Rolls-Royce

Entrant's address and contact details

School name:	The Robert Smyth School
School/college address:	Burnmill Road Market Harborough Leicestershire LE16 7JG England

School phone number:	01858 440770
Number of pupils in school(s) - male:	688
Number of pupils in school(s) - female:	672
Number of staff in school(s):	199

Our team leader and our team

Name	Position (e.g. Headteacher, parent, etc.)	Organisation
Ms Judith Green	Science AST	The Robert Smyth School
Mr Steve Althorpe	Head of Science	The Robert Smyth School
Ms Julie Tansey	Head of Biology	The Robert Smyth School
Mr Howard Fay	Further Maths coordinator	The Robert Smyth School
Mr Martin Cripwell	Head of Physics	The Robert Smyth School
Mr Colin Dean	Headteacher	The Robert Smyth School

The key skills, strengths and roles of each team member are: (200 words)

Judith Green

As an experienced AST and A level Chemistry teacher, Judith will lead the project. She is passionate about learning and challenging students to go as far as they possibly can, whatever their ability.

Steve Althorpe

Has led a very successful science faculty for some years and is keen to raise the profile of science still further. He combines valuable experience of A-level chemistry and physics with excellent subject knowledge and outstanding teaching skills.

Howard Fay

Has been leading Further Maths in the school and local area, for a number of years. He has worked closely with mathematicians at the UKâ€™s premier universities to enable and encourage young talent. Howard will use his experience to pass on his skills to science colleagues.

Julie Tansey and Martin Cripwell

Are both enthusiastic about encouraging excellence in their subjects. They have the commitment to students needed to see them achieve of their best and the expertise to cope with the very rigorous nature of the work.

Colin Dean

Is backing this proposal wholeheartedly. As the Head of a Technology College with the strap line, "Innovation and Excellence" he is keen to promote science to our most gifted and talented students.

Our proposal

Topic area of proposal: Generic Issues - Teaching and learning

Briefly, the aim of our proposal is: (50 words)

We want more of our students to obtain top A-level grades and gain places at prestigious universities. The school is already a centre for further mathematics at A-level. We want to extend this provision across science (biology, chemistry and physics) by sharing good practice and providing teaching and support for students to sit advanced extension award papers at A-level.

Pupil type to benefit: Talented

Age range to benefit from proposal: 16-19

Learning outcomes from our proposal: (50 words)

The aim is for 6/7 students per subject to successfully sit the advanced extension award (AEA) papers at A-level. We also anticipate that this group will find success when the A* grade is introduced and have the confidence to apply for places at prestigious universities.

Our reasons for developing this particular proposal: (100 words)

Students:

Science A-level results at school show increasing numbers of top grades
Survey of students confirms significant numbers would welcome opportunity and rise to challenge
Other science students likely to benefit from impact AEA students have in 'normal' lessons

Teachers:

All enthusiastic about project
Proud of what faculty has achieved
Keen to be lead faculty in LEA

Maths

Consultation with maths shows significant demand for teaching and learning at this level
Transfer of skills between faculties will aid CPD

Headteacher:

More state students to obtain places at most prestigious universities

Detailed description of our proposal: (300 words)

The faculty has improved GCSE grades from 49% A*-C to 73% recently. This has taken a lot of work! Consequently, numbers studying science at A-level have risen and much work has gone into developing the courses to allow weaker students to find success. We do not intend to stop this work - it has benefited large numbers of students, but the time is now right to challenge our most able.

Drawing on the widely recognised work done by the maths faculty in becoming a centre for further mathematics, we propose to establish a series of A+ workshops to prepare students to sit the Advanced Extension Award papers which have replaced Special Papers. They challenge the most able A-level students and, without requiring any additional knowledge, provide opportunities for students to show a greater depth of understanding than required at A-level.

Workshops would focus on developing students' skills in applying what they have learnt to new situations and on encouraging independent learning. Higher level thinking and powers of analysis and evaluation will be stimulated - in teachers as well as in students!

We propose to run workshops in biology, chemistry and physics as these are the academic subjects on offer at A-level. Specialist teachers within the science faculty are keen to lead these workshops but it is recognised that they will need to expend considerable effort in preparing and planning.

Again, drawing on the success found in maths, we also propose to prepare students for more open ended, less structured exam papers by giving them monthly mentoring question sheets. Students complete as many questions as they can and then meet with a mentor for a tutorial. Experience in maths has proved this to be a most effective means of developing creative answers to non-routine questions.

Putting our proposal into practice

Outline of how our team would implement our proposal over a period of not more than 24 weeks: (300 words, bulleted lists accepted)

In September science teachers will nominate students likely to benefit from this project and students obtaining A grades at AS will also be identified. Students on either list will be informed about the project and invited to join it. A meeting for students and parents will make clear the aims and objectives. Students will be encouraged to include expected AEA entries on university applications and discuss the project in their personal statements.

From October mentoring question sheets will be in use. Based on mentoring sheets used by the UK Mathematical Trust as preparation for STEP papers, they will be compiled using questions from previous papers. At the start of each subsequent month, a tutorial in each subject will allow discussion and explanations of thinking and answers.

Monthly workshops will interleave with the tutorials. These will continue our use of innovative teaching and learning techniques. For example, physics workshops might include

Discussion of The Character of Physical Law by Richard Feynman
Question and answer session with Leicester University astronomy lecturer (school governor)
Calculating, from first principles, the combined resistance of 12 resistors arranged along the edges of a cube
Writing teaching materials to develop the understanding of other A-level science students
Using mathematical techniques to derive a suitable role play that models ideal gases

Before Christmas, students who have applied to top universities will attend a mock interview conducted by the head with teachers asking subject-specific questions. Students will be given feedback and guidance on how to improve. To build a bank of subject-based questions, we will use the experience of the Maths Faculty and debrief previous Oxbridge applicants.

The project will run until study leave and it is anticipated that the experience teachers gain will enable subsequent years to run without major funding.

Monitoring and evaluation

The monitoring procedures we will use during the project are: (200 words, bulleted lists accepted)

We will monitor:

the number of students actively participating in the project by keeping a simple register
the quality of the workshops and the tutorials. This will be done by non-specialist teachers attending the sessions. For example chemistry teachers will attend physics sessions. They will be able to gauge the quality and depth of explanations and learning (it will also greatly enhance their own knowledge and understanding thus providing valuable CPD)
the progress made by students. This will be done by teachers as they teach and mark work. The number of AEA entries and grades obtained will provide a quantitative measure, as will comparison of A-level grades and value added scores with previous years
the number of applications made to Oxford, Cambridge and other similar universities
the attitudes of students and parents by use of questionnaires at the start and end of the project
the impact on A-level science results generally by teacher assessment of the learning atmosphere in classes and by comparing value added scores with previous years
how well we adhere to the plan by recording the dates on which workshop and tutorials were held

The evaluation procedures we will use at the end of the 25 weeks to check the effectiveness of our project are: (200 words, bulleted lists accepted)

As each workshop and tutorial will be attended by at least two teachers, there will be ongoing reflection and evaluation in order to refine and improve the quality of teaching and learning. This is a normal part of our good practice but we will formalise it by feeding back across the three subjects.
The AST will formally observe a session in each subject and conduct learning conversations with the teachers afterwards to again encourage reflection and hone best practice.
Learning conversations with students will not only enable us to gauge the impact the project is having on individuals but also elicit the strengths of weaknesses of the project from their point of view. Improvements can then be built into the programme in subsequent years.
More quantitative evaluation will be made by comparing value added exam results with previous years and by analysing AEA results and university application statistics.
Students applying to Oxbridge or similar will be de-briefed after attending interviews in order to evaluate the quality of our mock interviews.

Budget

Itemised costs of putting your proposal into practice within a maximum budget of £5,000 or equivalent in Euros: