Transcript Slide 1

Day Conference 2011
Building Successful Partnerships
Exploring the possibilities for effective
collaboration presented by federation, trust
and academy status
Two Case Studies
• Mike Lavelle, Headteacher, Lincroft Middle School
the Federation of North Bedfordshire Schools which has now
become the Academy Federation of North Bedfordshire
Schools
• Adrian Rogers, Headteacher, Robert Bloomfield School
the Beds East Schools’ Trust (BEST)
A shift in the climate for schools?
Andy Hargreaves contrasts:
• Karaoke World – you follow the bouncing dot – not all
performances are the same – but are conditioned, and limited, by
the same instructions
• Jazz world – participants are free to improvise – Jazz allows
musicians to play their favourite instruments, develop their own
styles, and take the lead at times.
White Paper
7.14 In a much more autonomous system, schools will be responsible
for setting their own priorities and deciding how best to meet them.
(The Importance of Teaching: Schools White Paper: Schools to work together to raise standards)
DfE – Academy FAQs
Taken from current DfE website
Slightly different than the DfE Booklets
Which mainstream schools can apply to
become academies?
• Primary and secondary schools that have been rated outstanding or
good with outstanding features by Ofsted can submit their individual
applications to convert.
• In addition, any school – primary or secondary – can apply with
other schools as part of a formal partnership, providing at least one
is rated outstanding or good with outstanding features, or they join
an existing academy trust with a proven track record of school
improvement.
• Applications for outstanding maintained special schools will open in
January 2011. All schools are encouraged to register their interest
through the online form on the Department’s website.
Academy chains
Who can now apply to convert to academy status as part of a chain?
Any school can apply to join an existing academy trust.
In addition, any group of schools, regardless of their individual Ofsted
ratings, can apply in partnership to join the academy programme as
long as at least one of the member schools is outstanding or good with
outstanding features.
The schools do not have to already be in a federation before applying.
Each application will be considered on its merits, and the Secretary of
State will only approve those where he is satisfied the schools have the
capacity to enjoy academy freedoms and there are appropriate
accountability mechanisms in place to support weaker schools to
improve.
Academy chains
•
Does every school in the group get the £25,000 grant towards
the conversion?
• Can this be used to support the whole group?
• Yes and Yes. We know there are some smaller schools that find this
a very attractive option and enable them to share expertise and
resources to help support each other through the conversion
process.
Federations and Groups of Schools
•
If an ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ school with one or more outstanding features
that wishes to convert is in a hard federation with another school (or
number of schools), then that Governing Body may submit an application to
convert covering all the member schools of that federation, even where
some or all of the other schools are not outstanding in their own right.
•
Any school, regardless of their individual Ofsted ratings, can apply to join an
existing Academy Trust. In addition, any group of schools can apply in
partnership, as long as at least one of the member schools is ‘outstanding’
or ‘good’ with one or more outstanding features. Each application will be
considered on its merits, and the Secretary of State will only approve those
where he is satisfied there are appropriate accountability mechanisms in
place to support the weaker schools to improve. Each school applying in
partnership would need to submit a separate application and their
Governing Body would need to pass a resolution to convert to become an
Academy.
Source Guidance for schools becoming academies
Multi Academy Models
Previously
• Collaboration
(previously soft federation)
• Trust
(Church school model – belong
to a trust – represented on
each governing body)
• Federation
(Single governing body –
previously hard federation)
Multi Academy Models
• Collaborative Partnership Model
Each academy exists as a separate entity with an
agreement to work in partnership for specific
purposes.
• Umbrella Trust Model
Each academy has own funding agreement,
company and governors. With umbrella trust.
‘Chain’ model with common sponsor.
• Multi-Academy Trusts
There is one company and governing body - may
delegate limited powers to schools. This is the
model used by ‘brands’ such as ULT, Oasis,
Harris and Ark.
The Importance of Teaching: Schools White Paper:
Schools to work together to raise standards
Extracts from the current white paper
The Importance of Teaching: Schools White Paper:
Schools to work together to raise standards
• 7.13 We will also establish a new collaboration incentive worth
£35m each year. This will financially reward schools which support
weaker schools to demonstrably improve their performance while
also improving their own. The fund will incentivise improvements in
attainment overall, improvements in progression and narrowing of
the attainment gap between deprived pupils and others.
The Importance of Teaching: Schools White Paper:
Schools to work together to raise standards
•
7.14 In a much more autonomous system, schools will be responsible for
setting their own priorities and deciding how best to meet them. As the
National Strategies and other field forces come to an end, we will support a
new market of school improvement services with a much wider range of
providers and services available for schools to choose from. We will work
with a growing number of providers to make it easier for head teachers and
teachers to find out about improvement services on offer as well as making
high quality research, good practice and free resources easily available.
•
7.15 Local authorities will be free to define how they will support school
improvement and will no longer be required to set local authority level
targets. Local authorities might choose to offer school improvement as a
traded service. This could include continuing to provide support and
challenge to schools that want it, running improvement conferences,
bringing people together to tackle local problems and brokering support
from excellent schools to support other schools.
Central questions
Pros and cons of academy status
Single school – if judged outstanding - in-principle agreement to
support another school to help raise standards.
Chain or federation – routes to academy status if not judged
outstanding
A chain of academies – What would this look like?
New possibilities through partnership – for school improvement….
Changed environment for schools - LAs and new autonomy –
Opportunity for shared thinking and perspectives
A way forward to a 21st Century three tier system?
Materials from today
All the presentations from today will be available for you to download
from the NMSF website from tomorrow:
www.middleschools.org.uk
Please go to the ‘Conference Reports’ page
You will also find useful papers provided by Adrian and a paper
explaining the different multi-academy models.
Research - Middle School Spending tables 2011
When the spending tables were published in 2010, middle deemed
secondary schools were missing from the secondary data
(presumably because they did not have GSCE results).
Now the data has been published – and this brief research paper
considers
- spending per pupil in different local authorities
- what the tables reveal about the relative cost of middle schools
compared to other types of school.
Download your copy from the ‘Research’ page of the NMSF website
www.middleschools.org.uk
2011 National Conference
Sustaining performance and achievement through partnership
Stratford Manor Hotel, Stratford on Avon.
Monday 17th October to Tuesday 18th October, 2011
Confirmed speakers:
Graham Watts: An introduction to the Habits of Mind
21st century learning is not just about gathering information but about knowing how to act
on it, knowing what questions to ask of it and being able to thinking critically about
content and origin. The Habits of Mind give us the behaviours that shape effective
inquiry and encourage independent learning.
Alison Peacock: National Leader of the Cambridge Primary Review Network
Malcolm Trobe: Policy Director, ACSL
Cost: Full conference to members - £339