Educational Partnership with City Heights E-ACT Academy
The Academy opened in September 2013 with Dulwich College acting as an educational partner.
The College and the Academy identify the main areas of need each academic year and encourage ways for students and staff to work together on learning and development opportunities.
In 2020-21 this had a heavy focus on mathematics support and two-way learning between students in languages and current affairs.
Aims
We have recently drawn together a MOU for the education partnership that exists as we strive to cement our partnership with the academy under the newly appointed Headteacher.
Background
The College has acted as an educational partner to the Academy since its opening in September 2013. The College aims to provide support for its educational work and to establish links and activities that benefit both schools through shared experience and good practice. The campuses of the College and City Heights are just two kilometres apart, which supports regular interactions between staff and pupils.
Resources
Dulwich College's Assistant Head External is now the Chair of the Ambassadorial Group for the Academy and the Deputy Master External remains a trustee of E-ACT Multi-Academy Trust, where he serves as a member on both the Education and Personnel Committees and advises on matters related to community engagement.
Impact
A joint bid from the College and the Academy secured funding from the Worshipful Company of Actuaries for Mathematics enrichment. With the cash element of the bid, City Heights were able to fund Action Tutoring for two Year 11 classes and specialist resources to enhance numerical outcomes for SEND pupils.
Pupil Involvement
One highly qualified teacher from the College, with maintained-sector experience, attended the Academy one afternoon per week to support the top Year 11 mathematicians. The sessions focussed on problem-solving and exposed pupils to the trickiest questions that can be posed at GCSE. All pupils enjoyed improved examination performance and three quarters of the group opted to study the subject further at other schools and sixth forms. In the absence of formal GCSEs to prepare for, the group were also able to devote time to some A-Level preparation. The connection between our departments will be further strengthened in September by the placing of an exceptionally well-suited Mathematics SCITT trainee.
Year 12 mathematicians from the College gave further assistance to the Academy’s GCSE cohort via the Colet Mentoring mobile app. City Heights pupils connected virtually during scheduled ‘homework hours’ with our trained Year 12 mentors providing 1:1 support with challenging GCSE examination questions.
The Academy is geographically situated in an area with a high population of Portuguese speakers. Year 10 pupils from this community have been teaching Portuguese language and Brazilian culture to Year 10 College pupils in a weekly Portuguese club.
The entirely pupil-led ‘One Voice: Two Schools’ social justice themed conference was organised by a College student who had previously been Head Boy at the Academy. In collaboration with pupils from both schools a 75-minute webinar was held exploring different areas of social justice via open discussion.
The multi-disciplinary ‘Sugar Workshop: The Taste of Colonialism’ was part of the Being Human festival and connected the schools and speakers via zoom. Artist Karen McLean led pupils from both schools on an exploration of the legacy of sugar via a talk and then the casting of sugar manillas using pre-delivered kits. In the second half of the session Dr Keith Jarrett, poet, explored sugar further through a poetry-writing workshop.
Frequency
The partnership has wider provided opportunities to share expertise. The College was able to offer senior Academy staff a tour of our covid testing centre ahead of schools’ re-opening in September. The Director of Art has offered in-person support relating to GCSE Art coursework when the Academy had no trained Art teacher in-situ.
Although our timetables remained aligned, covid restrictions meant that we were unable to welcome CHEA pupils onto campus for our scheduled PE lessons. We are pleased that the relaxing of rules has meant that we can resume our outdoor Games lessons, swimming lessons and Liberal Studies Mathematics programme.