Liz Allton, Director of Education Development at Finham Park Multi-Academy Trust, shares how their ‘World Class Guarantee’ framework develops enquiring young citizens
Finham Park Multi-Academy Trust was established in 2015 and has grown to 8 schools all based in Coventry and Warwickshire. We are immensely proud of all of our schools, which include a vibrant mix of 4 Primary and 4 Secondary schools, representing a diverse range of communities that we are honoured to serve. Our schools include the most and least deprived communities and we aim to give all children as many opportunities and experiences in and out of school regardless of their starting points.
‘Schools in the Finham Park Multi Academy Trust will set out to pioneer, innovate and deliver a “World Class” education for all children from the age of 3-19 where the artificial barriers of stage and age are removed. Our education will aim to exceed the highest national and international benchmarks for academic achievement, whilst ensuring young people develop a passion for learning in all its contexts and are ready to take their place as active members of our global community.’
At FPMAT we believe that every child deserves to have the ‘time of their lives’ at school and an important part of that is learning about the world and key lessons from history, science, art etc.. from across the globe. Coventry and Warwickshire have a history of twinning and peace connections across the world, particularly after World War II. As part of developing their ‘belonging’ to their local area we want our children to learn about the importance of peace and reconciliation. Many of our schools are ‘Schools of Sanctuary’ where they are ‘committed to creating a culture of welcome, understanding and belonging for those forced to flee.’ Some of our schools are also part of the ‘Cross of Nails’ community with Coventry Cathedral, whose three guiding principles are: Healing the wounds of history, Learning to live with difference and celebrate diversity, and Building a culture of justice and peace.
All of our secondary schools are part of UCL Institute of Education’s Mandarin Excellence Programme (MEP) which was started in 2016. Finham Park School was one of the original pioneering schools on the programme. The most recent MEP visit in July 2024 included students from Finham Park School, Lyng Hall School and Finham Park 2. Meadow Park School, is the most recent of our school’s to join the Trust and started with its first group of Year 7s studying Mandarin in 2022. Those students are Year 9s this year and therefore next summer children from all 4 schools will be involved in a China trip. When students were there this year as well as visiting key tourist sites, they spent most days with their partner schools having lessons, learning about the culture and improving their Mandarin. You can watch our students talking about their trip and what it means them here.
‘Exciting, immersive, unique…’ students talking about their 11-day trip to Shanghai in July 2024. MEP trips are heavily subsidised to allow all students involved in the programme to be part of the experience. ’The impact [of this trip] is going to last a lifetime’.
On top of this in the last 12 months there have been multiple educational visits and exchanges by our schools to Spain, France, Germany, Poland, China, Japan and America. Finham Park School have recently introduced German to the curriculum so students can now study French, Spanish, German or Mandarin. Our Primary schools have a link with Warwick University’s Language department and the university’s student ambassadors visit our schools and deliver taster sessions in different languages to our Primary pupils.
In January 2024 all of our schools were recognised at UNESCO ASPnet schools. This is a brilliant accolade for the schools and our Trust as applications were based on what schools do in helping students to be more aware of different cultures, making links with UNESCO ASPnet schools in other countries and opportunities to learn about the importance of art, culture and peace. We were proud to be the first Trust to have all of their schools recognised as accredited UNESCO ASPnet schools. It is an important global network to be part of and has already given Finham Park 2 students amazing opportunities since they became a UNESCO school in 2022.
In September 2023 a group of students and teachers from Finham Park 2 along with students from a local primary in Coventry attended the UNESCO ASPnet Conference in Kyoto, Japan to work with children from 10 other countries across the world. The schools from different countries have remained in touch and in March 2024 we all took part in the Gift a Poem project launched by UNESCO ASPnet in Poland. The reports from all 22 countries that took part in the initiative are here.
In June 2024 another group of students from Finham Park 2 travelled to Paris, France with students from 4 other Coventry school (3 primary and 2 special school) to work with a partner school in France and visit the sites of the Olympics all funded and part of Coventry’s ‘Change Makers’ project. Both of these trips were free to students through donations, fundraising and funding applications to groups like The Turing Scheme so there were no barriers relating to costs stopping children from travelling.
Lyng Hall School have been a very active in promoting different cultures for many years. As a school that has a student population that speaks nearly 50 different languages it also does a lot of work around belonging in the Lyng Hall community and celebrating diversity. Culture days are a regular feature in the school’s calendar where traditional clothes are worn, food shared and music and sports from different cultures is experienced by all. Most recently students learned and had a go at playing Bossaball a team sport usually played on a Trampoline from Brazil and Oina a Romanian bat and ball game.
Lyng Hall School have also run many projects with a Holocaust Education Trust. Most recently a Year 12 student was part of the HET’s ‘Lessons from Auschwitz’ initiative where he not only visited Poland but took part in online seminars with other Post 16 students from across the UK and then led lessons in school to younger students to consider the relevance of this history in today’s world and spread the messages to ensure more young people are aware of the lessons learned and so not repeated. Immersive experiences we believe are so important for children to make connections to real world learning. ‘Hearing is not the same as seeing’.
Colleagues at all of the Finham Park MAT schools are always looking for opportunities to share with our children global perspectives whether that is through travel, having speakers into school or learning about it in the classroom. It is our responsibility to help students to grow, be thoughtful citizens of the world, be curious and develop a life-long love of learning.
The Finham Park MAT’s ‘World Class Guarantee’ is a framework of experiences that we want children in our schools to have engaged with by the time they leave our schools. Experiences are tracked so we can be confident that everyone has had the opportunity to broaden their horizons. The focus areas on the framework are: STEM, Global Citizenship, Creative Arts, Sustainability, Literacy and Languages, Student Leadership, Physical Activity and ‘Time of your life’.
