Why should you sponsor local primary schools?

Vic Goddard’s secondary school had never considered sponsoring its local primaries, but once it did his only regret was that it hadn’t happened sooner...

I’ve been lucky enough to talk to lots of primary colleagues over the last couple of years and there is certainly a feeling that, in our new educational world, there are some secondary academy sponsors behaving like knights in shining armour, riding in to ‘rescue’ the ‘poor’ primary schools. It really makes me cringe, and I can only hope it’s a view that’s not held by too many people.

It certainly wasn’t something we were doing here at here at Passmores in forming the Passmores Cooperative Learning Community (PCLC). When our governors voted to become an academy there was no talk whatsoever about becoming a sponsor for other schools. It was only when we were approached by two of our closest primaries, who had recently received Requires Improvement and Special Measures grades from Ofsted, that we agreed to formalise a working relationship.

Our sponsorship arrangement has been one of evolution, not revolution. We weren’t interested in riding in on our noble steed (or high horse) and planting our royal insignia on the school gates. The primary heads stayed in post, and the governing bodies remained at the forefront of driving the schools forward, only without the need to waste time talking about the gutters rather than the young people.

While the responsibility for the performance of all three schools sits with the PCLC as the sponsor, the day-to-day reality is that we are all teachers, and we have a shared purpose to help our young people succeed. This means the relationship between the schools is based on support and growth, not control and power, and allows us to remain focused on the important parts of our jobs.

I must admit, I hadn’t really considered beforehand how much Passmores would gain from the partnership. One of the first activities we did was to have the leadership teams spend a couple of days looking at the three schools, comparing the standard of work and the expectations between Year 6 and Year 7. I was utterly embarrassed when it became blindingly obvious that Passmores’ expectations at the start of Year 7 were so much lower than they were in Year 6, and needed adjusting. There is the cliché that when children move from primary to secondary they go from ‘big fish in a little pond to little fish in a big pond’. However, what we needed to add to this metaphor was: ‘but they haven’t forgotten how to swim’.

Another unexpected, but significant, benefit happened when our English department looked at the literacy work going on in the two primaries. I remember them rushing back to tell me that they would be able to throw away at least a third of their Year 7 scheme of learning as it was already being covered so well in Year 6.

We’ve also been thrilled by the self-esteem of the children who come into Year 7 from either of the sponsored schools. They already know the place so well from having numerous lessons at Passmores, or from performing in things like our school productions and sports day, that the transition to secondary school is much easier. You can see their confidence grow as they can not only manage themselves, but they can also help their peers who have come from other primary schools, should they get lost.

The advantages of our sponsorship arrangement are so numerous, but it is also incredibly frustrating that we weren’t doing these things before. Why is it not the norm? We didn’t need to be an academy, or to sponsor the two primary schools in order to learn these things. We could have just done it anyway, simply because it was best for our pupils.

Having listened to numerous conversations between headteachers at the recent ‘Inspiring Leadership’ conference in Birmingham, it seems the big question everyone is asking has moved on from ‘What’s your Ofsted grading?’ to ‘How many schools do you run?’. For my part, I always enjoying a little joke by just answering one number up from whatever they’ve said, just to hear them tell me how much bigger their chain will be soon. In truth, I don’t see the PCLC growing too much bigger as the whole purpose is about making sustainable improvement across all the schools involved, and the fact that we are neighbours is a key part of making this work best for our students.

Vic Goddard’s book, The Best Job in the World, is published by Independent Thinking Press.

About the author

Vic Goddard is the Principal of Passmores Academy and star of the BAFTA nominated Channel 4 documentary Educating Essex.