Plantsbrook Academy & Starbank Academy
We recently visited Jason Farr and Emma Thom at Plantsbrook Academy and Gaetano Ferrante at Starbank Academy in Birmingham to see what they had to say about Impress Education, and the impact we have had since we began working with them.
EXPertise throughout the UK
External intervention you can trust
Impress Education prides itself on providing UK schools with external intervention led by some of the best teaching practitioners in the country, we have over 200 practitioners working to build capacity and impact outcomes in schools.
We only recruit Lead Practitioners, Heads of Department and Senior Leaders in Education who are also trained Examiners, and our teams are led by Senior Examiners from each of the main Exam Boards.
The King John School
Our expert practitioners took groups of students in English, Maths and Science on a deep-dive into what Examiners most wanted to see in examination responses.
Students benefited from Impress methodologies which trained the students to view their own work as the if they were their own Examiner. School leaders have asked us to return repeatedly due to the incredible impact.
What our schools say:
EDEN BOY’S SCHOOL, BIRMINGHAM
Our Work
47 students attended a two-day masterclass where an Examiner/Head of English demystified how to attract full marks in the questions all students had formerly under-performed in.
Their feedback
“Firstly, I wanted to share our exceptional results with you – we got 98% 5+ overall with 48% 7-9. We are absolutely over the moon, as you can imagine! The students seemed to excel in P1 Q4 particularly, and I think your session really helped them to master that question! So, with that in mind, we were hoping to look at booking some sessions for next year.
Michelle Pitt
Lead Practitioner, English
The Gateway Academy, Tilbury
Our Work
17 students enjoyed a day with our Founder Stephen Caldwell delivering a masterclass on how to apply the Impress planning methodology and the careful crafting of structural features to the 40-mark question 5 Narrative response. The second day was led by a Senior Examiner from AQA, who oversees our resource creation. Before the day had finished the Principal, Grainne McLaughlin asked for the Impress team to come back and run a Walking Talking Mock for the whole Yr11 cohort.
Their feedback
“Compared to their literature results in 2019 the students who took part increased their grade by an average of 1.125. Their predictions have also increased by 0.75 of a grade overall which shows the increased confidence of their teachers. The most engaged students have already achieved a grade 4 on this paper and others are well on their way. Most were able to use their stories really well and adapted them for the question and showed a significant improvement on their writing from their mock in June. All students improved their grades from the mock. The other benefit has been the progress of the disadvantaged students has accelerated and is close to the performance of the non-disadvantaged students.”
Trudi Bryant
Assistant Principal, Head of English
SToke High School, ormistion academy
Our Work
Our English and Maths Lead Practitioners delivered a term of Saturday schools for a targeted group of Year 11s and following each session the students were provided with booklets which clearly showed the progress made and set extension work to be completed for the following Saturday.
Their feedback
“We have been super impressed with the Saturday school and also our learners’ engagement with this.”
Robert Radley
Assistant Principal
Preston High School, Yeovil
Our Work
17 Year 11s were led on a 2 day deep dive into the mark scheme focusing on maximising their chances of attaining all 32 marks for technical accuracy across both AQA English Language papers and refining their responses to the tricky Evaluation question.
Their feedback
“Your sessions were extremely well-received with many students, staff and families (emailing in off their own back!) saying how positively the students have responded to them and how much the two days helped. Thank you, it seems to have made a real difference.”
Gregg Morrison
Principal
What do our students say?
Neve and Neve explaining how Impress Education has helped them.
Max and Owen describing the impact of an impress Masterclass and the difference understanding the mark scheme makes.
