Succeeding against the odds The Rise, Slip, and Rise again of Phoenix High School

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2nd National Alcohol Conference Safe, Social and
Sensible
Succeeding against the oddsThe Rise, Slip, and
Rise again of Phoenix High School
William Atkinson, MA FRSA Headteacher 27
November 2007
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• Phoenix High School is a neighbourhood school
  whose pupils come mainly from the housing estates
  of White City, East Acton and North Kensington in
  West London, an area which has considerable
  social and economic disadvantage.
• The students represent around 50 different
  nationalities and speak 50 languages between
  them. Over 60 per cent (well above average) are
  entitled to a free school meal. Nearly 40 per
  cent have little English.

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• The students attainment at eleven is well below
  average with 60 per cent having special education
  needs.
• There are refugees from war zones and departures
  abroad and to other parts of the British Isles.
  Many are in short-stay accommodation to be
  re-housed others are in care some have been
  excluded from other schools and a number,
  awaiting outcomes of custody judgements, live in
  extended families.

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• 1994 Hammersmith School is inspected by Ofsted
  and is placed in Special Measures
• Between 1993 and March 1995 two substantive
  Headteachers and three acting headteacher teams
  attempt to stabilise and rescue the school

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March 20,1994

• This is a story of a school in despair, of a
  comprehensive so out of control that this week
  Education Secretary John Patten will name it as
  one of the worst in Britain.
• It is so bad, so obviously failing its pupils,
  that it may become the first in this country to
  be taken from council control and handed to a
  team of experts to run under directions from
  Westminster.
• Playground banter is not of the playful
  adolescent nature. Inspectors noted it is
  offensive, aggressive. Even in the classroom,
  physical violence is nothing unusual.
• The report, which will arrive at the school this
  week, will show
• HIGH levels of unruly behaviour and failure to
  discipline pupils
• ABYSMAL educational standards and exam results
• EXTRAORDINARILY poor attendance and high levels
  of truancy
• HIGH rates of pupil expulsion
• LACK of spiritual direction and no daily act of
  worship
• APPALLING financial management and lack of
  leadership, direction and staff morale.

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October 11, 1994

• Its the school lunch break and for some pupils,
  the chance to make money from drugs.
• I went to one comprehensive and found how easy it
  is to do business with young pushers. It took
  just five minutes to obtain cannabis, with a
  promise of LSD and Ecstasy to follow. The school
  I checked out amid mounting concern about the
  drugs problem in Britains classrooms was
  Hammersmith School in West London.
• At lunchtime, dealers from the school gather in a
  park opposite to sell cannabis and other
  substances to classmates.
• When I arrived, three boys were plying their
  dangerous trade from a bench while four others in
  uniform waited to buy.

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Times Educational Supplement,1997

• Day one set the tone I was left in the gym with
  nothing but a tennis ball and instructed to magic
  a PE lesson out of thin air. As I faltered, a
  hand emerged from the cyclone of pupils and
  whipped the ball away. Thus the initiative was
  snatched from me and thus I became acquainted
  with life at the school dubbed by the Daily Mail
  the worst in Britain.
• In 1993 bedlam passed for normality at
  Hammersmith School in west London. Pupils had to
  be physically restrained from leaving classrooms.
  Sixteen youth workers patrolled the corridors
  trying to coax them back. Truancy and staff
  absenteeism were rife. On a day of nine false
  fire alarms classrooms could have been rented out
  as vacant office space.
• Nobody seemed to know where the school was going.
  The teachers knew where they were going
  crackers. The pupils knew where they were heading
  too out of the gates.

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• Staffing
• Students

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Phoenix High School NFER 1994/5
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Phoenix High School NFER 1994/5
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Phoenix High School NFER 1994/5
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• Staffing
• Students
• Parental Support
• Behaviour
• Standards
• Environment

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Lessons Learnt

• Environment for LEARNING
• High and Challenging Expectations
  (culture change)
• Relentless emphasis on Teaching and Learning
  (code of expectation)
• Student/Parent Handbook
  (rules, regulations and expectations)

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Significant Interventions

• Teaching
• OCTET
• Phoenix Neighbourhood Regeneration Project

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Phoenix where are we today?

• January 2007 Phoenix High School identified as
  the most improved school in the country between
  2003 and 2006
• January 2007 Phoenix High School is identified as
  having the second highest contextual value-added
  score of any secondary school in the country

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Key Factors contributing to Student Success

• High Expectation for all
• Teamwork
• Emphasis that the school is a place of learning
• Good or better teaching
• Careful monitoring of student progress
• Clear, achievable targets
• A transparent system for rewards and sanctions
• Strong pupil voice
• Strong parental involvement
• All aspects characterised by Fairness and Justice

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• Upon the education of the people of this
  country,
• the fate of this country depends.
• - Benjamin Disraeli

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• A poor surgeon hurts 1 person at a time. A poor
  teacher hurts 130.
• (and a poor school, 800)
• - Ernest Leroy Boyer

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• If we did all the things we were capable of
  doing, we would literally astound ourselves.
• - Thomas Edison

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Leeds 2nd National Alcohol Conference Safe,
Social and Sensible
Succeeding against the oddsThe Rise, Slip, and
Rise again of Phoenix High School
William Atkinson, MA FRSA Headteacher 27
November 2007