Making students 'school citizens'

The government is setting up behaviour consultants to advise schools. A school in Berkshire - which has used a US academic's scheme for motivating teachers and students - proves it can work.

Garth Hill College in Bracknell is a school for 1,200 girls and boys aged 11 to 18, specialising in technology.

Garth Hill now shows rising attainment

Three years ago it was languishing. A new principal, Stan Turner, came in and invited Ofsted to review the place.

"They said it was a sleeping giant that needed to be improved," said assistant principal Gordon Cunningham.

Mr Turner changed the management team but wanted something more to develop the school.

Chance contacts involving the local education authority, Bracknell Forest, and the University of Nottingham, led them to a scheme pioneered at the University of Houston, Texas, by Dr Jerome Freiberg.

Three-year plan

His Consistency Management and Co-operative Discipline scheme starts with an assessment of a school's needs.

The students are managing their environment with the teacher, rather than being told what to do Assistant principal Gordon Cunningham

Then all the teaching and non-teaching staff have to vote - literally, in a secret ballot - on whether they will go along with an improvement programme. The trigger is 70%.

At Garth Hill, 90% said they would so Bracknell Forest and the Department for Education and Skills were approached for funding to pay for trainers from Houston to come in and guide the school.

England and American being "separated by a common language", part of the work involves adapting the scheme for local use - there is no suggestion that schools in the UK have the level of violence and drug problems that plague the US inner cities, for instance.

In the first year, last year, the focus was on raising the standards of and learning within the school.

The second year, beginning this Thursday, sees that extended to parents and the wider community.

Finally there is half a year of consolidating what has gone before, to make sure it becomes "part of the core learning process".

'Citizens'

"Nothing has been reinvented," Mr Cunningham said. "It's what good teachers do anyway, but now all the techniques are being used."

US scheme encourages students ' involvement

The key to it was making the students "citizens" of the classrooms rather than "tourists" in them.

This was done using the sort of roles more familiar in primary schools, where pupils take on particular tasks - whereas in secondary schools there is usually more of an expectation that they will simply turn up and learn.

For example, someone will be designated the homework manager - and it is their job to make sure it is given out and collected in when it is due.

There is a "late manager", to log students who turn up late for lessons so that the teacher can get on with the job in hand and tackle them about it later.

Expansion

And the school's appearance is also more like that in a primary school, with wall displays relating to the students' responsibilities.

"The students are managing their environment with the teacher, rather than being told what to do," Mr Cunningham said.

"They are part of it and therefore have more respect for each other, the teachers, the environment, et cetera."

Bracknell Forest's director of education, Tony Eccleston, is impressed with the progress that has been made.

He describes "a more purposeful climate in the classroom" and rising attainment.

There are now plans to do something similar at another local school, Brackenhale, and at Haywood School in Nottingham - both of which have been put in "special measures" by Ofsted.