Hampton Court Palace 2013

A Canterbury Academy residential for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Learning Away programme

ContextWe deliver a residential camp in the grounds of Hampton Court Palace. The objective is to engage with the Palace and its grounds to inspire learners to increase attainment in curriculum subjects at level 2. Immersion within the historical environment combined with the social context of positivity creates results. This is an analysis of the outcomes from our 2012 camp.

AssessmentStudents were assessed before and after the sessions using the same assessment. No baseline assessment feedback was given to students in order that all progress could be directly attributed to the activities of the week. The questions were multiple choice, allowing results to be collected during the lesson using the Promethean Activ Pods. Progress was calculated as the students packed away at the end of the lesson and immediately shared with the students to demonstrate their progress.

Maths• The sessions and assessment topics were split into 3 sections,

directly attributable to GCSE outcomes: Pythagoras, Ratio and Area.

• The ‘pre-assessment’ results showed that on average the students got 22% of the Pythagoras questions correct. It also showed that in general, the students had a good knowledge of ratio questions before the residential’s maths sessions.

MathsTOPIC Pythagoras Ratio Area

PRE-ASSESSMENT 22% 54% 23%

POST-ASSESSMENT 63% 65% 57%

IMPROVEMENT 41% 11% 34%

These three topics are normally taught over a period of at least a term.

Just three lessons run in the context of the themed residential resulted in similar if not better results than would have been expected over the course of a standard programme of learning.

EnglishBy the end of the five day residential, 75% of learners had achieved or bettered their end of year target.

In English, 45% of the 77 learners improved by at least 1 sub-level over the course of the residential.

Science69% of learners made progress in every area.

90% of a low ability group who had no previous level 2 achievement attained at least 1 GCSE grade C.

Drama 6 of the 9 learners improved by 1 GCSE grade.

77% of learners achieved grade C or above.

Key areas of improvement included:– working with others– verbal feedback– confidence.

History 60% of learners improved by 1 GCSE grade or more.

42% of learners improved by 2 GCSE grades or more.

The majority of students showed a high level of engagement in their surrounding and demonstrated a superior understanding of the sources than before.

PEAll 12 pupils improved their scores after reassessment.

66% improved their score by 100% or more.

DTAll nine learners improved their scores over the course of the residential.

56% of learners improved their score by 100% or more.

Conclusion“I wouldn’t normally be in school until about 10.30am and the trip has made me realise that I need my education - I enjoy education, I enjoy learning…” Year 10 learner

“I mess about in lessons, but that’s because I’ve got nothing that helps me concentrate, there’s no inspiration at school. When I was at Hampton Court there was just loads of stuff to inspire me… I probably did more hours of work in that one week than I did in the whole of this term, I just had so much inspiration from it.” Year 10 learner

The partnership with Hampton Court Palace was a pleasure and an honour to develop:• The academic outcomes are outstanding.• The reflections of the learners are of a life long memory and

inspirational experience.• Staff have developed new relationships and skills.

This is a partnership we will be developing in the future.