27 Jan Sutton Park’s first year in Central RSA Academies Trust

A Year in the Life of an RSA School!

Having been a member of the Central Royal Society of Arts Academy Trust for just over a year I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the impact it has had at Sutton Park.

I am going to start with the opportunities that have been opened up to our children:

We started last year with our RSA Mural that has pride of place in the hall.  A massive collaboration between our children, parents, friends and family, staff and visiting children and staff from the other schools.

The RSA4 Social Action Programme saw 10 of our Year 4 class attend a range of workshops on leadership skills.  The children attended other schools and the University of Worcester for these.  They then worked together with the whole class to design a project that would impact positively on their community – they chose the environment and recycling as their focus which led to the setting up of our ‘Eco Council’ that is ongoing.

Due to their successes a further 10 children were invited to the #iwill Conference at Birmingham University.  This year’s RSA4 project promises to be even bigger still!

All of Year 5 and 6 had a very informative Q and A session with the CEOs of GiffGaff and O2 about what the most important skills are to make it in business.

14 Year 5 children went on a trip to RSA House in London to take part in ‘Artsfest’.  This involved working with children from across the Trust in a range of workshops where they had the opportunity to learn new skills from beatboxing to flagmaking.  This day culminated in a performance to an audience of Fellows!

All of Year 2 went for an away day at Abbeywood in Redditch.  They worked collaboratively on an art piece before heading out to a local park to play with new friends from RSA schools.

All of Year 6 had an away day at Ipsley Middle School where they took part in a range of workshops based in drama, art, sports and computing.

The current Year 6 class took part in ‘Takeover Day’ at RSA House in London so a further 10 children from this class got to visit our capital and take in the sights before going head to head with the other schools in a Dragon’s Den styled presentation to a panel of entrepreneurs.  This day was topped off with a trip to Pizza Hut to celebrate successes with new friends.

The outdoor mural is still a work in progress (I have left the S until last as it is the trickiest one!) Lots of the KS2 children have worked on this so far with our Artist in Residence – Victoria Harrison and soon it will be a permanent reminder of what RSA actually stands for!

We have also featured repeatedly in the RSA publication Design – Ed.  There are lots of copies in the office if you would like to take a look.

So, as you can see there have been lots of opportunities that the children have benefitted from in terms of visits and visitors.  There is also the purchase of the minibus which has allowed a wealth of events to occur at a fraction of the cost.

There has also been a wealth of support going on behind the scenes and the staff have also benefitted from a range of training – for example Philosophy 4 Children and Dilemma led learning that you might have heard your children talking about.

Oracy (speaking and listening skills) are a priority for Sutton Park and this has come through work that has been done with the Trust.  We have a working party in school but also I have been given the opportunity to take part in the National Oracy Leadership Programme with Voice 21 and Cambridge University.

Staff have also been involved in a range of Trust collaborations on curriculum design,  Safeguarding and much, much more!

A year on and the opportunities just keep coming.  There has been such a positive impact from the decision to become an RSA Academy that I wanted to share this with you.  So much happens in other classrooms and behind the scenes that you might not have realised quite the extent of the impact – thank you for taking the time to read this.

Kindest Regards,

Angela Crawley