Leading in the community

Anne McCormick is Headteacher of Queens Park Lower School in Bedford. She began by explaining that her school is rated as outstanding for Community Cohesion, has 93% of pupils from ethnic minorities and all of these pupils have English as an additional language.

It is part of a full service extended school comprising of 4 organisations. The three governing bodies all work together but there is no formal federation. Each organisation looks after a different part of the community engagement activity.

Anne's school works with a family focus, the middle school looks after enrichment (e.g. working with a local sports college) and the upper school has a wellbeing centre and concentrates on health issues. This kind of approach is recommended by Anne - there is so much to cover that use of your peers is essential.

Relationships are key to leading in the community

However, Anne points out that relationships can take years to cultivate.

Maureen Bates is head of a different kind of school - St Bede's Catholic School and Sixth Form College in Durham.

One of her challenges is that most of her pupils travel to school on buses. This makes community activities outside of school hours more difficult. It also means that the community is spread geographically as well as culturally.

Another issue Maureen finds is that her school is very large and the size tends to put keen Year 7 parents off getting involved after their different experiences at primary school.

However, she has been able to develop international links to promote global citizenship. Few of her pupils are able to take holidays abroad.

Maureen has been able to appoint an Extended Schools Co-ordinator but acknowledges that this is easier from within a large secondary school budget. There is also a parent support advisor and parents and children taking part in Cooking Together courses have been highly successful in tackling local health issues as well as promoting community cohesion.

Her school has worked with organisations such as the YMCA and she recommends prioritising the task of identifying and contacting all the locally-available groups and organisations who might be of help to the school in tackling leading in the community.