Thursday 3 December Closing the Gaps
Breakout session 1 13.45-14.30
STRAND KEYNOTE
Tackling homo, bi and transphobic bullying in schools
Ruth Hunt, Stonewall
Ruth Hunt will be discussing what Stonewall has learnt from working with schools over the last ten years. She will reflect on how some of the best schools have worked to close the gap experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students and how this work has had a positive impact on all pupils and teachers.
Room: Auditorium
Breakout session 2 14.40-15.25
Closing the pupil premium gap through entrepreneurial education
Brendan Loughran, Darwen Aldridge Community College
Darwen Aldridge Community Academy opened in 2008 as an academy sponsored by the Aldridge Foundation, replacing a previous provision that had been in special measures for several years.
The academy has seen year on year improvements in outcomes for students in the main academy and sixth form. In 2013, Ofsted judged the Academy to be good in every aspect of the framework, opening the report with ‘The academy is increasingly effective in making a difference to students’ aspirations and life chances’.
Since then, outcomes have continued to improve, and remain above national averages. 38% of the students are classed as pupil premium. In terms of student progress, the gaps for pupil premium students have been significantly narrowed in 2015 to -1% and -5% respectively for progress in English and mathematics.
Room: Charter 4
The forensic use of data to raise achievement, close gaps and demonstrate success
Charlene Ponteen, Kingsford Community College
The session will focus on how middle leaders have been coached and developed to engage effectively with whole school data to impact upon pupil progress. We will look at the use of whole school data analysis tools and our shifting expectations of how all staff interact with data. Target setting and accuracy of predictions has been recognised by SSAT as an area of strength and the session will investigate how staff interactions with data has impacted upon this. Finally the session will cover the effective use of Raising Standards meetings and the impact of distributed leadership to maximise pupil progress.
Room: Charter 3
Effective use of the pupil premium and measuring impact
Ian Critchely, Wade Deacon School
The workshop will look at the different ways the pupil premium can be spent and the ways impact can be measured. It will also look at the different ways you can evaluate the pupil premium spend and report to key stakeholders.
Room: Charter 2
Breakout session 3 15.55-16.40
Support staff impact on teaching and learning – a joined up approach
Adele Hawksworth, Bay House School and Sixth Form
The aim is to emphasise how schools can embrace the specialist expertise of support staff in schools. Using the Lead Practitioner model and Adele’s experience of working through the accreditation process, the workshop will focus on how a collaborative approach between teaching staff and support staff can help deliver, as a collective responsibility, the school improvement plan. Support staff can play a valuable role in teaching and learning and often provide opportunities for raising standards, which Adele will address through evidence of her work leading on raising reading standards and the impact this has had in her school.
Room: Charter 2
Data at the heart of the classroom
Peter Atherton and Mark Gilmore, Minsthorpe Community College
Recently, the college embarked upon a fresh whole school data strategy that put classroom practitioners at the forefront of data analysis, meaning that the college consulted with teachers to find exactly what information they required in order to help them effectively on a day-to-day basis. The outcome of this was to create easy-to-use and effective data analysis that was fair and equitable to all staff. The data analysis places student progression at its core. The Class Profile revolutionised the planning process at the start of the school year and the other side of the coin was to create systems that provided strong opportunity for review of data and accountability.
Ofsted inspectors were impressed with the data analysis systems they saw at Minsthorpe Community College, stating that they were 'the best example of a data system with widespread classroom use we have ever seen'.
Room: Exchange 9
Cross-phase Inset: developing practice through collaboration
Bethan Owen, Carolyn Tipler and Mel Wilcox, Olympus Academy Trust
In this workshop, we will share some of the ways our schools have worked in collaboration to improve teaching and learning. The main focus will be on how we used two INSET days to strengthen relationships between primary and secondary colleagues; looking at curriculum transition, expectations and teaching and learning, from EYFS right up to Post16. Feedback from staff at all four of the schools that took part was overwhelmingly positive; they found the experience inspiring, thought provoking and challenging and are now keen to engage in much more cross-phase work, to find ways to improve the learning experiences and outcomes of our students.
Room: Exchange 11
Raising the Bar
Breakout session 1 13.45-14.30
Raising the bar - embedding excellence by placing learning characteristics at the centre of school development
Nick Wergan and Andrew Wood, Steyning Grammar School
Steyning Grammar School is committed to using positive psychology research to embed the characteristics students need to be life-long, highly successful learners, raising their own bar and driving our journey to excellence. Our action research evidence has convinced us to put character education at the centre of our school ethos, with major implications for school macro-structures and teachers’ micro-moments. What are the barriers to further achievement in a high performing secondary?
What skills and characteristics do students need to perform better?
Can you measure learning characteristics?
How are learning characteristics related to school performance?
How did action research prove the Seligman model was our answer?
How do you adjust school structures to focus on learning characteristics?
How do you consistently change the learning conversation to embed grit, growth mindset and zest?
Room: Charter 2
Reach for the stars: Ensuring your most able achieve at the highest level
Sue Hargadon, Farlingaye High School
A practical workshop with many strategies schools and individual teachers can use to ensure their most able can achieve their potential. This would include monitoring and tracking but also practical ideas that work. It will include how to ensure your most able disadvantaged students achieve their full potential - a group that can otherwise be sidelined.
Room: Charter 1
Challenge-based learning the NICER© way
Andrew Morrish, Victoria Park Primary Academy
Victoria Park Academy is an Ashoka Changemaker School and has an innovative approach to curriculum design built around the creation of real, immersive and purposeful challenge-based learning experiences. At the heart of this is its unique NICER© curriculum that focuses on creativity, enterprise and 21st century skills. In particular, pupils are taught to become entrepreneurs and run their own successful school business that is integrated throughout the NICER framework. By teaching children to become independent and critical thinkers, with a strong focus on digital technology and speaking ‘Learnish’, the school has transformed itself from special measures to outstanding in exactly one thousand days.
Room: Charter 4
Breakout session 2 14.40-15.25
STRAND KEYNOTE
Teachers of character
Dr Tom Harrison, Jubilee Centre for Characters and Virtues
Character is an important concept in modern society. In both theory and practice, having a good character matters to people, as does the kinds of character our schools, communities and culture promote. Character cannot be fully understood without some reference at least to the ethical domain and we must, as a society, decide what values to favour in education. We must also seek to develop an acceptable language, both for the teaching of character education, morals and virtues in schools, and also for political discussions on this topic.
Any attempt to define character and personal values as simply enabling young people to better understand and function in their immediate surroundings is insufficient. Character and values are deeper than this. If virtues are considered to be good human qualities then the acquisition of these virtues ought to be a goal of education. There is no curriculum or method that will produce character by magic. Rather, I believe that every experience in the home, in the school and in the neighbourhood presents us with opportunities for character development.
Room: Auditorium
Breakout session 3 15.55-16.40
(Leading learning) Approaches to building confidence and resilience - the self-reflective student
Alexandra Tomlinson and Laura Pettett, St Catherine’s Catholic School for Girls
When our SSAT assessor, Tony Smith, visited he observed that a strength of our school was the support given to developing our students’ internal lives. He was referring principally to the ways in which we support and build the whole student in order to furnish them with inner awareness which they need for key higher order skills - analysis, evaluation and the confidence to create. Students cannot achieve or indeed, aspire without these skills. To truly create, students need a reflective and controlled inner awareness. The learning tools which are needed for success cannot come from teaching knowledge alone, there must be an added dimension to their character, their resilience, the way they look at the world and feel about themselves, before true, deep and wide learning takes place. It is only through connecting with themselves and understanding their own spirit that young people can connect with learning.
Room: Charter 1
How to develop a creative curriculum to secure progress
Peter Williams, Weston Favell Academy
We have the opportunity to make a difference to our learners’ educational experience through how we choose to implement the curriculum. Engaging learners with a forward-thinking approach, brought to life by cross-curricular projects promoting individual creativity, can ensure that they meet their full potential.
This session will cover how to ensure the curriculum is relevant to learners, focusing on creativity and a whole school approach, with subjects woven together to raise the bar in terms of levels, quality of work and enhancing the learning outcomes. Staff who were part of a recent cross-curricular project, shared the following feedback: ‘The Legacy project this year has significantly, if not overwhelmingly contributed to increased student enthusiasm and engagement in lessons. The cross curricular focus has allowed students to transfer skills and ideas from other subject areas’ (head of art).
Room: Charter 4
Journey to world class
Kike Agunbiade, Claire Shephard, Mike Cook, Mike Bettles - SSAT with Woodrush High School, Heckmondwike Grammar School and Heathfield Community School
SSAT is launching our Framework for Exceptional Education to inspire and support schools in their quest for continuous improvement that goes beyond ‘outstanding.’ Find out why and how we’ve developed the framework, hear how three of our pilot schools, Heckmondwike Grammar School, Woodrush High School and Heathfield Community School are planning to use it and see how it might help your school too.
Key points that your session will cover:
An introduction to the framework
Insights from three schools on implementation
Have a go at doing an audit of your school using the framework
Room: Charter 3 Leading Learning
Breakout session 1 13.45-14.30
Extending the school day, widening opportunity
Darren J Lyon, Sir Thomas Fremantle School
As a new Free School, we took the immediate decision to extend our school day to 4:30pm daily, allowing firstly for 6 x 55 minutes of teaching time but also an hour of compulsory enrichment each day. This workshop will look at how to sell this to students, parents and staff, how offering a wide range of activities and opportunities beyond the standard curriculum is allowing students to develop and how this is impacting on classroom achievement. The compulsory nature of the programme means that all students take part, not just the affluent ones whose parents can pick them up later. We would look at how students and staff comment on the benefits of these activities.
Room: Exchange 11
Life after levels - a personalised approach
Steve Cox, Vicky Merrick, Nabeela Awan and Michael Allcock, Bluecoat Academy, Nottingham
Presentation of the development of our approach to Life After Levels, detailing Pilot Group work, research strands / conference attendance, holistic approach to assessment (GL Assessment), flight path development and how a commercial data analysis package (Go4Schools) will support. Main focus will concentrate on how curriculum design/formative assessment is at the heart of our approach. We will demonstrate the 'data' behind the approach and how student flight path can respond to their performance.
Room: Charter 3
Raising standards of teaching and learning through deliberate practice and peer collaboration
Craig Walker, Tudor Grange Academy
The workshop will be an opportunity to share with delegates how we have changed the culture of our academy to allow for staff to have the time, space and conditions to work in cross curricular triads. I will present how we have empowered staff to focus on one significant, personal gap in practice and then supported them in a process of deliberate practice with the nurturing support of 2 non- judgemental peers. We have done this through the use of a lesson study type model and through the empowerment of emerging leaders of teaching and learning to drive its success. This has put pedagogy and risk taking on everyone’s permanent agenda and had a marked impact on the learning taking place in every classroom. At the time of the conference we will have embarked on the next phase of this journey which is the use of IRIS technology to support collaboration further and create more dialogue between professionals about learning methodology.
Room: Exchange 9
Breakout session 2 14.40-15.25
Rodillian Academy - coaching and performance model
Andy Goulty, The Rodillian Multi Academy Trust
The workshop will explore the coaching/performance management model used by The Rodillian Academy to transform professional development in the school. Delivered by a team of Deputy Directors for Learning, this year long developmental model provides bespoke support and training for each member of staff, while encouraging them to take ownership of their own professional development. A combination of classroom observation, pupil voice and work scrutiny determines a key teaching standard for improvement, linked to their PM targets, and so creates a streamlined and meaningful focus, wholly designed to raise standards in the classroom. In 2015, 96% staff felt the process was improving their day-to-day classroom practice.
Room: Exchange 9
Mind the gap: learning design [Innovative Curriculum Design]
Jennie Giovanelli and Ben Baines, The Duston School
A session designed to challenge mindsets and approaches to lesson planning to ensure that all students maximise learning time from individual starting points. Engineering learning so that all students are expected and facilitated to reach the same assessment goal is crucial to closing the achievement gap. The Duston School’s approach to designing learning is based on a set of principles which can be easily adapted to meet the needs of any school setting. The impact of the approach can be seen in student outcomes at the school where the gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students at KS4 is less than the national average in all key performance indicators.
Room: Charter 1
Putting the community at the heart of the school
Garry Ratcliffe, Galaxy Federation, Oakfield Community Primary School
Increased attendance figures within the Federation, parental engagement numbers up, successful completion of Advanced Status Extended Services and some would say most importantly, a three year trend at each school of rising attainment (above national for attainment and progress at both schools). How has this been achieved? Good and better teaching, strong leadership – yes…. A respect for and a willingness to engage with our parents and community has also been instrumental in our improvement journey. This workshop will examine the barriers to successful partnership and some possible solutions.
Room: Exchange 11
Breakout session 3 15.55-16.40
STRAND KEYNOTE
Leading learning: thinking big and small
Tom Sherrington, Highbury Grove School
We all want to develop our students as fully rounded, knowledgeable, articulate and confident people, regardless of their circumstances. This requires thinking about the details of their learning but also the bigger framework that it all fits into. Leaders of learning need to understand the mechanisms that lead from assessment and accountability processes to students having deeper knowledge and increased confidence. They also need to consider the broader curriculum structure and the ethos that teachers and students inhabit. At Highbury Grove, our Teaching and Learning Framework and adoption of the National Baccalaureate for England are helping us to think big and small at the same time.
Room: Auditorium
Friday 4 December
Breakfast session 08.00-08.30
Teacher Voice: are you ready to listen?
Dr Russ Quaglia and Dr Lisa Lande, QISA and Teacher Voice
Tap into voice as a valuable resource in supporting teachers and students in achieving their aspirations and reaching their fullest potential. Groundbreaking results from Quaglia Teacher Voice Survey data will be explored; and opportunity will be provided to collaboratively consider strategies for amplifying teacher voice.
Participants will analyse key findings from recent research on voice, consider their current location on the pathway to a system that values voice, explore different expressions of teacher voice, and walk away with practical strategies for balancing and amplifying teacher voice in schools.
Teachers are telling us a great deal about school. The question is, are we ready to listen?
Room: Charter 4
How are more effective schools supporting disadvantaged pupils to achieve?
Shona MacLeod, National Foundation for Educational Research
Presentation based on national research with primary, secondary and special schools across England in 2014-15. The research involved an analysis of English school performance data, a survey of 1,329 primary and secondary schools and interviews with 49 leaders of primary, secondary and special schools.
Room: Charter 1
Leading dialogues about teaching and learning
Dave Harris, Independent Thinking Ltd
Prof John West-Burnham and Dave Harris have produced a book Leadership Dialogues – which looks at current research and practice from around the world and converts this to materials which leadership teams can use to stimulate dialogue to improve that area of the school. In this session Dave Harris will focus on one section which looks at the leading of teaching and learning.
Room: Exchange 9
Content knowledge and pedagogy: what comes first?
Anne-Marie Duguid, SSAT and Philippa Cordingley, CUREE Ltd
Research reviews about the curriculum, about teacher and school improvement and about CPD all highlight the importance of depth in content knowledge. The revisions to the National Curriculum with its emphasis on powerful knowledge reinforces this. A recent CUREE study of schools that are exceptional in meeting the needs of vulnerable communities highlights the importance of depth of subject knowledge in ensuring access to the curriculum for all learners, especially vulnerable ones.
This interactive session will engage colleagues with short case studies of how exceptional schools connect content knowledge and pedagogy and the obstacles to doing this faced by strong schools and those seeking to gain improvement momentum.
Room: Charter 3
Mentally healthy schools
Sue Stirling and Jo Loughran, Time to Change
The emotional well-being and mental health of students impact daily life in school communities. What role should and could schools play? Can schools have a pro-active approach without loading yet more pressure on staff and resources?
We will share learning from a Time to Change’s approach to delivering anti-stigma campaigns in secondary schools and explore how you might make use of this. We will also reflect on how you might maximize what you’re already doing.
It is the intention that this short session will launch a new network of influencers interested in this aspect of school life.
Room: Charter 2
Closing the Gaps
Breakout session 4 10.45-11.30
STRAND KEYNOTE
Bridging the social class gap in educational outcomes
Professor Becky Francis, King’s College London
Underachievement and disengagement for students from disadvantaged backgrounds remains a key issue for the British education system. Professor Francis’ speech will outline the evidence on explanations for this inequality, and explore the benefits and limitations of the Government’s key policy to address this problem - the Pupil Premium. Drawing on her research and expertise, she will assess key challenges for schools, and growing evidence on effective strategies in supporting disadvantaged students’ outcomes
Room: Auditorium
Breakout session 5 11.40-12.25
SEND: integration not segregation
Michelle Matthews, Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Ashbourne
Closing the gap/Raising the bar/Leading Learning for SEND:
Presentation of moving from Ofsted scores of ‘4’ to ‘1’ in 17 months by embracing and embedding the Code Of Practice (0-25) 2014 whilst it was still in draft form, when leading innovation in teaching and learning in a fully inclusive school. Discussion of how the Code of Practice has to be a whole school initiative to be effective in driving forward teaching and learning to support positive outcomes for students. Planning document for implementing the Code of Practice effectively across the curriculum.
Room: Exchange 9
Lippy Kids: enabling creative young people to flourish through enlightened leadership of learning.
Robin Bevan, Southend High School for Boys and Ian Wigston, Bright Field Consulting
1. Outline of an original research project which found that a statistically high proportion of disengaged or vulnerable learners came with a particular learning style. 2. Description of the underlying psychometric model which was used in the study
3. Exploration of the prevailing pedagogy which was being used, and testing of an hypothesis that in the majority of cases schools were failing to engage appropriately with this group of students, increasing their risk of failing to achieve expected levels of attainment.
Room: Charter 2
‘Crafting Confidence’: how public speaking sharpens essential character traits
Camilla Chandler-Mant and Anwen Jones, South Bristol Consortium for Young People
This workshop focuses on ‘Raising the Bar,’ examining a multi-school speaking and listening intervention based on improving young people’s confidence and positive character traits.
Key features of the presentation:
Multi academy formal partnership, building confidence, communication skills and character, employability skills, working with key wider community members, working with parents.
Six secondary academies in a very deprived area of south Bristol have come together to form ‘South Bristol Consortium for Young People’. This organisation is an independent charity and company focusing on raising attainment through honing and highlighting young peoples positive character traits through specific cohort based cross school interventions. Partnership with parents and carers and working closely with local business and universities is essential to the work of the organisation.
‘Crafting Confidence’ is a Paul Hamlyn Trust funded intervention (3 year funding. Cohorts run for 1 year each) which brings together 120 KS3 students from the six consortium schools per year to do specific oration based activities in a range of different settings. Activities include public speaking training from ‘The Speaker’s Trust’, creating and presenting video blogs (uploaded to YouTube), creating a small business plan and explaining this to local business owners, drama based workshops with Bristol Old Vic Theatre and presenting their own speeches to large and small audiences in different venues.
Year 1 data shows very positive outcomes when measuring speaking and listening skills quantitatively. Confidence based qualitative data comes through questionnaires and case studies from students, staff and parents. Academy profiles within the local Bristol community have improved enormously through this intervention.
Room: Charter 4
Breakout session 6 13.25-14.10
Achievement for all – transforming the lives of children vulnerable to underachievement
Pete Sanderson and Richard Orme, Neston High School
Recently awarded ‘Cheshire School of the Year’ for the work undertaken with underachieving students, we have developed a whole school approach to improving the progress of vulnerable young people. We have done this through parental engagement, personalised literacy and numeracy intervention, student well-being and involvement in extra-curricular, use of student voice, an academic mentoring programme, whole school monitoring and marking and feedback and much more. The impact is profound: the target group made between 3 and 4.5 sub-levels in both reading and writing and 2.5 full levels for maths over the year. All gaps at English GCSE have been closed. This is a programme with a five year plan.
Room: Charter 3
Personalising learning A joint session between Talbot Specialist School and Bents Green School (15 minutes each) Personalised learning
Carolyn Sutcliffe, Talbot Specialist School
The presentation will focus on the development of personalised learning which meets the needs of our very diverse student population. The curriculum at Talbot was described by Ofsted as 'imaginative… enabling outstanding achievements for all students regardless of need or background'. We are now further developing this through a three route curriculum which is aspirational and responsive to the complex and changing needs of our students.
Personalisation supporting pupils with cognition and learning difficulties and language and communication disorders
Amanda Costello, Bents Green School
The presentation will be linked to our partnership with Talbot Specialist School with regards to cognition and learning and language and communication disorders. The curriculum at Bents Green Specialist School has recently been redesigned to enhance and promote creative personalised learning.
Our curriculum redesign has been linked to the work of Debra Kidd’s ideas of developing a creative curriculum, Guy Claxton’s insight on how the 7 C’s make a real difference to personalisation and Howell Roberts ‘Mantle of the Expert’ in demonstrating how children think and learn.
Our recent curriculum evaluation is worth sharing with others and is highly motivating if you are thinking of redesigning an area of your curriculum
Room: Exchange 11
Pupil premium – getting the philosophy right
Jason Wood, Corsham Secondary School
Intervention is the last resort not the priority. Putting Pupil Premium students’ progress at the heart of our school improvement plan and performance management, enabled us to focus on 'Closing the Gap' more rapidly than ever before. HMI led evaluation in Feb 2015 reported ‘widespread staff engagement’, ‘sophisticated high quality cycles of feedback’, ‘staff performance management arrangements are targeted, powerful and constructive’.
HMI inspection June 2015 ‘senior leaders and staff demonstrate a strong commitment to raising the achievement of disadvantaged students’. Combining rigorous monitoring and assessment meant the ‘Gap’ closed by 12% from 2014- 2015.
Room: Exchange 9
Raising the Bar
Breakout session 4 10.45-11.30
Developing character through personalisation and practical opportunities
Natasha Rancins, Woodrush High School
Character education at Woodrush has evolved over a number of years but it has been formalised more recently through the introduction of our character education programme. OFSTED quotes from our 2013/14 inspection show the impact of the work we have done on our young people’s attitude towards school and themselves. In our 2015 Inclusion Quality Mark assessment we were recognised again as a centre of excellence.
Room: Charter 1 Rethinking quality: an international perspective. Help! My child goes vocational.
Joke Methorst, EP-Nuffic, the Netherlands
When primary education decides that a vocational stream is the best type of education for a child, secondary education follows this advice. This workshop addresses to what extent equity is achieved in the Dutch school system and how the quality of the vocational streams is monitored by the government inspections.
Room: Charter 2
Whole school development around global and international learning
Rob Unwin, Global Learning Programme (England)
More than 3000 GLP schools across the country are now experiencing the positive impact that global learning can have on pupils’ learning. Global learning provides a powerful opportunity for making the curriculum relevant and inspirational, and can support development on a whole-school level. In addition to enriching the curriculum, GLP schools are finding that global learning is helping to develop critical thinking skills, promote SMSC and foster values such as respect and empathy. This workshop will explore the benefits of the programme with reference to case studies and feedback from the schools involved.
Room: Charter 4
Breakout session 5 11.40-12.25
STRAND KEYNOTE
Raising achievement and progress over time
Tim Oates CBE, Cambridge Assessment
International comparisons highlight countries which have managed to secure a sustained improvement in equity and attainment, and not always from a low base. This presentation examines whether any of these systems share things in common. The international evidence suggests that ideas about education – about the ability of children, about curriculum priorities, about the aims of education – actually play more of a role than previously has been thought. The question ‘If you wish to improve, what should you change?’ is a perennial one, and international comparisons come up with some surprising answers – answers which help frame action in our own setting.
Room: Auditorium
Breakout session 6 13.25-14.10
Preparing your school for the 'brave new world'
Simon Goodwin, South Wirral High School
How do we prepare students for life in the 21st century while also preparing them for success in the new world of exam-driven assessment? And how do we change our schools to achieve this? The 'Brave New World' will require new approaches to curriculum, teaching and assessment and a different style of professional development will help achieve this. Key stage 3 will be the bedrock for 'getting the most out of key stage 4'.
Room: Charter 1
Foundations for success
Daniel Harvey and Sonya Thomas, John Henry Newman Catholic College This workshop will look at how current research, thinking and ideas on the issue of character and education have been applied in John Henry Newman Catholic College’s drive to create a solid and authentic base from which to develop major curriculum and pastoral development.
Room: Charter 4
The I-College as a model for moving beyond the theory of personalisation
Chris Foreman, Homewood School
Homewood School & Sixth Form Centre has been developing a curriculum that provides a range of learning pathways for students. In August 2014 the school was restructured to create colleges, focused on particular stages of a student’s learning pathway.
I-College was created through this restructuring process to provide a completely new type of learning pathway. The college has been designed to create a truly student-centric model, where students have full control of their time- table, access to subject specialists and even level of study.
Join Chris Foreman, Vice Principal as he introduces the design toolkit used to create the I-College, digital learning resources used to support student progress and the latest impact report for his students’ attainment.
Room: Charter 2
Leading Learning
Breakout session 4 10.45-11.30
Innovation using online tools to support leadership of learning - a whole school leadership journey in raising the bar
SSAT
The workshop will explore how we recognised that quality first teaching was paramount to outcomes for all. We launched the innovative online tool, now being used by other schools, and a whole school professional development approach, called the outstanding practice programme, or OPP. This aligned to using data more effectively and developing distributed leadership. The impact has been evident, with improvements in teaching and learning and leadership at all levels, now evolving to a QA model. In 2015, we were regional PP award winners and were recognised by NCTL for our progress with PP students, becoming the first of only 3 supra-regional PP reviewer training centres nationally. The journey and methods will be shared with delegates.
Room: Exchange 11
Leading learning to take a school rapidly from special measures to good and from R.I. to outstanding! (twice!)
Felicity Martin, The Clere School
The session begins with a brief ‘keynote’ description of the route to success which has been achieved by ensuring a relentless focus on individual pupil progress and high quality professional learning. Case studies of two secondary schools will be discussed, one in RI that moved to Outstanding in 2004 and again in 2009. The other in Special Measures that moved straight to Good after 4 HMI visits in 2013. We will share some of the issues and insights gained throughout the journeys. The pivotal area for debate will be the importance of the focus on learning and individual pupil progress, and on leading a school to a culture which enshrines consistency.
Room: Exchange 9
Creating a culture of high-quality learning through leadership, CPL and appraisal
Paul Kennedy, Robert Bradley and Graham Rogerson, Holy Trinity CoE Secondary School, Crawley At Holy Trinity School we were judged to Require Improvement’ in Nov 2012 and we addressed this through a relentless focus on learning. We were inspected again in Nov 2014 and were judged ‘Good’ in every category. Holy Trinity is a TEEP Ambassador School.
Our GCSE results went from 48% 5+ inc E&M in 2013 to 73% 5+ inc E&M in 2014. VA went from 982 to 1019. ‘The headteacher has a relentless focus on improving the quality of teaching so that all students reach their potential. He is also willing to take decisive action where standards are not good enough’, Ofsted Report 2014. There are three viewpoints in this session: vision from the headteacher, CPL through lead practitioners and appraisal from the deputy headteacher.
Room: Charter 3
Breakout session 5 11.40-12.25
Flexible learning spaces = personalised learning
Chris Plant, Landau Forte College
This workshop will explore how to create flexible learning environments which allow young people to access learning in a way that is right for them. It will demonstrate practical ways of ensuring that the design of spaces puts individual needs at the heart of learning. The workshop will enable the participants to think creatively about how, when and where we use learning spaces to engage, excite and challenge all learners but particularly those with different learning needs.
Room: Exchange 11
Using lead practitioners to develop staff expertise
Sarah Heuston and Tom Howells, Chobham Academy
Chobham Academy opened in 2013, and has recently been graded outstanding in all categories (Ofsted, 2015). The journey to outstanding teaching and learning was developed through using lead practitioners as leaders of teaching and learning across the academy. The session outlines our approach to using Lead Practitoners, as a tool for school improvement, and personalised professional development.
Room: Charter 1
The now: radically rethinking students’ experiences in English
Christopher Waugh, The London Nautical School
An insight into how a secondary English department implemented a radical set of strategies that have transformed their students’ experience - and their outcomes. From student-selection of teachers, through online blogging for all 600 students and their teachers to a comprehensive programme of standards-based assessment via digital badges, this department has made the now of the classroom a lively, connected and authentic experience. This department offers some startlingly fresh solutions to some of the toughest challenges in secondary education from 61% to 85% GCSE English language A*-C in two years. You are invited to hear how it was achieved.
Room: Charter 3
Breakout session 6 13.25-14.10
Strand keynote
Leading Teaching and Learning Ross Morrison McGill, Quintin Kynaston Community Academy
Creating a Teaching and Learning vision, whilst cutting through the waffle….
Room: Auditorium