Questions with Mrs Chimene Gowland
Assistant Headteacher and Director of English at Newland School for Girls, Hull @nsghull
1) How has your career path led you to your current role?
Having hated school as a pupil, I discovered a love of education during my A levels thanks to an amazing English teacher, Di Walker. I went to University to study English Literature and Language and was literally 'press-ganged' by my dissertation tutor to apply for a PGCE in English and Drama as she saw something in me that she thought would make a good teacher - she even went so far as to arrange the interview for me at the University of Leeds! Given my own experience of school, I decided that there had to be a more effective way to engage young people in life-long learning so I went for it.
I worked across Yorkshire from qualifying in 1994 - and with every move I made I gained promotion. I was headhunted for Newland in 2003 and took up a post as Head of English. I fell in love with our school and from that moment on, dedicated my school career to the development and improvement of disadvantaged girls. I was appointed to the role of Director of Core Studies (over-seeing English, Maths and Science) which was very interesting while we strengthened core subject attainment, became Director of English once we had made significant gains in the Core then, during the restructuring of our school, when we joined the Thrive Academy Trust, I was appointed as Assistant Headteacher and Director of English.
(Photo of Mrs G when she was nominated for Teacher of the Year in 2019. Image copyright: The Hull Daily Mail)
2) What process do you follow to formulate and implement the school development plan? How do you allocate the budget?
As SLT, we hold two days of pre-September planning and development in August to review our subject performance from GCSE and set the core priorities for the team for the year ahead. Each Directorate then identifies the elements of the whole school plan to which they can make significant contributions and creates a subject development plan which strategically underpins the whole school plan with clear, data-based targets and identifies people of responsibility in achieving these targets. This is reviewed monthly through SLT meetings and is developed and adapted as progress is made. The budget is allocated via the Trust with a determined amount allocated to each team as well as the wider whole school budget allocations.
Over the last 2 years, Covid has meant that we have prioritised budget planning for bubble pops, school closure, and adapting crucial assessments to ensure pupils have the capacity to continue to make progress, reduce catch-up issues and for pupils to learn and engage in education both synchronously and asynchronously. We have gone above and beyond in ensuring our pupils have the technology they need to engage, the resources with which to learn and the ability to continue to develop their learning journey.
3) How do you maintain an outstanding working relationship with the governing board?
Our governors are fully involved in the school at all levels. Governors regularly come into the school to meet with staff and key post-holders and engage with the day-to-day running of the school. Governors are allocated to specific areas of the running of the school and link with their designated school lead for that area to review and develop strategies to further the improvements to the school. As a team, staff produces reports on key development priorities for the Governors every term - from improvements in Reading and Spelling ages through to the development of our Period 4 PSHE programme.
One of my responsibilities is Parent Engagement and I meet with my allocated Governor prior to our termly meetings with the parental forum. This enables us to work closely in listening to the voice of parents, discuss the results of the surveys we send to parents and identify core areas we feel will benefit wider discussion in forming or developing existing school policies and wider issues facing the community.
4) How do you develop consistency of good teaching throughout the school?
We use Sisra Observe to track and monitor teaching and learning throughout the school. We have adopted a policy whereby all lesson drop-ins are conducted by 2 members of staff to ensure fairness and consistency in application of criteria, and not simply senior staff! All teachers are observed once every term (without notice but within a 2-week window) and results are collated and reviewed by the Directors of each Faculty to then create a T&L development plan for the next term and also set manageable actions and targets if a member of staff requires additional support to improve their practice.
We include main scale staff in the process of observing as a fantastic opportunity to see some of the best practice and pedagogy across the school and outside of their subject areas. We have a cohesive programme of CPD which includes membership of the National College to enable continued CPD in the time of Covid as well as remote sessions held by staff for staff on good practice and pedagogy.
5) What is your homework policy and how was it developed?
Our homework policy is tailored to each year group and is targeted to promote independent learning opportunities and further understanding of the subjects being studied. Pupils in KS3 undertake 2 x 20-minute sessions for each subject area and include reading for pleasure and developing their understanding of Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary. Our KS4 begins in Y9 where homework becomes targeted towards completing coursework, revision of knowledge, and development of skills. To this end, we expect our pupils to complete approximately 2 hours per week for each of their GCSE subjects.
The policy has been developed with pupils' need to retain and recall knowledge, become more independent, and manage their deadlines for coursework at the forefront. As GCSEs loom ever closer, we also provide afterschool targeted revision sessions for all pupils as well as utilising the Google Classroom to upload support and revision materials for use as part of their homework and revision. We have developed our homework activities enormously over the last 18 months (primarily due to Covid) to include Jamboards, Kahoot, and Google quizzes (to name but a few) which have enabled us to incorporate a more fun form of learning and low stakes testing to promote positive engagement.
(Photo of Newland School for Girls)
6) What is your current behaviour policy? How do you know that the school’s pastoral systems and behaviour policies are working well?
Our behaviour policy is robust and fair. We are a Restorative Practice school and foster every opportunity to promote tolerance, understanding, and a shared sense of community as well as instilling a sense of pride in one's conduct. We use SIMs to record behaviour infringements (which means that all information is available to all staff) and utilise the support of parents as soon as a pupil is recorded as failing to uphold our expected standards of behaviour. We use inclusion, mentoring, and RP to help our pupils to understand the consequences of their actions. Our tutors discuss behaviour and positive achievements with pupils every Friday and pupils record both their infringements and their successes in their planners at this time.
We do use detentions for repeat concerns which are undertaken at both a faculty and whole school level, depending on the infringement. Our pastoral system is superb; we have designated year group leaders which means that the pupils are known as individuals, an inclusion manager and our Designated Safeguarding Lead manages the team under the line management of one of our Assistant headteachers. Behaviour is reviewed by each faculty every week and the overview is discussed and reviewed by SLT. Persistent or repeat issues are then addressed by placing the pupil on a 2-week report to a member of SLT with weekly contact with parents to review the pupil's progress to targets. Our systems work because we know our pupils, their history, and background and foster every opportunity to engage parents. We have a very small number of pupils who repeatedly receive punishments for infringement of our behaviour policy and we work closely within the school and with outside agencies to support those pupils. Our number of exclusions is low and is reflected by the hard work, dedication and caring support of the pastoral team.
7) What does a safe school look like? And how do you ensure yours is safe?
For me, a safe school is a place where pupils and staff actually 'feel' safe, supported, and actively participate as a member of the school community with shared values, goals, and beliefs; they will support one another in good times and bad as well as demonstrating tolerance of others and embodying the community and values of the school. A safe school must be a place where all members of the school community feel valued, heard and are actively enabled and encouraged to be the best version of themselves possible. When circumstances mean that things go wrong, a safe school will ensure that the member of staff or pupil has support to address or overcome these issues within the confines of the law and the respect fostered by the staff, the trust, and governing body.
For many children, they spend more time with us in school than they do with their own parents so knowing that pupils are trusting and engaging with us on an educational and personal level is of paramount importance. Our school enforces safeguarding protocols, uses CPOMs as our recording method of any safeguarding concerns which is multi-agency linked, has a whistleblowing policy as well as ensuring any adult who works in the school environment is fully DRB checked. Pupils can nominate a member of staff to be their 'mentor' or lead in well-being; this means that the child has a trusted adult within the school who is briefed regarding their specific needs or issues and can offer support and guidance as appropriate.
With Covid, the need for a truly safe environment has become even more important, especially as so many of our pupils have vulnerable relatives or simply feel overwhelmed by the constant scaremongering media presentation of the pandemic. We have gone above and beyond in installing hand sanitiser dispensers around the school, employing a full-time cleaner during school hours to sanitise and clean toilets and social areas, providing mask breaks, having a Covid Safety briefing at the start of every day for every class as well as an isolation zone and full-time medical support in our student services.
8) How are you working toward students' character education and personal development?
Our school is at the forefront of the Tutor programme in England. Two members of our SLT presented our PSHE pathway to the PIXL conference in 2019 and we are heralded as a lead school in our work in the personal and character development of all pupils of all ages across the school. We use the PIXL PSHE programme and provide our pupils with an age-appropriate learning journey that fully includes the RSE curriculum, careers, online safety, and well being. This takes place for 30 minutes every day in all year groups.
Our policy is for all faculty areas to promote British Values and SMSC as part of their curriculum and staff award pupils for their Social, Moral, Spiritual, and Cultural contribution to the school as well as awarding a Headteacher's Commendation for pupils who have been outstanding in their academic achievement every week. We have links with the University of Hull STEM faculties, multiple charities, and organisations including the 'Prison, me? No way!' programme to provide a well-rounded and in-depth insight into the world around us and to engender a sense of personal responsibility and community.
9) What do you see as the key issues facing school leaders in schools today?
I truly believe that the major issue facing schools today is, no surprise, the impact that Covid has had, and will continue to have, on the education of our young people. Despite all schools' best attempts to engage and continue uninterrupted the education of pupils, there are those that have fallen through the net or have struggled to engage with learning remotely. The opportunity to 'catch up' lost learning is inevitably limited as pupils only have a limited amount of time in the education system. Money and the time in which to do said catch-up is also a limited resource. So many pupils have missed so much that it will take years to re-establish any sense of normality.
Leaders in schools today have become so much more than leaders of a school; they are community outreach workers, behavioural psychologists, counsellors, providers of food and support for families in the most deprived areas, well-being monitors for both staff and pupils, as well as the ones the staff and pupils in their care look to for support and guidance in maintaining a safe working environment and assurance that everything will eventually be ok!
HeadStart aims to interview Headteachers and Assistant Headteachers on how their schools deal with some of the most important areas of education. The idea is to share practices and opinions to increase transparency and inspire schools around the country. If you would like to be featured, please contact flavia@seneca.io