How do we know a Bishopstrow student, new to UK boarding, is beginning to settle in?
How do we know that a Bishopstrow student is making the progress that they need to make to succeed at their destination school?
How do we know when a Bishopstrow student is finally ready for their next step?
To answer theses questions, Bishopstrow College uses a bespoke Individual Learning Plan or “ILP” for short. It’s a unique, handmade, team-built response which we use in a unique way.
There are three types of Individual Learning Plans:
We produce an Initial ILP after a student’s first two weeks at the College, and then, each Term, we create and send out two main ILPs – a Mid Term ILP and an End of Term ILP.
The Initial ILP is a two-page report written by the student’s Academic Tutor and their Houseparent. The Initial ILP gives a first impression of the student in their new context. We comment on how they’re settling in. We give global – big picture – targets, which the Tutors identify through discussion with the students themselves.
The Mid-Term and End of Term ILPs are in-depth reports written by each of the student’s teachers and boarding staff. The Mid Term ILP gives you the student’s start of term results and sets targets. The End of Term ILP gives you the student’s end of term results and reports on the progress made towards the targets set.
The Five Virtues Key Performance Indicators
The first page of the Mid Term and End of Term ILP shows a summary of “The Five Virtues Key Performance Indicators”. This tells you how Kind, Polite, Hardworking, Organised and how much of a Team Player the student has been overall at the College.
You can dig deeper into the student’s behaviour in classes and in boarding by turning the page and examining each of the virtues in more detail. Each of the virtues is broken set in a specific context. So, for example, you can find out whether the student is considerate and respectful of classmates in classes as opposed to outside of classes.
To measure how well students show a virtue in that context we consider how much help the student needs to meet our standards; how much initiative the student shows and how much they influence others to achieve the standard. A new student who is just learning how to be polite might be viewed as “Working Towards” their target of being “…polite to peers in school, using only English and displaying good manners”. This means that the student isn’t meeting the standards we expect even though staff are helping them a lot and encouraging them to be polite. With a student that’s been at the College a long time, we might see them not only be polite but encourage others to be polite. We’d consider them a “Leader” because they meet the standards fully themselves and even influence others to be more polite.
This approach has two key benefits. Firstly, it presents a very clear picture of what the student can and can’t do at the time of the report. But, more importantly, it’s a caring approach to analysing behaviour because it sets out to the student a very specific area that they need to improve and serves as a starting point for dialogue with the student for teachers and parents.
Teachers or academic managers can sit down with students at the end of a term – or start of a new term, and ask the students to identify how they might work to improve their behaviour. Even if they’re doing well, they can still look to do a little better. Where students are struggling, teachers can provide support by considering different situations and providing the student with strategies that they can try to apply to gain success. Engaging with the student in this way raises their awareness of themselves and their own behaviour. It increases their ability to visualise the improvement they want to make. It provides them with public accountability to back up actions and it gives them a way to measure their own growth which improves their confidence.
Parents can use the ILP to provide targeted support from home. They can ask their child to talk through the evaluations and see whether they can explain the College’ view of their behaviour. Parents can ask their child how teachers and staff have followed up on the ILP targets and so get a sense of how the child feels about the improvements they’re being asked to make. Most of all, parents can celebrate their child’s achievements and ask questions about successes to get their child to recount the instances where they displayed the behaviour that staff have recognised.
Individual Learning Plans
Academics
Each section of the report will set out how well the student has engaged with their lessons; the skills and knowledge the student has been able to improve and specific areas that the student can work to improve next. Once again, the ILP positions itself to be used as an aid to driving student success by offering the student who reads it clear information about what they’ve done well and what they need to do better. The report offers the opportunity for the student’s teachers and parents to engage with the student positively and collaboratively.
Boarding
The boarding report is where parents can gain a sense of how their child is settling into a very different way of life in a very different culture. The feel of the boarding report is that of a carer spending time with a young person and really noticing things about them that simply don’t come out in structured classes. The boarding report speaks of the child’s relationships with peers and of their engagement with the wider boarding community through activities and trips and in the minutia of their everyday lives.
A unique and useful tool for carers
The Bishopstrow Individual Learning Plans are a unique and useful tool for helping show that students have come to terms with life in a UK boarding environment and for highlighting the progress they’re making academically and pastorally. It lets parents, agents and destination schools know exactly what kind of learner and person is going to be leaving the College. So, when the time is right, a good Bishopstrow Individual Learning Plan broadcasts loud and clear that the Bishopstrow student is absolutely ready!
Gregory Jackson
Director of Studies
