Schools and Young People
Martin Yarnit and Liz Cousins have been appointed by the Department of Communities and Local Government as Neighourhood Renewal Advisers for Education reflecting their expertise in schools and regeneration.
A major project this year has been Active Learning Schools, involving nine secondary schools in Kent, Knowsley and Manchester, with the support of the Edge Foundation and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. The project has demonstrated the potential of a new model that deals with what young people learn as well as how they learn, and crucially involves them in shaping both.
The results are startling. In a matter of weeks in one Kent school, this new way of doing schooling has produced a significant improvement in attendance and behaviour. In one Manchester school, a group of girls have been galvanised, shaken out of a long period of dormancy and are leading a media project. In another Manchester school, Y9 pupils have led lengthy planning sessions for younger pupils and fended off teachers who assumed they needed help. Pupils at a Knowsley school are making a DVD in Mandarin for their Beijing counterparts about effective sports coaching. Three schools are planning how to roll out active learning across the curriculum, over the next few years. See more details at www.edge.co.uk/als
Discussions are taking place with the schools, local authorities, QCA and other agencies about taking the project forward and linking it with similar initiatives.
MYA have carried out reviews of school performance in Bristol, Manchester, Nottingham, Leicester and Lincoln. They have evaluated the impact of Neighbourhood Renewal Funding on education in Bristol, the East Midlands and Lincoln City. Liz Cousins has evaluated the effectiveness of Bristol's Supplementary Schools and their links with mainstream education. Martin Yarnit and two associates designed City Learning Centres for Doncaster and Blackburn which are now in operation alongside four secondary schools. Martin has worked with the Edge Foundation to develop a plan for community and business engagement for their Academies in Milton Keynes and Nottingham
Examples of work are displayed below.
Downloads
- Study of the effectiveness of the partnership between supplementary and mainstream schools in Bristol for Bristol City Council/Bristol NRF
- Incentives and Achievements Scheme, Bristol City Academy - the impact of a ground-breaking NRF project to drive up achievement in inner city Bristol for Bristol City Academy Project
- Building Schools for a Transformation - Fishing Rods, Schools and Regeneration
- Family Learning and Employment Project (FLEP) Manchester
- School Support Projects in Nottingham: report for DfES/NRU, 'Interventions Outside the Classroom: Focusing DfES Resources on Failing Communities'
- School Support Projects in Nottingham: report for DfES/NRU, 'Interventions Outside the Classroom: Focusing DfES Resources on Failing Communities'
- Active Learning Schools: Proposal to the Smith Institute
- Schools and Neighbourhood Renewal leaflet (Part I) *
- Schools and Neighbourhood Renewal leaflet (Part II) *
- Schools and Neighbourhood Renewal A5 leaflet (Part I) *
- Schools and Neighbourhood Renewal A5 leaflet (Part II) *
- Accreditation of Community Languages in Bristol
* Leaflets are also available for Ashfield, Bolsover, Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Mansfield and Nottingham on request by email.