Ashmead Combined School

A Message from Lord Pickles and Lord Blunkett, followed by Ashmead Combined School's best practice article

The ability to listen and learn from one another has always been vital in parliament, in business and in most aspects of daily life. But at this particular moment in time, as national and global events continue to reiterate, it is uncommonly crucial that we forge new channels of communication and reinforce existing ones. The following article from Ashmead Combined School is an attempt to do just that. We would welcome your thoughts on this or any other Parliamentary Review article.

Rt Hon The Lord David Blunkett

Rt Hon The Lord Eric Pickles

www.ashmeadschool.org.uk

1ASHMEAD COMBINED SCHOOL |

BEST PRACTICE REPRESENTATIVE

Co-headteachers Marcus Pickover

and Michael Pearse

Celebrating success: Work

from the wonderland topic

Ashmead Combined School serves a diverse urban

community in Buckinghamshire. Close to 20 per cent

of the school’s intake of 721 pupils are classed as

disadvantaged and it caters for 32 different home languages,

placing it in the top 20 per cent of all schools for the proportion

of pupils who speak English as an additional language.

Despite these potential barriers, the Co-headteachers Marcus

Pickover and Michael Pearse have continued the work of their

predecessor in developing a creative curriculum that has led the

school to consistently be in the top 10 per cent nationally for

progress in each of the last three years with no attainment gap

for disadvantaged pupils.

Imagine doing a job every day where every hour or so you had to change the job

and the focus and contend with something completely different and unrelated. Or,

to put that into the context of a classroom, imagine being a child who had to move

from writing a formal letter to the local authority to request a safer route to school,

to learning Spanish supermarket vocabulary and phrasing, to making a model

bridge, to discussing the main differences between Christianity and Hinduism, all

within the space of three hours.

Many adults could not cope with this intensity of change and yet this is common

practice daily in many schools. So rather than think of disadvantage as being a

barrier to learning, we consider what curriculum organisation could look like and

then remove that barrier. We make relevant links between subjects and have a

REPORT CARD

ASHMEAD COMBINED SCHOOL

»Co-headteachers: Marcus

Pickover and Michael Pearse

»Founded in 1977

»Based in Aylesbury,

Buckinghamshire

»Type of school: Mainstream

combined school for pupils

aged 2 to 11

»No. of students: 721

»No. of staff: 97

»www.ashmeadschool.org.uk

Ashmead Combined

School

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW

Highlighting best practice

2| ASHMEAD COMBINED SCHOOL

core theme running throughout the

learning, thus making it more relevant

for the pupils who are engaging. We

choose a picture book in which the

story, themes and characters become

familiar to the children, and all lessons

are then linked to these themes and

concepts from the book.

For example, we chose

The Lighthouse

Keeper’s Lunch

as our topic book and

have used the story as a theme for a

number of different subject disciplines.

In literacy the children would be

writing instructions for how to make

Mr Grinling’s lunch. In maths they

would be investigating how many

pieces of bread Mrs Grinling uses in a

week or a month to make his lunch. In

science, pupils would be investigating

light and electricity so that when

they made their own lighthouses in

design technology they could light

them. In geography the pupils may be

comparing their locality to that of a

coastal destination, while in Spanish

learning vocabulary and phrases

linked to the seaside. In this way, our

curriculum makes sense to the pupils;

we provide them with the foundations

from which to learn and then learning

is seamlessly linked through each

subject and thus is relevant to them.

Our approach to teaching and

learning

In addition to this curriculum

organisation, the core of our approach

to learning lies in the Chinese proverb,

“I hear, and I forget/I see, and I

remember/I do, and I understand”,

suggesting that children’s

understanding is more effective if

they experience or explore something

for themselves rather than being fed

information to retain. For this very

reason, we ensure that first-hand

experiences are a key element of our

All creatures great and

small

The lighthouse keepers

lunch topic

I hear, and I

forget/I see,

and I

remember/I

do, and I

understand

“

3ASHMEAD COMBINED SCHOOL |

BEST PRACTICE REPRESENTATIVE

curriculum and that learning is carried

out in an environment that is enriching

and relevant.

In this way, when children enter

the classroom on the first day of a

term, they are surrounded by the

objects and key vocabulary from the

main topic text; in the case of the

example above, the room would be

filled with objects from the seaside.

In this sense, we are lucky to have

such a committed and creative staff

at the school, who buy into our vision

of education and work tirelessly to

create fresh and stimulating learning

environments for children every term.

Therefore, our curriculum does not

assume that every child has the same

experiences but rather provides them

with the experiences they need to

enable effective learning to happen.

Rather than expect our children to

adapt to a predetermined or published

curriculum, we use experiences

to build a curriculum around our

children’s needs, putting the child at

the centre and working outwards,

not the other way around. Alongside

this curriculum, we use assessment

effectively to inform our teaching

instead of gearing everything we teach

towards assessments. We have a staff

who are proud of the curriculum and a

pupil body who are inspired by it.

Home-grown staff

In recent years this curriculum has

resulted in strong outcomes for

pupils, which we have worked hard

to maintain by ensuring sustainability

of staffing and by becoming involved

in teacher training. We employ a

number of home-grown teachers who

have completed initial teacher training

through the school – some of whom

worked as teaching assistants in the

school prior to this and have been

supported through higher education.

Such apprenticeship has not only

relieved us of the pressures of

recruitment but also means that we

employ teachers who share our values

and vision for a quality education. We

also promote an “everyone teaches”

approach, whereby every qualified

teacher, from the headteachers to

the newly qualified teacher, takes

responsibility for teaching every day.

As such, the headteachers, deputy

headteacher, assistant headteacher

and special educational needs and

disabilities co-ordinator all have a daily

teaching commitment. In this way,

we are able to reduce ever-strained

classroom ratios in order to give our

children a better deal and to sustain

outcomes for all.

We have a

staff who are

proud of the

curriculum

and a pupil

body who are

inspired by it

“

The Iron Man topic

www.ashmeadschool.org.uk

This article was sponsored by Ashmead Combined School. The Parliamentary Review is wholly funded by the representatives who write for it. The publication in which this article originally appeared contained the following foreword from Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss.

Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss's Foreword For The Parliamentary Review

By Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss

Even by the standards of the day –this has been one of the most exciting and unpredictable years in British politics.

The leadership election we’ve just seen marks a huge moment in our country’s history. This government is taking a decisive new direction, embracing the opportunities of Brexit and preparing our country to flourish outside the EU.

As international trade secretary, I’ll be driving forward work on the free trade agreements that are going to be a priority for the government. Free trade isn’t just an abstract concept bandied around by technocrats. It is crucial for a strong economy and for the ability of families to make ends meet. Free trade benefits people in every part of our country, as British firms export to new markets and people doing the weekly shop have access to a wider choice of goods at lower prices.

The essence of free trade is in the title: freedom. It’s about giving people the power to exchange their goods without heavy government taxation or interference. Commerce and free exchange are the engine room of prosperity and social mobility. I’m determined to tackle the forces who want to hold that back.

One of my priorities is agreeing an exciting new free trade deal with the US, building on the great relationship between our two countries and the Prime Minister and US President. But I’ll also be talking to other partners including New Zealand, Australia and fast-growing Asian markets.

And with the EU too, we want a friendly and constructive relationship, as constitutional equals, and as friends and partners in facing the challenges that lie ahead – a relationship based on a deep free trade agreement. Our country produces some of the world’s most successful exports, and the opportunity to bring these to the rest of the world should make us all excited about the future. It is this excitement, optimism and ambition which I believe will come to define this government.

For too long now, we have been told Britain isn’t big or important enough to survive outside the EU – that we have to accept a deal that reflects our reduced circumstances. I say that’s rubbish. With the right policies in place, we can be the most competitive, free-thinking, prosperous nation on Earth exporting to the world and leading in new developments like AI. To do that, we’ll give the brilliant next generation of entrepreneurs the tools they need to succeed. Since 2015, there has been a staggering 85 per cent rise in the number of businesses set up by 18 to 24 year olds – twice the level set up by the same age group in France and Germany. We’ll help them flourish by championing enterprise, cutting taxes and making regulation flexible and responsive to their needs.

As we do that, we’ll level up and unite all parts of the UK with great transport links, fibre broadband in every home and proper school funding, so everyone shares in our country’s success.

2019 has been the year of brewing economic and political revolution. 2020 will be the year when a revitalised Conservative government turbo charges the economy, boosts prospects for people across the country, and catapults Britain back to the forefront of the world stage.

Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss
Secretary of State for International Development