“On a cold winter’s day, a group of porcupines huddled together to stay warm
and keep from freezing. But, soon they felt one another’s quills and moved apart.
When the need for warmth brought them closer together again, their quills again
forced them apart. They were driven back and forth at the mercy of their
discomforts until they found the distance from one another that provided both a
maximum of warmth and a minimum of pain.”
Arthur Schopenhauer
From: Buonfino, A., and Mulgan, G. (2006) Porcupines in Winter, London: The Young Foundation
Caroline Burn
• Headteacher St. Mark’s CE VA Primary, Talbot
Village, Bournemouth
• Large primary – 420 pupils
• Only school in Bournemouth in the Salisbury
Diocese, ‘honorary’ member of Winchester
Diocese
Our Network Story
Founded in 2005 with a primary Strategy Learning Grant
For the purpose of…
SCHOOL
IMPROVEMENT
2008
2007
2006
High Quality joint INSET TRAINING DAYS for
Teachers and Teaching Assistants
HELPING PUPILS REACH THEIR POTENTIAL IN MATHS
Mike Askew
Janet Rees
King’s College, London
Independent Consultant in EY & SEN
PROBLEM SOLVING IN MATHS… The Next Steps
Ruth Merrtens Education Director, Hamilton Trust
Les Ruddick & Sue Wickings Bournemouth LEA
INSPIRE… CHALLENGE… MOTIVATE… Towards a Futures Curriculum
Nick Hinds, Independent Consultant
2010
2009
High Quality INSET TRAINING DAYS for
Teachers and Teaching Assistants
DEVELOPING THE WHOLE CHILD THROUGH THE FUTURES
CURRICULUM Peter Sharp - Director of learning, Mouchel
Jenny Mosely workshop Colour Works
Rights Respecting Schools
Bournemouth 2010 BI-CENTENARY
Local artists and Xtreme Art
2013
2012
2011
High Quality INSET TRAINING DAYS for
Teachers and Teaching Assistants
LEARNERS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
Is there a place for child-led learning in primary education?
Julie Fisher – Independent Early Years Adviser
NO JOINT TRAINING DAY
CURRENT SHARED FOCUS AREAS:
Osiris Spelling, grammar & punctuation
Osiris Y1 phonics screening
Osiris Outstanding TAs
Michele Cousins Guided learning & pupil independence
Anne Crossland Good to outstanding teaching
Judith O’Hare
School self-evaluation
High Quality Professional Development
for Teachers and Teaching Assistants
Staff meetings
Moderation of
writing levels
Head Teacher Networking e.g. SEF
APP training
HT Training – John West-Burnham
Twilights
Lesson observations
Networking for curriculum leaders and
year group colleagues
Heads – the driving force - JWB
training
•
•
•
•
Other things out there
Co-operative Trust
Federations
Multi-Academy chains
Where do we see the Network right now?
Network
Partnership
Collaboration
Federation
Autonomy
Integration
Network
Collaboration
An informal voluntary association that is focused on a
particular strategy or area of common interest.
A more formal structured relationship in which there is a
clear merging and integration of a number of school roles
and functions, sharing of services and staff and
collaboration on innovations or policy initiatives.
The Local Authority Position
The Writing’s on the wall!!
In a year to 18 months things will have had to
change! And have started to already, rapidly.
Funding will come directly from the
Government in future.
Christine Gilbert ex-chief isnpector – ‘We’ll look
at the role of Local Authorities and new models
of collaboration that may supersede them.’
Life Beyond the Local Authority
Status quo – LA dries up and we’re on our own.
Become an Academy – discussed at own FGB
meetings, but still an option. Autonomy on your own.
Multi-academy Trusts/chains – no longer autonomous.
Local Umbrella Trusts – for academies.
Local Collaborative Trusts.
Mutual Trading Companies.
WHY Collaborate?
Standards are likely to rise as the result of the
dissemination of best practice across schools and
between schools.
There is the potential for economies of scale, notably
in terms of learning resources, materials & services.
Shared CPD has the potential to enhance consistent
practice and embed improvement and cross-fertilise
good ideas and the best practice.
Why Collaborate?
Strategic planning is more likely to be effective through
collaborative leadership (More expertise – 4 SLTs).
Intervention to support pupils would be more
effective with consistent record keeping, monitoring
and use of data.
Deployment of staff could be more flexible and
effective.
The potential for successful collaboration with other
agencies would be enhanced.
(Robins D & West-Burnham J 2011 Leadership for Collaboration.)
Status Quo
Self-legitimating bureaucratic systems – silos.
Self-referential culture, closed language.
Parallel accountability.
Competing professional identities.
Competition for status and resources.
The territorial imperative.
LA push to do something
They realised the writing was on the wall…
Encouraged us to expand our group
Rather ‘church’ based, needed more of a
community feel
We were all ‘good’ schools and some
schools to support
One school had previously left
26 primaries in Bournemouth to LCT’s
We became seven!
Structure of LCTs
SCHOOL
SCHOOL
SCHOOL
SCHOOL
SCHOOL
TRUST
SCHOOL
SCHOOL
PARTNERS, such as university, Diocese, LA, secondary school, a local business
The Legal Considerations
Community schools to set up trusts
LCT requires legally establishing and
registering with the charities commission
Seek legal help
Membership of the Trust Board, in our case
the HT and CoG of each school
LCT board as policy maker
LCTs and budgets
Wise drafting of the Trust agreement
Questions & Next Steps
FGB agreement of each school
Consult/discuss/inform stakeholders
Agree time-scale and deadlines
Working group with representation from each school
Formal meeting with interested parties Schools, diocese, LA – this happened
Agree ethos and vision
Consider partnerships
Vision
Bournemouth Septenary Trust is committed to
the core values of excellence, equity and
effectiveness…
promoting high levels of engagement,
aspiration, achievement and enterprise across
seven schools.
Principles
1.
2.
3.
The overriding principle is the success and
wellbeing of the children educated within
the Trust schools.
There is an expectation of professional
challenge, support and development
between member schools.
Trust between members is essential for the
success of the collaboration.
Principles
4.
5.
Trust is engendered by: confidentiality,
openness and professionalism. The HT and
teacher standards provide a framework for
this professionalism.
The Trust members will take account of
data protection policies in all work they do.
Principles
6.
The Trust members abide by the principles
of best value and the long term benefit
and gain of all the member schools. The
budget will support the priorities based on
the action plan. The Trust will not hold
great sums of money but it will be spent
to benefit the children in the schools at
that time.
Principles
7.
Our work is focused on raising standards of
provision in all areas of the Ofsted criteria
and securing school improvements.
Collaboratively we aim to respond
quickly and effectively to new national
priorities and local initiatives. Needs are
identified across the Trust and responded
to effectively both by the whole group
and sub-groups.
Documentation
• Trust agreement – articles
• Bye-laws, working principles (including a ‘get
out’ clause)
• Action plan
Joint Art and Literacy Project – Degas –
The beach scene
2 staff meetings and afternoon of a
training day to plan
Y4 example – Literacy and Art
• Each HT led a year group team
• Planned a theme, a ‘hook’, a literacy and an
art focii, an outcome
• Each year group spends as much/little time on
this as they want
Hook
• 450 Y4 and adults to The Pier Theatre,
Bournemouth
Punch and Judy show
• Performance
• Literacy – writing scripts
• Art/DT – making puppet theatres and puppets
Outcome
• The children congregate in 3 of our schools
this week to perform to each other
• An exhibition of all the work from the seven
schools in the Bournemouth International
Centre (BIC) next week, including filming of all
the work
What next?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Regular HT meetings
Finance officers economy of scale
SENCOs
PE money – BST games
Training days – Oct 25th (two key note speakers) and Feb 14th
Subject leaders – the new curriculum
All piece in newsletter
British Council funded HT conference abroad
School parent associations meeting to share ideas
and equipment
“On a cold winter’s day, a group of porcupines huddled
together to stay warm and keep from freezing. But, soon
they felt one another’s quills and moved apart. When the
need for warmth brought them closer together again, their
quills again forced them apart. They were driven back and
forth at the mercy of their discomforts until they found the
distance from one another that provided both a maximum
of warmth and a minimum of pain.”
Arthur Schopenhauer
From: Buonfino, A., and Mulgan, G. (2006) Porcupines in Winter, London: The Young Foundation