WORKFORCEREFORM:CASESTUDIES
Everyone has their part to play
Ysgol Penmaes South Dartmoor Community College
Ysgol Penmaes prides itself on having a From dealing with attendance issues to
TEAM ethos – with TEAM standing for managing behaviour, support staff play a crucial
“together everyone achieves more”. role at South Dartmoor Community College.
An all-age special school in Brecon, Powys, The 1,700-pupil comprehensive serves a
it also offers residential provision for children vast rural area around the town of Ashburton
with autistic spectrum disorders and respite in Devon and employs a total of 260 staff
provision for pupils with complex needs. – half of them teachers, half support staff.
As well as being headteacher of Ysgol The teaching and learning agenda is
Penmaes, Ian Elliott is chair of the School paramount at the college and with this in mind
Workload Advisory Panel (SWAP), which a range of new roles have been established,
was set up by the Welsh Assembly in 2004 to giving teachers more time to focus on their
reduce the bureaucratic burdens on schools in planning, teaching and marking.
Wales. South Dartmoor has a vertical house
He and his staff are firmly committed to system. In 2008, the heads of the
workforce reform and have brought in a range six houses, which are all named
of initiatives to free teachers up to teach and after local tors, were renamed
to give all staff a voice in the running of the performance leaders.
school. They are all teaching
Ysgol Penmaes, whose 104 pupils are staff and, led by a
aged between two and 19 and have a range of director of student
learning difficulties, has a clear vision on what performance,
it is trying to achieve. “Everything the school their
does is focused on pupil outcomes and pupil responsibility
wellbeing,” said Mr Elliott. “If it isn’t, then is to ensure that
why are we doing it?” students are
One of the first things Mr Elliott did after participating and
he joined the school in 2000 was to expand performing to
the management team (which then consisted their full potential.
of the head and the deputy) into a senior Behind the
leadership and management team comprising performance
the head, deputy head, assistant head, three leaders, however,
teachers, three higher level teaching assistants, there is a new team of
and a resource manager. support staff who have
“Bringing different people into the team taken on vital roles in areas
meant that everyone who works in the school like behaviour, attendance, parent
on a day-to-day basis has a voice,” explained support, administration, incident support and
Mr Elliott. “As a result, there is a common first aid. Most of them have not had previous
purpose and shared understanding of what we careers in education but have brought a wealth
are about as a school.” of life experience to their posts.
Other innovations included the appointment “It is a much better system,” said principal
of a workload assistant, who develops Ray Tarleton.
resources for teachers, researches trips, and “We are driving a teaching and
does a host of other administrative tasks. learning agenda for the teaching
In addition, when the school found it staff and are looking to see that
difficult to recruit mid-day supervisors, the our standards are as high as
school renamed them support assistants, they can be. Our big thrust
extended their working days from 90 minutes at the moment is looking at
to three and a quarter hours, and gave them being ‘good to outstanding’
extra responsibilities. As a result they were and we are spending a lot
inundated with applicants. of time on things like
“It has made a massive impact,” said Mr peer-to-peer observation.
Elliott. “The support assistants feel even more “The teachers are
included in the school, they have access to the able to focus on all
same training days as our teaching assistants, of this because our
and at the moment we have a programme support staff deal with
where they can work towards a recognised things like uniform,
NVQ Level 2 qualification.” attendance and low-
The governing body has been very level disruption. Teachers
supportive of the remodelling process, which can lead, support and
is very much on-going. monitor, but it is very
As Mr Elliott said: “I don’t think we will much a partnership of
ever stop. We are constantly looking at making teachers and support staff
things better, remodelling and changing things working together, which means
– not for change’s sake, but changing to be that everybody can do their job
more effective.” more effectively.”
WAMG
SecEd • 5TO7 Educator 5 7
Workforce Agreement Monitoring Group
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