Newsletter 8 - February 2021
Dear Colleagues
Thank you for your continued engagement in vital school improvement work, despite the challenges you face daily. This newsletter is no different from others; it tells a story of collaboration across the city, and schools making the most of the agile and reactive offer the Commission is providing for you. The regional offer for Science across the city is a brilliant example of working at scale to improve outcomes in Science. It is a mix of essential reading and resources as well as opportunities for you to invest in your workforce. Please take the time and trouble to disseminate this information across your school communities.
Finally, our work in developing professional learning communities in key school improvement areas continues to progress. The facilitation and establishment of these communities will be an important focus for the second half of term, so we can create an on-going dialogue around evidence based best practices and their implementation.
Hoping the last week before Half-Term goes well for you all and that you manage to recharge over Half-Term.
Stay safe and well.
|
|
Communications and Collaboration - Plymouth Secondary Strategy Portal
www.plymouthstrategy.org
|
|
 Don't forget to visit the Portal - the platform provides a single citywide conduit for news, updates, CPD and documents. We've also added the exciting new Professional Learning Community function.
Please encourage your colleagues to visit the platform, and if you haven't already follow the Plymouth Secondary Strategy via our  Twitter feed @PLSecondaStrat
If you have any questions regarding the Portal please contact Gavin Richards (Collaboration Lead) Here.
|
|
The Plymouth Secondary Strategy update:
Strand 1: Individual School Support
Chrysta and I would like to thank all schools for their engagement in the Spring Term Virtual SIP meetings. They provide a valuable insight into your needs and allow us to align further support where necessary. Thank you also for the commission impact statements that are feeding into the evaluation of our work.
Valuable resources for schools.
As school leaders and Trusts across the region have experienced the new interim Ofsted visits in recent weeks, colleagues are starting to share their learning across the system. We have uploaded a series of new documents to the Ofsted folder in the portal to support you in preparing for a visit: https://www.plymouthstrategy.org/84-ofsted (look for those documents highlighted as ‘NEW’) If you would appreciate any additional 1:1 support in preparing for interim visits - please do let us know so we can connect you into regional colleagues with HMI backgrounds who can help.
Also, Simon Lebus from Ofqual published this blog last week to allay concerns about the questions posed in the consultation process about the use of externally set tasks in the summer: Consultation update and a proposal for externally-set papers
EEF have collated all of their Covid 19 resources in one place to support leaders and teachers to maximise the impact of home learning during partial school closures.: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/?mc_cid=9a8339f411&mc_eid=5c515488bc
Edurio has provided a set of excellent survey templates — for pupils, parents, and staff — to allow you to identify areas of improvement for your remote learning practices, support pupil and staff well-being, and stay connected to the school community through these times. We have curated these exemplars on the portal: https://www.plymouthstrategy.org/87-remote-learning
|
|
Strand 2: An Outstanding CPD offer for the City
- Professional Learning Communities:
We are delighted to report that 74 Plymouth Secondary colleagues have now signed up to join the online professional community we have established across Maths, Literacy and Remote Learning on the portal. It is a such a fantastic mechanism for subject leads, middle and senior leaders to engage in supportive professional dialogue around school improvement priorities and we urge Heads to continue to encourage colleagues at their school to engage:
https://www.plymouthstrategy.org/community
|
|
Our Plymouth Secondary Literacy Leads launched their own community last week with a fabulous launch session showcasing the work undertaken by Plympton Academy, Tor Bridge High and Eggbuckland Community College on embedding a Tutor Reading Programme, Explicit Vocabulary teaching and Oracy. The quality of the contributions was impressive as was their generosity in sharing their learning experiences around implementation of whole school literacy strategies. You can find the PowerPoint slides that accompanied the presentations here: https://www.plymouthstrategy.org/81-literacy and Plympton Academy’s Tutor Time Reading Lists in the same folder. At the next session we will be joined by Jon Eaton, Director of Kingsbridge Research School on Improving Subject Literacy. Watch this space!
Remote Learning Leads: Dan Roberts and his team at DHSB continue to offer support across the city and beyond,and have now provided 1:1 support to 8 of Plymouth’s secondaries
If you have not yet accessed this offer of support please contact Dan directly to arrange: dan.roberts@dhsb.org
Don’t forget that the national Edtech Demo schools also continue to offer bespoke support to schools in the SW on a range of topics until March only.You can see the full range of sessions on offer here: https://www.cpdportal.org/pages/edtech-sw-e-learning-courses
- Edtech Demos out of area are, like DHSB also offering to ‘buddy up’ with schools and provide coaching and feedback on:
- What is going well
- Provide schools with immediate, useful and simple tips to improve your delivery of remote education
- Be a friendly sounding board for you to bounce ideas with - for all teaching and learning needs, online, remote and virtual
- You can access this support here: https://edtech-demonstrator.lgfl.net/events/remote-education-coaching
 Devonport High School For Boys is offering the following Edtech Demo CPD - available for booking through the CPD Portal:
At Home Engagement - 24th Feb
Device Procurement - 3rd March
Maths Leads:
The Maths professional learning community got off to a flying start on January 21st with a great webinar that focused on online Maths lesson delivery during lockdown 3.0 with guest speaker from Exeter Maths School, Stuart Allen. Dan has posted the resources and recording on the Maths community page here:
https://cpdportal.link/mathswebinar
If you attended the webinar, Dan and Georgie are keen to hear you feedback which you can submit here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1uNU9N12UgE3NQCvXVfBhrbJW4h3IFQbCSkv6ukApwMA/viewform?edit_requested=true
The next webinar after half term will focus on retention and recruitment as this was identified as a priority from the needs analysis. Dan is in discussion with WeAreinBeta about a further webinar and exploring the opportunity to network with a Maths lead from one of the top 5 schools for disadvantaged progress. Watch this space for more info!
 Plymouth STEM Science Offer:
We are delighted with the levels of engagement and teachers’ levels of commitment to attend CPD especially given the additional pressures staff are under due to the challenges of Covid.
- The headline figures for the Regional innovation fund science support package are that an astounding 253 science teachers or technicians booked onto the events as part of the package that 17 Plymouth schools signed up to. Pretty impressive!
- Due to the success of this work in Plymouth, Chrysta and STEM National Network Lead Kieran Cooke have been invited to attend the TSC National meeting to outline this bespoke ‘place based’ approach to needs led CPD.
- The bespoke CPD 'Supporting Disadvantaged Learners in Science' held over a series of sessions in December attracted 52 bookings across the schools and demonstrates the appetite for CPD especially when it is carefully tailored to schools needs.
- The network meetings for science leaders, NQT/RQTs and science technicians have also been well attended. We have also been impressed by levels of engagement with the community groups set up for each of the events and teachers posting about gap tasks they have completed as part of the bespoke rCPD.
- We still have the last of the series of network meeting running this term. Going forward we hope that we can continue to support schools across Plymouth, and we are in the process of discussing what this might look like beyond the lifespan of the Regional Innovation Fund.
For Pupil Premium Leads:
- Bill Jerman the South West’s very own Pupil Premium expert will join forces with Whole School SEND on Tues, 9th March for a thought-provoking session based on evidence and experience which challenges the under-standing of SEND and Disadvantage in schools. Bill, an experienced National Leader of Education and leader of a Teaching School Alliance, will explore the question: Is there a real understanding of the difference in SEND and Disadvantage in schools?
https://cpdportal.link/swdisadvantage
- Kingsbridge Research School and the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) are running a series of courses 'Making the Difference for Disadvantaged Pupils' starting in April. This programme seeks to explore practical, evidence informed approaches for closing the poverty-related attainment gap. Engaging with the best available evidence on high quality teaching, targeted academic support and school-wide approaches, delegates will develop and implement a Pupil Premium strategy fit for their setting so that all pupils can flourish. You can book here: https://www.cpdportal-sw.org/disadvantage-news/making-the-difference-for-disadvantaged-pupils
 Teaching School Council SW in collaboration with Gavin Richards of the CPD Portal has developed this ‘Disadvantage Dashboard’ on which you will find a selection of curated resources, links, CPD offers and signposting to expertise in closing the disadvantage gap: https://www.cpdportal-sw.org/pages/disadvantage-in-the-sw
- Schools Partnership Programme - Free webinar with Marc Rowland on March 23rd. Rethinking together how we support learners identified as vulnerable to disadvantage - A fresh, collaborative look at how you support all children to enjoy, engage and thrive in education, using peer review as a tool to improve your approach.
https://educationdevelopmenttrust.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_z5w3iPenSCmxjguv5x5Fsw
|
|
Strand 3: Tackling barriers to improvement.
3.1: Reducing Pupil Mobility
We have been busy working on the operational plans for the proposed Inclusion Support Bases. In particular, consideration is being given to the type of curriculum and staffing model offer that will best support learners in a ‘half-way house’ setting between mainstream and alternative provision. We are committed to ensuring that the pupils and staff have access to Educational Psychology input and that, via a relational-based approach, regular contact is maintained with the home school. A decision has been made to focus this provision on pupils in Years 7 and 8.
These discussions sit within a wider context of understanding Plymouth’s aspiration to be a trauma-informed city. Discussions are still taking place about how we might be able to set-up a city-wide, cross-phase and ongoing training offer around trauma, it’s effect on families and young people, and how we can respond to this in our education settings.
Led by Ming Zhang, Director of Education and Participation and Skills at Plymouth City Council, a new Inclusion Strategy Board will seek to ensure that there is system alignment across the education, health and social care sectors in terms of inclusion. Although in its infancy I see this as an important step in creating a more cohesive system better able to respond to the complex needs of our vulnerable learners. The Inclusion Strategy Board will sit alongside the existing Standards Board with both groups reporting in to the Plymouth Education Board.
|
|
|
|
