Newsletter 3 - October 2020
Dear Colleagues
Welcome to the third newsletter of term. It is packed full of useful pragmatic support that has been synthesised for your benefit. Please encourage colleagues to sign up to this newsletter and share at all levels of leadership in your school.
This week saw the second Plymouth Secondary Strategy Group Meeting where the Commission Autumn Term plan was approved. It can be found on the portal (https://www.plymouthstrategy.org/) here. Attendees at the meeting include the LA, RSC Office, Teaching School Hub, EEF and Research School, MAT CEOs and PLT (Lisa). If you are interested in the TORs for this group they can be found here alongside the agenda and minutes here.
The commission's current focus on a programme of virtual SIP conversations with school leaders focussing on providing bespoke support to individual schools. Almost all schools have engaged in this work either directly or indirectly through their MAT improvement structures. The feedback we have had from school leaders has been overwhelmingly positive, providing the right level of challenge and support. All agree that the 2020 outcomes provide a new baseline for attainment and progress across the city from which to build in 2021.
With continued thanks for your engagement.
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Communications Strategy:
Thank you to all schools that have signed up to the Plymouth Secondary Strategy Portal - 14 out of the 19 Plymouth Secondary Schools have now subscribed to the Portal. The remaining schools to sign up to the Portal are:
- All Saints Academy
- Marine Academy
- Plymstock School
- St. Bonifaces
- UTC Plymouth
The Portal is central to how we communicate with you and your colleagues. Please ensure you are signed up to ensure you continue to access important updates regarding the commission.
Citywide CPD Offer
If you are delivering CPD and you are a subscribing organisation, you can also promote your CPD through the Portal's CPD functionality. It's very easy, complete a simple online form and your CPD will be added to the Portal's citywide searchable CPD Catalogue. Increase your organisation's profile and extend it's reach. To find out more Contact Us here
In the coming weeks we will also be rolling out further collaboration tools via the the Portal. Keep checking the newsletter/site for details.
If your school hasn't already subscribed, please subscribe your school here.
 All Heads and SLT colleagues must follow the Plymouth Secondary Strategy on Twitter to keep abreast of our regular leadership and teaching and learning/CPD updates and to celebrate Plymouth secondary success stories: @PLSecondStrat. Please share this Twitter Stream.
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The Plymouth Secondary Strategy update:
Actions for Heads
Tony and Chrysta are making good progress with their 1:1s with each Headteacher/CEO which is the process through which the ‘Plymouth Secondary Commission’ will deliver individual school support. Following each meeting, Heads receive a bespoke set of agreed recommended actions in response to immediate and medium-term school improvement needs for 20-21.
Chrysta recently shared feedback from two Trusts last week who had piloted the new interim Ofsted pilot visits. Many of you responded to say how helpful you found this. If you haven’t yet had a look, you can find these documents here: https://www.plymouthstrategy.org/documents?folder=OFSTED
In addition, we are delighted to invite you to attend a webinar for Heads/SLT on Thursday 8th October at 4pm, where Richard Light will talk through his own experience both on the receiving end of an interim visit and as a SHMI as well as provide an opportunity for Q&A.
We now have the beginnings of three professional learning communities for Maths, Science and EdTech and would like to capture some further information from Heads about key colleagues in school so that we can streamline communications and various offers.
Please take a few moments to complete this short form so that we have your key contacts: https://forms.gle/pNkFUJnqtsFyd4Ve9
Actions for Heads
- Book your place and places for any SLT colleagues on the Richard Light webinar here:
NB Registration cut off point will be 7/10/20 at 5 pm.
- Ensure that Tony/Chrysta receive your completed RAF at least 48 hours prior to the calendared meeting
- Complete the key contacts form: https://forms.gle/pNkFUJnqtsFyd4Ve9
- Ensure your school has subscribed to the Plymouth Secondary Strategy Portal. Subscribe here.
- Please continue to encourage all Governors/Senior Leaders and Teachers to sign up to this newsletter here and ask them to follow us on Twitter: @PLSecondStrat
Strand 2: CPD Offer
Recently, we asked Plymouth Heads of Science to complete an initial needs analysis to provide information on the immediate CPD and support needs of Plymouth secondary schools. From the information we gathered in the needs analysis there was a clear city-wide demand for Science CPD in two key areas:
1. Supporting disadvantaged learners.
2. Supporting working memory: strategies to improve recall and understanding
 We are delighted to confirm that a regional innovation fund bid was successful to support a really comprehensive package of support for Plymouth Science specialists and you can find the overview for the heavily subsidised CPD offer here.
The package represents fantastic value for money and we would hope to see good levels of engagement across Science teams.
To ensure that package of CPD is even more precisely tailored to your school’s needs, we have recently asked Science Leads to provide some further information about they would like to see in these bespoke Plymouth courses. We have contact emails for 12/19 Plymouth Science leads but so we don’t miss anyone, please can you forward the link to this needs analysis to your school Science team: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfBweTPWiHjk2P1kU2J00uth1AVcXj5s5dIvRGVKFTU40OpRg/viewform
 Kingsbridge CPD offer: Addressing the Disadvantage Gap: Addressing the Disadvantage Gap: Particularly pertinent given the COVID-19 lockdown, this is an evidence-based programme supporting the development and implementation of an effective strategy for closing the disadvantage gap. The course comprises four live modules (2 hours each from 10:00 - 12:00) supported by four inter-session modules that participants can access flexibly. Starts October 12th.
Book on the event here
Behaviour audit tool: Some school cultures, norms and routines have been disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak and some pupils may have been exposed to a range of adverse experiences. Schools may need to make changes to reset behaviour and attendance expectations and consider the additional support required to help pupils successfully reintegrate into the school environment. This is a tool for schools to support the re-engagement of pupils and the return to orderly and calm environments in which all pupils can achieve and thrive.
It was shared recently by the DfE with NLEs but would be an incredibly useful exercise for Heads to undertake with their SLT and Behaviour Leads. It also links to a range of Tom Bennett YouTube resources and supporting guidance.
EdTech: 4 Plymouth schools have now connected with Steve Cooper at Balcarras Demo school to begin their onboarding process to enable 1:1 support for remote learning delivery.
If you have not yet done this, please ensure your EdTech Lead completes this EOI in receiving support: https://edtech-demonstrator.lgfl.net/register-your-interest
From there, you will be matched with Balcarras and the onboarding process will begin.
Any questions please contact Nicole Ponsford (Regional Lead) on nicole.ponsford@lgfl.net
EdTech Support for children with SEND: Our EdTech colleagues have now curated all their accessible remote learning resources and training webinars on one page: https://edtech-demonstrator.lgfl.net/guidance/special-educational-needs
This is a useful one stop shop for your SENCOs and TAs to support children who may have difficulties accessing other online learning provision.
An exciting opportunity has arisen for Maths SLEs to develop their approaches to mathematics school improvement work including drawing on the expertise of approaches used in the Maths Hubs Programme, such as teaching for mastery. It will provide a regional support programme for participants through three workshops and an online community. More info about that opportunity go here.
Plymouth LA/Anna Freud free Mental Health training offer: Further information about how to access this offer and book a place on training this Term can be found at the end of this newsletter and also on the portal here:
https://www.plymouthstrategy.org/documents?folder=Mental%20Health
Training dates will be shared with Heads next week. Proposed start date is week beginning Monday 12th October.
Actions for Heads
- Make an EOI as to which STEM Science CPD package of support you would like to engage with by 9th October 2021
- Ensure your Science Lead has completed the second needs analysis
- Ensure your Edtech lead had started the onboarding process with Steve Cooper at Balcarras if you would like to access the 1:1 EdTech support programme
- Contact Jodie Frost to reserve colleagues’ places on the Mental Health training: Jodie.frost@thezoneplymouth.co.uk
Strand 3 : Tackling barriers to improvement
1. To reduce student mobility across the city.
There will be a further update on Strand 3 in the next newsletter.
2. To tackle disadvantage at scale with a focus on literacy.
Ruth Woodhouse from PTSA is working with Tony and Chrysta on reworking the original Plymouth Oracy CPD proposal to reflect the impact of COVID on disadvantaged pupils. More info to come.
Actions for Heads
None
This week’s interesting reads:
- The Confederation of Schools Trusts has collated responses to a survey of Trust CEOs across England: ‘What do you consider to be the biggest risks to maintaining educational provision over the course of the academic year?’. Read the results here.
- Lorwyn Randall has made a short powerpoint here that signposts the current guidance for TAs as regards Covid restrictions as well as links to the EEF guidance on TA deployment and ‘best bets’ for interventions:
https://www.plymouthstrategy.org/documents?folder=Teaching%20and%20Learning
The effective use of TAs is more pertinent than ever in Plymouth schools with catch up premium about to arrive and intervention plans to support vulnerable learners being devised. Teaching assistants comprise over a quarter of the workforce in mainstream schools in England, 14% of the secondary school workforce.
- Recruit International Teachers for STEM and MFL
State funded schools and academies in England can get help from the International Teacher Recruitment Programme and Spain’s Visiting Teacher Programme to recruit STEM and MFL teachers from overseas for a January start.
All teachers recruited through these programmes will:
- Be experienced teachers qualified in their country
- Be screened for safeguarding and quality
- Receive a free acclimatisation package to help with settling into life and teaching in England
- Receive a free continuous professional development (CPD) programme
The DfE will fund:
- Recruitment costs, including a DfE appointed recruitment agency
- An acclimatisation package and an ongoing CPD programme during the teacher’s first year, delivered by a DfE appointed acclimatisation provider
To register your interest and find out more please visit the follow web pages:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/spains-visiting-teachers-programme
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/recruit-a-qualified-maths-or-physics-teacher-from-abroad
- Wellbeing for Education Return
On the 4th August, the DfE wrote to the Chief Executive to notify of additional grant funding to enable the Local Authority to work with local partners to tailor and deliver wellbeing and mental health training and support for education settings. The DfE understand that the Local Authority has a key role to play in supporting educational settings’ readiness for the impact of the pandemic and lockdown on wellbeing. Teachers and other education staff may need additional support to recognise and understand the range of children and young people’s reactions and know how to support them, their parents and carers, and their colleagues.
The Wellbeing for Education Return project seeks to better equip education settings to support children and young people’s wellbeing, resilience and recovery in the context of COVID-19 and associated measures.
There are two elements to the project:
- A national training package, which will provide guidance and resources for education staff on responding to the impact of COVID-19 on the wellbeing of students
- The Local Authority will put in place one or more local experts who will work with partners and deliver to leads in education settings, and provide ongoing advice and support until March 2021.
We can now inform colleagues that the delivery of this project will be undertaken by The Zone Plymouth. The Zone has been engaging with and supporting Secondary and Special schools across the city for 4 years via Progeny, in partnership with the wider system, supporting the Emotional Health and Wellbeing of Whole School Communities.
Wellbeing for Education Return aims to equip nominated education staff with the knowledge and skills to introduce and contextualise clear, coherent information and resources to their settings’ staff and to support and enable discussions with children and young people, parents and carers.
To provide resilience in the system, The Zone Plymouth will provide ongoing support to maintained schools and academies through the Autumn and Spring terms (2020/21).
Initially The Zone Plymouth will share a schedule of dates for the delivery of the training package with these dates set to be across 2 weeks prior to October half term with an opportunity for each setting to have one delegate attend. With further communication also being shared relating to the provision of ongoing advice and support.
Please note that all bookings and further information is via Jodie Frost at The Zone Plymouth: Jodie.frost@thezoneplymouth.co.uk Tel: 07158206626.
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