THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE – LEARNING TOGETHER RESOURCE
Learning Together: Making a Start to
Working with Partners
Achieving success for all learners
Journey to Excellence
Professional development pack topics have been chosen to help you plan a
journey through popular staff development themes. They provide “guided tours”
through some of the resources on The Journey to Excellence website as a
window onto excellent practice. Engaging with the associated activities will help
you to reflect on and develop your practice purposefully.
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Making a start to working with partners
Update April 2010
THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE – LEARNING TOGETHER RESOURCE
This resource will be updated to reflect new and innovative
approaches as Curriculum for Excellence is developed. Please
email or comment in the box below any feedback on the
resource or suggestions for improvement to help keep the
resource up to date.
WORKING WITH PARTNERS
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THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE – LEARNING TOGETHER RESOURCE
“It takes a village to raise a child.”
African proverb
Purpose of this activity
This activity is designed to help you focus on how successful schools work effectively
with their communities and benefit from that involvement. It will enable you to consider
the quality of your own school’s links with its community. The activity also looks at how
robust and productive partnerships with other agencies can improve the learning of all
learners and provide support for vulnerable young people. Finally, it is designed to
assist you in developing such links between your own school and its community and
partner agencies.
This professional development pack will help you to reflect on how working in
partnership with the community and with other agencies can assist learners in
achieving the purposes and aims of the curriculum 3-18.
Learning outcomes
After completing this programme of study you will have:

increased your awareness of how some schools have successfully developed links
with their communities;

reflected on how your own learners benefit from the links which you currently have
with your community and how these links could be developed and enhanced;

gained an improved insight into how fellow professionals in other agencies can help
schools to meet the needs of all learners;

reflected on the range and quality of links which you currently have with other
agencies and how these links could be developed; and

planned a programme to develop the partnership between your school and its
community and other agencies.
Who is this for?
This programme is for all those who work with learners in all sectors. It has particular
relevance for those who design and deliver learning experiences in the classroom,
including both teachers and support staff. Indeed, the programme has relevance for a
wide range of partners including parents and professionals working in other sectors
and who contribute to services for children.
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THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE – LEARNING TOGETHER RESOURCE
What will I/we need to work through this programme?
You will need access to the online resource which supports The Journey to Excellence.
Is this an individual activity or do I need to work with others?
The core activities enable you to work individually at a time and place of your choice.
However, there are opportunities to work with colleagues to consider the range and
quality of partnerships with the community and other agencies in your present situation.
“If a partnership is to succeed, it must be based on mutual trust and respect, an
ongoing exchange of information, agreement on goals and strategies, and a
sharing of rights and responsibilities.”
Headteacher in The Journey to Excellence Part 2
How long will it take?
This professional development activity is designed to be open ended, to enable you to
reflect on your current practice and to find out more. The core activities should take
around two hours to work through.
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THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE – LEARNING TOGETHER RESOURCE
“Education is all a matter of building bridges.”
Ralph Ellison
Self reflection
1. Mind map if you are working alone, or brainstorm with your group what you
understand by the term “community” as it affects your work.
(Consider local and wider communities, including the role of technology in
creating communities.)
2. List the partners from other agencies with whom you work.
3. In what ways do each of these partner professionals contribute to the learning and
support of children and young people in your school?
4. How are effective links with the community and other agencies reflected in your
school’s vision, values and aims?
5. Note down some key features of illustrations of very good practice in How good is
our school? for QI 4.1 The school’s success in working with and engaging with the
local community and 4.2 The school’s success in working and engaging with the
wider community.
View the partnership introductory movie.
Throughout this pack you are going to build your list from question 5
above with ways in which excellent schools develop creative,
collaborative relationships with their local and wider communities.
As you watch these movies, this table might help you to organise your thoughts:
Ways in which learners
benefit



Ways in which learners
contribute



Working with partners to
meet the needs of all
children and young people
Benefits



Challenges



Multi-agency approaches to
improve learning
Agency links



Benefits of links



The school in its
community
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THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE – LEARNING TOGETHER RESOURCE
Return to the list of partners you identified in Questions 2 and 3 above. In light of these
movies describing excellent outcomes, could your partners help to enhance your
provision, or enrich your curriculum to meet the needs of some learners?
In what areas would joint training opportunities be beneficial?
In your own situation are roles and responsibilities clear to all professionals
involved?
How might you improve communication between partners?
These movies illustrate how some schools have successfully
linked with their communities and how they have benefited from
those links for a range of purposes.
Consider how schools meet the needs of their communities and note
some key examples of how successful schools meet those needs
well.
Identify the key ISSUES which are specific to your establishment and
your learners which partnerships could resolve

a school at the heart of the community (Gylemuir Primary School)

building global citizenship (St. George’s School for Girls)

an interagency approach (Gowan's Terrace Child and Family centre)

establishing global links (Cauldeen Primary School)

digital learning: pods and blogs (Woodhill Primary School)
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Making a difference in your school
You should now have:

A mind map of your community.

A list of partners and how they do and could contribute to your school.

The key features, perhaps in a table, of very good practice from How good is
our school? and the movies you have seen.
Highlight GREEN those partnerships which are very successful.
Highlight yellow those which could be developed further.
Highlight red any that have not yet been established.
The activity is open ended but you may wish to plan for several months so
you can measure the impact of your actions on the quality of partnership
working and relationships. When planning, remember to build in ways of
monitoring and evaluating impact on learners.
1. Choose ONE partnership, which you view as effective. This should be with another
service or part of the community outwith your school.
Reflect on why this partnership works well.
What is the impact of this partnership on the school and learners?
2. Now do the same with a partnership which you have identified as less effective,
reflecting on why the partnership does not work so well.
Are there patterns to your partnerships? For example, are partnerships more
effective when contact is more frequent or less frequent?
3. Next, think about partnerships that you haven’t yet established. Are there groups
in the community or other services with whom you could usefully form
partnerships? (This might include community safety or voluntary sector services
that support children and their families.)
You should now have a map of your partnerships showing clearly the quality of
different partnerships and gaps in your current partnerships. You will have identified
those which you would like to improve, and what aspects you want to change.
You can now reflect on your issues and plan for improvement. For each area of
development identify your targets and how you will achieve them. All your targets
should be SMART.
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Further opportunities for professional dialogue and reflection
Compile a report on the work you or the team have done. What has been the impact of
this work on your school and the pupils? Remember to include how you plan to
improve further, including emerging joint initiatives within and outside the school.
Present to a multi-agency forum or produce a document on partnership working.
Consider:

your knowledge and understanding of partnership working and models of
effective practice;

different forms of communication that promote partnership working;

the range of partnership work in your establishment; and

how your partnership work has an impact on the school and learners.
Consider how you could ask for feedback from your partners. You might ask for
feedback on the following areas:

how well communication is working in the partnership;

how included different partners are in the partnership arrangements;

how effective the work of the partnership is for learners in the school; and

how partnership working could be improved.
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