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Newsletter


We have had much to celebrate over this last term with key developments in the
Sports Partnership, Behaviour Strategy development and progress in a range of
projects and initiatives. In this summer newsletter we will be highlighting some of these.

We are also sad to say this is the last term for some of our longest serving head teachers
Barry Bates from Frome College and Davina Henson from Beckington First School. We will miss
their wisdom and experience as well as their companionship within the partnership.

FCLP goes online


AT the AGM in June we launched the new Frome Community Learning Partnership website. www.fromeclp.org.uk . The web site was initiated by the ICT project led by John Webb and developed by Tom Powley at Frome College. In it’s later stages of development we have been helped by local businessman Adam Bowman who set up his own company several years ago in website design and support having been a former pupil of Hayesdown first school, Selwood Middle school and Frome College. Adam brought Tom Powley’s expertise to life bringing in new ideas which made the web site reflect the focus of the Partnership. We encourage you to visit the web site, explore some of the work of the pupils within the Partnership and gain more understanding about the role of FCLP. This new web site sits along side the Frome Active site which gives information to young people about activities in and around Frome. www.fromeactive.org.uk

Frome Community Learning Partnership
Annual General Meeting


Photo of FCLP Members

On the 23rd of June community professionals, head teachers and governors came together to celebrate the work of the FCLP of schools over the past year. The meeting was able to hear about the developments and plans for a number of the projects which have been running over this last year, seeing clips from films made by the children, hearing about innovative ways to get students involved in exercise and coaching, hearing first hand from children how they can help each other through transition between schools and from head teachers about how standards are being raised in writing particularly for boys.

In the meeting also heard about the collaborative efforts to bring about a shared approach to behaviour and attendance among pupils. The partnership now has a strong structure with considerable resources to develop services and ensure that agencies are working together. Mark Armstrong (head teacher at Critchill) spoke about how the Partnership has been successful in attracting funds, including £90,000 to improve behaviour across Frome Schools. A charitable trust has now been established to administer this income, whilst Simon Bishop from Christchurch is leading a group which has established a common behaviour policy for Frome. Simon, who recently had a book published on Nurture Education, pointed up the importance of ‘consistency’ across the schools in raising expectations of good behaviour. The improvement in behaviour across the schools is already being noticed.

A Message to Governors


John Webb (chair of the FCLP Forum) also spoke at the AGM. He shared with the meeting the heads planning work understanding the priorities for the coming years. John noted that the Head teachers had identified 10 key priorities which included raising achievements, tackling sustainable and green issues, supporting multi-agency working,

In particular John raised the issue of the approach to education in Frome. John emphasised that governors must engage with this issue together to create our own vision of how education should be governed and delivered. He said that Frome had a strong partnership from which plans and decisions can be made about what is right for greater Frome. He shared that both the Government and Somerset County Council have views on what education should be like, but in the end the Governors and Head teachers in Frome were in the best position to make informed and workable plans.

Lost Leaders!

Davina Henson, head of Beckington First School, retires at the end of the Summer term after many years of service in Frome including 17 years as Head teacher at Beckington. Prior to this she spent time at Oakfield as a Year 6 teacher. The children always had the utmost respect for her as a teacher and responded to her firm but caring teaching style. Davina then became a Somerset’s advisers. After this it was no surprise at all when her career took her into headship. The work she has done at Beckington is testament to her tenacity and desire to put her school on the map often in the face of stiff competition and when many people would have given up. Davina has also embraced the work of the FCLP and we will miss her greatly.

Barry Bates, Principle of Frome Community College, also retires this term after 17 loyal and dedicated years service not only to the College but to the other 16 schools in the FCLP. When delivering presentations Barry has often used the quote “it takes a whole village to educate a child”; for greater Frome Barry has been at the heart of that village. Barry has shown a genuine interest in all our learners from those in Pre School to the many adult learners accessing a range of educational opportunities in and around Frome.

Barry has been instrumental in the development of many initiatives, including, ECOS, Media Arts Status, Frome Inclusion Partnership, Frome Education & Training Enterprise, FCLP, Frome Forum, The Saxon Vale site & Extended Schools. There are too many more to mention, however, what can be said is that Barry’s work has been an inspiration to us all! Barry’s achievements will continue to benefit learners in greater Frome for many years to come; & his enthusiasm & tenacity will continue to inspire those that have been privileged to work with him.

We are also sadly losing Jan George and Godfrey from our Forest Schools Project. Forest school is one of the most valued FCLP projects and hundreds of children benefit from this provision each year. However FCLP head teachers have had to look again at this service as ‘Children’s Fund’ money will no longer be available. This has led to the hard decision to close the present project, but we are now happy to say we have been able to set up a project in a more sustainable model for the autumn. We need to thank Jan and Godfrey for their excellent service, and look forward to having Linda Partington and Tracey Wacey as our new forest school leaders starting in September 08.

We wish the best for all our colleagues in their new endeavors.

Language and Culture


In March The Partnership carried out an audit of teaching available in Frome schools in different languages. French is now taught in all our schools, with some children as young as four gaining opportunities to learn and speak French and Spanish. Several of our schools now teach Spanish and German is available from Middle school up wards.

In the autumn term the Partnership will be developing our modern foreign language teaching having successfully bid for County funding. The project will be looking at how we build language knowledge across all three stages of schooling in Frome, first, middle and college and looking at shared opportunities which get students involved in teaching and learning in different schools across the partnership.

Image of the French Flag Three of the schools also had a special “French Day”. With the help of a French Foreign Language Assistant throughout this last year. Rode, Berkley and Norton St Philip schools had a special day when they met together for all things French which was great fun for everybody.

Image of the Ghana FlagFurther a field International links have been established between Selwood School and Uaddara Basic School in Ghana, following a visit by two teachers in February. To return the compliment we are paying for the head teacher of the Ghana school to visit Selwood in July, coinciding with a multi-cultural week when all pupils will be split into vertical groups and will choose to participate in 9 or 10 workshops, including African drumming, designing Ghanaian cloth and performing ‘Africa Rocks’ - a musical involving over 80 pupils.

Other, more sustainable links coming out of the partnership include communicating by e-mails but also through the good, old-fashioned method of pen-pals.

Developing Sustainability and Healthy living in Schools


Berkley School is an Eco School and in this last term held a special ‘Green Day’ where we focussed on sustainable energy sources. All three classes spent time investigating wind power and made their own windmills and wind turbines. It was a particularly blustery day so everyone had a wonderful time outside watching their windmills working! We also had workshops on solar power. Children designed and made solar powered boats and tried them out in a tank of water. We were able to keep all the solar panels so we will be able to spend lots of time investigating solar power further in the future! We recently achieved our Silver award.

Photo of Students with Eco Friendly Berkley Bags

As part of our Eco Schools work we have been developing ‘The Berkley Bag’. We rose to the challenge to become a ‘plastic bag free school’. The children worked on designs for the bag and then the whole school was given the chance to vote for their preferred design. This was then sent off to be made up into the Fairtrade bag. We are delighted with the result. Every member of the school community and the local Berkley community have received [or will be receiving] one of these bags. Currently each person in the UK uses an average of 216 plastic bags a year, if we use our Berkley Bags, then collectively as a school we will remove 19,656 bags from circulation every year. And if the whole family does this we could remove around 72,800 bags a year from circulation. WOW! Quite something to be proud of we think!

We also held another ‘Healthy School’ cross curricular week. This time we focussed on Healthy Food and had a really enjoyable week sampling new tastes and textures. We made smoothies using a bicycle to generate the power to run the blender which was exciting!

At Selwood Middle school the pupils helped to enhance what is offered through the activities of the Green group, which includes developing projects such as more gardening plots and a pond area. The pupils work with the School Business Manager on premises developments including classroom refurbishing as a result solar panels will be installed next year. Homework was collapsed for Year 8 pupils for a fortnight in January and was replaced by a project in which groups of pupils made presentations about what Selwood would look like in the future – this included making models of their future designs. Their best ideas will be built into the school action-plan for sustainability. The school is also currently being considered for representation as a ‘Food for Life’ flagship school.

All these activities are part of Frome partnership of schools aim to develop and build our understanding and response to the need to conserve energy and find practical ways in which we can look after our planet. At the Annual Partnership Conference in March the head teachers identified this issue as a key challenge for the coming years and are looking at how we can invest greater resources in enabling our schools to be sustainable and enable the next generation to have knowledge and experience to live health lives.

Sports Partnership


Photo of football training

This year has been a great year for sport, with the help of Lucy Gardner and Anna Pullen (our sports partnership coordinators) the children have been able enjoy a wide range of activities and competitions. Including a Tag Rugby competition, several interschool football matches and the Small Schools Swimming Gala. The schools have made some key achievements, such as: