Power to the pupils

11:35am Thursday 25th January 2007

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CLAIRE METCALFE is bowled over by a school which has gone from failure to success, thanks to dedicated staff and a bunch of motivated children who are proud to play their part in the turnaround.

SOMETHING special has happened at Welburn Primary School.

You can feel it when you walk into the smart, newly-decorated building. Staff and pupils alike are brimming with excitement and pride for the high-achieving school which has just been given a glowing Ofsted report. And they have more reason than most schools to be pleased.

Rewind to 2003 and the school had just failed an inspection, placing it in special measures.

Headteacher of the 51-pupil school, Helen Thomson, said: "There was no pride in the place, the children didn't have any confidence. They didn't see themselves as learners - you could see it in their body language - and the building itself was in a really poor state of repair."

When she walked in a year after the failed inspection, she wanted to change things, and she did.

Now the school exists in brilliant Technicolor, filled with happy, enthusiastic people doing all sorts of exciting things - and everyone taking a keen interest in what's happening.

Mrs Thomson's philosophy on teaching involves a lot of activity to make things as interesting as possible. She believes in the individual needs of the child, and making them feel like an important part of their learning - rather than passive recipients.

Teachers now tell the children what they are going to learn, and explain its relevance and usefulness in the real world. "For example, when we were doing ratio, which seemed quite an abstract concept to me when I learnt it at school, we made cakes and mixed paints, " said Mrs Thomson.

The place has been transformed physically as well. Before, they were having to cope with an old school building with just two rooms. There was no school hall, a prefabricated building to eat in and very little office space.

Those two original classrooms have now been enveloped by a new building, which provides a bright, spacious room for Class 1, including its own outdoor play area, and a new reception area, staff room and headteacher's office, library and toilets.

Another very important change was the introduction of an active school council.

"It is a school council with teeth, " said Mrs Thomson. "I think that if you ask children their opinion and offer them responsibility, they very quickly become disheartened if you don't follow through on it."

She said that, after a lot of work had been done at the school, the council said that they would also like new toilets. "Everywhere else was starting to look very nice but their toilets were still quite grotty, so they had a point, and they got their new toilets."

It was just before Christmas when the school's latest Ofsted report revealed just how far things had moved on. Inspector Jim Griffin wrote: "This is an excellent school.

The headteacher and her staff are fired by the shared belief in putting the needs of pupils first. The outcomes from this simple, clear philosophy are remarkable. Pupils make excellent progress academically, show outstanding personal qualities and the care they get is excellent."

Class 2 teacher Marion Fraser has been at the school for 17 years, and she loves working with her seven to nine-year-olds.

"I think it's the family atmosphere with the children and all the staff, " she said. "And working together as a team. They are smaller classes so everybody knows everybody and it's not just the ones in your class that you get to know, so it is less of a big step when the children change classes."

The children are sports mad, and they get visiting trainers teaching PE and tag rugby.

"They are crazy about sport, and I think it's because this is still a traditional countryside area with an outdoor lifestyle, " said Mrs Thomson.

So it's lucky that they have such wholesome hearty school dinners to fuel them.

"When the school was put into special measures, practically the only good thing the inspectors had to say for the place was about the school dinners, " said Mrs Thomson. "We are so lucky, our cook Marjorie Murray has been here for 27 years and she is brilliant.

She believes in meat and two veg."

Marjorie knows all the children and is Welburn-born and bred. In fact, she went to the school herself, as did her mother and her daughter. The children have started an organic vegetable patch, and their first crop was five radishes! Marjorie performed a minor miracle by dividing them between 51 hungry children.

"They've always had healthy dinners, but I don't like pasta - it doesn't seem like a proper meal to me!" she said. Showing me the menu, she pointed out some popular dishes, including sausage, Yorkshire pudding, cabbage, carrots, mashed potato and crusty bread.

She is looking forward to getting more produce from the children's vegetable patch this year. A recent addition, it was created with a grant by the Howard Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty as part of a wildlife area, along with a nature pond.

The pupils, staff and parents created the area themselves, but had to call in help when it came to filling the pond with water.

"Malton's Red Watch firefighters came and did it, " said Mrs Thomson. "The children were very excited, as they have been heavily involved in the project."

At the end of my visit, I spoke to some past and present members of the school council.

Alistair Mitchell from Year 5, served on it last year, and thinks it is a great idea.

"If adults make all the decisions, then they might not think in the same way as children, " he said. His council voted to get new bike stands.

Esme Queen from Year 4, who was on the council two years ago, thinks it is a great idea. "We have done lots of things like get new fancy bins and more equipment, " she said.

Lewis Rawlings, who is currently on the council, said: "We had a meeting today and decided that some of our play equipment needs to be replaced. Some of the Year 1s are a bit shy on the council but it's good experience for them."

Education rules mean that small schools with less than 11 Year 6 pupils cannot publish their results - which is frustrating for Welburn. But the confidence and enthusiasm these children have speaks for itself, and it is as obvious to a lay-person as it is to a school inspector that this one scores 100 per cent.