Spotlight- Hartshill School

This blog shines a light on Hartshill School in Warwickshire.

You can listen to his episode of ‘Spotlight’ on Saturday the 25th of September at 5 p.m. or on Sunday the 26th of September at 1 p.m. on Teacher Hug radio through Alexa the free App or the Teacher Hug website- https://teacherhug.co.uk. 

I talk to Dr. Louise Newman, principal of Hartshill School.  Hartshill have been shortlisted for the TES Community and Collaboration Award.

Hartshill school believe that knowledge is central to their pupils’ success and therefore, supports their future dreams and ambitions.  At Hartshill School, pupils are taught that knowledge is powerful and ‘sticky’, meaning that once pupils have sufficient knowledge and an understanding of how to learn, they will be able to build independently on that knowledge, making themselves the masters of their fate, being ready to lead and participate as global citizens.  They place meaningful, continuous assessment at the heart of teaching.  Pupils have regular low-stakes quizzes in all subjects and develop learning routines to regularly self-quiz and build up a bank of knowledge in their long-term memory.  This supports self-confidence and allows pupils to understand and make connections easily with new learning inside and outside of the classroom.

At Hartshill, they are also passionate about inspiring their students to be confident, ambitious and successful individuals.  They teach and promote the virtues of kindness, gratitude, self-discipline, personal responsibility, and how to grow from struggles.  Within their community, students and staff are known, valued, developed, and supported to be successful and happy. This ensures their pupils are polite, kind to each other, and work hard.  They support and emulate the strong values which are nurtured at home and are explicitly taught when joining Hartshill School.  They promote these values and virtues throughout the school experience and have developed their school motto to remind everyone to ‘Be kind, work hard and achieve’.

At Hartshill School, community and collaboration have been at the heart of its response to the pandemic. The school remained open by utilising premises supplied by Midland Academy Trust sponsor, North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College to maintain services for keyworker and vulnerable children.  The school delivered supplies of learning materials and free sanitary products within the community according to a regular timetable via its Resources Bus using a Land Rover donated by Jaguar Land Rover. The bus was also used to deliver food parcels to families in need and collect donations for the Nuneaton Foodbank. 

Hartshill School enjoys a highly effective Student Leadership Team with 15 members from both years 10 and 11 and has a hard-working and creative head boy and girl. During lockdown, the team produced a newsletter for the local community that was delivered to care homes, hospitals, and the Mary Ann Evans Hospice in Nuneaton, reaching out to those in isolation. The Student Leadership Team has kept in touch through a WhatsApp group and produced regular podcasts for their peers on their experiences of remote learning. 

Hartshill School was announced as one of fifty schools to receive funding under the Government’s School Rebuilding Programme. A new school building will be built adjacent to the existing premises at Church Road, and ‘school life will continue uninterrupted on the same site during redevelopment’.  Wide corridors and a focus on sustainability are just some of the ambitions to bring the school into the 21st century.  The three-year redevelopment project will deliver a transformative facility that is fit for the 21st-century, teaching and will be carbon neutral by design.  A new and inspiring school building will raise aspirations for pupils, giving them access to resources and equipment that will further prepare them for future employment. 

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog about Hartshill school. It is great to be able to shine a light on their good practice and learn from their experiences and ideas.  If anything resonated with you please give me a call, email, or please tweet me on @teacherhugradio or @ArkinstallNikki or send an email to hello@teacherhug.co.uk or call on our free phone number – 0800 246 1555 and leave me a message so that I can contact you.

There is a brilliant line up of shows every weekend for you to enjoy listening to on Teacher Hug Radio – the soundtrack to your teaching career.

The author

Nicola Arkinstall

Nikki is a Deputy Headteacher in a primary school in Birmingham and the Director of Staffordshire Research School. Her primary school is an English Hub and wrote the Little Wandle Phonics programme. She is Lead DSL and also Art, Music and DT lead. She is an experienced NQT mentor and is a visiting fellow for NPQS and ECF. When Nikki is not working she loves to spend time with her husband, children, friends and family. She is also a governor at her daughter’s primary school. She loves travelling, reading, listening to podcasts, watching Netflix series and swimming.