Halton High School

The Headteacher, John Rowlands, applied for Halton High School in Runcorn to take part as a vehicle to impact on boys' teaching and learning. The School was then selected to be part of the first cohort of schools to participate. The School then selected cohorts of boys in Years 8, 9 and 11 and monitored their attendance and attainment over the period of the Project.

The Project works on five principles:

• use strong leadership to create the environment for change;
• focus on teaching and learning methods;
• use mentoring and targeted support;
• create capacity;
• use data to drive improvements.

The changes are driven by the PDSA - Plan, Do, Study and Act.

The changes are carried out on a small scale, evaluated, changed or developed. In this way the risks are also small and there is constant evaluation.

As a school Halton audited their progress against each change principle and were asked to present their work at the second National Workshop. The change in the School has been remarkable. Sue Yates, Assistant Headteacher, who has been the lead teacher on the Programme says:-

"Staff really bought into this. It wasn't frightening or overwhelming and they could see that small changes were yielding results. It's been a brilliant programme for us and we've learnt a lot."

top