Community Focused Schools partnership visit to Florida (Pathway 2)
Pencoed Primary School, joined together with 2 other schools, Ysgol Y Gogarth and Ysgol Pen Rhos to apply for Taith Pathway 2 funding to support the development and sustainability of community focused schools in Wales. They were then joined by 9 other schools forming a Taith partnership across Wales including Welsh and English medium, primary, secondary and special schools. The project is a collaborative project between these 12 schools and the UCF Center for Community Schools in Florida, USA. Dr Suzanne Sarjeant, Headteacher at Pencoed Primary School (although on secondment at the time of working on this project) acted as project lead for the partnership and tells us about their experience so far.
We applied to Taith as we wanted to develop an international partnership between schools in Wales and community schools in Florida.
The Welsh Government want all schools in Wales to become community focused schools. Our project supports this national mission and forms a key element of the wider strategy to ensure equity in education in Wales.
Community focused schools build relationships with families and communities in order to maximise the learning opportunities available to children and young people. They also look to understand barriers to learning and develops partnerships with a broad range of external agencies and organisations to help remove them.
Much of the research on the impact of community schools comes from the United States and there is a well-established community school programme in Florida.
I had previously benefited from visiting international community schools. The practice that I saw inspired me to develop the practice not only within my school, but also to try and have a greater impact on schools more broadly. I knew how powerful these visits can be and so was keen to co-ordinate a visit for others.
It was imperative that the visit included both an opportunity to see developed practice within community schools but also to understand the strategic support given. UCF Center for Community Schools was able to facilitate discussions between school visits, which helped to expand our understanding. It also allowed for greater reflection by the group and allowed us to ask to follow up questions.
We have had both the outward and inward visit, and the experience and learning has been incredible, both for the delegates from Wales and for our partners in Florida.
The outward visit to Florida had an enormous impact on everyone within the group. They found visiting schools in the states allowed them to reflect on their own practice with greater clarity. One commented:
“It really sharpened our focus on how it’s going to help, so that from a school’s point of view is going to be a big impact.”
Colleagues also reflected that they felt empowered as a result of being involved. In addition to the international links made, colleagues also benefited from making links with schools and settings in Wales, with other like-minded people who quickly became a support network when we returned.
The participants all felt that the opportunity to remove themselves fully from school life allowed them to gain more from the learning experience. They commented that going out of the country allowed the group to bond quickly and to be able to focus on what we were seeing, hearing, and experiencing.
“It was a different perspective…. we sometimes can get stuck a little bit into that localised thinking.”
“It was nice to compare some of the elements that we both do well and coming away thinking ‘I think that is a fabulous idea.’ I’d like to implement some of the ideas in our school.”
As a result of connections made during the inward visit, the international partnership has grown and extended beyond the University of Central Florida. During the return visit, colleagues from the states had an opportunity to reflect on educational practice more broadly within Wales. The use of the outdoor learning environment in Foundation Learning and the focus on mental and emotional well-being were of particular interest. We were able to share our documentation with them and talk about the benefits for children and young people.
All participants are undertaking an enquiry into an aspect of their community focused schools (CFS) approach. This will support schools with their self-evaluation processes and ensure they are monitoring the effectiveness of their practice. These enquiries will be collated to form a template for CFS self-evaluation which will be shared with all schools in Wales.
As importantly, an outcome is that we now have a network of twelve schools in twelve Local Authorities who have developed a community of practice. The international partnership is set to continue and wider opportunities for collaboration and research are being established.
During the next couple of months, the project will be focused on the collation and publication of the resource. This will also include a learning event to launch the resource and to share further learning from the partnership.
The network that has been created as a result of participating in the project is strong, with colleagues informally linking in with each other. We are keen to grow this further and are considering future funding opportunities to develop a national network of CFS in Wales.
As a result of sharing our enquiry titles with our partners during the inward visit, two colleagues from the Taith group have been invited to attend East Carolina University to present their findings.
In addition, we have been approached by the University of Central Florida to participate in an international symposium. They are particularly interested in the resource we are developing and would like a presentation on the resource and the enquiry-based approaches each Taith member used.
The project has already made a significant impact on the schools’ sector in Wales. Conference feedback emphasised the value of learning how participating schools were enhancing their community-focused practices. Connections were established between these schools and conference attendees to facilitate the sharing of these practices. In addition, the resource will be accessible to all schools in Wales on completion. The resource will provide practical examples of CFS enquiries, allowing the sharing of ideas for implementation as well as a structure by which to support school self-evaluation.
