In 1984 the school was renamed to Springfield School and was taken over by Wiltshire county council providing specialist help with students both male and female with specialist needs providing residential care for up to 50 pupils. In 2010 the School was awarded Academy status and is now known as the Springfield Academy it provides specialist care for statement students with complex social and learning difficulties. The Academy takes great pride in providing award level of care, whilst providing a challenging and stimulating environment. The
Academy works towards affording students the opportunities for both academic and vocational study to build towards their own self confidence and abilities, to aid in their own development and self-belief so they believe they can also succeed in today’s society, self-belief and low self- esteem is a recurring theme within the students at Springfield Academy. The Academy as it stands today also holds a dual role within the community, acting as a specialist sports college delivering a high level of specialist coaching for children who have been identified as being gifted and talented in sport.
As well as delivering ‘sport for all’ in which they actively promote sport within the wider community, they have built their reputation through well- established multi-agency working practices and by providing children, families, schools and the wider community with sporting and education services which includes providing professional coaching, and mentoring at their individual point of need. 1. 1 – Rationale for choice Springfield Academy was selected as the main aim of the project, for numerous reasons some were from a personal perspective, and the other reasons were from using a more methodical approach to my selection.
The main point of interest was that Eve personally seen the school evolve and grow in size and reputation over the last 5 years, they have also close links with professional sporting bodies like Swanson FCC and Bath University. I wanted to find out the driving the forces behind this transformation and find out if it was a team effort or being driven Just by the Principle Mr. Tristan Williams. 2 – Research Methodology 2. 1 – Methods used for research I used various techniques to try and enhance my own learning experience, some of these ideas were taken directly from the BABE programmer, like Primary and
Secondary methods and the others were from more obvious areas of open resources: Internet Backbone Visiting the School in person 2. 2 – Primary methods: Interview staff mainly from the bottom up in this instance I chose a Teaching Assistant from the school, middle management, and then the Principle himself Mr. Tristan Williams. Researched the School myself with an open approach, about its views and vision on Innovation and creativity. Visited the Academy on several occasions, looked around the premises to explore the visual structures they have put in place to reflect creativity in and around the Academy. 2. Secondary methods: Examined the Academies website in great depth, analyzing anything that alluded to Innovation plans from the capture, to implementation stage to the creativity of the concept. Investigated the Core area of business of Springfield Academy. Looked at current innovation plans or concepts to support their vision as at 26/11/13. Utilized the Schools Backbone site. Looked at Youth clips involving the school. 3 – Innovation strategy The Springfield Academy has an innovation plan in place, and this is distributed throughout the Academy and on line, the details within this Plan covers topics like: Strengths.
Areas for Development. Behavior Judgment. Safety Judgment. Leadership Management. And is available on its website, this is extracted from a long term, 3 and 5 year plan which is only available in the Academy, this Plan is dated September 2013 and is for the next 12 months, and is reviewed quarterly from the Academies senior management team a copy of this can be found at http:// springfieldsacademy. Fluency’s. Co. UK/About-Us the plan is included in my appendices and a hard copy is available labeled as Appendix 1.
In my opinion this is a really good tool (Innovation 12 month plan) as everyone is included and gives all the Taft short term goals to achieve, and operates a sense of inclusion, my evidence for this, will be questions contained in the questionnaire Appendix 4 (Do you feel as if your included in new ideas for the Academy? ) I feel this demonstrates Just part of the innovation and creativity that takes place within the academy. As I found on the BBC (British Quality Foundation) forum (BBC Gag 1st 2012) Creativity is thinking of something new.
Innovation is implementing something new. It is quite simple. If you generate 500 great ideas in a brainstorming session then you have shown super creativity. But there is no innovation until you by using this quote, Springfield Academy has shown they have created the ideas but also followed through by producing the Innovation Plan. 4- Innovation phases 4. 1 Searching of ideas The School is continuously driven to find new ideas mainly because the amount o funding available from government and local authorities is not enough to cover t schools expenditure.
There is currently a short fall of around El so mainly from self-induced pressures, internally they find themselves being financially drive to create and implement new ideas. They are however driven by OFFSET and the UDF (Department for Education) but once they are nearing the end of a project, members of staff will go and visit other schools nationally who have exemplary OFFSET reports to see if they can adapt or implement some proven best practices this isn’t Just a case of copying ideas, as certain idea’s wouldn’t work due to the complex needs of the students within Springfield.
They also regularly attend seminars held by Professor Barry Carpenter who provides information and conch on children with emotional or complex learning difficulties, Complex needs convention Barry Carpenter (2013) after attending the seminar held by Barry Carpenter the selected staff said “they felt motivated and inspired to come up wit new ideas to benefit the students and Academy’. 4. – Selection Process Before I questioned the Academy about the Selection process I read several article and examined different approaches to the selection process in the context of Innovation, the one that stood out most for myself was Robert B. Tucker (2013) Se Strategies for Generating Ideas the following text stood out for me and provided a good platform to ask questions from. “Creative, game-changing ideas will always an element of serendipity to them, and will never be producible on demand.
But today’s economic climate of slowing growth has caused a small but growing group organizations to rethink how ideas happen and to examine what they can do to implement better innovation processes”. The following diagram will hopefully help explain the 3 areas we focused on: The Academy encourages ideas to develop from the bottom up, this is achieved b holding staff meetings to discuss future and current plans once every month, but final decision will be made by senior management taking into account all the ABA criteria, reputation of the Academy, reputation of the Principle or Financial incentive.
When I questioned the staff about the selection I used the example wow you select an idea with considerable financial gain over the reputation of the Academy or yourself, The management team replied “All concepts and ideas are discussed but we remain adamant the final criteria has to influence or benefit the young people within the Academy over and beyond anything else”. The purpose of the diagram is an example of how they consider all ideas but keep the needs of the Student at the forefront, we used this diagram during our Q&A (Questions and Answers) during the Primary research stage. . 3- Implementation The Springfield Academy has a very stream lined implementation process, once the idea has been selected (in this instance Extreme Classrooms) the senior management team will then hold another separate brainstorming session this will incorporate, detailing tasks off to each department but to also include them in bringing the concept to life. I’ll use the latest programmer extreme classrooms as an example, ‘Extreme Classrooms’ is a phrase used in two ways at Springfield Academy.
It is used to describe a broad range of learning that covers relevant geographical, historical or philosophical themes and topics. However it also applies too pedagogical approach that promotes innovation in all curriculum areas to enhance engagement with learning. Learning outside the classroom, whether collecting mini bugs on site, Forest Schools or trekking to Everest Base Camp, is an intrinsic element of good practice in Extreme Classrooms.
Further information contained in Appendix 2. This idea was a concept the school wanted to take forward, and all the staff wanted to be involved, as well as expeditions to Kenya (hottest classroom in the world) and an artic expedition (the coldest classroom) they detailed the Art department to run their themes alongside them, so the Students began drawing pictures and learning about different cultures.
This is Just one example but I think it does show inclusion from the top down, as the ideas were welcomed from the bottom up, everyone has brought into the idea, and as such they have found that each sub department is now creating their own innovations based on this direction from the management. 4. 4- Capture The last part of this innovation phase, I asked the staff within Springfield how it looks after its own innovation concepts, this was one of the questions on the questionnaire, ND were their procedures in place to protect its Intellectual Property Rights (PR).
Surprisingly this doesn’t seem a big priority to the Academy, as most of its ideas and innovation is widely published as it comes to the forefront, the only exception to this was the Extreme Classroom idea, as the financial implication of other Academies or Schools copying was significant due to Sky TV doing a documentary on the Academy with the Students on the expeditions, a link to no-mountain-high-enough-for-the- Springfield-academy is available in the references. 5 – People and Organization 5. Organizational structure Springfield Academy would think they have an Organic organization, Burns, T. & Stalker, G. M. (1961), The Management of Innovation ‘Organic organization thrives on the power of personalities and relationships, lack of rigid procedures and communication, and can react quickly and easily to changes in the environment, thus it is said to be the most adaptive form of organization. Decisions arise from the needs felt by individuals in the group, who propose changes to the group, either by discussion or by changing behavior or operations without discussion.
The rest of the individuals in the group adapt to the changes as they need to’. And looking at the Senior Leadership table in appendix 3 you would be lead to believe this is the case, but even though they are conscious that Ideas are allowed to develop from the bottom up, once they reach the top they are dealt with in a authoritarianism style all the way through the implementation phase by the senior management team. . 2 – Leadership For this comparison I selected five personnel, from ranging positions to complete the CORE score, as the results were very similar I will show two ends of the spectrum, at he top the Principle, and then a grass roots perspective by comparing the CORE score to a Teaching Assistant at the Academy. C. O. R.
E Score Charts The scores highlighted two key areas for research purposes, firstly the openness to new ideas of the Principle (this was also the case for the other 2 Associate Principles) and then the lack of appetite for the teaching assistant to take risks, when questioned about the lack of desire to take the risks the repose was, “once we are given the direction by management they are not keen for us to digress” this goes against and supports, is Springfield an Organic organization? 3 – Organizational Culture The Organization structure at Springfield Academy is very robust, almost to the point of being to structured, my observation for this is a round hole, round peg every single person has a clear Job description and outline of responsibilities, but there seems little opportunity for the inter exchanging of ideas or the use of adapting the skills and qualities of each other to help increase the Academy as a whole.
An example of this is where the concept of Extreme Classrooms came to the forefront it was the vision of the Principle that this idea happened, it was then broken down not as we loud do the in the Military, as in chose the best or appropriate SEEM (Subject Matter Expert) but more this falls under your department so you are the lead, the personnel within that department may not have the right vision in terms of creativity or innovation to carry out the necessary tasks. . 4 – Organizational Climate The climate in and around the Academy definitely feels controlled, this is perhaps due to the environment in which they operate, the staff at Springfield find the Job both physically and mentally demanding, they provide support to pupils in both classroom and residential situations. Some of the pupils have physical conditions which require intervention by staff, this is the reason the structure up to senior management is so controlled.
The senior management will say that everyone has a voice and is invited to be creative, but I’m not convinced with further evidence from the questionnaire (Do you feel encouraged to be Creative) and with so many legislations, health and safety procedures and all the internal policies in place, the room to take risks is minimal. The staff also feel slightly dictated too, supporting evidence used during the Primary research (Staff interviews) they really feel there is title room for maneuver, even within their sub departments.
This is proven on the CORE score where the teaching assistant felt as if she couldn’t take any risks without any repercussions. 5. 5 – Organizational Resources The Resources currently available at Springfield Academy are fantastic, ranging from the vocational centre in which the students learn real life time vocational skills, ranging from Building Envy’s through to Hair dressing, they also have superb sporting facilities this allows them to invite outside agencies in to help fund further projects.
An example of this will be FCC Scale Youth Football team they hire out the Schools Astor turf training facility four nights a week to conduct Youth football training, this brings in a regular income together with their extended programmer in which outside agencies pay to use the Academies facilities, details available in the reference, allows up to a further 400 Students attend the Academy on a non-residential basis, further generating more external revenue. 5. – Entrepreneurial approach Even though I have suggested the School may not be massively receptive to new ideas materializing from the bottom up there is no doubt that the key players within the senior management team, do pose entrepreneurial qualities, to generate an income of over per annum is credible to the team, whist providing award warning care for the students, Just walking around the premises and seeing the signs invites you into thinking the school is always evolving and welcoming Innovation, below are Just an example of the many signs you see around the Academy: 6- Evaluation and Recommendations 6. – Summary Throughout this report into Creativity and Innovation, the senior management team as allowed access into areas not usually looked at from external sources, they have been welcoming and approachable on all aspects of the report. Springfield Academy is well operated at all levels, this has been proven over recent years with outstanding OFFSET reports, they challenge innovation (during their quarterly reviews) and have put in place an Innovation plan, which is accessible by both members of the public and staff themselves.
This is established at short, mid and long term, short term being 12 months and is driven by instant success that is required by the management team, and are usually given after wash briefs I. . After OFFSET have visited the school, the 3 and 5 year plans contain more Creativity thoughts alongside the Innovation plan and look into the vision of the Academy and where it wants itself to be in 3 and 5 years’ time.
Proof of Creativity is evident at the premises, the use of visual signs, motivation captions and the outdoor classroom (part of the extreme classrooms) all go towards supporting this case, the external agencies like Swanson Town FCC, Bath Rugby, Scale Netball, and FCC Scale, adds real value to the Sports College side as does the support to the local and regionally schools supporting and evolving the gifted and talented recognized children in Sport, this brings in extra value and has been one of the success stories within the Academy. . 2 – Recommendations Motivation is the key in any Business, this allows all employers to feel a sense of importance and feel as if they can contribute at every level and could make the Academy even more prosperous, My main focus in this recommendation is towards a dedicated team as with regards to Creativity and Innovation, at the moment in most teams in the school they poses certain SEEM, in that given subject for example the following: Wellbeing of Students Financial Section Human Resources
The recommendation is that a Creativity and Innovation team is set up with representatives from every level, this would encourage suggestions from the bottom up and let all staff feel more valued, the feeling towards the lower staff is there is a huge gap between the top and the bottom, evidence for this is from my Primary research, at first glance the structure of middle management doesn’t seem to be effective with regards to this audit, a further recommendation is to allow department heads to brief information separately to their departments, with regards to the innovations and new plans for the Academy, as opposed to the management team erectly to all levels, this will demonstrate a degree of trust and involvement at all levels.
The following diagram should help with the concept of finding the right skillet, to staff this new Innovation and Creativity team, looking at areas like, good communication skills, having a Creative mind set, Commitment, and finding the right talent for the task. The Four key players within the Academy are very good at what they do, they follow structure and abide by the curriculum in which they have to follow. The Management team on most occasions, will come up with, and suggest any new innovations for the Academy. My last recommendation is these ideas should be sold to other members of the team I. E. Department heads, and then asked to be tweaked or adapted by themselves, this will allow them to explore to their creative side.
