Establishment Type: Secondary academy
Aim: Use data effectively to better support students’ progress.
Solution: The SIMS Support package.
Impact: Access SIMS expertise to help deliver school improvement goals and improve student outcomes.
Background
The picturesque village of Quedgeley in Gloucestershire is home to Severn Vale School, a secondary academy with over 1,300 students and 150 staff.
Staff recognised the continuing impact of the pandemic on students’ personal and academic development. Many students joining Severn Vale had missed critical learning in key stages 1 and 2 due to the disruption of Covid. Wellbeing and behaviour were also a key focus.
The school has used the SIMS management information system (MIS) for many years and also has the SIMS Complete Support package. This service includes termly visits from a SIMS expert who helps train new staff, spends time answering technical queries, and introduces new features and products to help the school improve student outcomes.
The SIMS Support team played a critical role in helping the school ensure the strategies introduced to close learning gaps and improve student outcomes get results, as Julia Atkinson, Severn Vale’s school business manager, explains.
“We have such a great relationship with Raj, our SIMS Support contact. It’s like having a good friend in school for the day who understands exactly what help we need and how the system can be used more effectively to support us. She was our first port of call when we wanted to make some changes to the way we were doing things.”
Monitor the impact of catch-up
As part of a school-wide catch-up strategy, Severn Vale brought two primary school teachers in to deliver literacy interventions every day. The aim was to build students’ reading skills and backload missed learning, so it was important to get a clear picture of the impact the scheme was having on students’ achievement across the curriculum.
“We have such a great relationship with Raj, our SIMS Support contact. It’s like having a good friend in school for the day who understands exactly what help we need and how the system can be used more effectively to support us.”
Julia Atkinson, School Business Manager, Severn Vale School
“With the literacy programme in full swing, we wanted to know young people were benefiting from the additional help being provided and see the resulting boost in their progress,” says Julia.
With demand for the school’s wellbeing support services rising, changes were also needed to ensure the on-site mental health practitioners and social workers students had access to were making a difference. “Before, a student could be seeing a councillor for years without us knowing if it was having a positive impact,” Julia explains.
The knowledge and skills of the SIMS Support team helped to improve data sharing and give staff across the school more information that they could use to support students.
“Everything we need to improve student outcomes is no more than two clicks away. This means we can quickly see how some extra literacy support results in an uplift in students’ progress. Automatic alerts are sent when a student has completed six visits to one of the school’s wellbeing services too. This sparks a review and discussion to ensure the service is meeting their needs.
“The SIMS Support team has been instrumental in helping us achieve this and make much better use of SIMS.”
Manage behaviour consistently
Previously, there was inconsistency in the way that behaviour was managed across the school and this could hold students back.
Severn Vale’s behaviour management policy underwent a complete overhaul to address this. A new system of awarding behaviour and praise points was introduced with help from the SIMS support team.
Teachers are now automatically alerted when a student has received five points for concerning behaviour over a set time period. This is the starting point for interventions designed to help them re-focus on learning.
“The support we received from the SIMS team to track who is going into and out of the two rooms made us realise that we needed a dedicated inclusion team to manage the scheme, which is now in place and working well.”
Julia Atkinson, School Business Manager, Severn Vale School
“Once students reach the threshold, they go to our Referral Room, where they have time and space to talk about the reasons behind the behaviour and complete any work they have missed,” says Julia.
“This doesn’t work well for everyone, so we also have a Reflection Room, which allows students to continue learning online in the presence of a staff member, without the distractions of a busy classroom.
“The support we received from the SIMS team to track who is going into and out of the two rooms made us realise that we needed a dedicated inclusion team to manage the scheme, which is now in place and working well.”
The senior leadership team has a dashboard of real-time data that can be used to spot trends in attendance, achievement, and behaviour across the school too. This has helped identify additional training needs to increase the awarding of praise points and help teachers better support their students.
“We have a single point of contact who everyone knows is a fantastic source of knowledge and support. We make good use of the wider support team too, who are always there to offer advice or signpost people to a quick how-to video. We wouldn’t be without them.”
Julia Atkinson, School Business Manager, Severn Vale School
Key benefits:
1. Literacy catch-up that improves student outcomes.
2. Clearer insight into the benefit of wellbeing support services.
3. More effective behaviour management.
4. Efficient data sharing to boost student progress.
5. A team of SIMS experts on tap.