Final Report – G070714 Swinton Community School
A LA Consultancy Support Model
This research project was awarded a small grant of £4000 to evaluate the Rotherham Authority model of a
school consultancy based model of support for mathematics
Introduction
Swinton Community School- A Maths and Computing College in its final year of the first phase as a specialist
school was asked to provide the consultancy support for mathematics in the LA, an innovative strategy to
improve consultation and co-ordination of best practice in mathematics across the secondary schools.
In Rotherham there are 16 specialist schools and the proposed structure supported the ethos that the specialist
schools in the core subject areas would facilitate and coordinate a more bespoke support structure according
to school need. Consequently there were three ‘bases’ of school support established in Mathematics, Science
and English .Consultancy support was allocated via SIP, headteacher and LA Strategy Manager coordinated
direction.
The model was presented at the NCETM conference in November 2007. This document aims to evaluate the
mathematics consultancy model from both a school and local authority perspective.
The Model
Swinton Community School is currently providing a coordinated approach to support for the second year. The
structure of the model includes and welcomes strengths from other schools and the sharing of good practice
has been a key strength of the subject leader meetings. Training days are becoming less dominated by National
Strategy and more related to local demands with more KS4 and even 5 development activities taking place.
The model will run for a third year across all core subjects. The structure varies within the different subject areas
of support.
The model of delivery is not simplistic. One of the key successes of the model is that it has been coordinated by
a team of personnel where responsibilities are shared. Three of the staff are teachers facing day to day
classroom issues and working to raise standards of learning and teaching in mathematics. This gives enhanced
credibility when support is given to partner schools. The team approach requires a degree of flexibility. The
main perceived strength is that it is teacher led- but this is also its greatest weakness. Where staff spend time ‘in
residence’ at a partner school in order to ensure that support is consistent and sustained, there is an obvious
impact on colleagues and children at the host school. With this in mind, enhanced specialist staffing is used to
‘back-up ‘ key staff. If the ‘consultant’ is not ‘out on call’ there are two staff with the class- another key
development opportunity. This has certainly been beneficial to the CPD development of new teachers, but also
a key enrichment activity for experienced staff, giving them the opportunity to team teach (a rare luxury these
days!), and learn new ideas from new professionals. Obviously key need does not match all the time and this is a
cost that has to be borne. Some support has been at a strategic management level eg. Using data, and
strengthening department systems of audit, planning, curriculum development and evaluation.
Other considerations must also be made when staffing the consultancy
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who is the National Strategies link?
how is the term’s planning coordinated with the LA?
how are LA responsibilities matched with school’’ responsibilities?
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Final Report – G070714 Swinton Community School
A LA Consultancy Support Model
A key issue to consider is that ‘residencies’ involve usually the most experienced staff being away from school,
what will the impact of this be over several weeks?
There are also workload issues for the staff involved- priorities to consider, school calendar clashes with LA
meetings. The development of the school VLE has made some contribution to improving communications and
developing a resource bank, but there is still a way to go. Similarly, video-conferencing will enhance the model
and there are plans to develop this over the next year.
Reflecting the national shortage of qualified mathematics teachers in England
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7388528.stm), recruitment in mathematics has recently become a
concern in this authority. A key strength of the consultancy programme has been the continuing development
of working partnerships with the local universities, contributing to the student training programme and
supporting partner schools who have been running the GTP model by offering teacher placements and
opportunities to make observation visits in a range of schools. A support network is being developed for all
newly qualified teachers in the area.
Structure and Strengths
Looking more closely at personnel, the maths consultancy at Swinton is ‘shared’ between five key mathematics
staff.
LA Strategy Manager
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ASST HEAD
DIRECTOR SP.ST
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FACULTY DIR. MATHS
Data/Study Plus/ En&Ma
National Strategy/
Intervention
Intervention
Functional Skills
A senior leader
A head of faculty
A director of specialist status operations- focusing on the communication and support of National
Strategy materials.
An Advanced Skills teacher in mathematics
A LA strategic manager
The role is shared in its widest sense, with one member of the school team coordinating the National Strategy.
Because the role is a school shared role, it is important that the model has full governor backing because of its
impact on other leadership roles within the school.
Professional development is a natural by-product. Indeed- there have been a number of changes during the
last year - and consequent advertising and recruitment costs!
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Final Report – G070714 Swinton Community School
A LA Consultancy Support Model
The model has no doubt had a significant impact on those staff who are directly involved in the coordination
and delivery of the consultancy. Opportunities to work with colleagues at all levels in partner schools has
created opportunities which would have been unlikely otherwise. As a consequence roles within the host
school have had to be realigned following the promotion of staff during the year. Creating leadership pathways
for personnel is very apparent.
In order to measure impact, the costs and benefits, it is important to consider the views from all stakeholders. A
big positive was the programme and style of delivery of subject leader meetings. The host maths faculty
receives new Secondary National Strategy material before most schools and therefore has the chance to try out
some of the new approaches in a real classroom situation before rolling out the training to schools. In this way,
the training has been delivered by someone with a faculty leader’s perspective.
As a specialist school in maths and computing, Swinton community school was already developing key external
partnerships: cre8ate maths and Yorkshire Forward. Consequently, developments, materials and training
opportunities in these areas could be shared. This has led to developing partnerships with staff from schools
out of the LA and allowed the consultancy team to see the bigger picture behind many of the changes and
consequently feel more enthusiastic about them- and be able to cope!
Support in and with schools has included
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short term residency
team teaching
support/mentoring for Subject Leader
reviewing the accuracy of levelling of students’ work and subsequent use of data for target setting and
tracking
sharing use of ICT resources
promoting effective pedagogy when using IWBs
collaborative unit planning
work scrutiny
student interviews
where possible, ’short fix’ solutions where required
Weaknesses
A multi personnel model needs ‘update-communication’ time built into the structure and more personnel
generates more ideas and more work. So there is truly value for money- unless it starts to impact on staff wellbeing.
The host school feel that the regional Secondary National Strategy team have still to be convinced about the
effectiveness of this model. The monitoring of consultancy has been rigorous but with an emphasis on analysis
of the number of days each school has been visited rather than the impact on subject leadership, Teaching and
Learning and pupil progress.
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Final Report – G070714 Swinton Community School
A LA Consultancy Support Model
Some disruption to classes has been inevitable and may be the result of planning, delivery and attendance at
training days and conferences. There has also been the need to ‘allocate’ some consultancy time to the host
school where there have been specific weaknesses. This was overlooked in the first year and the impact of
taking out a number of good or better teachers obviously had its impact on results. Hosting consultancy in
separate schools also creates a situation where there is some degree of isolation and consequent lack of
interaction between consultants of different strands. Central planning can overcome this.
A LA Prespective
‘The greatest factor in sustaining the impact from consultancy is the continued involvement and support of
headteachers or SLT right from the beginning.’(Using consultancy support effectively, DfES publications,
Ref:1944-2005DCC-EN)
The commitment to the model and the quality of relationships between the schools are essential if the model
and improvement is to be sustained.
The LA view is that the contribution of school-based consultancy in the core subjects to the quality of
Rotherham secondary schools since 2006 has been significant and potentially transformational. Three
consultancy centres have provided a universal service in disseminating National Strategy improvement drives
and work in particularly close partnership with targeted departments where underachievement or vulnerability,
for example staffing instability, has been identified by the SIP working with the Headteacher.
The benefits have, in the opinion of the LA, outweighed the costs and the model is positively received by the
schools.
The benefits have been:
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Greater credibility of consultancy through high quality pedagogic and subject leadership expertise
rooted in continuing practice-
‘The model of support received as part of our joint project has been excellent. There have been many different
benefits but the most important have been gaining the time to sit down with someone with experience and ideas and
plan through a project. The resources and sessions that came out of this were excellent and would not have been
possible without the support we received.’
‘Receiving the support from currently practicing teachers from a similar local school made it easy to relate to each
other's experiences and students. Because the project involved students from both our schools were able to learn
from each other and team teach sessions.’
‘We developed an excellent model and resources which we will be able to implement ourselves in future. ‘
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Opportunities to develop and embed innovative practice within the host schools.
The ability to offer in-reach consultancy with teachers visiting the host school
The ability to utilise a team to ensure consultancy can match the identified needs of target schools and
can run a variety of networks
Greater understanding of generic school improvement issues and therefore a better empathy with
target schools
Succession planning can be more easily achieved
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Final Report – G070714 Swinton Community School
A LA Consultancy Support Model
The Future
In the last two years, the centres have supported two schools in moving out of Notice to Improve and
demonstrated impact in improved test and examination outcomes across several schools. The model of
support given to both schools was very different. The support included a short term residency taking place in
one school and the planning and teaching support of a multi-day event at another where newly qualified staff
from both the host and support school were given the opportunity to plan and deliver material together and
observe a range of teaching styles as well as develop their own leadership potential.
The structure of the model lends itself to this level of versatility and encourages building capacity in schools
rather than relying on consultancy expertise long term and the model is building up strong personal and team
relationships with key support schools. During the second year, relationships between schools have continued
to improve and school have sought the consultancy as a ‘broker’ for best practice.
From 2008/9, the LA will invest further in the strategy by recruiting a second centre in English and in Maths,
working in parallel to the first centre but on an excellence agenda, including, for example, work with
particularly talented teachers early in their careers with the potential to become subject leaders.
Developments will include strengthening links between the primary and secondary phases, strengthening links
between English and mathematics faculties across the LA, and improving the consultancy support website.
As a professional development opportunity, this project has been significant. It has challenged an approach
which did not create the range of support strategies and networks which are now apparent in the LA. It has also
created real learning opportunities for those involved in the delivery and forged strong professional
relationships between subject leaders in mathematics across the LA.
NCETM funding has supported this evaluation of the project. The views from a range of stakeholders in the LA
have been included. We have also had the opportunity to share the consultancy model at the NCETM
conference in November 2007.
Thank you to Mike Ollerton and Tony Shepherd for supporting this project and to Rotherham mathematics
subject leaders for their contribution.
Finally, this work could not have taken place without the real teamwork from Peter Lane (Assistant Head,
Bradfield School Sheffield), Terry Dawson (Assistant Head, Swinton Community School, Rotherham) and Farouk
Gossiel (Faculty leader in Mathematics, Swinton Community School, Rotherham)
Lynne Selkirk (Senior Assistant Head, Swinton Community School, Rotherham)
Contact lselkirk@swinton.rotherham.sch.uk
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