MEADOWHEAD SCHOOL

I visited Meadowhead School again yesterday with Mike Garnock-Jones, to see Steve Fowler, the headteacher and Mark Cocken, the Associate Assistant Headteacher, Vocational and Work Related Learning, and who leads the programme in the school. Mike and I were there to discuss the school's involvement in Made in Sheffield.

Mike and I outlined the fact that the pilot phase was ending and we wanted to review, evaluate and further develop the work we have been doing. We wanted headteachers strategic overview and to know how the schools see the future for the programme, how we can make it sustainable and how we might continue to fund developments alongside the maintenance of the elements schools value and want to keep.

Steve has recently been appointed as headteacher and she welcomed the opportunity to find out more about Made in Sheffield. Meadowhead is involved in the Sheffield Teaching Hospital and the retail sector elements of Made in Sheffield. We discussed the fact that initiatives like this have come and gone in he past and we agreed that to create a more sustainable model, schools needed to develop a strategic approach which embedded the ambassadors element into the leadership development element and the skills and vocational elements into the curriculum. We also discussed the importance of staff CPD, which was a critical element to developing teacher understanding and expertise and vitally important where the DfE and OFSTED were promoting such a different model for the curriculum.

Steve and Mark are both clearly passionate about providing excellent education for all young people at Meadowhead School within a caring and supportive learning framework. Mike and I stressed that the Meadowhead student ambassadors have been brilliant ambassadors for the school and feedback from the Sheffield Teaching Hospital about their behaviour and abilities had been hugely positive. Steve stressed that Meadowhead's curriculum is developing to support all students to achieve to their potential and that they are developing innovative ways to ensure children benefit from a personalised learning experience, particularly for those students who need it most and that the Made in Sheffield programme was an important element in delivering this.