Case study: City of Ely
Community College
W
HEN CATHERINE Jenkinson- one and work through until you get to page 100.
Dix became principal of City It’s a fl exible resource that you can genuinely tailor
of Ely Community College in 2009, to the needs of your school. It’s very much like
she decided to use the Stronger when you are planning teaching – you take
Management Systems (SMS) materials to open up a things that are going to work for you for a
debate about school improvement. particular aspect. We used the sections of SMS
Th e 1,250-pupil school in Cambridgeshire is on high quality and eff ective line management
not on the National Challenge, but is a Gaining structures and practice, and eff ective performance
Ground school (a Department for Children, Schools management and objective-setting informed by
and Families programme for schools that need to whole-school priorities.
improve rates of progress).
Ms Jenkinson-Dix believed that the SMS materials
ove
its management systems and structures. As an
experienced head she knew it was vital to get the
school to look at itself more “critically”. “We have also dipped into Assessment for
“When I arrived, the school had been on an Learning (AfL), did some work on tracking pupil
improvement trajectory and results and outcomes had
‘

SMS is a fl exible resource that you
would help the college to refl ect on and impr
can tailor to the needs of your school
progress, and are currently looking at the quality
gone up, but I was conscious that there were some standards used in lesson planning.”
things that structurally weren’t in place. Ms Jenkinson-Dix is delighted by the fact that the
“For instance, I wasn’t clear that it had a real sense college has been able to tailor the resource according
of purpose and pace about what it was doing and to its priorities.
felt that some of the elements of SMS would be “Th e real measure of impact is on pupil outcome,
’
really helpful. I wasn’t using the elements in the same but I think that this resource has raised awareness
way or with the same level of urgency as a National and provided frameworks and thinking about
Challenge school might, but I wanted to stimulate systematic approaches for some core fundamentals
focused debate and discussion and get the school to that I expect middle leaders to be doing as part of
refl ect critically on itself. I also wanted to make sure their role,” she said.
that I was getting my team on board with how we “Th is package of materials is very powerful. Th e
were going to need to work to increase the pace, and elements within it are fundamental to eff ective and
to raise awareness with middle leaders.” sustainable school improvement, particularly in the
Ms Jenkinson-Dix and her senior leadership team way they promote discussion and debate.”
looked at the elements of management systems and So far Ms Jenkinson-Dix has not used Stronger
structures that they felt needed attention: “We dipped Governance Systems (SGS), but she is keen to do
into the elements that we felt were priority areas,” so in the future in order to help governors gain an
she explained. accurate view of the college and to encourage them
“Th is isn’t a resource where you start at page to refl ect critically.
SecEd 11
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