“On a cold winter’s day, a group of porcupines huddled together to stay

warm and keep from freezing. But, soon they felt one another’s quills and moved

apart. When the need for warmth brought them closer together again, their quills again forced them apart.

They were driven back and forth at the mercy of their discomforts until they found the distance from one another

that provided both a maximum of warmth and a minimum of pain.”

Arthur SchopenhauerFrom: Buonfino, A., and Mulgan, G. (2006) Porcupines in Winter, London: The Young Foundation

Caroline Burn

• Headteacher St. Mark’s CE VA Primary, Talbot Village, Bournemouth

• Large primary – 420 pupils• Only school in Bournemouth in the Salisbury

Diocese, ‘honorary’ member of Winchester Diocese

Founded in 2005 with a primary Strategy Learning Grant

For the purpose of…

SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

Our Network Story

HELPING PUPILS REACH THEIR POTENTIAL IN MATHS

High Quality joint INSET TRAINING DAYS for Teachers and Teaching Assistants

Mike Askew King’s College, LondonJanet Rees Independent Consultant in EY & SEN20

06

PROBLEM SOLVING IN MATHS… The Next StepsRuth Merrtens Education Director, Hamilton TrustLes Ruddick & Sue Wickings Bournemouth LEA20

0720

08

INSPIRE… CHALLENGE… MOTIVATE… Towards a Futures Curriculum

Nick Hinds, Independent Consultant

DEVELOPING THE WHOLE CHILD THROUGH THE FUTURES CURRICULUM

High Quality INSET TRAINING DAYS for Teachers and Teaching Assistants

Peter Sharp - Director of learning, MouchelJenny Mosely workshop Colour WorksRights Respecting Schools

2009

Bournemouth 2010 BI-CENTENARYLocal artists and Xtreme Art

2010

LEARNERS FOR THE 21ST CENTURYIs there a place for child-led learning in primary education?

High Quality INSET TRAINING DAYS for Teachers and Teaching Assistants

Julie Fisher – Independent Early Years Adviser

2011

NO JOINT TRAINING DAY

2012

2013

CURRENT SHARED FOCUS AREAS:Osiris Spelling, grammar & punctuationOsiris Y1 phonics screeningOsiris Outstanding TAsMichele Cousins Guided learning & pupil independenceAnne Crossland Good to outstanding teachingJudith O’Hare School self-evaluation

Staff meetings

High Quality Professional Development for Teachers and Teaching Assistants

Head Teacher Networking e.g. SEF

Moderation of writing levels

Twilights

APP training

Lesson observations

Networking for curriculum leaders and year group colleagues

HT Training – John West-Burnham

Heads – the driving force - JWB training

• Other things out there• Co-operative Trust• Federations• Multi-Academy chains

Where do we see the Network right now?

Network Partnership Collaboration Federation

Autonomy

Integration

An informal voluntary association that is focused on a particular strategy or area of common interest.

A more formal structured relationship in which there is a clear merging and integration of a number of school roles and functions, sharing of services and staff and collaboration on innovations or policy initiatives.

Network

Collaboration

The Local Authority Position

The Writing’s on the wall!!

In a year to 18 months things will have had to change! And have started to already, rapidly.

Funding will come directly from the Government in future.

Christine Gilbert ex-chief isnpector – ‘We’ll look at the role of Local Authorities and new models of collaboration that may supersede them.’

Status quo – LA dries up and we’re on our own.

Become an Academy – discussed at own FGB meetings, but still an option. Autonomy on your own.

Multi-academy Trusts/chains – no longer autonomous.

Life Beyond the Local Authority

Local Umbrella Trusts – for academies.

Local Collaborative Trusts.

Mutual Trading Companies.

WHY Collaborate?

Standards are likely to rise as the result of the dissemination of best practice across schools and between schools.

There is the potential for economies of scale, notably in terms of learning resources, materials & services.

Shared CPD has the potential to enhance consistent practice and embed improvement and cross-fertilise good ideas and the best practice.

Why Collaborate?

Strategic planning is more likely to be effective through collaborative leadership (More expertise – 4 SLTs).

Intervention to support pupils would be more effective with consistent record keeping, monitoring and use of data.

Deployment of staff could be more flexible and effective.

The potential for successful collaboration with other agencies would be enhanced.

(Robins D & West-Burnham J 2011 Leadership for Collaboration.)

Status Quo

Self-legitimating bureaucratic systems – silos.

Self-referential culture, closed language.

Parallel accountability.

Competing professional identities.

Competition for status and resources.

The territorial imperative.

LA push to do something

They realised the writing was on the wall…Encouraged us to expand our groupRather ‘church’ based, needed more of a community feelWe were all ‘good’ schools and some

schools to supportOne school had previously left26 primaries in Bournemouth to LCT’sWe became seven!

Structure of LCTs

SCHOOL

TRUST

SCHOOL

SCHOOL

SCHOOL

PARTNERS, such as university, Diocese, LA, secondary school, a local business

SCHOOL

SCHOOL

SCHOOL

The Legal Considerations

Community schools to set up trusts

LCT requires legally establishing and registering with the charities commission Seek legal help

Membership of the Trust Board, in our case the HT and CoG of each school

LCT board as policy maker

LCTs and budgets

Wise drafting of the Trust agreement

Questions & Next Steps

FGB agreement of each school

Consult/discuss/inform stakeholders

Agree time-scale and deadlines

Working group with representation from each school

Formal meeting with interested parties -Schools, diocese, LA – this happened

Agree ethos and vision

Consider partnerships

Bournemouth Septenary Trust

Vision

Bournemouth Septenary Trust is committed to the core values of excellence, equity and effectiveness…promoting high levels of engagement, aspiration, achievement and enterprise across seven schools.

Principles

1. The overriding principle is the success and wellbeing of the children educated within the Trust schools.

2. There is an expectation of professional challenge, support and development

between member schools.3. Trust between members is essential for the

success of the collaboration.

Principles

4. Trust is engendered by: confidentiality, openness and professionalism. The HT and teacher standards provide a framework for this professionalism.

5. The Trust members will take account of data protection policies in all work they do.

Principles

6. The Trust members abide by the principles of best value and the long term benefit and gain of all the member schools. The budget will support the priorities based on the action plan. The Trust will not hold great sums of money but it will be spent to benefit the children in the schools at that time.

Principles

7. Our work is focused on raising standards of provision in all areas of the Ofsted criteria and securing school improvements.

Collaboratively we aim to respond quickly and effectively to new national priorities and local initiatives. Needs are identified across the Trust and responded to effectively both by the whole group and sub-groups.

Documentation

• Trust agreement – articles• Bye-laws, working principles (including a ‘get

out’ clause)• Action plan

Joint Art and Literacy Project – Degas – The beach scene

2 staff meetings and afternoon of a training day to plan

Y4 example – Literacy and Art

• Each HT led a year group team• Planned a theme, a ‘hook’, a literacy and an

art focii, an outcome• Each year group spends as much/little time on

this as they want

Hook

• 450 Y4 and adults to The Pier Theatre, Bournemouth

Punch and Judy show

• Performance• Literacy – writing scripts• Art/DT – making puppet theatres and puppets

Outcome

• The children congregate in 3 of our schools this week to perform to each other

• An exhibition of all the work from the seven schools in the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) next week, including filming of all the work

What next?

• Regular HT meetings• Finance officers economy of scale• SENCOs• PE money – BST games• Training days – Oct 25th (two key note speakers) and Feb 14th • Subject leaders – the new curriculum• All piece in newsletter• British Council funded HT conference abroad• School parent associations meeting to share ideas and equipment

“On a cold winter’s day, a group of porcupines huddled together to stay warm and keep from freezing. But, soon they felt one another’s quills and moved apart. When the need for warmth brought them closer together again, their quills again forced them apart. They were driven back and forth at the mercy of their discomforts until they found the distance from one another that provided both a maximum of warmth and a minimum of pain.”Arthur SchopenhauerFrom: Buonfino, A., and Mulgan, G. (2006) Porcupines in Winter, London: The Young Foundation