Bridge support scheme helped school turn its fortunes around
A pioneering pastoral programme has helped a troubled high school transform itself. Abbie Wightwick reports...
EARMARKED for closure and deemed by inspectors as “requiring significant improvement”, a troubled school has turned its performance around dramatically.
Mary Immaculate Roman Catholic High, a byword for bad behaviour a few years ago, now has more applicants than places and parents writing to the headteacher lobbying to get their children in.
The 780-pupil Cardiff school admits on its own website that as recently as 2011 it faced “many challenges” such as truancy and absenteeism, while fixed-term exclusions were among the highest in Wales.
Today it now has lower than average fixed-term exclusions and is one of the few schools in Wales ranked the highest green in performance colour-coding for the entire four years the scheme has run.
The secret seems to be that it wasn’t just academic standards staff addressed to reverse the situation.
Measures to address obvious behavioural issues were only partly successful and staff realised what drove the school’s social, emotional and behavioural issues was “underlying vulnerability”.
About 31% of students are entitled to free school meals, 15% have English as an additional language, 30% have some kind of special educational need and two-thirds of students are from the 20% most deprived areas of Wales.
In 2012, a pioneering pastoral programme called The Bridge was opened to support pupils and create better links with families.
Headteacher Huw Powell, who has been at the school nearly four years, says the scheme started by his predecessor and nurtured by him has been instrumental in changing attitudes.
In 2011, a year before The Bridge opened, the school, which takes pupils aged 11-16, made 250 fixedterm exclusions – that figure now stands at 30 to 60 a year, says Richard Shore, who manages the programme.
In the past five years The Bridge, run by former youth worker Richard and former maths teacher Larraine Davey, has helped more than 500 pupils with bespoke packages of one-to-one support for a range of issues which can affect learning and behaviour such as bullying, bereavement, family break-ups, confidence, self-esteem, mental health problems and other social triggers.
Its aim is to keep students and families engaged in learning by addressing these issues, rather than losing pupils to absence and exclusions, says Mr Powell.
The Bridge runs from a classroom transformed to mimic a home and learning space divided up into a kitchen area with a table to talk at, a sitting space with comfortable chairs, a small office and a section with books and board games. About 60 pupils get one-to-one help at any one time but any pupil can drop in.
Behind an ordinary classroom door the area is a world away from what can be the stressful bustle of school life.
A radio plays softly to create a homely, welcoming atmosphere. There is free tea and coffee, and toast is also provided “for pupils whose lives may have imploded before they had a chance to have breakfast”, says Larraine.
“Anyone at any time can become vulnerable for a number of reasons,” she stresses.
“A pupil could be dealing with a family diagnosis of long-term sickness, lack of self-esteem, body confidence, any number of reasons.
“We live in a world of social media and some young people lack the ability to communicate face to face and read signals of body language.”
To address this, pupils are encouraged to chat in situations such as learning to play cards and board games where talk can feel more natural and less threatening.
When a pupil is referred by teachers for sessions at The Bridge, parents are kept informed and get weekly updates. But with some having negative experience of school themselves, it’s essential to change their perceptions, says Richard.
“A lot of parents are concerned being at The Bridge is a label of bad behaviour, but it’s not – we see kids who have never been in trouble but need support. To get pupils engaged, we have to get parents engaged.”
As Larraine puts it: “We have changed the mindset of parents that it’s the school against parents. They can see it’s a team effort, whereas before it was us and them.
“A lot of the pupils we’ve helped would have ended up Neet [not in education, employment or training] because of behavioural issues or inability to cope. We tackle barriers to learning which can be an inability to work or cope with life.”
While the school still has a separate exclusion room, unconnected to The Bridge, that room is used less now.
“That’s down to us. We manage things inside rather than excluding,” says Richard.
“But this is a unique programme. It is not about behaviour. Our job is not to get them good GCSEs but to give them tools for life and be able to sit in a classroom.
“A lot of my job is about saying good morning and shaking hands. I am hard on them about respect and old-fashioned values.”
Against a backdrop of rising mental health issues among young people in general and a rapidly changing world, Richard believes all schools should run something similar.
“A room like this would benefit every school in Wales. Society has become really hard and cruel and we have not taught out kids to be equipped to deal with that.”
He describes one example of a pupil who he believes would have dropped out of school without intervention from The Bridge.
“We had one young lad who had never been on a bus or to the barbers and had never bought anything in a shop on his own. His brother had been in prison for drugs and he’d suffered a bereavement.
“In Year 10 he had 38% attendance but by the end of Year 11 he had 100% and got eight GCSEs, C and above. He would not have come to school without this room.”
As part of his role, Richard helped the boy get confidence to go out alone and learn how to set up a bank account. He now works in security.
“There are kids like him everywhere who slip through the net,” Richard believes.
Pupil Lovead Veryard was referred to The Bridge four years ago when she was bullied in her first year of high school and for what she describes as “personal reasons”. Now the 15-year-old still comes, but this time to help others.
“Being bullied affected me mentally,” she says.
“It was bullying in person, mostly from boys, but girls too. It was suggested I come to The Bridge. I did not like school and I didn’t want to go to school. It was hard to concentrate in lessons.
“The Bridge gave me more confidence and I learned to ignore the bullies. Things started getting better about a year after I came to The Bridge. I like school now, but without this I would have moved schools.”
Kira Major, 16, also came to the programme five years ago in Year Seven.
“In my old primary I was bullied quite severely, physically and mentally. I was very shy and didn’t want to talk to anyone and did not like school. I didn’t want to come to school at all and felt the bullying would never go away. I am more resilient now. Without this, I would not be where I am now.”
Charlotte Tambinayagam struggled to study when her grandfather, who she was very close to, died.
“I couldn’t focus on anything so I couldn’t work and got stressed. I bottled things up, so it was helpful there was a place in school to come to. I don’t think I could have done all this without this.
“The Bridge gives us ways to deal with things so we can keep schoolwork separate. It’s not just in our school that students are struggling. It’s in all schools.”
All three girls are preparing to sit Year 10 GCSEs and say they feel confident and happy.
Larraine believes they, and others on the programme, can achieve because the school has recognised and helped them deal with issues blocking their ability to learn.
“They are joining a society where they need GCSEs but they also need the emotional stability to deal with problems life throws at them. It’s difficult to get a balance of ethos where they can get both.”
Mr Powell believes the school’s unique programme creates just that essential balance.