Leadership Changes Coming at King Arthur's
As an outsider yet fairly frequent visitor to King Arthur's it seems clear to me that in Tamra Bradbury the school has had an extremely effective and capable head. Her gentle smile and friendly, easy manner belies the determination she has clearly shown in her drive to transform, improve and inspire the school and everyone in it, teachers, staff and students.
She has only been Headteacher at King Arthur's for three years and what will be one further term, yet during that time she has systematically initiated change. The whole curriculum has been thoroughly re-examined in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning right across the board. As a result the school's performance as judged by the Inspectorate (OFSTED) has moved from "Satisfactory" to "Good". This is a considerable step up and has shown itself in the best examination results in the fifty year history of the school. While these results are very important, they only tell part of the story and any visitor to the school will be impressed by the purposeful, friendly atmosphere and the impressive displays of art work and other work which are to be seen along every corridor.
The quality and care of school buildings is also important and here again she has put a lot of time and thought into refurbishment "to make it a place where pupils want to come and study and staff want to come and work." That is certainly the case.
Another innovation she and the staff have initiated is the Activities Programme "so we now have a balance between sport and a whole range of activities." Following the model set by the International Baccalaureate the school has a CAS week. This involves children going off on a residential camp or a locally based project. CAS stands for Community, Action, Service so the activities are planned to cover that mix. The CAS week is for years 7, 8 and 9. Year 10 student are on Work Experience and Year 11 will have left. In addition staff have been encouraged to take pupils on a wide variety of trips, visits and courses - such as a week in Rome.
Central in her approach has been positive encouragement as a key motivator so she says, "We use our assemblies to celebrate achievement of all types. It is the norm to give out certificates for academic achievement or to publicly congratulate those who have done well." She mentioned in particular the UK Maths Challenge and those who have won gold, silver and bronze awards.
Since she has been Head, the school has introduced a presentation evening for Sport when medals and trophies are awarded and all forms of sporting activities celebrated. She said, "We recognise all the good things that are happening with sport in promoting a healthy life-style and participation in activities. We also have sport for those who are competitive as well as options for those who are not competitive. We have table tennis, the dance mats, swimming. The strong message we want to give is that you need to be active and doing something. I think we have now struck about the right balance between the academics and sport." This also shows in that the school has again been accredited as being a Sports College.
Another channel Ms Bradbury has developed for recognising achievement has been to revamp the school magazine Excalibur making sure it has much more content about what students have been doing, covering art, music, visits, in fact as much as is possible in 16 pages.
The news that Ms. Bradbury is leaving at Christmas has come as a bit of a shock to the school and the town, but it is an indication of how lucky KA has been in having a head of her calibre that she has been appointed to this new and rather prestigious post. She will be setting up a brand new school planned for 1,200 students in Abu Dhabi. About half of these will be international expatriates and the rest from the area of the United Arab Emirates. The syllabus will be based on the best of UK and international practice adapted for local conditions and the final exam at sixth form level will be the International Baccalaureate.
Tamra says she applied for this headship not because she was looking for a move or wished to leave KA, but because it looked like a rare opportunity to do something really special and something she had for years wished she could have the chance to do. It is easy to see why, for a head like her with a record of success both here and in her previous post in Hong Kong. As she prepares for this challenging and exciting project I am sure everyone in Wincanton will wish her success.
PRESS RELEASE
"The Governing Body of King Arthur's Community School, Wincanton is pleased to announce that Mrs Emma Wilkes will be Acting Headteacher with effect from the 1st January 2011."
Emma Wilkes came to King Arthur's as an Assistant Head six years ago and two years ago was appointed Deputy Head. She has been working extremely closely with Tamra Bradbury on the school's programme of improvement which she emphasises is a plan which has been developed consensually by the senior management team. They feel they really have the staff behind them in pursuing it. Their aim is to move KA on from being judged a "good" school to an "outstanding" school by OFSTED.
When I asked Mrs Wilkes what she saw as the biggest change she had seen in the school in these last few years, she immediately responded that discipline and behaviour had improved enormously and the result of that had been that teaching and learning right across the board was flourishing. There is an atmosphere of enthusiasm which is reflected in the increasing number of trips and visits that are organised for students as well as the steadily improving exam results. There was still room for improvement, but she felt the leadership team and the staff were united in knowing where they want to go and in what was needed to continue the process.
Emma Wilkes has now been teaching for seventeen years after graduating from St Martin's College, which is part of the University of Lancaster, having specialised in teaching Maths. Her first teaching post was at Hengrove School, Bristol, where she stayed for five years and was promoted to doing the school timetable - always a crucial and demanding role - as well as being made a Year Head responsible for pastoral care. From there she went to Kingdown School in Warminster where she was Head of Maths. On moving to King Arthur's her responsibilities have included Timetabling and Curriculum Development, Assessments and Options, Reporting, and overseeing IT. This constitutes a formidable workload.
I asked if the school had any particular plans for developing its agenda for school improvement and she showed me details of an In Service Training Day on Excellence in Learning, Teaching and Assessment that will be conducted by teacher training specialist Robert Powell. She said she thought this was just what they needed to adopt as a whole school policy in order to respond more flexibly to the often very different interests and abilities of students. The INSET day is in November.
Emma Wilkes comes across as open, enthusiastic, highly organised and on the ball and until a permanent appointment to replace Tamra Bradbury is made it is clear there will be no drift, but that KA is in good hands.
Article and photos by John Baxter
(www.getshot.co.uk)
To see more about King Arthur's go to www.kingarthurs.org.uk
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Reply #1 on : Tue October 05, 2010, 09:08:14
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