Many will remember the media flurry that followed the publication of the Junior Lyceum results for 2008 that showed there were no passes from St Margaret College's Cospicua state primary school.
Following these results, the college had decided to set up an action committee for the educational renewal of this school. The committee's aim was not just to see how to improve examination results, but also to take an in-depth look at the social realities and educational aspirations of the locality, and come up with an innovative educational model that provided an effective response to all this.
The committee's first target was to finalise its report by the end of 2008. This target was reached. The report was presented to Education Minister Dolores Cristina last January and approved a few weeks later.
I recently held a meeting with Cospicua parents to explain and discuss the report. The meeting was attended by Minister Cristina, the ministry's new permanent secretary Christopher Bezzina, and the two directors general Micheline Sciberras and Grace Grima, whose presence underlined the educational authorities' commitment to make the action plan work.
The plan proposes action in 25 key areas, involving the increase of nine new educational roles and a total yearly extra expenditure of well over €100,000. Nine of the proposed actions are in fact already in operation, since the school could not wait and needed to provide these services to the pupils and their families as soon as possible.
The action plan provides for the setting up of a centre for early childhood education; bringing school and home closer together, and enhancing curriculum and teaching-learning processes, student services, and support to school staff.
Undoubtedly, the most significant action will be the setting up of the centre for early childhood education, which is scheduled for September. This will transform the role and status of the kindergarten, often considered the Cinderella of primary schools, into a centre that will be able to reach out to, and work with families well before kindergarten age, preferably as soon as possible after birth.
The centre will have space for a childcare centre based on the successful Smartkids model run by Access in Vittoriosa. It will also have space for parental education and teacher pre-service and in-service professional development, with equipment that will include a CCTV system to observe and learn from lessons in a real school context.
The centre will also include space for counselling services and for the care and reintegration of pupils with significant behavioural problems. It will also allow for the provision of services before school opens and after school closes. Such services will include a variety of edutainment activities including homework clubs.
The school, and indeed, the whole college, will be able to take concrete steps to bring school and families closer together through the services of a specifically-selected parents-in-education teacher.
This role of this teacher will be to organise parent training, parent-in-school and parental lifelong learning programmes, and to assist other teachers to ensure that these programmes lead to greater parental involvement and school-home communication.
Additionally, the school has already taken a pro-active approach to long-term absenteeism through the services of a family support worker. The person in this role is building relations with identified families to facilitate the reintegration of students who are already habitual absentees, and has already achieved significant success.
Another new role with the school and the rest of the college is the literacy support worker. The person in this role will assist teachers, especially in the college's primary schools, to ensure that all students achieve core competence proficiency so as to be able to gain access to the full curriculum.
The school will also be piloting a new support scheme whereby all classes from Years 1 to 3 will have a learning support assistant as a classroom assistant, to ensure all pupils reach an effective level of educational attainment in these crucial first years.
Two important components of the Cospicua Action Plan refer to student services and teacher support. All incoming pupils at kindergarten and Year 1 will be screened by a physiotherapist and an occupational therapist, and individual intervention plans devised accordingly.
A learning support zone is going to be set up to ensure the mainstreaming of pupils with challenging behaviour, and more counselling services, including a purpose-made space, will be provided.
Teachers will receive all the professional support they will need, including ongoing training and mini-sabbaticals during teaching practice; access to a special college fund to support the development of resources for differentiated learning, and counselling support as required.
As can be seen, the Cospicua Action Plan is far from a quick-fix, stop-gap measure. It is carefully constructed to address the real needs of the community, for long-term results. Indeed, it is being seen as a possible prototypE for other similar school communities.
It is hoped that the experience of implementing the plan will finally show the way forward to the renewal of vulnerable communities through educational development.
Mr Spiteri is principal, St Margaret College.