ARETE PARTNERSHIP REPORT 2023/24
The Arete partnership was first established between Gordon’s School and Woking High School in June 2015 with the commitment to providing opportunities for staff and students to discover and develop their talents and interests to the highest standard possible, to lead healthy lives and to make a positive difference to the lives of others. The partnership reflects developmental aims of both secondary schools in improving practice through collaboration, increasing capacity for training and enterprise, and offering opportunities to students to work and compete together across a range of activities. With four schools now working in partnership, it has been split into four silos with each school taking the lead on one silo, Training and Enterprise (Gordon’s), Student Events (Woking High), Developing Practice (Robert May’s) and Procurement (Blenheim).
DEVELOPING PRACTICE
This year, collaboration has taken place between Deputy Heads, Teaching and Learning Leads, Designated Safeguarding Leads, School Business Managers, Special Educational Needs Coordinators and Careers Leads from across all four schools. A key focus for collaboration has been on embedding an effective whole school reading strategy. In January, representatives from Blenheim, Gordon’s and Woking High attended Robert May’s School’s CPD day on this topic and took part in workshops and seminars. Teaching and Learning leads have also undertaken guided learning walks in schools across the partnership with a shared focus on sharing best practice with regards to adaptive teaching. Designated Safeguarding Leads attended Woking High where a presentation was made with a focus on the link between safeguarding, attendance and wellbeing. Attendees were taken on a guided tour and a pupil voice exercise was undertaken to evaluate safeguarding. School Business Managers have used their meetings this year to share budget assumptions for 202425, complete a TLR benchmarking exercise and discuss how different schools are using the Integrated Curriculum Financial Planning (ICFP) tool.
TRAINING AND ENTERPRISE
This year we rolled out the ILM Level 2 award (Aspiring Young Leaders) across all four schools and in May, 75 students (39 from Gordon’s, 17 from Robert May’s, 10 from Blenheim and 9 from Woking High) participated and travelled to Woking High to complete their learning of Unit 1 – Developing Self-Leadership and Resilience for Young People and Unit 2 – Developing Mentoring Skills for Young People. All students passed with flying colours and received their certificates on Wednesday 13th November at the ILM 2 Awards Ceremony held at Gordon’s School.
Gordon’s and Blenheim also successfully ran ILM Level 3 (Aspiring Middle Leaders) for their senior prefects, with 6 students from Gordon’s and 9 from Blenheim all completing two units; Solving Problems and Making Decisions and Developing Yourself and Others.
Gordon’s School have not delivered the Level 5 (teaching & support staff) qualification again this year due to the Government still offering the NPQ qualifications free of charge. This will be reviewed over the next year to see how we can share this with staff members.
STUDENT EVENTS
Woking High School has been taking the lead in organising a wide variety of events for students in all four Arete Partnership Schools, helping to showcase student talent in diverse fields.
Computing: The computing event, hosted at Blenheim School, saw enthusiastic participation from Year 9-11 students across all schools. Each school fielded three teams of four, competing in a series of tech challenges. The event culminated in a victory for Woking High, whose teams performed exceptionally well.
Music: Woking High School played host to a lively music competition on 22nd May 2024. The event featured multiple categories, with independent judges, and each school entering participants across all musical genres. The evening concluded with individual category winners, and Woking High’s own Gabriela Saraf took home the top prize as the overall winner.
Sports Day: All schools came together at Gordon’s for an alternative sports day featuring a variety of events, including rowing, badminton, rounders, tennis, dodgeball, and cycling. 200 students participated, with individual winners crowned for each event. Woking High secured the overall win, demonstrating their impressive athletic abilities.
Astronomy Masterclass: An exciting astronomy masterclass took place in June at Woking High School, led by Dr Ashton and Mr Wilkins. Each school had the opportunity to send up to 15 students for an afternoon of cosmic exploration and learning.
These events not only allowed students to showcase their skills but also fostered collaboration and camaraderie between schools. We look forward to more exciting opportunities ahead! Future plans include hosting two days of events, one sport related and the other, non-sport related. Events will include photography, bake-off and e-sports.
PROCUREMENT
Blenheim High School’s first complete year as part of the Arête Partnership was successful. Ensuring that the academy made full use of the opportunities presented by the Partnership was one of the academy’s five School Development Plan Priorities.
Middle Managers: There were 27 separate meetings between Blenheim’s middle managers and at least one of their counterparts across the Partnership. Staff voice was overwhelmingly positive with colleagues citing that the vast majority of meetings were worthwhile and helpful.
Senior Leaders: The Headteacher and Deputy Head Curriculum both met with their equivalents from the other schools. These meetings helped inform the continuing direction of the Partnership and also allowed for useful discussion around the Leadership of Single Academy Trusts. Other senior leaders also engaged in such meetings.
Student Opportunities: A number of student events took place across the year. At Key Stage 4, Blenheim students achieved the ILM Level 2 Award in Leadership and Team Skills. This two-day course hosted at Woking High School was popular with students.
At Key Stage 5 Blenheim’s Sixth Form students achieved the ILM Level 3 Award in Leadership and Management. Student voice recognised the awards place in developing leadership skills and the benefits that the award would provide in strengthening post Sixth Form University and employment applications. Several student events occurred throughout the year with 94 Blenheim students engaging. The alternative Sports Day held at Gordon’s School was popular and some of the more academic events, for example, the Computer Coding Competition proved to be a big hit.
The 2024/25 academic year sees the Arête Partnership being one of Blenheim’s six School Development Plan Priorities.
CAREERS
Collaboration between the Careers Teams in the schools partnership started to pay dividends during 2023/24 with students from Woking High and Blenheim attending events hosted by Gordon’s. These included the Gordon’s School Careers Fair, industry talks as part of the Careers Insight Lecture series, the Creative Careers drop down day with workshops across Art, Music, Drama, Dance and Photography, and aspirational programmes including Meducators. The Careers Leads from each school meet termly to discuss best practice and identify opportunities for further collaboration. The partnership is supporting each school in the development and implementation of effective Careers programmes to ensure excellent career outcomes for our students and comprehensive engagement with the Gatsby Benchmarks
2024/25 FUTURE PROSPECTS
We are excited to further develop our partnership between our Arete schools by extending Gordon’s work with the Commonwealth Educational Trust to include Robert May’s, Woking High and Blenheim.
We will be extending the invite to teachers at the Arete schools to partner with teachers and schools in Congo, Nigeria, Namibia, Zambia, Bahamas and Trinidad for 2025. The goal is to end educational poverty.
To launch this collaboration, we will be hosting an event via Zoom in the summer term of 2025.
Further information on the work that Gordon’s have already done in the fight to end educational poverty can be found on the Commonwealth Education Trust website
