Matthew Arlnold School

School Improvement Plan 2024 - 2029

Matthew Arnold School Improvement Plan

Our Vision: Success for everyone

Our Mission 

• At Matthew Arnold School students  make great progress in their learning and attain ambitious outcomes through our excellent curriculum. Our diverse and inclusive community supports students to become kind and responsible young adults, confident, proud of who they are and ready to make a positive contribution to their world.

Our Values

Our values are recognised as part of everyday school life

• Ambition: We are ambitious for all, guiding students and staff to discover a world of opportunity, pushing limits to achieve individual excellence
• Inclusion: Every individual is valued for who they are, is proud of what they bring to the school and is proud to belong to the school
• Collaboration: We contribute collectively, sharing responsibility for each person’s success 
• Kindness: Every interaction is conducted with kindness, putting others’ needs before our own

Key Focus

Our key focus group of students is our most vulnerable students, specifically those students with SEND or for whom we reach the pupil premium grant. It is through the lens of these students that this improvement plan is written

Academic Year 2024 – 2025

Below is a summary of the key priorities for 

SIP area 1: We design a curriculum experience that enables students to achieve success for everyone

• All students have equal access to a broad and balanced curriculum that is knowledge rich and carefully sequenced.
• The curriculum designed by each department supports the ambitious progress of students with SEND 
• All curriculum areas have schemes detailing lesson by lesson what the students are learning and actually doing, models and scaffolds to use and how staff will check that students have understood
• There is no attainment gap 
• All subjects explicitly teach the reading, literacy, oracy and numeracy for their subject in highly intentional ways. At a whole school level, there are effective interventions for those who, at assessment points, fall behind peers
• There are adapted, but ambitious, curricula for those students for whom mainstream is particularly challenging - for example, those accessing 7*, Inclusive Provision, and Alternative Provision.
• Personal development curriculum is embedded and well understood
• The curriculum beyond the classroom gives an entitlement to a range of experiences that builds social and cultural capital and prepares students for an independent and  fulfilling life after they leave our school.

Sip Area 2: Great teaching supports the progress of all students

• Quality First Teaching is embedded within the school to ensure low access and high challenge in all lessons, to promote belonging for all, and to support  all students to know and remember more.
• SEND profiles support teachers to adapt learning to support belonging, engagement, and learning. They are live documents that are used to support T+L as a result teachers feel confident in teaching students with SEND
• Students and teachers know the phase of learning, and what is expected of them at every stage of the lesson and can do it
• Models, common scaffolds, language and vocab used is known and explicitly taught - again to support access and excellence for all 
• Those with low reading or numeracy on entry have access to interventions that are timely and help make accelerated progress to close gaps and enable curriculum access and progress.
• Assessment for learning is used in all lessons to shape the teaching and learning experience

SIP Area 3 There is an evident culture of ambition, kindness, inclusion and collaboration across the school

• Behaviour in classrooms allows for completely disruption free learning and 100% engagement.  
• The restorative process including reflection on behaviours enables positive relationships to be maintained.
• All stakeholders contribute to and recognise the value of the school ethos and culture 
• The school environment, routines and social expectations support all members of the community to feel safe and secure 
• The school addresses issues of concern(racism, sexism etc)  through the taught and wider curriculum
• All staff and students recognise their role in safeguarding our school and the school site is cared for by all members of the community and social and learning environments are looked after and safe spaces to be. 
• Students attend school, tutor time and lessons. There is planned intervention to support students with low and chronic attendance as well as persistent truancy.
• Our school community will proactively support one another to make positive choices and call out behaviour that is not OK, treating each other with kindness and respect at all times.

The School Improvement plan is supported by two additional areas

SIP Area 4 All who work with young people are developed, supported and challenged to continue to improve practice over time

• Each colleague reflects on their developmental needs and some work with a coach to support them as they improve their practice.  Professional learning and external CPD support colleagues with this. External CPD develops QFT and subject expertise. There is a metric for determining the effectiveness of coaching, and it has a demonstrable effect on T+L
• Staff feel well trained and supported in using the school’s systems, structures and routines
• There are clear routes for progression and depth of continued professional development allowing all staff to flourish at work and feel valued; there is clear support and accountability in place where staff do not engage with CPD or where behaviours do not meet agreed standards
• Workload is manageable, meaningful and motivating and measured both holistically and in a responsive way
• The school staff more accurately represents the community it serves at all levels and there are systems for how to ensure all have a voice 
• Leaders are well supported to do their job by the trust and governors and leaders’ wellbeing, along with wider staff wellbeing is a metric

SIP Area 5 The structures, systems and routines of the school are known, understood and followed by all members of the school community

• School facilities are essentially invisible as they function effectively (network, cleaning, catering etc)
• The school environment, supports safe learning and social behaviours
• Systems, structures and routines and social expectations support all members of the community to feel safe and secure
• Staff can feel confident in their knowledge of the systems and structures relating to the efficient running of the school
• The Matthew Arnold School way is embedded in practice for all stakeholders
• Systems, structures and routines encourage ownership of all spaces by staff and students alike

Separate action plans exist for

• IT systems development
• Premises development

The main school improvement plan can be found here  Matthew Arnold School  Summary Improvement Plan - 2024-29