It’s a Monday, shortly after 3pm, and Alva Academy’s Parkinson’s singing group is just beginning to warm up.

The group (pictured below), which meets every week, includes about 25 members of the local community who have Parkinson’s disease. Over the past five years, about 500 students from Alva - one of only three secondary schools in Clackmannanshire Council in central Scotland, which is among the UK’s smallest local authorities - have also been involved.

Taking part in the group, which performs at school and community events, has made a huge difference to some of its members.

“I no longer feel embarrassed by my symptoms and that is very much down to the teachers and pupils at Alva Academy,” says Sadie, who has Parkinson’s. “It is almost as if they don’t notice. There is no feeling of charity, just a genuine passion for helping, understanding and a shared love of music. I can’t thank [them] enough for changing my life for the better.”

But the benefits go both ways. One fifth-year student, Leah, describes the bond with the adult members of the group: “They offer me advice, make me feel worthy and show me what determination and positivity look like. I am stronger, happier and more confident going into my exams now and determined to fulfil my dream of becoming a teacher.”

Alva is the only school to have a recognised partnership with the charity Parkinson’s UK, largely thanks to the work of David Clifford, the school’s faculty principal teacher of music, PE, dance and art. He established the singing group after his father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and it now serves as just one embodiment of the philosophy that guides all the work the school does.

A school at the heart of its community

Time and again when I visited Alva Academy I was reminded about how crucial the notion of “service” is to staff and students. By service - one of the school’s six values - the school means giving to others, enriching the lives of others, thinking of others first.

It was this philosophy that helped Alva land the Tes Schools Awards 2023 community engagement initiative of the year prize in June (pictured below). And it was a double win: Clifford (third from right below), a driving force behind Alva’s remarkable work with the surrounding community, won subject lead of the year (secondary).

In its awards submission, the 966-student school said that the benefits of the Parkinson’s singing group are “endless”. It pointed to “the friendships forged and the empathy shown” and to the fact that “many pupils and staff have given up their weekends to help raise funds”, whether by singing their hearts out at a concert or expanding their lungs running a marathon.

Scott McEwan, headteacher at Alva Academy, says the idea of service and altruism should flow in every direction, from all involved in the school.

So, while he wants students “to see how much of an impact they can have on their local community [and] out there in the wider world” - that ethos has long been evident in a school that has raised £500,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support over 20 years - he also wants staff to reach out to students in the same way.

If, for example, a student wants to take a subject not previously timetabled at the school, then staff should do everything they can to create that opportunity.

“If someone needs something, you go and get it” is how McEwan puts it in blunt terms.

And the school can back up such rhetoric with action: in 2018 there were 32 senior-phase “pathways” for Alva’s students to follow through secondary school; now there are 72 in school and another 32 involving further education colleges.

A standout trend in this month’s annual Scottish Qualifications Authority results data was the rapidly growing popularity of National Progression Awards (NPAs) as an alternative to National 5s and Highers. Alva Academy is at the vanguard of schools offering myriad NPAs, but also compares favourably by more traditional measures of school success, such as Higher attainment rates.

“It’s about going that extra mile,” says McEwan. “And what you give, you get back.”

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That need to make school work for everyone extends beyond courses and qualifications: when a proposed trip to Blackpool earlier this year was not possible because the buses were “extortionate” - it would have worked out at £100 a head - Alva decided to bring the fun of the fair to the school grounds by hiring a range of attractions, for £10 a head. As well as being far less expensive for families, this allowed far more students to take part than would fit in a bus (dodgems proved the biggest hit, in every sense).

The school has also “thrown a huge amount of effort” at a packed, five-day extracurricular programme that includes more traditional school pursuits, such as debating and various sports. Alva Academy, says McEwan, “just feels like a busy place”.

A number of popular clubs have been sparked into existence by students’ interests and hobbies, including Warhammer, esports - Alva had the first school esports centre in Scotland - and the hugely popular knitting club. “God bless Tom Daley,” says McEwan. The sight of burly S6 boys having a natter while their knitting needles click away is, he believes, testament to the impact of the Olympic gold-medal diver’s love of fashioning cardigans from balls of wool.

And students’ passions and skills are to be shared where possible: visitors to the school have been greeted by young bagpipers and freshly brewed coffee from students doing barista training.

“People always talk about the school being a hugely friendly place; that gives me a huge sense of pride,” says McEwan.

‘It’s about going that extra mile. And what you give, you get back’

There have been other changes that show the school’s firm commitment to studies and experiences that go beyond narrower models of old. The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award is part of the core timetable, for example, not an extracurricular add-on. Social subjects, meanwhile, have expanded beyond their traditional base of geography, history, modern studies and RMPS (religious, moral and philosophical studies), now also taking in travel and tourism, politics and Classical studies.

As I walk through the school - which draws a significant minority of students from communities in the highest level of poverty measured by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation - I see the determination not to write off certain courses of study for any students, however daunting they may initially seem. Some S2 modern languages students, for example, are staffing a pop-up exhibition of artwork that they proudly explain has helped them to find enjoyment in learning French or Spanish.

“We ask every faculty a simple question: can every child access your subject?” says McEwan.

Inclusion for all

The school has also applied the idea of a curriculum that must work for all to its students with additional support needs (ASN).

In practice, that means 63 profiles for 63 students, starting before they even join the school - inspectors recently praised Alva’s transition work, which starts early in P7 - and bespoke support from specialist ASN staff. They provide advice to other staff on each student’s needs, so that everyone can take pre-emptive steps to make their classroom as accommodating as possible, rather than reacting to situations as they arise.

Meeting students’ additional needs is a constant process of fine-tuning, ASN staff tell me. Their team thrives, they say, in a school that does not treat ASN as an island or an adjunct, and where empathy guides every decision. This is all very much in the spirit of the landmark 2020 report on additional support for learning, whose author, Angela Morgan, has said it is time “to move away from conceptualising those with additional support needs as a costly afterthought”.

Standardised visual prompts around the school help ASN students to adapt to routines and practices in classrooms. That might mean a reminder to look at the teacher who is explaining an idea, or to put their bag under the table before class starts. While ASN students might miss a verbal instruction, explains Jill McCabe, acting principal teacher for ASN, they are reassured by the knowledge that a familiar visual prompt will always be there.

Drop-in sessions with ASN staff once a term allow other staff to be updated on new ideas and changes to practice. Meanwhile, Alva seeks to maximise the expertise of learning assistants: they work with all students and staff, not just a small number of students - the idea being that their specialist insight into ASN then permeates the whole school.

A fundamental principle at Alva, says Rosa More, acting deputy head with responsibility for pupil support, is that there is no attitude of “supporting people with needs is the responsibility of you guys”. Instead, all staff are expected to proactively build their knowledge and skills so that they feel able to support all students.

Sandy Parker, a senior support worker who leads the school’s nurture area, says that giving every student a “slightly different angle on the school day” allows them to “take a breath”. That could mean “soft starts” in the morning, personal check-ins with staff or just a cup of tea.

“It just makes everything else work…those kids can access mainstream education because of that,” says Parker.

Alva Academy was the first mainstream school in Scotland to be awarded National Autistic Society accreditation. Its bespoke approaches to student support were epitomised by one student who, while not a confident speaker, was able to highlight the needs of autistic young people by devising a presentation on the portrayal of an autistic character in 2018 Hollywood action film The Predator.

More recalls a parent who said: “I just can’t believe that in a school this size, my child gets cared for so well.”

Clifford stresses that attainment is not the be-all and end-all at Alva. “We’re very much a community school,” he says. “It’s all about providing pupils with opportunities to shine where they can - and if that has an impact on attainment, fantastic.”

He adds that “we want them to leave with the best qualifications they possibly can”, but also with “memories…we want them saying, ‘I’m glad I went to Alva Academy’”.

As the school started to emerge from Covid, McEwan told Clifford that “we’ve not given these kids memories for the past 18 months”, and challenged staff to broaden the school’s range of courses and activities more than ever. Clifford says that staff felt safe in the knowledge that McEwan knows not every new idea will work.

‘I just can’t believe that in a school this size, my child gets cared for so well’

McEwan, in turn, says that he benefits from “a huge amount of autonomy” from Clackmannanshire Council: “They encourage me to be brave and take courageous decisions.” He points to local schools being among the first in Scotland to restart ambitious trips after Covid - in 2022-23, Alva students went as far afield as Skye, New York, Italy, Barcelona and the Belgian battlefields.

He then passes on that trust and autonomy to his staff: “I can’t micromanage; I can’t do it,” he laughs. And Clifford confirms: “His mantra really is ‘say yes and worry about how to do it later’.”

Spending a few hours at the school, as I did just before the summer holiday, lets you see the sense of calm that Alva staff seek to create, as well as the openness of staff interactions with students - the casual enquiries in the corridor about a science project, the jokey one-upmanship in the canteen about which lunch option is best. None of this might sound unusual, but with violence becoming the defining issue in the public eye when it comes to Scottish schools - and McEwan says his school is in no way immune to such problems - Alva is determined to show that a successful school is characterised by mutual empathy between staff and students, not antagonism.

When school inspectors made an interim “thematic visit” in May to look at Alva’s curriculum, they were impressed that staff felt trusted to be innovative and brave - but they were also impressed by focus group feedback from students, including one who said that “everyone has a chance to have fun and do well and everyone cares about you”. Healthy, mutually respectful relationships at Alva, inspectors found, were at the root of the enthusiasm they witnessed among staff and students.

“Relationships” is the word you hear time and again, whoever you talk to at Alva Academy. As McEwan puts it: “A wise man once told me: ‘If you get the relationships right, there’s nothing you can’t do’.”

Henry Hepburn is Scotland editor at Tes. He tweets @Henry_Hepburn