BACKGROUND TO SCHOOLS:

Holte:

Welcome to Holte School:
Our 11-16 community school serves the communities of Newtown, Lozells, Handsworth and Aston. The school reflects the cultural mix of these areas and benefits in particular from the wealth of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Caribbean heritage.
With 950 pupils during the day, on a site shared with Lozells primary school, and hundreds more using the site in the evening and weekends the facilities at Holte are at the heart of its neighbourhood. As a school Holte has undergone dramatic change in the last three years since the arrival of the new Head Teacher, Mrs Pat Walters:

• GCSE exam results have seen an
impressive, substantial improvement

• The school is bidding for Specialist Arts
College status

• Holte has become part of a very successful
multi agency pilot scheme to support a wider
range of family needs

• Along with four other local schools Holte is
leading the way in a new “Collegiate”
scheme to share resources and strengths

• The school has smaller classes and more teachers than ever, and is working with three different FE Colleges to provide more exciting and appropriate opportunities as we strive towards the goal of bringing success for all our young people.

We are proud of the fact that so many visitors are impressed with the school from the inside. Why not come and have a look for yourself, starting with a visit to the school’s web site at:
http://www.holte.bham.sch.uk/

Mayfield School:

Mayfield is a popular and oversubscribed all age special school that attracts the majority of its pupils form the inner city wards of Handsworth, Soho and Aston. We educate children and young people with a wide and diverse range of special educational needs.

Mayfield has excellent and well-established links with a number of local schools: special, mainstream, primary and secondary and our own inclusion network.

We are active in: The North West Excellence in Cities network, a lead school in the North West Sports Development programme, a partner school to two sports colleges, active in the Titan business partnership, linked with the CEBP, the West Midlands Police, the Fire Brigade and our pupils and staff are welcomed in all local places of worship.

Heathfield School:

Heathfield is a very popular, oversubscribed, primary school set in inner city
Birmingham. We pride ourselves on the outstanding behaviour and achievement of our children, many of whom join the school with English as a second language and who reach and often surpass nationally expected results when they move on to secondary school after Year 6.

In recent years we have formed very close links with Holte, our local
secondary school and with Mayfield our neighbouring special School.
Working together on the anti-bullying project has been a great success for
Birmingham's policy towards inclusion. It has brought together pupils, from all three schools who were chosen to share their personal; experiences and thoughts about bullying and with help from Sister Tree and Hi8us put together an interactive support package that will help all children deal with this very serious problem.

Mayfield, Heathfield, Holte – why?
A BRIEF HISTORY OF COLLABORATION

Put at it’s simplest, because the three Head Teacher’s are confident working collaboratively.

Heathfield and Mayfield share a school site on the boundary of Handsworth and Lozells in Inner City Birmingham.

The present Head Teachers were appointed within a year of each other and have always invested in their pupils and staff spending time together and in each other’s schools. Initially this was based on social interaction, joining for assemblies, to celebrate events, for festivals and special days, Red Nose Day etc.

Our work together has now grown to include:

• Joint educational and residential visits.

• Mayfield pupils attending literacy, numeracy and other lessons at Heathfield.

• Our foundation classes meeting daily for assemblies, staff share the planning of topics etc.

• Members of staff at Mayfield using specific expertise in athletics, dance and netball to teach extra curricular activities at Heathfield through the sports co-ordinator programme.

• Heathfield pupils spending time at Mayfield working alongside our pupils developing communication strategies and interpersonal skills using our specialist facilities that include sensory, soft play and food technology rooms.

We do not call this inclusion, but shared learning and both groups of staff are committed to introducing and developing new and different ways in which our pupils can learn together.

Mayfield’s work with Holte is a little younger but has expanded rapidly. The schools are less than a mile apart and have hopes one day of sharing a purpose built campus.

Our work together includes: -

• A member of Holte’s music department teaches at Mayfield.

• We are piloting the MENCAP citizenship programme ‘Transactive’. Through which pupils work together and share experience and learning via the Transactive web site.

• Designing and building sensory gardens.

• Students from Holte studying GCSE ICT coming to Mayfield as part of their coursework to investigate disability access.

• Science teachers have worked with the education officer at the Think Tank to plan and deliver a science project on Electricity.

Holte and Heathfield’s relationship is much older, built around the fact that many of Heathfield’s pupils attend Holte at secondary transfer.

Head Teacher’s perspective on the making of the Animation

The initial paperwork from Birmingham Children’s Fund came into school during the 2002 Autumn Term.

At Mayfield we had just completed a piece of work with the animation house ‘Moving Hands’ that had been funded by Wendy Hee at Birmingham Disability Arts.

The making of ‘Down the plughole’ had proved immensely popular with our young adults and it’s potential, as a vehicle for learning, had been clearly identified by the staff involved with the making of the film.

As Head Teacher I wanted this positive experience to continue. Initially I approached Moving Hands to see if they were interested in another collaboration, unfortunately their diary precluded this option.

Although disappointed I completed the initial children’s fund application form being as vague as possible. I still had the idea of what I wanted, but no one to work with. I then began talking with the Head Teachers of Holte School, Pat Walters and Heathfield School, Alex Powell-Williams about my ideas for an animated film with the core theme of bullying. As I had nothing else to offer their reaction was a little ‘lukewarm’. They however signed up to the idea and final forms were filled in and submitted.

My core problem remained, no animators, until that is I met with Maria Balshaw, Director of Birmingham Creative Partnerships. After listening attentively, Maria suggested I contacted a company called Hi8us. Initially I did not believe that any company would consider calling themselves Hi8us, but I overcame this and met with Kulwant Dhaliwal to discuss my ideas.

It very soon became apparent that Hi8us were not a company that worked in the style we had previously experienced. They are a web-based company who were interested in my ideas as long as the final product was web based.

Now, you will recall that my colleagues had a very positive experience working with Moving Hands, principally because our students could be totally involved with the whole artistic process. Our young people could make the music, produce the models, paint the scenery, and even take the pictures.

To be honest I was not convinced that we would be able to contribute to an animation produced in this very different way. Even during the initial discussion with Hi8us I’m pretty sure in my own mind I thought I would be able to convince them to collaborate with us and produce the animation the ‘old fashioned way’.

I had now to convince my colleagues that our young people could make a web based film. Surprisingly when I met with Jackie from Heathfield and Tim from Holte they were more enthusiastic about the possibilities this provided for learning and exploration.

Looking back now I can remember exactly the moment that I too became convinced that the collaboration and style would be successful.

It was immediately obvious that both Jackie and Tim were also impressed. So I now had partner schools, animators and a theme. We were nearly there. There was one final piece of the jigsaw to put into place. Before our pupil’s ideas could be made into an animation feature we needed to explore there feelings, experiences and concepts around the key issue of bullying.

Both Tim and Jackie had previously worked with artists from a local company who specialised in Drama improvisation, Sister Tree, indeed the group is well known for their work with youngsters, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds. Sister Tree were contacted and luckily were available and in late October all parties sat down to talk through ideas outcomes and eventually set dates of when the group of 30 pupils could meet and start work.

As someone once said the rest is history. We all hope you enjoy the outcome of our collaboration and can use it to create the right atmosphere for the work you want to develop with your pupils.

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