Strategic Plans
School Improvement Plan
St Joseph’s RC High School is committed to the provision of a Catholic education for all its students in accordance with the principles and teachings of the Catholic faith. Through our mission statement, summarised by ‘Serving God Through Learning Together’, we endeavour to keep faith as the foundation of all that we do so that Gospel values and Catholic Virtues permeate and affect all aspects of our school life.
‘The parish community is a place for religious and spiritual education. School is a place for cultural education. The two dimensions must be integrated, because the same values inspire them: they are the values of Christian families who, in a society dominated by relativism and threatened by existential emptiness, intend to offer their children an education based on the unchangeable values of the Gospel.’
We embrace the Welsh Government’s vision of school improvement which supports us in our mission to nurture the whole child to prepare them to serve their communities in an uncertain world.
‘The overarching purpose of school improvement is to help schools give learners the best possible learning experiences and outcomes, whatever their background or circumstance, in order to achieve high standards and aspirations for all.’
(School improvement guidance: framework for evaluation, improvement and accountability)
We are committed to continuing to work alongside our Cluster primaries, our pupils, our parents/carers, our staff, our governors and other educationalists to ensure that all are actively involved in the construction of a learning environment in which all can flourish in all aspects of their lives.
Our vision is for a virtue-driven learning environment.
‘The core purpose of St Joseph's RC High School is Serving God Through Learning Together. This philosophy is at the heart of everything we do for each member of our community.’
The Why, which drives our vision, is that we create pupils who are:
- faith-filled for themselves, others, and in God
- hopeful for their futures and the future of society
- loving of each other and their environments.
The What and the Where of our vision:
- powerful knowledge through inspiring provision
- challenge thinking through progression of knowledge and skills
- authentic experiences which reflect our SJHS and Wales context.
Our improvement plan is the How:
- high expectations for all
- innovative and creative
- responsive to the needs of pupils.
Continuous Cycle of Improvement
A robust continuous cycle of self-evaluation informs the school’s improvement plan. Evaluation of external outcomes is just one part of the jigsaw in the school’s monitoring, evaluating and reviewing process.
How exactly do we monitor, review and evaluate?
We monitor, review and evaluate (MRE) the quality of teaching, learning, curriculum, student support and leadership across the school through a range of MRE activities. These include:
- Student work reviews.
- Learning observations.
- Discussions with students.
- Discussions with teachers.
- Data analysis.
- Seeking views from parents/carers.
- Document reviews
What are the school’s improvement priorities and how will we improve?
Self-evaluation processes have enabled us to identify key priorities to work on in 2024-2025.
Priorities 2024-2025
Priority 1 : teaching and learning
- Maximise pupil engagement in learning by embedding the SJHS way to routines.
- Further develop and consolidate students’ reading and writing skills.
- Further develop students' numeracy skills.
- Further develop students' skills in digital competency.
- Improve reading and writing skills of eFSM pupils and pupils who score less than 70 in National Reading tests in years 7-9.
- Improve standards in Welsh, particularly in Years 10 and 11 (GCSE Welsh) and in the school's provision to develop pupils’ understanding and appreciation of their Cynefin, the local area and Welsh culture and heritage.
- Ensure all pupils are supported to learn and progress at an expected or better level by further improving how departments collect and use KS3 assessment data.
- Further develop pupils' understanding of the cross-cutting themes in the new curriculum.
- Further develop medium-term curriculum plans which effectively support progression.
- Continue to develop pupils' knowledge and understanding regarding the benefits of healthy relationships to their mental well-being and self-respect through RSE.
- Develop curriculum plans for 2025-26 and 2026-27 in readiness for the introduction of the 'Made for Wales' qualifications.
Priority 2 : Wellbeing, Care, Support and Guidance
- Further strengthen the safeguarding culture of the school.
- Decrease the impact of barriers to learning for eFSM learners in KS4.
- Decrease the impact of barriers to learning for eFSM learners in KS3.
- Decrease the barriers to learning for the 40% of pupils in KS3 living in the 20% most deprived wards in Wales.
- Continue to implement the new ALN Code in preparation for full transition by Summer 2025 - ensuring that staff have excellent knowledge of the new code and the role they play within it to ensure their pedagogy has a positive impact on the outcomes for all learners with an ALN.
- Further improve pupils' virtues-driven attitudes to learning.
- Maximise opportunities for pupils to influence the school's life and work and share the impact of their voice.
- Further develop, communicate and monitor our Pupil Voice Strategic Equality Action Plan (PV-SEAP).
- Improve the Part A WSA strategy to support the emotional and mental health and wellbeing of all pupils and staff.
- Sustain the school's Platinum ECO-Schools status for a 7th year.
- Pupils to take a proactive approach in leadership with regard to issues identified from SHRN data and My Concerns.
- Create and deliver an enrichment programme for years 12 and year 13.
- Improve school attendance and narrow the NFSM vs FSM attendance gap.
Priority 3 : Leading and Improving
- Further improve the ability of all middle leaders to plan a series of self-evaluative activities, each building on the findings of the last in order to improve the impact of teaching on learning.
- Further refine the quality assurance process to support more effective communication and triangulation of findings to inform SDP.
- Plan universal PL opportunities for teachers to ensure that all pupils are Increase the number of pupils who think hard and actively participate in the lesson/learning.
- Plan targeted PL programme to support individual teachers to have a greater impact on the progress of students in their classrooms.
- Refine approach to professional enquiry to ensure all pupils make at least expected progress.
- Further develop the ITE programme to sustain a positive impact on our school.
- Ensure all members of school (pupils, staff, parents/carers) have clarity regarding SDP priorities.
Pupil Development Grant (PDG)
This statement details our school’s use of the PDG for the 2024 to 2025 academic year.
It outlines our strategy, how we intend to spend the funding in this academic year and the effect that last year’s spending had within our school.
SCHOOL OVERVIEW
| SCHOOL OVERVIEW | |
|
Detail |
Data |
|
School name |
St Joseph’s RC High School |
|
Number of learners in school |
1468 |
|
Proportion (%) of PDG eligible learners |
11% |
|
Date this statement was published |
October 2024 |
|
Date on which it will be reviewed |
September 2025 |
|
Statement authorised by |
Mrs D Rogers |
|
PDG Lead |
Mr T Seghiri |
|
Governor Lead |
Mrs Tilley |
| FUNDING OVERVIEW | |
|
Detail |
Amount |
|
PDG funding allocation this academic year |
£190,900 |
|
Total budget for this academic year |
£190,900 |
PART A : STRATEGY PLAN
Statement of Intent
Our mission is to provide all pupils, irrespective of their background or the challenges they face, with a faith-based environment that will allow them to flourish in all aspects of their lives.
The focus of our strategy is to socially, emotionally and academically support pupils who are e-FSM or living in deprivation to achieve that goal. Implicit in our strategy is the intention that non-disadvantaged pupils’ attainment will be sustained and improved alongside progress for their disadvantaged peers. Our strategy is responsive to common challenges and individual needs, rooted in robust diagnostic assessment, not assumptions about the impact of disadvantage. Whilst we recognise the importance for all pupils to make good progress and achieve high attainment across the curriculum, Maths and English are a particular focus for us.
Intended outcomes
This explains the outcomes we are aiming for by the end of our current strategy plan, and how we will measure whether they have been achieved.
|
Intended outcome |
Success criteria |
|
Reduce the gap in attendance between e-FSM and non e-FSM learners. |
Improvement in figures on tracking and monitoring data sheet. |
|
Setting targets for e-FSM learners in other areas such as attitude, attainment and representation in extra-curricular activities. |
Increased representation of e-FSM learners in Awards, clubs and rewards events. |
|
Improved communication with parents and carers. |
Increase in recorded communications with all carers and parents with reduction in negative/nil feedback |
|
Improve NRNT results and reduce gap between e-FSM and non e-FSM learners, and reduce gap on capped 9 score. |
Reduction in gap of statistics between e-FSM and non e-FSM learners (targeting pupils with literacy result of 90 or below). |
Activity in this academic year
This details how we intend to spend our PDG this academic year to achieve the intended outcomes listed above.
Learning and teaching
Budgeted cost: £190,900
|
Activity |
Evidence that supports this approach |
|
Provide teacher to reduce class sizes in English to maximise the teaching and learning opportunities for FSM pupils in English. |
Reduction in class sizes enables targeted intervention for FSM pupils within the main teaching arena, Improved NRNT results. |
|
Provide Learning Coach to support and remove barriers to learning and raise pupil aspirations. |
By building relationships with targeted FSM pupils, improve attendance and remove the barriers to learning. |
|
Engage three teaching assistants. |
Improved results/attendance for pupils, by targeting key intervention areas. |
|
Engage to one full time cover supervisor to enable senior leaders to provide strategic leadership to impact on the attainment of FSM pupils. |
Increased scheduled meeting time with PDG SLT lead and HOY/HOD to evaluate progress of e-FSM pupils in year 11, and plan a co-ordinated approach to learning. |
Total budgeted cost: £190,900
Part B: Review of outcomes in the previous academic year
PDG outcomes
This details the impact that our PDG activity had on pupils in the 2023 to 2024 academic year.
|
Activity |
Impact |
|
As above |
Overall, our FSM pupils in Year 11 progressed very well during their studies in Years 10 and 11. All the activities above allowed us to support individual students with a bespoke approach and enabled them to achieve well. While the overall outcomes did not quite match our aspirational targets for them, they produced an excellent set of results reflecting how well they have progressed during their time with us. Some highlights of this progress include: Year 11 students (summer 2024):
|