Awards

Inclusion Quality Mark

Ofsted defines an educationally inclusive school as one in which the teaching and learning; achievements, attitudes and well-being of every young person matter. Gaining the Inclusion Quality Mark provided us at Raddlebarn with a nationally recognised framework to guide our inclusion journey. Together we looked at impact and evaluation and IQM assessed and measured how well we perform; empower others to improve and grow. This award meant a great deal to us as a school community and provided an external validation of our inclusive values and status. They strongly felt that Inclusion at Raddlebarn promotes equal opportunities for all pupils, whatever their age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, attainment and background. We pay particular attention to the provision made for, and the achievement of, different groups of pupils within a school and any pupils who are at risk of disaffection and exclusion. The amazing feedback was really fabulous to hear from an highly regarded, national, specialist organisation. They invited us to become a Centre of Excellence, which we may well do one day.

Investors In People

Following the pandemic, the world of work has had to evolve, and when the pace of change is so rapid, then employee connection, engagement, wellbeing and organisational culture becomes even more important. Not only because of impact on staff retention, attraction and development, but also as the critical foundations contributing to organisational stability, security and success. Having the Investors in People Award, felt important to us as we already know how hard our staff work and wanted to ensure that we were supporting them in all the ways we could, because we are a team. This award assessed so many elements of school life but some of the key areas they were looked at were through roles and responsibilities – organisation of staff/teams, CPD, encouragement to develop themselves and take initiatives, how leaders support their development and encourage them be a leader at all levels by getting involved in decision making and take ownership of events, performance management, health and well-being, opportunities to see other good practice and evaluating impact. As a school we felt that the award process really helped us to embrace constant change and helped to keep us improving with the help of a simple road map for excellence; Improved public recognition because real achievements are measured against a national standard; this not only helps to attract the best applicants for jobs but can also be a reassurance that as a member of staff they will be well looked after and have opportunities to develop; It strengthens and embeds organisational culture and understanding of how we use values to drive decision-making at every level, empowering people to deliver exactly what’s needed and it boosts reputation as a great employer that is determined to attract and retain talented people, a business that genuinely engages with and invests in its people. For members of our staff team, they have the benefits of a good working environment; recognition and development: pride in being part of a successful organisation; good quality learning and development when required; improved job satisfaction; better communication; skill and career development opportunities; increased responsibility and involvement and well-being and health and safety gains.

RSPB Wild Challenge

The RSPB Wild Challenge teaches our children about how they can help wildlife, explore nature and enjoy lots of wild, fun activities.

RHS School Gardening Awards Level 3

To achieve this level we have built on our practical gardening skills and prepared areas ready for planting. We grew a simple range of fruits, vegetables and flowers, and encouraged wildlife to the garden by providing homes and habitats. We also re-used as many things as we could and understand composting.

Quality Mark

Tribal's Quality Mark is an internationally acknowledged accreditation which supports and recognises improving standards in the provision, practice and performance of English and mathematics, and provides evidence of high-quality education.

International School Award

The International School Award rewards schools that have shown a commitment to embedding international awareness and understanding within their class or school, through collaborative, curriculum-based work with partner schools and the involvement of the wider community.

Achievement for All

The Achievement For All Quality Mark Award recognises the impressive work being done by the school to improve progress in reading, writing and maths for all pupils, particularly those with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities.

NSPCC

We are proud to work with the NSPCC to support our work around PSHE and Online Safety.

ChildLine

Think You Know

The National Crime Agency's CEOP Education team aim to help protect children and young people from online child sexual abuse. They do this through their education programme, providing training, resources and information to professionals working with children, young people and their families.

Pathway to Podium

Pathway to Podium is a programme to recognise and celebrate the commitment of Birmingham schools to PE, school sport and physical activity as part of a more enriched curriculum.

Young Citizens Make a Difference Challenge

The Young Citizens - Make a Difference Challenge award is a child-led social action programme that empowers some of our youngest citizens. It provides them with an opportunity to identify and research a social or environmental issue that they feel passionate about, then make a difference to it through awareness-raising, fundraising or taking practical action. The project enables primary aged children to gain a real understanding of the issues communities face, and take the lead in making a difference to them. It helps them really look into issues that people face in Life in Modern Britain and what they can do as young citizens who will continue to lead change as adults of the future Through gaining this award our children really learn to empathise with those who are disadvantaged, recognise the role of government, voluntary groups and charitable organisations and consider the part they can play in bringing about positive change. Some of our previous projects included organising a wartime tea dance for the elderly community, getting involved in Braille workshops for our visually impaired community, they have visited the Town Hall and had tea with the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, devised a uniform swap shop and created a foodbank for families and much, much more. These are all planned into our curriculum topics, so that learning is purposeful and there is real life motivation to do well to help others.

Birmingham Repertory Theatre

Different from many awards, this is a formal partnership and commitment to developing teachers CPD but also developing Character Education as well as Oracy across the curriculum. Through drama, we get to explore world events, different beliefs, history, culture, British Values, inclusivity and so much more. We have built up a partnership with Birmingham REP and children get to meet visitors in school and visit the REP too.

Dog Mentor Affiliated School

We are so pleased to say we are a dog mentor affiliated school with our new addition to the Raddlebarn team, Hazel the dog!

360 Safe Committed to Online Safety

The 360 degree safe award is essentially a self review and reflection learning process. It has really supported us to review our online safety policy and practice. • The process has been so useful for identifying strengths and weaknesses: Opportunities for commitment and involvement from the whole school; Encouraged us to collaborative online use with other schools and compare and benchmark our procedures and values with other users of the online tool. Receiving immediate feedback and suggested actions helped us with our progression and we were able to log sources of evidence, comments and action points that could be shared with stakeholders. It has helped us clearly identify strengths / weaknesses & develop an improvement action plan to ensure safety is key for all. It really has been a beneficial tool that helps empower staff, parents and children to develop and test their own safety measures and make their own educated choices on online safety.

Birmingham Education Partnership

Raddlebarn is an enhanced member of Birmingham Education Partnership (BEP). They work collaboratively to help provide expert consultants, offer specialised events, CPD opportunities and can support the facilitation of effective collaboratives and partnerships between schools in the city. When schools such as ours have completed a detailed self-evaluated and have identified next steps for challenge and improvement, BEP are always there to offer support and training with expert consultants. For many years we have worked with BEP with their fantastic Peer Review Programme, allowing Heads to work together to rigorously challenge each other and identify priority areas for development. We have also began working on the subject peer to peer reviews, so that subject co-ordinators get to collaborate with others and develop a support network for the role within school improvement too. Additional programmes are also delivered by experienced coordinators to address mental health in schools, development of the arts and sports curriculum, engagement of pupils with global issues and building connections between local businesses and schools to improve career opportunities for young people. The partnership really supports the school to be a part of the family of Birmingham schools that strengthen partnerships and support collaborative approaches in order to drive school improvement and supports the school to deliver a deeply good education for every child emphasising civic and social education as well as the academic success.

Unicef Silver – Rights Aware

Achieving Silver: Rights Aware means there is evidence that:  We at Raddlebarn are explicitly embedding the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child In its policy, practice and culture.  We are promoting knowledge and understanding of the Convention throughout your school community.  We are putting into action and developing the plans outlined on our Action Plan for Silver, which we submitted when we achieved our first award, Bronze: Rights Committed.  We are beginning to see the positive impact of these actions on children, staff, and on the school’s ethos, practice and environment.  Children are beginning to see themselves as rights respecting global citizens and advocates for fairness and children’s rights, both locally and globally. We have a really strong steering group for out Right Respecting School Award (RRSA) group made up of a range of pupils and staff in differing roles. Together we plan for whole school training, curriculum, assemblies, topics, focus theme days/weeks, and displays. They model rights respecting language and attitudes, and making strategic decisions for the school; Being ambassadors for the rights of others: developing as rights respecting citizens.

Mental Health First Aider

Because good mental health matters, we have two fully qualified mental health first aiders at Raddlebarn Primary and Nursery School. The training completed included strategies and guidance to support children and adults. We also have a qualified senior leader for mental-health and well-being. There has never been a time when this support and guidance was needed more. We recognise this and place huge importance on this in school.

Music Mark School Member

Birmingham Music Service are very well established in our school community and have been for many years. They offer to Raddlebarn a number of strategic partners, who enable, enhance and enrich the music education available at our school. We have or have had peripatetic music lessons in violin, cello, double bass, guitar, various brass, flute, Djembe drums, Dhol drumming. We have a choir and even have our very own primary school orchestra who compose and devise their own music and have performed at the Symphony Hall and Birmingham University Great Hall on many occasions. It is obvious in our school that we have passion and drive when it comes to offering a high-quality music opportunity, which is a unique and valuable offer the children at Raddlebarn. As a school we are always keen to take opportunities that come our way to help children develop confidence, memory skills, co-ordination and much more. We aim for children to create memories that they will have for the rest of their lives. This was a recognition award, not one that we applied for. This was because Birmingham Music Service had identified and recognised our services to music as excellent and worthy.

Artmark Silver Award

Gaining Artsmark Silver encouraged and supported us to embed arts, culture and creativity across our whole curriculum, celebrating our commitment to cultural education. It helped us to ensure that we had a broad and ambitious curriculum that strengthened pupil voice and supported their personal progression. Artsmark thoroughly assesses how well, as a school, we support the health and wellbeing of pupils with arts, culture and creativity; Ensure every child can be creative and access a diverse, high-quality cultural education; Engage, motivate and upskill teaching staff using CPD and whole school collaboration and how we arrange professional support to strengthen our arts provision at Raddlebarn. We really do see the many, numerous benefits of the arts for all and felt honoured that when we applied for the Bronze level, they were so impressed with all we do in school, that they felt we were at minimum Silver level and well on our way to achieving Gold!

Hippodrome Education Network

Birmingham Hippodrome has formed excellent relationships within our school to support the development of the next generation of artists and audiences. This partnership brings creativity into the curriculum, connects learning outcomes to exciting opportunities at the Hippodrome and beyond, and provides our children with the chance to experience and connect with theatre. This Hippodrome Education Network (HEN) partnership allows opportunities for performance opportunities at shows, festivals and events, workshops with show casts and backstage tours, Professional artists visiting schools to collaborate on cultural celebrations, such as Chinese New Year, Arts Ambassador training for children, Network meetings for school staff and weekly CPD in school.

SMSC

The SMSC Quality Mark focusses on empowering young people for a stronger society in the future. They asses the work we do to ensure that children and young people are able to make a positive difference to the society in which they live – locally, nationally and globally. We were able to evidence this by helping children develop specific knowledge, skills and confidence. We evidenced the positive impact it has on them, and how it is really essential for strengthening and safeguarding our society and democratic way of life. Teachers, Teaching Assistants, Parents, Governor and children were all interviewed and as a school we were awarded Gold!

Modeshift Stars Schools Bronze

Modeshift STARS is a national award scheme that we were awarded for taking steps to promote safer, greener, healthier travel. By participating in the Modeshift STARS scheme we were able to produce a new national standard School Travel Plan with an achievable action plan. Modeshift STARS is the Centre of Excellence for the delivery of Effective Travel Plans in Education settings. The scheme recognised that we have demonstrated excellence in supporting cycling, walking and other forms of sustainable and active travel.

Healthy Schools Silver Award

Healthy Schools We were given this award because it was evident that we help children to grow healthily, safely and responsibly. The Healthy Schools toolkit that was used to make the thorough assessment and judgement, focussed on the underlying principles of the English National Healthy School Programme, that gets revised regularly and through consultation to ensure it meets all of the expectations of national guidance. The toolkit focussed on seeing how we raise attainment and achievement by improving the health and wellbeing of our children. It recognised that we achieve this through working together as a school with children and families, to offer an effective way forward when things may feel like a struggle. We achieve this by including PSHE Friendly sessions exploring current and specific issues that are being faced; by working hard to respond to the Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs that have grown significally since the pandemic; Devising a series of targeted programmes to improve mental health and wellbeing: strengthening our Personal,Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education offer, including Relationships, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE), Health Education (HE) and Drugs, Alcohol and Tobacco Education. As well as raising the profile of DT to include School Food, Nutrition and Cooking; Enterprise initiatives that include Citizenship and Sustainability; Develop extended Physical Activity including Daily Mile, sports clubs and newly installed Gym areas in both playgrounds. Other areas that we demonstrated were Social, Emotional and Mental Health by having a children safeguarding board; Character Education which support children to take healthy risks, problem solve and develop resilience. We were able to evidence how we embed Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural (SMSC) development , including British Values and Character Education throughout the school by creating documents to show where these areas really are central to the learning and made purposeful. On our School Development Plan we have a specific strand for Pupil Voice and Participation. We strongly encourage pupils voice and want them to make a difference to improve their school. Our pupil groups include: Junior PCSOs, Arts Ambassadors, Reading Ravers, Children’s Safeguarding Board, School Councillors, House Captains, Prefects, RRSA steering group and many more.

Eco-Schools Green Flag Award

At Raddlebarn we care deeply about environmental issues and have a strong desire to actively protect our planet. However, environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity-loss or plastic pollution are huge global issues and the thought of tackling them can be intimidating, leaving many feeling overwhelmed. But everything starts with a first step and we wanted our children, the adults of the future, to start thinking about this now. We have evidenced that we connect our activities to three or more of the main Ten Eco-Schools Topics. These topics break large, global issues like climate change into more manageable and directed themes that prompt our children to consider environmental changes that they can make in school and everyday lives. We have an Eco-Council made up of our children across the school, who really take the lead on disseminating and gathering valuable information on these topics and create plans that become actions for change. We now have a permanent air monitoring system in our school from Air-ly, where children can see the air conditions and any pollution that may be in the air.

Green Tree School Silver Award

Our Green Tree Schools Silver Award was given to us because we regularly encourage outdoor learning and inspire pupils to look at and talk about trees, woods and wildlife. Through the award process, we took part in fun, practical projects while helping the environment and improving our school grounds. We were recognised for doing environmental projects such as tree planting, reducing CO2 emissions and visiting woods. We collected points for each activity we completed, progressing through bronze and already to silver. We used materials from The Woodlands Trust to support lessons in class. We used them also for gardening, creating Raddlebarn in Bloom and eco clubs too. We now have a Bird Box with a camera in it and we can’t wait until Spring!

School Games

The School Games Mark Gold was awarded to us for our commitment to the development of inclusive, active participation in physical activities and involvement in competition within school and into the community. This process has allowed us to evaluate our PE provision and to develop an action plan for future progress. To be awarded the School Games award means that it is recognised that we organise intra-school competitions and participate in inter-school competitions within the local School Games Network. We chose this award because we place great importance on physical and mental health, putting physical activity and competitive sport at the heart of school and providing more children with the opportunity to compete and achieve their personal best. We love taking part in the School Games because there is a strong emphasis on inclusion at the events to ensure all children are given the opportunity to take part. It develops children’s confidence as they are offered additional opportunities to take part by leading, managing, or officiating. Often as a result of an event families will ask to be signposted to community opportunities. Most importantly, it encourages children to develop their character education by following the six School Games values - determination, honesty, passion, respect, self-belief, and teamwork.