Weatherhead Teaching School Alliance Newsletter

Newsletter

Summer 2016/17 The academic year 2016/17 has been another exciting and very successful year for the Teaching School and in this report I present a snapshot of some of our activities and our future plans.

The School Direct (Teacher Training) aspect of the Teaching School has developed extremely well, and over the year we have had 25 trainees in 12 schools. Our trainees are spilt between Primary and Secondary schools and over the year another 3 schools have joined our Alliance. We are pleased to be in partnership with Liverpool John Moore’s University, who continue to provide the professional studies part of the programme and also assist with Quality Assurance through undertaking lesson observations.

We are in a significant time of change in relation to government policy, for both school improvement and CPD. School improvement resources will in future be allocated by Regional School Improvement Boards, these groups will be acting on an agreed set of priorities that have been identified using information from Local Authority Locality Boards and brokering providers such as Teaching schools who deliver support and improvements. The Wirral Locality Board system is operating well and Weatherhead Teaching School is an integral partner to that work.

In this newsletter we highlight our work in ITT, school improvement, leadership development and CPD support. You will see that the Teaching School is pivotal to the future success of Wirral schools and is making a significant contribution to our community

N R Dyment Executive Headteacher

School to School Support The Teaching School has been involved in supporting primary and secondary schools on the Wirral over the past academic year.

Mr N Dyment, NLE, and Mr J Stringer, SLE, Head of Maths at Weatherhead have been involved in providing significant support for one Wirral secondary school and have received commendations for the work from the Headteacher and also from Ofsted when the school was inspected.

The Teaching School has been involved with a total of 4 secondary schools and the work has ranged from Departmental Review to full Pupil Premium Reviews.

Mrs R Littler, NLE, Headteacher at Liscard Primary school and her team have been involved in supporting a number of primary schools. Their work has been very successful and much appreciated.

The work supporting Wirral schools has been made possible as a consequence of funding provided by Wirral LA. It is of concern that this funding may not be available for the next academic year. Continued support from the Teaching School will require funding sources to be found from either the National, Strategic School Improvement Fund or by charging recipient schools for the work.

Mrs Jane Owens, NLG, Chair of Governors continues her work on a local and national basis, supporting schools and Governing Bodies. Mrs Owens has provided invaluable support, often in response to recommendations in Ofsted.

The work of the Teaching School in supporting education beyond the boundaries of Weatherhead is now embedded and there is significant trust from colleagues on the Wirral who are appreciative of the expertise provided to help and develop their schools. The future success of this support will be wholly dependent on building capacity within the Teaching School through securing funding streams going forward.

Moving into Senior Leadership Course This has been a very successful course with three cohorts of teachers from across the Learn & Lead area that have benefited from some outstanding leadership training. In total, 80 teachers have attended the 3 day course, which is supplemented with 2 twilight sessions. Most aspects of leadership are addressed and the feedback from delegates has been excellent. A significant proportion of Cohort 1 have secured senior posts and we are providing assistance and tracking the success of other course delegates.

The course is led and presented by Mr. Andrew Newton (former Deputy Headteacher) and Mr. Ian Kelly (former Headteacher), both are very experienced consultants. Additional presentations have been made by Mrs. Rosemary Littler, NLE and Mr. Neil Dyment, NLE.

"Informative, reflective and thought provoking moving leadership forward"

"Great course - always makes me feel positive to try new approaches, thank you"

"It's having a positive impact on my career"

"Training was fantastic.

Very useful ideas, strategies and solutions"

Moving into Senior Leadership Course An outline of the course:

Main Components MBTI – the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Personality Test helps delegates identify and describe personality traits. The instrument helps discover personality and is proven to be both valid and reliable. The course is administered so that there is individual feedback and it is completed by students online. One of the presenters, Andrew Newton, who is a certified MBTI practitioner helps colleagues understand the nature of the results.

Team Development This is an activity based session that allows staff to explore, contribute and lead teams. This has always proved to be very powerful in helping colleagues understand the role of team building.

Influencing Others A major session on influencing others using the Belbin Team Roles Questionnaire, studying different types of team roles, the positive qualities and allowable weaknesses.

Feedback and Fierce Conversations Usually an NLE is involved in these sessions highlighting how to hold staff to account and

Setting expectations, Invite commitment, Measure progress, Provide feedback, Link to consequences and Evaluate is explored and challenge performance. The SIMPLE general rule for

discussed.

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Styles Additional elements of the course include:

• The completion of a reflective journal • Management and leadership of change using the Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model.

• 360 Review of performance involving other colleagues.

• Giving and developing feedback.

• Circle of influence • Letters of application

Whole School Maths Conference Heads of Mathematics and teachers from 16 schools across Wirral took part in a Mathematics conference hosted by Joe Stringer our Mathematics SLE. During the day the focus was on sharing practice in terms of curriculum planning and Teaching & Learning strategies for Mastery at KS3, along with discussions around preparations for the new GCSE specification and SOW planning to embed fluency, reasoning and problem solving skills. Delegates also looked at how we can improve links with Primary schools and how their curriculum flows in to Year 7.

Throughout the day there was opportunity to experience Mathematics and problem solving from a student's point of view, with hands on activities designed to showcase the CPA (concrete, pictorial, abstract) approach to Mathematics pedagogy and delegates were able to better understand the Mathematics Mastery partnership and how Weatherhead has implemented this new curriculum model.

Whole School English Conference On 7th February 2017, staff within the English Department hosted a curriculum based conference to provide strategies and suggested approaches for delivery of the new specifications which was attended by representatives from local secondary schools. Colleagues were given the opportunity to discuss new challenges, solutions and resources at department level, as well as providing a useful networking opportunity.

The initial session, led by Samantha Cooper, focused on managing transition from KS2 to KS3, class setting, intervention for Level 3 students and the process of creating the ‘Weatherhead Levels’.

Acting Head of English, Sarah Deeble, presented on Key Stage 4 delivery and standards, attaining mastery and rigour at department level and initiatives for targeting the most able students.

Colleagues were able to see a range of best practice in terms of homework setting, memorisation of quotations and assessment which led to useful discussions about the strengthened standards of the English Literature GCSE.

Samantha Evans, Literacy Coordinator, hosted a session on Literacy and the role of the LRC whereby she presented on a range of school-wide initiatives including: Form Time Literacy, Reading Diaries, Marking Strategies and KS3 Daily Starter Activities.

Many delegates have remained in contact and follow-up visits have been arranged to observe the implementation of the strategies discussed at the conference.

Behaviour for learning and Well-being Conference With teachers in schools today having huge demands on them to keep students safe, whilst ensuring effective behaviour and fantastic learning opportunities, our one day conference allowed busy staff from both primary and secondary schools, the opportunity to understand how to use neuroscience in explaining student behaviour and recharge their behaviour management strategies.

We offered 3 workshops, hosted by Caroline Bentley-Davies, the author of the best-selling book 'How to be an Amazing Teacher', and Steven Baker, Executive Head of Kilgarth and Gilbrook School.

Workshop 1: Resilience, managing your own well-being and time management techniques.

Caroline explained what it means to develop resilience and how to improve your own well-being.

As well sharing time management and time-saving tips and strategies to help balance life and school work more successfully.

Workshop 2: Using Neuroscience to understand Student Behaviour. This session covered the links between the latest neuroscience research and underlying causes of behaviour. Also the common approaches to supporting young people with ADHD, ASD, FASD and pre-term difficulties.

Workshop 3: Behaviour for Learning: Strategies for Making it Happen! The delegates were given a number of behaviour management strategies that really work and also promote brilliant learning.

"Excellent training informative and interesting"

"Brilliant! can’t wait to use these new strategies"

"A fantastic insight into SEN and ADHD"

NQT Mentor Training We welcomed 18 colleagues for our bespoke NQT Mentor training in October, from both primary and secondary schools across the Wirral.

The session was delivered by Rachel Byrne, Assistant Headteacher and designed to support Induction Tutors and NQT Mentors, to help in developing an understanding of their role and responsibilities when supporting NQT staff during their first year of teaching.

During the training, elements of the NQT Induction process were explored, along with the Statutory Guidance for NQT induction, utilising NQT Manager effectively and information on the LA 'Appropriate Body' update was provided.

Wirral Secondary NQT Induction Programme Rachel Byrne, Assistant Headteacher, developed a programme of twilight training sessions to support Newly Qualified Teachers during their induction phase.

Each session explored a particular 'theme' e.g. differentiation, questioning, marking and feedback.

The final session is due to take place on Wednesday 21st June.

The Weatherhead Lead Researchers have also contributed to the programme.

"Great resources and new ideas shared between different schools"

"This session was one of the best to date.

Really useful and great ideas to take away"

"Good pointers for upcoming parents’ evening"

Tara Loughran - Primary Maths CPD This year Weatherhead was chosen as the venue for the delivery of 5 maths inset days for the Wallasey cluster of schools. The training was funded by the Wallasey Locality Board and 40 staff from 17 local primary schools and 2 Secondary schools attended the sessions which were led by maths consultant Tara Loughran. The sessions ran between September 2016 and April 2017.

Tara has extensive experience in schools in leading improvements and change in mathematics. She worked as the Senior Adviser for Primary Mathematics in the North of England for the National Strategies Programme and prior to this, as a Senior LA numeracy consultant. Tara has supported the writing of quality mathematics documents for all schools nationally.

UnLocke Project Weatherhead Teaching School took part in helping to promote an innovative Maths and Science learning activity.

The project known as "UnLocke" was led by Professor Derek Bell, of Learnus and Steven Baker, Executive Head of Kilgarth and Gilbrook school.

The programme provided a wonderful opportunity for Years 3-5 students to take part in a computer based learning activity project for Maths and Science. There were 8 Primary schools in attendance, to discuss the project in further detail.

This project is run by researchers from Birkbeck, UCL-Institute of Education,within the Centre for Educational Neuroscience (CEN), in partnership with Learnus, an education think-tank.

School Direct 2016/17 Recruitment for our School Direct programme 2017/18 has been going well and all Primary and Secondary places have been filled. We held an information morning at Weatherhead High School on Saturday 19th November 2016, which saw twenty eight potential applicants attend. From this event, six people have applied and three have gained a place on our School Direct training programme. We also commissioned an advertising campaign, which ran for the whole of February. The campaign used a number of local bus routes, across Liverpool and the Wirral, to advertise our School Direct programmes. Although it has been difficult to measure the impact of this campaign, we have seen an increase in the number of applications, compared to the same time last year (120-140 applications). From September 2017, we have Calday Grange Grammar School, Birkenhead Park School and Woodchurch High School (as an alternative placement provider) joining our Alliance.

WTSA has also introduced our very own weekly professional studies programme, which has been well received by all our Associate Teachers. Overall each session has been graded as 'good' or better. The programme is delivered by key staff from across Weatherhead High School and The Mosslands School. Sessions have been planned in relation to the teacher standards and for the individual needs of the trainees. As the year progresses the programme changes, to meet the 'gaps' in the ATs' knowledge. We have also used some outside agencies, for example, Hayes Recruitment and a first aid provider. This programme has also been important as it has allowed the School Direct lead to maintain contact with the ATs, on a weekly basis.

Our ATs have successfully completed their school-based training days, which saw them visiting other schools for specialist sessions, like Kings Leadership Academy in Liverpool for an EAL Day and Birkenhead High School Academy for assessment training. As well as our own ATs, Fazakerley High School ATs joined us for all of our sessions and as in previous years, we joined The Heath for a selection of days.

At the beginning of the calendar year, all the ATs spent six weeks with their alternative placement schools, spending time in a contrasting school-based experience. This gave them the opportunity to see how other schools operate, and how they need to adapt to different teaching styles, which also helped provide key evidence for teacher standards.

So far, to date 58% of our ATs (Secondary) have secured employment, with 42% in Wirral schools.

What is even more pleasing is that 31% have secured a job in an 'Alliance school'. However, none of our PE trainees have managed to secure employment, which is typical of the current market.

Primary School Direct 2016/17 This year there are six Associate Teachers completing the Primary, Schools Direct Programme including one on the EYFS course. They have been based in four Wallasey schools: St.Georges Primary, Mount Primary, Park Primary and Liscard Primary and have successfully gained valuable experience teaching a range of ages and abilities.

Throughout the year the six ATs have attended professional studies sessions, planned and delivered by all four schools, which have covered all eight teaching standards. They have found these most beneficial, as the training has been delivered by head teachers and highly experienced teaching staff. This provided the AT’s with a further insight into all aspects of teaching, in conjunction with their university-based training. It has also allowed them to visit other schools, where they have enjoyed meeting colleagues to share their experiences and gain support.

All six ATs have also been involved in school visits and residential trips which again have provided invaluable experience. They have attended staff meetings, school parents' evenings and Wallasey Schools moderation meetings, as well as taking part in extra-curricular activities for the children in their home schools.

Now the course is coming to an end, the ATs are focusing on preparing themselves for their individual 'Triangulation Meetings' and ensuring they have evidence to support each teaching standard and achieving the best possible grade they can. In addition to this, the ATs are beginning to seek employment and in order to support them in this process, we held a ‘mock’ interview day. This allowed the ATs to learn how to apply for NQT jobs and gain experience of the interview process.

SUMMER TERM

Future Events Monday 5th June 2017 Beyond Outstanding Cohort 3 Introductory Twilight

This twilight session will provided an overview of the programme, clarifying roles and expectations. Delegates will be introduced to 360 evaluations and MBTI, as well as clarifying what the school and participants want as outcomes.

Tuesday 20th June 2017 Beyond Outstanding Cohort 3 Day 1 Day 1 of this programme will look at the delegates Myers-Briggs Type Indicator results, helping them to find a vision for their team, and to look at the values and how they impact on this vision.

School projects will be introduced and ideas about what makes a great team will be discussed.

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Future Leaders' One Day Conference The purpose of the Future Leaders Conference is to develop an understanding of the crucial importance of leadership in education. The programme provides colleagues in their first 2 years of teaching with a leadership toolkit to use now and in the future, and encourages them to seek

31ST MARCH 2017

out opportunity to take the lead on a project.

Monday 3rd July 2017 Beyond Outstanding Cohort 3 Day 2

Following on from Day 1, Day 2 will go into more detailed planning of the delegate's school projects, preparing them for difficult conversations with colleagues and parents, delivering effective feedback and how to lead their team 'Beyond Outstanding'.

Please visit www.weatherheadtsa.co.uk for more information on all our upcoming courses and events for the academic year 2017/18