School Context:
Our aims and values are encapsulated in our REACH acronym: we want everyone involved at Laureate to respect each other, enjoy their time in our school, Aspire to fulfil their potential, learn how to communicate effectively and lead a happy and healthy lifestyle.
Whole School:
We have taken part in a full staff training day on the school site for the whole team, with the intention to introduce the programme across key stages 1 and 2, whilst building on our Early Years provision.
Whole-Class:
Commando Joe’s is explicitly taught through our PE curriculum. Wetimetabled it to ensure it was a weekly occurrence and consistent for all students.
Targeted: Although the programme was used across the whole school. We focussed on a proportion of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds who lacked certain character traits such as low self-awareness, lack of resilience, low self-esteem.
Why?
A significant proportion of pupils, including (but not limited to) those from disadvantaged backgrounds, have historically demonstrated a lack of resilience, low self-esteem and poor self-regulation skills. They have often struggled to reflect on their learning or receive constructive feedback positively, in order to improve their work and thereby outcomes.
Outcomes Sought:
Our intention was to introduce a programme across Key Stages 1 and 2 which addressed the above problems in order to increase resilience, improve self-regulation and make pupils more reflective, as well as building on strong Early Years provision around Characteristics of Effective Learning and also fitting with our own Laureate Learning Characteristics
How?
It needed to be taught explicitly, with the above traits emphasised which meant timetabling it as part of the PE curriculum. We used the tracking software to measure impact, but only for disadvantaged pupils and those who had been identified as emotionally vulnerable. We also included it in the School Improvement Plan to make it a ‘non-negotiable’. Weekly lessons were enjoyable for children, but setting up and packing away was
challenging so we have also looked at double lessons, timetabling lessons back to back so that one class gets equipment out and the next class puts it away, and even blocked days each half term. Tracking a smaller group of pupils made it more manageable for teachers.
Outcome Impacts:
Teacher assessment showed significant improvements in all seven character traits for the tracked pupils, particularly in ‘Passion’ and excellence; pupil perception interviews showed that pupils see learning about teamwork and listening as the most positive elements. There were some great successes with pupils who opted out in the beginning, but by the end would attempt leading and making their voices heard. Effective questioning to improve pupils’ reflection skills needs to be further developed; the important reflection is also often missed due to time constraints, but blocking should alleviate this.
Many thanks to Laureate Community Academy for taking part in our case study.
If you’d like to find out more about the Commando Joe’s programme, take a look here. Alternatively, get in touch here:
T: 01942 409654
E: info@commandojoes.co.uk
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