Newport Girls’ High School Academy (Telford and Wrekin) URN: 136516
Updated 10 December 2020
Applies to England
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Fair access and partnership plan summary
Newport Girls’ High School Academy has made a commitment to deliver the following fair access and partnership plan by the school year 2021 to 2022 (and in subsequent years) as part of its successful Selective Schools Expansion Fund bid.
Admissions
The year 7 published admission number (PAN) will increase by 30 places to 120 in the school year 2021 to 2022.
After the admission of looked after and previously looked after girls, 15 girls eligible for the pupil premium will be prioritised for admission, in rank order of score in the test, providing they attend a named state-funded primary school in Telford and Wrekin authority.
The test pass mark will be lowered for looked after and previously looked after girls and the girls eligible for the pupil premium. They will need to achieve a qualifying score of 95% of the general qualifying score in the selection test to be eligible for admission.
Outreach
The following are the partner schools with which Newport Girls’ High School will engage in partnership and outreach activities (this list may develop further over time):
- Moorfield Primary School, Newport
- Newport Junior School, Newport
- Tibberton C.E. Primary School
- St Lawrence C.E. Primary School, Telford
- St Peter’s C.E. Primary, Edgmond
- Muxton Primary School, Telford
- Lilleshall Primary School, Newport
- SS Peter & Paul Catholic Primary School, Newport
- St Luke’s Catholic Primary School, Telford
- St Matthew’s CE Primary School, Telford
- Donnington Wood CE Junior School, Telford
New activities to support the admission of disadvantaged pupils
Providing maths and numeracy support for high achieving, disadvantaged pupils (particularly in years 4 and 5) through the provision of teaching time to primary schools. Standards in disadvantaged pupils’ numeracy are lower than the national average in key stage 2 and therefore a lot of the students who apply to Newport Girls’ High School are not achieving well on the test’s numeracy questions and progress in year 7 can be varied.
From 2020, Newport Girls’ High School will run at least 3 hours of familiarisation events (familiarisation both with the format of the test paper but also with the building to ease nerves) for all pupils but will provide additional familiarisation materials to students who register for the test and for whom their school receives pupil premium funding.
A Newport Girls’ High School roadshow which will be taken out to all local primary schools and to others in Telford and Wrekin with more disadvantaged pupils. These will be timed at 3.15pm and 3.30pm to coincide with pick up times. One of the aims of this roadshow is to address the misconception from some parents that the school is independent and fee-paying (misconception highlighted in a 2018 parents survey).
Current and continuing activity
Newport Girls’ High School will continue its recently started ‘high school taster days’ with lessons in practical subjects (utilising facilities which are not usually found in most primary schools such as art rooms, design and technology rooms and science laboratories) but also in a new modern language for all primary pupils in the area, German. These days are for girls in year 5 with a particular emphasis on those for whom their primary school receives pupil premium funding.
To improve standards of literacy in preparation for the entrance test, sixth form students have been attending the partner primary schools for the past 2 years to help encourage students to read. Standards in reading and writing are higher than numeracy, but this is still an important area of focus for Newport Girls’ High School. This will continue.
In the summer term, Newport Girls’ High School offers the use of specialist facilities to primary school pupils and their teachers (for example in sport, art, design and technology and science) and use of the additional science lab more during the year to run science workshops for key stage 2 pupils.
Each Friday, the headteacher produces a newsletter (Newport News) which can be found on the school’s website. These newsletters will (with the agreement of the parents) be sent to the parents of children attending familiarisation events to engage them with the school and what it offers.
Once pupil premium girls are admitted, the school is careful to allocate pupil premium funding effectively to remove any participation barriers. These include help with transport, music lessons, uniform, educational visits and also a crisis fund to support pupils when families have very difficult situations at home.
The provision of a wellbeing officer is already in place to provide support for pupil premium pupils with mentoring, coaching and further academic support, in particular in core subjects. This will include lunchtime clinics, drop-in sessions, sixth-former mentoring of younger students and the procurement of online materials to best support pupil premium students to maximise their progress.
Partnership
New activities
The school will create a staff continuous professional development group to improve transition arrangements and the mapping of student transition from September 2020 when the next year 7 cohort starts. Newport Girls’ High School would like to see year 7 as a transition year with continued contact between the relevant primary school and Newport Girls’ High School. This will include updates on pupil premium and vulnerable students’ progress and if issues occur, an open dialogue about strategies used to best integrate students and to support them pastorally. This will be led by Newport Girls’ High School’s wellbeing officers and pastoral transition team.
The school will introduce some combined in-service training (INSET) sessions for key stage 2 staff from partner primary schools and Newport Girls’ High School transition staff. This will include external speakers who specialise in transition during 2020 to 2021.
The school will look to add its existing 2 transition days with a summer school programme in the summer of 2021. This will be open to students in years 5, especially those eligible for pupil premium funding. It will be focused on investigations and answering bigger questions about how best to transition children within a range of subject areas involved.
Newport Girls’ High School will consider how provision for able, gifted and talented students might be improved in 2021.
The school will consider introducing in 2020, an evening or Saturday academics programme aimed at higher-achieving girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects and languages. Transport support may be provided to pupil premium families, either in bus fares or school minibus. Over half a term one evening a week from 4pm to 5pm, a group of up to 30 students would work together to learn something different to their primary school curriculum (for example, astronomy or Japanese).
Current and continuing activity
Since September 2018, Newport Girls’ High School has been trying to improve the curricular transition between key stage 2 to key stage 3. A staff working group has looked at the transition of primary students into key stage 3 and at building better links with staff in local schools. This included observing key stage 2 maths and English lessons and interviewing year 5 and 6 teachers in these schools about:
- their experiences of pupil transition to Newport Girls’ High School and other local schools
- the concerns or anxieties they feel may be a barrier to more disadvantaged pupils joining Newport Girls’ High School
Colleagues from all partnership schools have undertaken continuous professional development with Newport Girls’ High School’s staff in history to focus on the key stage 2 and key stage 3 curricula and ways to link the teaching styles across both key stages. Further development is planned with other subject areas.
Burton Borough School has identified the need to improve reading ages amongst some of its key stage 3 pupils. A group of Newport Girls’ High School’s sixth formers have been working with the school to help improve reading ages. Each week a group of up to 30 sixth formers have gone to this school in their non-contact time to read with year 7 and 8 students. The outcome is a school-wide increase of 80 months in reading age.
The headteacher of Newport Girls’ High School is working with the local authority school improvement team to better understand the needs of local primary schools. As a result of this, history and geography teachers offer a curriculum workshop for primary school colleagues in Newport.
The special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO) regularly liaises with other schools to inform best practice (both in partner schools and in Newport Girls’ High School). This will continue.