leading together - teach first · leading together: overview of the programme leading together is a...

Empowering leadership teams so all pupils and teachers can thrive.

Programme Guide 2018

Leading Together

http://www.teachfirst.org.uk

2 Leading Together Programme Guide

IT TAKES TIME, PERSISTENCE AND DETERMINATION TO CHANGE THE STORY OF A CHILD’S LIFE. It starts with the dedication and leadership of a great teacher who inspires a child to work towards the future they want. That teacher needs the support and guidance of a strong leadership team and a powerful school culture.

Already there are hundreds of schools across the country with excellent, committed teachers that deliver extraordinary pupil outcomes against the most challenging of odds. We know that the schools that manage to break this cycle have one thing in common: strong leaders who work together as part of an effective leadership team. These schools have the capacity to implement improvements effectively and sustain professional development so that pupils and teachers thrive.

Leading Together aims to build a whole-school environment for leaders, individuals and interventions to flourish together, strengthening capacity across the whole leadership team to provide enduring positive outcomes for pupils.


CONTENTSAbout Teach First ...................................................................... 4

Welcome .................................................................................... 5

Leading Together: Overview of the programme .................... 6

The two-year journey ............................................................... 8

Evaluation overview ................................................................. 11

Appendix A: Learning modules ...................................................................... 13

Appendix B: Accessing online content for the programme ........................ 16


ABOUT TEACH FIRST Teach First was founded as a charity in 2002. Since then, with the generous backing of countless supporters, we have been challenging the deep-rooted reality that a child’s socio-economic background is the biggest determining factor in their chances of fulfilling their potential.

We believe that disadvantage should never determine destiny. We work towards this by:

Since 2003, Teach First has recruited, trained and placed 11,000 teachers in schools serving low-income communities, reaching over one million young people. We currently partner with hundreds of schools across all regions of England and Wales.

• Finding and developing talented people to teach in schools where the need is greatest.

• Developing programmes for young people living in low-income communities to help them reach their full potential beyond school.

• Supporting schools to access innovations and partnerships that accelerate their pupils’ progress.

• Providing professional development opportunities to teachers, leaders and schools so they can increase their impact on pupils.

• Building a movement of teachers, school leaders, social entrepreneurs, policymakers and business people committed to ending education inequality across all areas of society.


WELCOMEWelcome to the Leading Together Programme Guide!

We’re delighted that you and your school’s senior leadership team are taking part in our first two-year Leading Together programme. The aim is to build and support an environment for leaders, teachers and pupils to flourish together.

A child’s circumstances and family background still too often determine their future opportunities. Nationally, the attainment gap between the poorest pupils and their peers has barely budged over the last decade.

Despite this, there are many examples of schools serving low-income communities that are helping young people excel against the odds. These schools come in all shapes and sizes, in all parts of the country. There are many factors in their success, but they have one thing in common: strong leaders who work together as part of an effective team.

Where other programmes might focus on the individual, Leading Together puts the team and a culture of professional development at its heart. The programme will provide you with capacity and support across the whole team, enabling you to lead sustainable whole school improvement.

This guide will be your companion over the next two years, helping you to plan and navigate your participation in the programme. Whether you’re looking for background information on the programme, an outline of the learning modules you’ll take, or insight into the bespoke school support available to you, this guide is your first port of call.

We look forward to working with you, your colleagues and your school over the next 24 months to empower you so that the whole school can thrive.

Russell Hobby CEO

Phil Haslett Director, School Leadership Programmes


LEADING TOGETHER: OVERVIEW OF THE PROGRAMME


Leading Together supports leadership teams like yours to build capacity across the whole leadership team to provide sustainable improvement. Leading Together is about creating a whole-school culture of learning and development and providing senior leaders with the skills and knowledge they need to apply their learning in a practical way.

The programme acknowledges the talent that already exists within school leadership teams. As programme members, you will be supported in introducing sustainable practices that will develop, support and retain high-quality teachers and leaders across the whole school.

How is Leading Together different from other leadership programmes? Hundreds of schools across the Teach First network, and beyond it, already deliver extraordinary pupil outcomes against the odds. What unites them is that they all have strong leadership teams, resolutely focused on training, developing and supporting teachers across their school. But, while there is substantial investment in programmes to find and place transformational individuals, there is rarely a plan in place for how these individuals will effectively transform their school as a whole. Leading Together aims to support schools in doing just that.

Strong teaching and leadership is critical to improving pupil outcomes. We want to equip schools with the capacity and expertise that can support

lasting change, and have undertaken systematic and high-quality research to inform our new programme – see our policy paper ‘Why supporting school leadership matters’. Over 15 years, we’ve witnessed many success stories emerging in some of the toughest areas of the country, and have shaped the programme around some of this best practice.

We believe we are best placed to provide this support for schools as experts in designing and delivering world-class and Ofsted-rated ‘Outstanding’ leadership development programmes in both primary and secondary schools. Our history means that we can draw upon an unparalleled network of cross-sector partners (including charities, businesses and global networks) as well as around 6,000 ambassador leaders committed to ending educational inequality.

LEADING TOGETHER: OVERVIEW OF THE PROGRAMMELeading Together is a two-year programme supporting schools in areas of greatest need to develop strong senior leadership teams. Supported by funding from the Department for Education, Leading Together aims to help participating schools create an environment in which all teachers and young people can thrive.

https://www.teachfirst.org.uk/sites/default/files/2018-03/Teach%20First%20Leading%20Together%20Report%202018%20%28single%20pages%29.pdf


THE TWO-YEAR JOURNEY


Over the course of the two-year journey on the Leading Together programme, you will have access to various opportunities to support and augment the knowledge and skills of your senior leadership team. These opportunities will be phased, blended and tailored to your school through the support of the Achievement Partner. This will ensure they strengthen progress towards your school’s priorities and the learning is embedded and sustainable.

There are four phases of a school’s journey through the programme:

• Diagnose: The senior leadership team and the Achievement Partner will build and agree a detailed analysis of the school’s priorities and strengths. This will form the foundations of a path to sustained progress for the school.

• Build: Leadership teams will begin to identify, test and implement new approaches to address their key priorities, and each team member will take a series of learning modules to support their development and understanding of key content areas.

• Embed and drive: Leadership teams will be supported to embed and secure key school improvements. Further modules will provide expertise to support these improvements, as well as to build sustained progress/skills that will last beyond the length of the programme.

• Sustain: Through further work with the Achievement Partner and significant reflection activities, leadership teams will work to make approaches permanent and woven into a thriving professional culture.

THE TWO-YEAR JOURNEY

Summer term 2018

Autumn term 2018

Spring term 2019

Summer term 2019

Autumn term 2019

Spring term 2020

Diagnose Build SustainEmbed & Drive

Coaching and support from Achievement Partner

• Kick o� day• First July residential

• Second July residential

Taught curriculum (12 learning modules)

Menu of bespoke support• Excellent practice school visits• School-to-school collaboration• Action learning sets

• Tailored interventions• Business coaching & support

• Recruitment support• Teach First NPQs


There are several key elements that support your journey:

Achievement Partner

The Achievement Partner is the lynchpin and will be your team’s key point of contact and support, working with you throughout this programme. Each school is matched with a locally-based Achievement Partner, who has a strong track record as an experienced and successful headteacher and senior leader.

They will provide coaching to the leadership team and will guide you throughout the two years, brokering additional external support to best suit your needs with a view to creating long-term and viable change. This includes facilitating the team to undergo a careful diagnosis, create and implement a robust plan, and deliver effective and sustainable practices to make improvements across the whole school. The Achievement Partner will support you to engage with and select key and relevant parts of the programme so that you receive bespoke support for you and your school. In case of MATs, the support provided by the Achievement Partner will be tailored to suit the operating structure of the school(s).

Taught curriculum

Your team will have access to a range of online and face-to-face learning opportunities, designed specifically for school leadership teams. This consists of core and additional modules, developed around twelve teaching, leadership and business management content areas.

The curriculum can be accessed around a school’s schedule, using a blended learning approach, so you can work in a way that best suits their needs. Learning will be tailored and relevant, and applied in a practical way to the School’s Improvement Plan to create lasting change. Details of each learning module within the taught curriculum can be found in Appendix A and details on how to use the online learning platform called the ‘Leading Together Platform’ can be found in Appendix B.

Access to a wider professional learning community and other bespoke support

Through the programme, senior teams will be provided with opportunities to create enduring support networks with other schools in their local community. This will include collaboration between schools on the Leading Together programme, as well as access to other Teaching Schools, experts, the wider Teach First community – which includes over 1000 school leaders – and schools locally and nationally that demonstrate excellent practice. This will be facilitated through events, networking opportunities, action learning sets and other collaborative learning structures. In addition, you will also have access to pro-bono business advisors and coaches from Teach First’s corporate supporters, who can bring cross-sector leadership expertise into your school.

Each school will have access to additional expert input via a unique ‘Intervention Pot’ to use over the two-year period amounting to £10,000. The Achievement Partner will support the senior leadership team to use this fund, supporting them to find tailored, high-quality, specialist support. This new learning can then be applied in a practical way during the delivery of the School Improvement Plan.

National Professional Qualifications (NPQs)With the Leading Together programme, Teach First offers free access to our NPQs programme. Through agreement with your headteacher and Achievement Partner, you can complete the NPQSL or NPQH qualifications starting in October 2019, where you will be provided with a range of expert support and content to guide you. The Leading Together taught curriculum will develop your key leadership skills and it may be advantageous to attend all or most of the Foundation Level modules, but this is not an essential requirement for you to complete the NPQ.


EVALUATION OVERVIEW


The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), working in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University, has been commissioned as the lead external evaluator by the Department for Education for this programme. NFER will conduct an independent evaluation of the delivery, short-term outcomes and impact of the Leading Together programme based on qualitative and quantitative data from participating schools and analysis of secondary data on students, teachers and schools.

Teach First will conduct its own evaluation with participating schools, focussed both on the impact of the programme as well as how the process of the programme is working. Teach First’s evaluation will analyse outcomes similar to those in NFER’s evaluation, but will use metrics more targeted on the details of our programme design. This approach will allow Teach First to track programme progress during the implementation and to make continuous improvements.

As part of the evaluations, information about participating schools and senior leadership teams will be requested by both NFER and Teach First and some information will be shared between the two organisations to minimise overlap. In signing the Programme Agreement for Leading Together, you have agreed to contribute to both evaluations.

Both Teach First and NFER will make all reasonable efforts to minimise workload and time costs associated with evaluation activities. It is important for the future development and success of the Leading Together programme that schools and programme members take part in the evaluations as much as possible. Both Teach First and NFER greatly appreciate your contributions.

Below is a brief overview of the plans by Teach First and NFER for evaluation activities throughout the programme.

At programme initiation During the programme At the end of the programme

• Baseline surveys • Review of existing school data

on pupils and staff • School culture survey

• Interviews on experience within the programme

• Surveys on programme experience • Case studies/observations

of training

• End of programme surveys • End of programme school

culture survey • Analysis of secondary data

on pupils and staff • Value for money analyses • Review of available Ofsted data

EVALUATION OVERVIEWThere are two parallel evaluations taking place for Leading Together.


APPENDIX A: LEARNING MODULES


Using research and evidenceThis module will discuss the vital role evidence plays in the education sector, and will provide programme members with a platform from which to explore and utilise that evidence base. programme members will learn how to identify high impact interventions and use this understanding to inform school improvement. The principles covered in this module will underpin the approaches taken throughout the programme and beyond by equipping programme members to employ these into their practice.

The science of learningThis seminal module explores the literature underpinning the implications of cognitive science on education and how pupils learn. Focusing on a broad range of research, the content will help programme members understand a range of theoretical perspectives and evidence about pupil learning, thinking and understanding. It will investigate a range of misconceptions and misunderstandings with a view to ensuring these do not impede pupil learning, ultimately ensuring that practice is fully embedded into teaching and learning across the school to create sustainable change.

Optimising behaviourThis module focusses on the importance and challenge of designing and consistently embedding and monitoring an approach to whole school behaviour management. With an emphasis on research and case studies, the content will enable programme members to build or refine a whole-school approach. Programme members will practise the faithful implementation of this approach, and work to address areas of challenge at a whole-school and classroom level.

AssessmentThis module, alongside the Data-driven instruction module, will allow programme members to explore the research around the very best practices in assessment. Programme members will be encouraged to consider the implications of the research on their own practice and whole-school approaches. Content will explore the effective approaches to assessment and tracking and consider the impact it can have on teacher workload, testing and data-driven decision-making.

Data-driven instructionThis module, alongside the Assessment module, will provide programme members with the knowledge to design and apply processes that ensure assessment data has an impact. This work will look to ensure that leadership teams can use data to positively affect school culture, curriculum, and teaching & learning, and can consequently maintain high levels of pupil achievement which sustains even beyond the two years of the programme.

Curriculum planning and designThis module, alongside the Supporting pupil transitions module, will allow programme members to consider the principles and philosophy that underpin the curriculum in their school context, and to marry this with the research base underpinning learning. As a result, programme members will consider and refine the curriculum they are designing and delivering, and examine how best to evaluate that for the purposes of nimble, effective and lasting change and improvement. Programme members will explore how to design a broad and balanced curriculum that ensures pupils develop mastery through deep knowledge.

Supporting pupil transitionsThis module will focus on how programme members can lead seamless and effective transitions between key phases and institutions in a pupil’s learning journey. Content will look at the phase-specific elements of pupil preparation required, including the successful move to secondary education, access to further education and post-school progression.

Professional development of teachers and leadersThis module will focus on the leadership team’s ability to create and sustain a culture of professional development within their school environment. Programme members will learn what makes high quality professional development, how to ‘make it stick’, what often stands in the way of making it happen and how to overcome these challenges. Drawing on analysis of the research and learning from the HR and performance management module, this content will allow programme members to consider and implement a high-quality programme of learning for all staff.

APPENDIX A: LEARNING MODULESThe taught curriculum covers a range of topics which we believe can be beneficial to strengthening your work as a school team. This is divided into 12 learning modules covering:


Strategic planning and implementing changeHere programme members will have the opportunity to consider areas for development within their own school context and how best to design, implement and evaluate changes to address these. By developing an understanding of where the greatest impact can be had, leadership teams will take a strategic approach to prioritisation and planning, and will access tools and techniques that support this process. What’s more, programme members will consider effective change management scenarios from across a range of contexts and apply these to their own context, where appropriate, to facilitate enduring learning.

HR and performance managementThis module will provide programme members with a solid understanding of the appropriate systems required to enable effective management of human resources as appropriate to their school and governance context, including managing staff retention and reduction, and building career progression. Through discussion and analysis of models, programme members will be well-positioned to apply the theory and embed their re-focussed strategic approach and vision to the performance management of their staff.

Budgeting and financeThis module will review the implications of effective financial planning, including the tools and frameworks required. Programme members will consider the effective deployment of resources across the whole school, how to create efficiencies and where additional income can be generated. As a result, leadership teams will be well positioned to make strategic decisions that progress school improvement, are in line with constrained budgetary parameters, and sensitive to their operational context.

Governance, legal and complianceThis module will look at how to leverage governance and manage risk to accelerate school progress. It will take an in-depth look at the requirements a school needs to meet in terms of its compliance obligations. By considering other contexts and sector-specific insights, programme members will become confident in making sure they are positioned to identify and manage risk, comply with all frameworks and requirements, and work effectively with their governing bodies.

The four business modules below have been designed by Deloitte:


APPENDIX B: ACCESSING ONLINE CONTENT FOR THE PROGRAMME


What is the Leading Together portal?For the Leading Together programme, programme members will access online content from the learning modules using the Leading Together portal, a bespoke learning portal using the world-leading OpenEdX platform. The content on the portal can be accessed via the desktop or an app. Instructions on using the portal and downloading the app are included on the portal. The app can be used on your mobile phones enabling you to access the learning anytime, anywhere.

What will programme members use this for?The Leading Together portal will be used to host all online content for the programme learning modules, this will usually be in the form of pre or post work relating to the content delivered in person throughout the programme. Content on the platform will be a mix of videos featuring subject matter experts, course text, resources and links to further reading, targeted activities and surveys to capture feedback on the module content.

How will programme members get access?All programme members will need to register for their own Leading Together portal account prior to the kick off day on April 28 as they will need to complete the pre-work ahead of the sessions on the day. The Leading Together programme team will enrol all programme members onto the online content and content will be made accessible as programme members move through the taught modules of the programme.

How will programme members get support when using the portal to access online content?If you have any issues with getting access to the online content once you have registered your account, please contact Laura Blackett on [email protected] or 020 3862 8981.

For any technical issues when using the platform, you can contact our third-party provider Proversity on [email protected] who will support you with your query. Please explain the issue you are having with the content.

APPENDIX B: ACCESSING ONLINE CONTENT FOR THE PROGRAMME

http://leadingtogether.teachfirst.org.uk

http://leadingtogether.teachfirst.org.uk

mailto:LBlackett%40teachfirst.org.uk?subject=

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teachfirst.org.uk

Teach First is a registered charity, no. 1098294

We look forward to accompanying you and your team on the Leading Together journey to stronger and more sustainable leadership

http://teachfirst.org.uk

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