Question 1: was about the employment of staff at Childwall Sports College and Broadgreen Technology College as a result of becoming a Trust.

As a Trust the Governing Body would gain new powers and responsibilities. The Governing Bodies of the individual schools would become the employer of all staff. Existing Pay & Conditions arrangements would be unchanged as the school would remain the Maintained Sector and be subject to National Pay & Conditions agreements.

Question 2: Admissions Policy?

The Governing Body would also become responsible for pupil admissions but work jointly with Liverpool Local Authority to administer the provision of pupil places within the requirements of the National School Admissions Code.

Question 3: The assets of the school?

The Trust would hold the land and capital assets in trust for the school and the Governing Body would have (as now) day to day responsibility for managing these assets.

Question 4: The Every Child Matters Agenda (ECM)?

The ECM Agenda will be paramount in the planning of the Trust. The three main principles of the Trust will continue to be as follows:

• To ensure the highest quality Learning and Teaching for all students

• To ensure maximum opportunities 14-19 (11-19)

• To ensure the highest quality Health Education Programme for our students. This clearly fits the ECM Agenda to which we are committed.

Question 5: Relationships with the Local Authority and other schools?

This question was specifically around whether Childwall and Broadgreen will continue to support initiatives such as New Protocol, New Transfer, hard to place children and generally continue to play a significant part in the life of the family of Secondary Schools in Liverpool. It is confirmed that we would continue to play the fullest possible part in the life of the Local Authority as at present.

D.W. Phillips, Headteacher.

Trust School Status

We are delighted to be able to inform Parents/Carers and friends of the school that Childwall Sports College is exploring the possibility to become a Trust School. To this end the school had to complete a rigorous application form to the Department for Education & Skills (DfES).

The ‘Early Adopter’ application has a number of key principles including the following:

• A continuing Health Agenda. To this end Childwall Sports College intends to work very closely with the Liverpool Primary Care Trust (PCT) to ensure that there is a coherent programme of Health Education within Childwall Sports College and also within our Learning Network.

• Continued collaboration through the 14-19 group including Broadgreen High School: A Technology College, King David High School, Liverpool Community College and St. Francis of Assisi Academy.

• To continue to ensure the highest quality Learning and Teaching and thereby ensure that academic standards to continue to rise. In this context we are delighted that in 2006 Childwall Sports College was recognised as the eighth best school for Key Stage results over the period 2002-06. In addition we identified by the Specialist Schools & Academies Trust (SSAT) as one of the ‘Most Improved’ schools for GCSE in England. Ofsted recently commented that at Key Stage 5 “… Partnership arrangements are outstanding enabling students to access a wide range of academic and vocational courses” “Achievement in the Sixth Form is good”.

• We will continue to foster strong relationships with partners such as Higher Education and Further Education establishments. In this context our links with Hope University, John Moores University and Liverpool University in addition to Edge Hill University will ensure that we continue to attract the highest quality staff to Childwall.

• Governors at Childwall Sports College have discussed the implications of Trust School Status at its two most recent full meetings which took place on 5th February 2007 and 21st May 2007. In addition Governors have been addressed by representatives of the Youth Sport Trust (YST) which is managing the Trust School Status on behalf of the DfES in the context of Childwall being a Specialist Sports College.

There will be issues in respect of:

Pupil admissions/estate/land ownership
Employer status
Governance

The Governing Body at Childwall Sports College is looking very closely at all these matters and this will form part of the consultation process.

• The school is working on the premise that the strong relationships with all the above partners will be strengthened and formalised even further through a Trust School arrangement. The underlying principle is that Trust School will continue to raise the aspirations, achievements and attainments of not only c.1300 students at Childwall Sports College but also all those schools that lie within our Network.

D.W. Phillips, Headteacher.