GB cycling team’s golden secret puts school on track to success

 
Model professional: Victoria Pendleton at the 2012 Olympics (Picture: Getty)
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The headteacher of London’s most improved school told today how his staff have turned it around by following the same philosophy as the British cycling team.

City Academy Hackney has been transformed after staff employed the strategy of “marginal gains” — introducing a series of small changes which lead to a huge overall improvement. It helped Team GB achieve phenomenal success in the velodrome at the London Olympics, with stars including Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton helping the country win seven out of 10 gold cycling medals.

Now City Academy, which opened on the site of failing school Homerton House, has achieved the highest “value added” score in the capital with its first-ever GCSE results this year. It means its pupils make more progress between the time they start and finish school than anywhere else.

Headteacher Mark Emmerson said: “There is no magic bullet but we aspire to be the best in everything we do, we adhere to the core idea that brought so much success to the British Cycling team. It is the aggregation of marginal improvements which when taken as a whole make the difference.”

The philosophy was adopted by Sir Dave Brailsford, director of British Cycling at the time of the Olympics. “Marginal gains” were obtained from actions such as riders taking the same pillow to training camps, and washing their hands properly to reduce the risk of them becoming ill.

Despite many children arriving at City Academy with results significantly below the national average, 81 per cent of pupils passed five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C, including English and maths, last summer.

Small changes introduced include free porridge for pupils in the morning, compulsory after-school clubs, lunch at communal tables, banning “street language”, and making sure senior staff walk the corridors and pop into classrooms regularly.

Mr Emmerson, 53, said: “We are always searching for the one thing that improves school. But all the little things when you add then together make a huge difference.

“There are lots of books written about [school improvement] but I could encapsulate it on two sides of A4. I am not particularly clever or brilliant, but it’s actually a model that can be done in lots of situations.”

The school, which is sponsored by the City of London and KPMG, introduced communal lunches in 2009. Pupils sit with teachers and serve each other from dishes in the centre of the table. It means children learn social skills and can concentrate in afternoon lessons.

Mr Emmerson said he believed there is a “myth” about the amount of paperwork teachers are expected to fill out, and schools “make a rod for their own back” with unnecessary bureaucracy.

He and other senior staff walk into classrooms themselves to check homework is being marked correctly, instead of forcing teachers to fill in “cumbersome” forms to prove it.

A data team analyses pupils’ test results so teachers do not have to spend time “poring over spreadsheets”. The team regularly prints out names of children who are at risk of falling behind and need extra help.

Including after-school clubs, the school day lasts from 7.30am to 6.30pm. Mr Emmerson admitted City Academy benefited from being close to other high-performing schools including Mossbourne Academy and Clapton Girls’ Academy, and there was “cross-fertilisation of ideas.”

He said high expectations, good behaviour and excellent teaching were the foundations of a good school. “I have always believed what we are doing is transferable,” he added.

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