Weatherhead Teaching School Alliance Newsletter

Newsletter Autumn Term 2016 Welcome to our Teaching School Alliance Autumn Term Newsletter. Last academic year was very busy and successful for the Alliance and we have included a sample of our activities in this edition.

We continue to develop our partnership links and over 25 schools now have an involvement in our Alliance. Our school support work is increasing and we liaise with Wirral Locality Boards to identify and organise school based reviews and training programmes in targeted areas.

The School Direct (ITT) part of our work has continued to expand and this September twenty-nine trainees started out on their school based training in 12 different schools.

I would like to thank everyone involved in the Teaching School Alliance and we look forward to continuing to make a significant contribution to education on the Wirral.

N R Dyment Executive Headteacher

Key Dates for 2016-2017 First Maths Hub Meeting Monday 26th September 2016 First English Hub Meeting Tuesday 4th October 2016 SLE Meeting Tuesday 4th October 2016 Wirral NQT Induction Programme begins Session 1: Focus on Expectations and Differentiation Wednesday 5th October 2016 Session 2: Focus on Student Engagement and Questioning Wednesday 12th October 2016 Weatherhead Teaching School Alliance Annual Conference 2017 Friday 31st March 2017 Beyond Outstanding Cohort 3 Twilight Monday 5th June 2017 Future Leaders’ One Day Conference Thursday 22nd June 2017 Stepping Up Conference Friday 23rd June 2017 Beyond Outstanding Cohort 3 Day 1 Tuesday 27th June 2017 Beyond Outstanding Cohort 3 Day 2 Monday 3rd July 2017 Please visit www.weatherheadtsa.co.uk for more information on all our courses and events

School-to-School Support The School-to-School support work that has been provided by the Weatherhead Teaching School Alliance has grown significantly over the past academic year and the range of support has expanded across all phases. Our provision booklet gives an outline of what is available e.g. Departmental reviews, KS2 Maths and English support. All work is commissioned in partnership with the school.

Please visit www.weatherheadtsa.co.uk/schooltoschool for more information

Local Authority Commissioned Work Since September 2015, Weatherhead Teaching School Alliance has been commissioned by Wirral Local Authority to undertake support for schools that have been identified by the Locality Board as requiring improvement in aspects of their work. Over the last academic year we have been involved with seven schools, across primary and secondary phases.

The Weatherhead Teaching School Alliance has built strong professional relationships and the work undertaken is beginning to make a difference to pupil outcomes. A number of reviews have been conducted and we have responded to requests from the Schools’ Commissioning Manager for the Wirral and also from individual Headteachers. The success of recent OFSTED inspections in some of the schools supported demonstrates that the targeted assistance from the Teaching School Alliance, the Local Authority and other sources is helping colleagues to improve outcomes.

In addition to the Local Authority commissioned work, Weatherhead Teaching School Alliance continues to be involved in a range of activities, some of which are provided through grant funding from the National College of Teaching and Learning.

Support takes many different forms, sometimes one-off subject reviews, on other occasions a longer term on-going programme of support and guidance e.g. developing KS3 Maths. Each package of support is different, negotiated with the school’s leadership team and tailored to meet individual need.

Our SLEs and Their Areas of Specialism Subject

SLEs/Leading Professionals

Art

Deborah Freckleton, Weatherhead High School

Behaviour Management

Kirsten Brown, Gilbrook School

Computing and ICT (including Primary)

Lindsey Moran, Liscard Primary School Victoria Waine, Weatherhead High School Matt Brooks, Bidston Avenue Primary School

English & Literacy

Nicola Rogers, Weatherhead High School Christina Walton, Weatherhead High School Sarah Deeble, Weatherhead High School

Early Years

Jane McCreadie, Liscard Primary School

Humanities

Daniel Major, Prenton High School

Leadership

Annmarie Whelan, Weatherhead High School Sarah Brear, Liscard Primary School Lindsey Moran, Liscard Primary School Jane McCreadie, Liscard Primary School Rachel Byrne, Weatherhead High School

Mathematics (including Primary)

Joe Stringer, Weatherhead High School Louise Reid, Weatherhead High School Sarah Brear, Liscard Primary School Maryanne Ramsbottom, Birkenhead Academy Junior School

NQT

Rachel Byrne, Weatherhead High School

Post-16 Education

Annmarie Whelan, Weatherhead High School

Physical Education

Rachel Byrne, Weatherhead High School

QA Systems

Annmarie Whelan, Weatherhead High School Nicola Rogers, Weatherhead High School Joe Stringer, Weatherhead High School Deborah Moore, Weatherhead High School

Special Needs Education

Kirsten Brown, Gilbrook School Jim Morris, Weatherhead High School Sarah Long, Gilbrook School

Science

Deborah Moore, Weatherhead High School Deborah Hughes Daniel Griffiths, Kilgarth School

Teaching & Learning

Sarah Brear, Liscard Primary School Lindsey Moran, Liscard Primary School Jane McCreadie, Liscard Primary School Louise Reid, Weatherhead High School

Please visit www.weatherheadtsa.co.uk/sle for more information on all our Leaders of Education

CPD - Training & Development Moving into Senior Leadership The National College funded and commissioned (through Learn & Lead) the Weatherhead Teaching School Alliance to prepare and deliver a course for colleagues who were about to apply for Senior Leadership positions in schools.

The course ‘Moving into Senior Leadership’ was fully funded and involved a two day residential, two twilight sessions and a final one day conference. There were well over 100 applications, all fully supported by Headteachers. Twenty colleagues were selected from Early Years, Primary and Secondary phases. The course was designed by Mr Andrew Newton and presented by Andrew and Mr Ian Kelly of Teaching Teachers. Input from serving practitioners were provided from Mrs Rosemary Littler NLE and Mr Neil Dyment NLE. The course content covered:  Self-Awareness  Motivational Skills  Delegation and Holding People to Account  Traits of Successful Leaders  Leading change The programme proved to be a resounding success and the quality and commitment of delegates was outstanding. Course reviews were very positive and this academic year a second cohort will have an opportunity to join the 2016/17 course.

“A fantastic course! Great leaders, a brilliant selection of colleagues. All have had a positive impact on my leadership”

“Thank you for creating an excellent environment and opportunity to learn and explore new skills and Information”

Moving into Senior Leadership Cohort 1

“Enjoyed every session – such a supportive group! Would recommend to all”

CPD - Training & Development Weatherhead Teaching School Alliance Annual Conference 2016 In February 2016, Caroline Bentley-Davies, an experienced schools’ adviser and Ofsted Inspector, delivered her most popular INSET training 'Raising Achievement through Outstanding Lessons'. The day consisted of:  Outstanding teaching and learning techniques & reflection  Securing learning “Absolutely excellent! Engaging from start to finish and  Ensuring challenge loads of ideas given which can be used from tomorrow “  Effective feedback  Great lessons “Fantastic training day, thank you so much. Lots of ideas, I am excited to try them out”  Quality questioning

Beyond Outstanding Beyond Outstanding recognises the crucial role that middle leaders play in secondary school improvement and the title of the programme encapsulates the Alliance’s drive for continued and sustained excellence.

The 18 month bespoke training programme began with a twilight session in June with both primary and secondary middle leaders from various schools in our area attending; this was led by Miss Rachel Byrne and Mr Andrew Newton and covered the following areas:  Identifying existing leadership strengths and areas to develop  Developing a clear vision for the team  Raising confidence to lead and implement change  Developing behaviours and strategies to enable teams to be even more effective There were two separate days of training delivered by our NLE and SLEs to provide a better understanding of leadership and how to lead a team beyond outstanding.

Further twilight sessions will take place in the 2016-17 academic year with a final presentation to SLT towards the end of the programme.

CPD - Training & Development Future Leaders’ One Day Conference

Stepping Up

We had 35 educators from across both primary and secondary attend our popular Future Leaders’ one day Conference in July. This was hosted

by Mr Andrew Newton, a former Deputy Headteacher and currently a leadership consultant. The conference provided delegates with:  An understanding of the importance of leadership in education  The necessary tools needed to progress their leadership skills in the future  The confidence to be able to take the lead on new projects and initiatives within their own school setting

As part of our Leadership Development Training, we offered a unique one day training session, delivered by Miss Rachel Byrne and Miss Annmarie Whelan. This programme was designed for staff who have recently undertaken, or have the potential to undertake, a leadership role and focused on:  Delivering leadership through increasing awareness, knowledge, skills and confidence in effective communication, managing work and leading projects and people  Developing leadership behaviours to effectively lead and communicate projects and vision to others  Developing different leadership styles and understanding the impact they have on others  Practical support with timemanagement and prioritisation as a leader with additional responsibility

“A very engaging course that encouraged my desire and confidence to progress and also consider my own skills and areas to improve” “Extremely helpful and informative ” “Excellent detail and hand-outs, very informative, thank you”

CPD - Training & Development Wirral NQT Induction Programme

Weatherhead Teaching School Alliance delivered a programme of twilight training sessions to Newly Qualified Teachers across the Wirral as part of their induction programme. The sessions ensured that those new to teaching were equipped with the tools to become an effective and successful practitioner. This session included:  Planning an Outstanding Lesson  Logistics for Parents’ Evening  Using Assessment Data  Sharing of Good Practice  Report Writing  Teaching and Learning Focus A new programme for Wirral NQTs starts in October 2016, please visit www.weatherheadtsa.co.uk/nqt for more details

Wirral NQT Mentor Training The training was designed to support Induction Tutors and NQT Mentors to develop an understanding of the role and responsibilities when supporting staff during their induction period.

During the training the following elements of the NQT Induction process were explored, with relevance to the latest NQT Induction Handbook & Ofsted Guidance:  The Roles & Responsibilities of the NQT  The Roles & Responsibilities of the NQT Induction Mentor  Statutory Guidance for NQT Induction – Leading through the NQT Induction Year  Effective lesson observation and delivering feedback  NQT Manager – assessment reports and administration arrangements  LA ‘Appropriate Body’ update Our next course will be Wednesday 28th September from 3.30pm, please visit www.weatherheadtsa.co.uk/nqtmentor for more details

CPD - Training & Development Hub Meetings In order to support development and planning we are setting up Curriculum hubs where Heads of Departments can meet together and share their experiences. Maths and English hubs have been arranged and we plan to set up Science and MFL later in the year.

Maths Hub Meetings The focus of the meetings was sharing best practice in relation to the new GCSE and to investigate Year 7 mastery. For the new GCSE, the secondary school practitioners set students a middle ability Year 10 practice paper and then collaboratively marked the completed work as a group. The aim was to identify areas of weakness with new content and to ensure everybody was marking the new style of questions in a fair manner.

There were discussions on how to set up schemes of work for Year 10 and how to move the students forward into Year 11. For Year 7 mastery, the plans for the changing KS3 curriculum and what would be introduced to the new Year 7 cohort were also discussed.

The dates for the 2016/17 meetings are 26th September 2016, 30th January 2017, 27th March 2017 and 26th June 2017

English Hub Meeting During the hub meetings, colleagues met to compare curriculum planning models for teaching and assessing the content within the new KS4 English Language and Literature qualifications; this included strategies on how to prepare Year 7s for the rigour of the curriculum. One of the meetings focused on the summative and formative marking of a sample of English Language papers which was beneficial for standardisation and quality assurance within departments.

Best practice was also shared within English Departments for other Wallasey schools in terms of assessment, tracking and promoting mastery. One of the key areas for discussion was the new requirement for memorisation (of quotations and poems for English Literature) and how to embed ‘Making it Stick’ techniques within lower ability sets.

The dates for the 2016/17 meetings are 4th October 2016, 2nd February 2017, 28th March 2017 and 22nd June 2017

School Direct - Teacher Training Over the last four months the number of secondary schools joining our Alliance has increased. Both Wirral Grammar School for Girls and West Kirby Grammar School have requested trainees who will be based with them from September 2016. This will allow Weatherhead Teaching School Alliance to attract more prospective trainees to two ‘outstanding’ schools. The Programme will also be marketed with the alumni from both schools.

For the first time, the Weatherhead Teaching School Alliance has delivered ten school based training days for our School Direct trainees, on behalf of Liverpool John Moores University. The training has been delivered and hosted by staff from across our Alliance schools. The feedback from our secondary associate teachers has been extremely positive. The model that is currently used to deliver the primary school-based sessions will change for this academic year, so sessions are delivered to the group of trainees as a whole, rather than by each individual school.

Plans are in place for developing the programme further with recruitment days and marketing being aimed at university undergraduates in Northern Ireland.

There has been a new primary coordinator recruited who will run the programme for St George’s Primary School, and a focus of the work will be to monitor the quality of the school based sessions and mirror the programme that is delivered

by Weatherhead High School.

In July we held a School Direct Induction Day for both the primary and secondary trainees to prepare them for the academic year ahead. This also gave them the opportunity to gather any further information they felt they may need. They were also able to meet the other trainees.

Working Together Year 6 Ceramics Workshop

Year 6 ICT Coding Workshop

Year 6 pupils were invited from Liscard Primary School to take part in a Ceramics Workshop. During the session pupils used clay modelling techniques to create creatures based on the idea of aliens and monsters. They each made their own creatures called "Clayliens" which were then fired in our kiln and returned to the primary schools for the children to paint.

The workshop was successful and enjoyed by staff and pupils. The pupils were able to gain new skills and an insight into creative ceramics.

10 Year 6 pupils attended a fun-filled computer programming afternoon with the Computer Science Department in July. Pupils developed program code to control BBC Micro:bits, which are pocket-sized programmable computers with motion detection, a built-in compass and Bluetooth technology. Miss Victoria Waine hosted the pupils from Egremont Primary School and Greenleas Primary School, all of whom received a certificate at the end for showcasing their fantastic programming skills!

Primary Science Outreach Representatives of local primary schools attended an afternoon session hosted by Dr Debbie Moore and Mr Joe Toner. Topics discussed were 'Working Scientifically', 'Light & Sound' and 'Evolution & Inheritance', where the focus was on sharing KS3 expectations with KS2 teachers, along with resources which could be used for KS2 pupils/planning ideas. Opportunities for discussion enabled sharing of practice amongst delegates and ideas for future sessions.

Liscard Primary School showcased their bid for the Primary Science Quality Mark (PSQM) Silver Award, which was useful and informative, giving all attendees good practice ideas to share with their schools.

Strategic Partners The Weatherhead Teaching School Alliance is a partnership of many Wirral and other North West schools. Some partners are Strategic Partners, taking a leading role in aspects of our Teaching School’s activity.

St George’s Primary School

The Heath School, Runcorn

Bidston Avenue Primary School

Kilgarth School

Wirral Borough Council

Liscard Primary School

Liverpool John Moores University