Coastal Schools Partnership Update
Eastbourne College is a founding member of the Coastal Schools Partnership (CSP) of 11 schools and colleges: Cavendish School, Eastbourne Academy, Eastbourne College, East Sussex College, Gildredge House, Hailsham Community School, Ratton School, Seaford Head, St Catherine’s College, The Turing School, Willingdon Community School.
The CSP celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2024.
"The Coastal Schools Partnership is a genuinely impressive achievement.”
Baroness Parminter, chair of the Lords Select Committee on Climate Change and the Environment. CSP pupils advised her committee on how to best ‘teach’ behaviour change to reduce carbon footprint in schools. The first time the Lords have worked with pupils in this way.
“The young people of Eastbourne are an extraordinarily engaged and committed group that are encouraging positive action and engaging in it”.
Sir Tim Smit, founder of the Eden Project. CSP pupils have worked with Sir Tim and his Eden Project team as they look to make Eastbourne and the downs a centre for creative environmental education.
“Eastbourne College . . . does great stuff giving back to the community as part of the Coastal Schools Partnership.”
Josh Babarinde, Liberal Democrat, speaking in House of Commons October 2024. Josh attended Cavendish School, one of our partner schools.
The Coastal Schools Partnership “provides an excellent model for how schools can work together for the mutual benefit of all pupils and staff. The way in which you collaborate across sectors, pool resources and share expertise offers genuinely exciting opportunities to young people, whilst at the same time having a genuine impact for good within the community.”
Lord Agnew when he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Schools System
“The Coastal Schools Partnership has been an invaluable resource for The Cavendish School over the past few years. The pooled expertise and resources have enabled many pupils to gain experiences which will be some of their favourite memories of their school careers, and I am sure will have inspired them to their next stage. The work around the arts would be of particular note. At a time when many schools have reduced their offer we have had an increase in pupil numbers picking them which should be partly attributed to the CSP. Over the last few years the CSP has developed to enable teachers from all sectors to share good practice and ultimately improve outcomes for pupils, no matter what their background.”
Headteacher, The Cavendish School
Aims
Our continued aim is to produce confident, engaged, creative, skilled, qualified citizens of the world who can use their voice in society and can influence action and change in their communities working alongside others. The CSP aims to develop projects and ideas that excite, inspire, and offer creative opportunity and provides a wonderful vehicle for the development of projects across the town and beyond. As an independent school we feel privileged to work with local state schools, achieving far more together than any of us could achieve individually.
Background
We are regularly asked to partner creative bids; a recent example was our help in levering in close to half a million pounds of Arts Council funding for the Turner Towner wrap around project 2023-24. Our targets included the delivery of a programme engaging all Year 9 pupils across the partnership with contemporary arts practice through a wraparound project.
The engagement with the Turner Prize through the Eastbourne Alive project was evaluated by Common Vision and Shared Intelligence and we were fully engaged in this process. These findings will feed into an overall strategy focusing on the engagement of young people following the Turner Prize and the Towner has appointed a full-time skills and opportunities producer who will continue in this role after the Turner Prize; we will continue to work closely with them on next steps for young people’s engagement. Our Head of Partnership will work closely with evaluation partners to look at participation and well-being outputs both for young people across the Partnership. These findings will inform further initiatives around creativity, health and well-being and diversity.
“Working with the partnership has helped us better understand our role as an arts institution in supporting teachers and students and as a catalyst for creativity in schools in Eastbourne and beyond.”
Education Director of the Towner
Resources
Young people across the CSP are working with the Environment Agency to consider the coastal erosion impact. We hosted a creativity and environmental conference in November 2023 focusing on climate change and the behaviour change needed to address this. This involved an art exhibition, interactive workshops led by the Environmental Agency and the Director of Moving Brands and Madefire, Ben Wolstenholme, and the House of Lords climate change committee attended this. We worked on a project focusing on people, place, and ecology of the area, using poetry, photography and visual arts, culminating in an exhibition on Ocean Day in June 2024. This year The EA are working with CSP pupils to gain their input on how to engage young people with the coast. They are also providing ongoing career advice.
Impact
Weekly year-round one-to-one mentoring by 20+ Eastbourne College Year 12 mathematics A-level pupils helping local Y11 CSP pupils improve their grade in mathematics GCSE. Pupils met in person at the start of term and now work online every Wednesday going through past papers with pupils from Willingdon Community School and Gildredge House.
“We were delighted with the positive progress of the Year 11 pupils who took part in Roy’s Homework Club. Looking more closely at the individual subjects in which students were coached by your sixth formers, our pupils all achieved at least a strong pass which is what they needed to move onto their Level 3 qualifications. It is debatable if this would have been the outcome if it hadn’t been for the homework club. There are many other invisible benefits of course which cannot be underestimated. The students gained confidence, self-esteem and higher aspirations. Some, including a number of pupil premium students, certainly developed a more positive vision of their future and a sense of their potential. The head of Year 11 and myself know that these students wouldn’t have achieved the grades they did in their key areas without Eastbourne College’s input.”
Previous Deputy Head, Willingdon Community School
Frequency
Ongoing