Craig Clarke-Castello, Executive Principal of Lea Forest Primary Academy, shares insights into the journey of a 'sustain' school. This is the final article in a series from school leaders in each quadrant of AET’s network improvement framework.
At Lea Forest Academy, excellence begins with mindset. Never settling for ‘good enough’. We may be labelled as a ‘Sustain’ school within our network improvement model, but that does not capture our aspiration for continuous improvement.
Because schools never stand still: they are either getting better or worse. And we are committed to excellence being the standard - day in, day out, in everything we do.
Our strategy rests on two pillars: firstly, ambition for all - not putting a ceiling on learning, and secondly, relentless rigour - sweating the small stuff because collectively, they amount to everything. That is the Lea Forest Way.
But the community we serve has challenges. Nearly 70% of our pupil cohort are eligible for free school meals. Children here in Lea Village don't go into the city centre of Birmingham even though it is only five miles away. They are often deprived of the cultural experiences that give them a sense of belonging in their country. Issues like these fuel our determination to give children more chances to thrive. There are no excuses.
Reading is the key to enabling learning across the curriculum. It holds transformative power for our children - to liberate the mind and unlock new possibilities through educational success. Last year, at Key Stage 2, 94% of pupils read at the expected standard - ranking first across 31 primary schools in our trust.
There is a sense that reading is in the air at Lea Forest, but we are constantly tweaking and bolstering strategies to raise aspiration. We want to show children that they can be future change-makers, so we make links to show children the limitless opportunities beyond the classroom by using diverse texts in a wide range of successful professions.
Because unfortunately, we have to confront a harsh reality about our daily work: we are located in the first quartile of deprivation. Many children either don't have electricity or are coming to school tired due to their living and sleeping arrangements. These challenges have been heightened, especially by the cost of living crisis.
Naturally, this impacts attendance. Although we’re still above national, at 95%, this is not where we want to be.
It’s our duty to ensure that all our children are safe in schools and make sure that students can access all the information they need to progress through the curriculum. It’s an uphill battle. And it feels like we have tried every trick in the book to improve attendance, but we are still not there. We can only do more to show parents that education at Lea Forest allows their children to break out of the cycle of deprivation and succeed.
But our strong academic foundation allows us to pioneer new innovations to engage children with learning so that this school is a place they want to be. This year, we introduced technology to bring the curriculum to life. Our Portal is an immersive digital classroom that allows children to visualise anything from Ancient Greece to the explosion of a volcano. The Portal helps to unlock learning viscerally through experience.
Teaching is often subject to oversimplification, which fails to prepare those that work with challenging cohorts like ours. But in our context, if we didn’t properly invest in professional development, we’d be asking our teachers to perform miracles.
The foundation of The Lea Forest Way, the key driver of our success, is a collaborative system fostering teaching excellence. Ensuring that every adult has the opportunity to reach their full potential means that, in turn, our children do too.
Roles and responsibilities of staff are never fixed. We aim to boost our entire school's growth with a staff development plan emphasising shared responsibility.
A family atmosphere is fostered by focusing on growth and development at all levels. From encouraging senior leaders to earn master's degrees to offering apprenticeships to lunchtime supervisors so that they can become teaching assistants, there is a continual push for everyone at the school to better themselves, which then permeates the culture of learning.
In December, we were evaluated as Outstanding by Ofsted, which is incredible recognition of the school community's work and dedication. The official stamp of approval is confirmation of the staff's hard-won efforts, but the report’s opening means most to us: “This is an exceptional school where pupils flourish”.
That’s what we’ve been working towards. An education that nurtures curiosity, learning and well-being in their broadest senses.
It is a great achievement for the school and its staff, especially those who have been here for a long time. In 2014, we were evaluated as Requires Improvement. In many ways, improvement was easier back then because there was an obvious need for change. Now, we’re looking at the granular details.
There’s a relentlessness and a restlessness about this school. We’re certainly not committed to sustaining excellence. Moreover, enhancing it.
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Explore the rest of this series to learn more about the improvement priorities of schools at AET. Written by leaders from different quadrants - stabilise, repair, improve and sustain - of the trust's network improvement model, this series reveals the diversity and similarities of school improvement journeys.