WEST LONDON
TEACHING SCHOOL ALLIANCE
OFFICIAL LAUNCH
TUESDAY 12 TH JUNE
SACRED HEART HIGH
SCHOOL
INTRODUCTION TO
WEST LONDON
TEACHING SCHOOL ALLIANCE
GILLIAN WICKHAM
Pope John RC Primary School
and
Marian Doyle
Sacred Heart High School
FULFILMENT OF A VISION
‘We intend to create a national network of teaching
schools. These will be outstanding schools which will
take a leading responsibility for providing and quality
assuring initial teacher training in their area. We will
also fund them to offer professional development for
teachers and leaders…We intend there to be a national
network of such schools and our priority is that they
should be of the highest quality.’
(HM Government 2010:23)
Government’s ambition
 A sustainable and school led approach
to training, development and
improvement
 The best of the system available to all
 A school led system
 From good to great – unleashing creativity
and energy
THE BIG PICTURE
 Key drivers: autonomy, collaboration, freedom, diversity,
self-improvement, accountability – an increasingly schoolled system
 The challenges: building capacity, confidence and trust
 The goal: that elements of a devolved system are held in
balance so that ………
1.Autonomy doesn’t become isolation
2.Diversity doesn’t act as a barrier to collaboration
3.Accountability doesn’t become regulation
Teaching School/Teaching School Alliance
a high bar …
 a clear track-record of successful collaboration with
other schools
 Ofsted outstanding for overall effectiveness, teaching
and learning and leadership and management
 consistently high levels of pupil performance or
continued improvement
 an outstanding headteacher and outstanding senior
and middle leaders with capacity to support others.
SCHOOLS ARE ON A JOURNEY
 To become and maintain ‘outstanding’
 To build leadership capacity to work
beyond own school
 To build evidence of impact of the work
 To build trusting relationships with
partners
Teaching Schools are not ‘lone rangers’
 Seen as groups of 25 or more schools as part of an
alliance
 Strong links with strategic partners:
other schools
HEIs
LA’s
Links with national/international schools and
organisations
 Alliance expected to identify, demonstrate and
disseminate best practice in what is termed the Big 6
Teaching Schools and their Alliance will therefore:
 Audit and understand the future recruitment/ leadership
needs of their alliance
 Systematically identify those with the highest potential for senior
school leadership/ headship
 Provide talent development opportunities across the
alliance that are specifically designed to move these people
to next stage promotion
 Increasingly work beyond the alliance to meet the strategic
needs of the local system (working with other partners such
as LAs, diocese and other non teaching schools/ academy
groups as appropriate.
Our Teaching School Alliance
Will:
 play a greater role in training new entrants to the
profession
 lead peer-to-peer professional and leadership
development
 identify and develop leadership potential
 provide support for other schools
 designate and broker Specialist Leaders of Education
(SLEs)
 become fully engaged in R&D as a means to improving
teachers’ practice leading to better outcomes for pupils
THE BIG 6
 ITT
 CPD /Leadership development
 Succession Planning/Talent
management
 School to School support
 Specialist Leaders of Education
 Research and development
School Direct
Sarah Dolan-Bent/Ros Morgan
Overview
What is School Direct?
Pathways and qualifications within School Direct
Recruitment
Training
School and HEI responsibilities
Progressing with School Direct
What is School Direct?
- Schools to play a leading role in recruiting,
designing and delivering ITT
- Work in close partnership with accredited ITT
providers
Pathways and qualifications within
School Direct
School Direct salaried
• Trainee employed as an
unqualified teacher by
the school (salary is
subsidised)
• QTS; optional PGCE
• Graduate 2:1+, 3 years+
career experience
Similar to GTP
School Direct non-salaried
• Trainee pays tuition fees
(loans and bursaries are
available)
• QTS and PGCE
• Graduate 2:2+ (English
and maths GCSE
prerequisites)
Similar to current PGCE
Recruitment
• Transparent throughout and comply with equal
opportunities
• Marketing – WLTS, school, HEI and NCTL websites,
Open events, advertising
• Selection – responsibility of the school but with
support from HEI eg: NARIC equivalencies, QA
• Interview – at school in collaboration with HEI;
‘teach’, test, talk
• Offer – DBS, Fitness to Teach,
Skills tests, observations in schools
Responsibilities
School and WLTSA
• Leading recruitment
process – selecting the right
trainees for your school
ethos
• Opportunity to shape and
deliver school based
training
• Chance to retain the best
recruits should vacancies
arise
HEI
• Part of recruitment process
and administration of
funding resources and preentry requisites
• Academic resources,
validation and data tracking
• Accreditation of PGCE,
liaison with DfE for QTS, QA
of training
• OfSTED accountability for
NQTs
School Direct at Fox
•
•
•
•
•
Involvement with GT programme
School Direct 2013-14
Recruitment
Training programme
2014-15 and beyond…
CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
JULIE SHAW
BI-BOROUGH
NQT COORDINATOR
CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
Alliance committed to developing a clear framework for
career development from ITT through to headship
Recognition that all schools have CPD programmes in
place and expertise to deliver
Look to align some of the programmes to enable
networking, professional dialogue across schools and cost
effectiveness
Building partnership arrangements to share and
disseminate good practice
Secure the benefits for teachers and pupils through
rigorous quality assurance
CPD for NQTs
• Induction is an important bridge from ITT to a
career in teaching
• NQTs need experience of high quality induction
and support - whether in or out of school
• Appropriate and relevant CPD is a critical element
of induction, together with opportunities for -
• meaningful professional dialogue, coaching and
regular mentoring by colleagues who have the
skills, experience and dedicated time for the task
CPD for NQTs
 Primary NQT CPD is increasingly schools led –
- Fox Primary has delivered well received practitioner led central primary NQT
CPD programme across the Bi-borough 2012-13, and will in 2013-14 with
specialist input from other schools and other experts
- School to school visits have allowed NQTs to observe good and
outstanding practice in similar or contrasting environments – a collegiate
approach broadens opportunity, understanding of other approaches and the
wider community.
- At secondary level Sacred Heart High school has in place an exchange
programme for visits and observations with Ellen Wilkinson Girls, Ealing
- Use of their Teaching and Learning Observatory in every classroom
enabling reflective practice – this facility can be outsourced to other schools
 A partnership approach from a community of schools and a variety of
stakeholders allows strengths and expertise to be shared
 Further scope for increased collaboration – secondaries, specials and
others – CPD and school to school visits through the Alliance
Collaborative approaches
Teachers must constantly review and reflect on their practice,
teachers should collaborate and discuss their practice with other
professionals, and students and
teachers should be constantly creative, innovate, and have fun with
their teaching to improve outcomes for pupils and students
 Alliance will work with LA and partner schools to develop a range of
bespoke workshops and development days for teachers tailored to
identified needs, examples could be:
- Improving subject knowledge
- A range of teaching pedagogy including literacy, numeracy, use of
digital media, questioning, approaches to group work
- Establishing a culture of coaching and mentoring for teachers within
and across schools
SCHOOL TO SCHOOL SUPPORT
Changing landscape for schools –
academy chains
Converter academies
Federations/ executive headships
all through schools
University sponsored academies (eg UCL)
14 – 19 Studio schools/UTCs sponsored by employers
and universities
University sponsored specialist Sixth Form (eg King’s
College maths school)
UTILISING EXPERTISE
Audit of support needs across the Alliance and
beyond in collaboration with LA - using
• Headteachers who are LLEs/NLEs to broker S2S
support for schools needing to improve
• Use of newly designated SLEs in identified
subject areas
• Re - establising local subject networks to
disseminate and share resources
West London Teaching School
Alliance Launch
June 12th 2013
School-based research and
development
Jude Ragan, Queensmill School
Schools as research centres
What’s not to love?
Previously, science was science, school was school.
“Persistent disconnect between education research and
practice”, Dr. Sarah Parsons, University of Southampton.
Now, research in schools, schools becoming scientific. Schools
being part of Evidence Based Practice (EBP).
Schools as research centres
Impediments to EBP in schools
“Contemporary literature has identified practitioners’ and
organisation–related barriers to implementing EBP,
including lack of resources (time, access to technology,
capacity to train practitioners in new treatment
modalities), organisational culture, reluctance to change,
absence of leadership commitment, and conflicting as
well as inconsistent findings.”
Roni Berger, Journal of Social Work, May 2013
Schools as research centres
Across-school research projects to date:
 Mental health co-morbidities with ASDs
 Assessment tools that measure progress made by
children with ASDs
 Usefulness of sensory integration approaches
 The PLASN model itself: Bridging the research and
practice gap in autism – the importance of creating
research partnerships with schools.
Schools as research centres
Individual school based projects:
 How can we improve parental involvement?
 How can sensory integration be used in the class?
 Do girls with ASDs learn differently?
 How do we improve joint attention?
 Does an iPad improve communication for a child with
ASDs?
Schools as research centres
 Leading and Managing change
Sacred Heart High School uses MA programmes to embed
R&D as part of school culture to promote innovative
practice.
 Currently running a school based MA ‘Innovation in
Teaching and Learning’ in partnership with St Mary’s
University (15 staff undertaken the award in past 4 years)
 School supports other staff who undertake post graduate
studies with other HEIs
 Approximately 60% of staff have postgraduate
qualificationa
Schools as research centres
 Current examples of R&D projects as part of school
based MA in Innovation in Teaching and Learning
include:
 How successful are iPads in closing the attainment
Gap?
 How effectively does dialogue promote learning in
the classroom?
 How visible is the Catholic life of our school and how
can this be promoted?
Schools as research centres
 Teaching Schools will be required to contribute to a
national R&D network
 The alliance has already bid for funding as part of the
national work on Closing the Gap
 Expected to trial a range of interventions and feed back.
 Annually the Alliance will be able to have access to
funding for R&D with different schools taking the lead
 The two school leads will broker bids as they will be
awarded through designated Teaching Schools
Schools as research centres
Being willing participants in EBP changes the culture into
one that is more confident in questioning itself and
learning from findings, even when they are surprising.
It changes the way staff think. It empowers them to come
up with their own hypotheses and test them out. It leads
to the development of better and better practice in
education settings.
Governance, Management, Accountability
Vision
Evaluation
1.
Formal accountability and Governance
Quality
Assurance
2. Strategic
Learning
3.
Operational Management
Account for
delivery
4.
Delivery and Implementation
Direction
direction and co-ordination
Strategic
oversight
THE CHALLENGE FOR THE STEERING GROUP IS
TO:
 Agree a vision for our work
 Establish firm foundations on which to develop and





build our partnerships based on real collaboration for the
benefit of all
Act in the best interests of all schools – a real sense of
moral purpose
Guide and facilitate best practice in all categories
Promote and be advocates for the work of the Alliance
Be answerable to the NCTL
Assure quality in all aspects of our work
CPD/Leadership inc.
Talent Mgt. and
Succession Planning
ITT
Research
and
Development
School to
School
Support/SLEs
West London Teaching School Alliance
Steering Group
Sacred Heart
High School
Pope John
Primary School
NCTL/
EA
Lead Accountable Teaching Schools
Possibly Bi-borough
Partner Schools
11 in total so far
HEIs –
St Mary’s/IOE
Diocese of
Westminster
Local
Authority
Funding
2013 - 2014
 60k to cover costs, salaries and work towards
building capacity
 33k to establish and market approaches to Schools
Direct
2014 – 2015
50k
2015 – 2016
40k
Eventually self sustaining through business planning
A Final Thought
“I am personally convinced that one person can be a
change catalyst, a transformer in any situation, any
organization. Such an individual is yeast that can
leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative,
patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be
a transforming leader.” – Stephen Covey
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn
more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
John Quincy Adams