NAHT Leadership FOcus February 2017

Issue 76 / February 2017 / £5

THE MAGAZINE FOR NAHT AND NAHT EDGE MEMBERS

FOCUS

Stronge er Tog gethe er How w three secondary schoo ols are helping shap pe th he future off Instead Feeling the strain

The pressure of headship

Leadership focus

Interview with Colm Davis

Assessment campaign Where are we now?

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LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

OPINION

KIM JOHNSON: NAHT president 2016/17

New Year, new challenges am quietly pleased with how the last few months of my year as NAHT president have gone. We’ve had a few wins!

While there’s a long way still to go in many areas, it does feel like a change of leadership at the DfE has meant the door has been opened slightly to change. As well as to some entirely new challenges, of course.

The thing I am best pleased with, as always, is NAHT itself. As I have continued to travel the country, meeting branch representatives and members, I have been struck again and again by the passion and care displayed by the leaders I meet. Recently I have visited the Durham, East Riding, Stafford, North Wales, Devon and Essex branches. There have been plenty of different views, and lots to discuss, but there has always been a core determination by school leaders to do the very best for their schools, and the children in them – even in tough circumstances.

This was very evident at the 2016 NAHT Education Conference. The energy generated by speakers and delegates alike was inspiring – all on the theme of ‘Building a successful team around the child’. Sadly, NAHT’s third annual recruitment survey, timed to coincide with the conference, proved yet again that schools are indeed struggling with not enough funding and difficulty recruiting, making building a successful team very difficult to

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do. Frustrating given the ideas and ambition shared at the conference – just imagine what we could do if properly supported! Still, there is much we can do, and are doing, and it is fantastic to see.

I have tried to bring all the great work done by members to the attention of the government, recently speaking in the House of Commons as part of the DO Project. I was honoured to share a platform with passionate and engaged young people, and committed practitioners, advocating statutory SRE for all children, including those with special needs, and quality training for teachers. I also spoke to the House of Lords about Autistic Spectrum Conditions and particularly Girls with Autism.

We are working hard to raise the profile of this group who are currently under-diagnosed and under-supported. I am proud to be able to help give a voice to these issues that are closest to me.

There has been some great work at the negotiating table by Russell Hobby and other NAHT staff over assessment. It was a challenging issue, and while there is still much work to do, and not quite as many reassurances as we’d ideally like, it does seem that the government has two ears for the voice of NAHT. Manifesto pledges are not lightly overturned, and Year 7 resits could have been disastrous, so this was well done by NAHT.

Above: Kim Johnson

The energy generated by speakers and delegates alike was inspiring – all on the theme of ‘Building a successful team around the child’

In contrast to my maiden speech at NAHT’s annual conference last year, it is good to see that academisation is now as it should be: a choice, not a sanction. A great shame that this structural obsession has been swapped for that of grammar schools … but I still have the second half of my presidential year left! We will continue to lobby and will see where we get to on that.

And NAHT has secured a definite win for the Early Years sector, with additional funding announced for maintained nursery schools and a recognition of quality. This was something we campaigned for very strongly and it is gratifying to be part of a union that the government is willing to listen to.

It’s a union I obviously believe every school leader should join, and I have been impressed and pleased by the hard work that NAHT’s staff have put in to increasing the membership this year. It is only by joining together and harnessing the voices and expertise of the many that we can make progress.

There has been excellent work done in recruiting secondary leaders to NAHT, and middle leaders to NAHT edge, and we welcome the insights these new members can bring to widen NAHT’s impact.

I hope that 2017 is a good year for you all. It is bound to have its challenges, but there is positive news too, and I wish you all the very best.

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CONTENTS

ASSOCIATION AND EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES NAHT and NAHT edge 1 Heath Square, Boltro Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 1BL www.naht.org.uk www.nahtedge.org.uk Tel: 0300 30 30 333 Editorial Strategy Board: David Gilmore (chair), James Bowen, Tim Bowen, Nick Brook, Colm Davis, Tony Draper, Lesley Gannon, Steven George, David Gilmore, Nicky Gillhespy, Magnus Gorham, Russell Hobby, Steve Iredale, Kim Johnson, Helena Macormac, Judith Stott, Paul Whiteman, Rob Williams.

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From my work with groups of head teachers I’ve found that, if one person is prepared to share their own vulnerability, others will do so too

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LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

Contents 6

News round up The latest from across NAHT and NAHT edge

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Wellbeing The pressure of headship is becoming a growing concern within the profession. We take a look at the issues affecting staff on a daily basis and how problems can be overcome

17 Leaders together We talk to vice president Colm Davis following news he is to stand down after being diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and catch up with his successor Anne Lyons on her role moving forward

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21 The workload challenge We look at the results of three workload challenge reports which focused on marking, planning and data management

26 Stimulating conferences NAHT is hosting two high-profile SEND events aiming to stimulate debate and instigate meaningful progress.

30 Review of the year What NAHT has been up to on your behalf in 2016

32 Assessment campaign We look back at the achievements of NAHT’s Assessment Campaign, and ask what happens next

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40 Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Bill Investigating latest plans for supporting children with additional learning needs

44 South West region A look at the challenges facing the West Country

47 Russell Hobby Message from the general secretary

48 Online safety The definition of ‘inappropriate’ content

52 Stronger together How secondary schools are taking advantage of the Instead NAHT School Review Programme

58 Family Childcare Trust How parents can support early education at home

60 Your professional development A comprehensive round up of the best CPD around

62 The final word How one school is growing a brighter future

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NEWS ROUNDUP

T H E L AT E S T F R O M A C R O S S N A H T A N D N A H T E D G E Get in touch and share your thoughts on this month’s news via publications@naht.org.uk

Becoming attachment aware ne in ten children has suffered some form of neglect in their short life. That could mean that as many as three children in every classroom are trying to cope with attachment-related issues. Despite this, teachers are not routinely trained to deal with attachment issues.

This can result in the child experiencing attachment issues feeling angry and frustrated and ultimately they are more likely to experience violence and exclusion and resort to truancy.

Issues surrounding attachment affect a broad range of children in schools but problems can prove especially prevalent in adopted children.

Attachment issues in adopted

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children have been cited as having a major impact on their ability to keep pace with their classmates academically despite the government’s best efforts. Adopted children frequently experience significant difficulties in school.

Their academic attainment is significantly lower than other students. Latest research shows adopted children falling behind as early as Key Stage 2, with less than half reaching their expected targets (compared to three-quarters of their classmates). Unsurprisingly, this follows them through school to GSCEs where we know fewer than one in four adopted children secure five or more A*-C grades at GCSE, including

English and maths. The figure in state-funded schools is 57.1%.

Hugh Thornbery CBE, Adoption UK’s chief executive, said: “We recognise the difficult job teachers do and acknowledge that disruptive pupils can wreck carefully planned lessons and curtail other classmates’ learning.

But our members tell us their adopted children are regularly penalised at school because of a lack of understanding about their complex needs so we’re hoping to work with all teaching staff so they’re aware, as well as better equipped, to meet these vulnerable children’s needs.”

Schools that feel they need to invest in training their staff

to deal with attachment-related issues may want to consider using their pupil premium funding to join Adoption UK’s schools’ membership programme. Such membership would benefit all children with attachment difficulties, not just adopted children, by helping to put developmental learning at the heart of their education.

NAHT has joined forces with Adoption UK to highlight the importance of understanding attachment issues. To access our joint guidance document and to find out more about attachment awareness visit www.naht.org.uk.

Safer Internet Day this February This year’s Safer Internet Day will take place on 7 February. Last year more than 800 schools from all phases registered as supporters and thousands of others participated in events on the day. The organisers estimated that approximately 40% of the school population in England got involved in promoting staying safe online.

Safer Internet Day (SID) is run by the UK Safer Internet Centre, a partnership involving the South West Grid for Learning, Childnet International and the Internet Watch Foundation. As well as organising SID this partnership runs the ‘Professional Online Safety Helpline’ to which NAHT advisors direct members who experience online-related problems in schools (e.g. parents making

derogatory and abusive comments on social media). NAHT also sits on the Safer Internet Day advisory board.

All information surrounding Safer Internet Day 2017 can be found at www.saferinternet.org.uk. Get involved by registering support for the campaign and sharing updates on social media. Keep an eye open for the educational resources including ‘SID TV’ films, alongside a host of campaign materials which will be added to the site in the run-up to the event.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

Inspiring Leadership in 2017 Escaping the classroom etting children outdoors is fantastic for their health, wellbeing and learning.

Increasing the amount of time spent outdoors can be a great way to inspire new learning experiences and can also set children on a pathway to happy, healthy and environmentally sustainable lifestyles in their adult lives.

Natural Connections was shaped in light of discussions with teachers and school leaders who reported that the main challenge they faced with outdoor learning was a lack of confidence and skills in taking lessons outside. This issue underpinned the more traditionally cited challenges of curriculum pressure and concerns about risks and cost.

They concluded that the necessary changes in school culture needed to make outdoor learning most effective and sustainable require direct, highquality, local support.

To tackle this lack of skills and confidence, over the past four years Natural Connections has worked with more than 125 schools across the South West, encouraging them to take lessons outside. The approach was school-led; the project worked closely with teachers to ensure it addressed their priorities and included outdoor learning into everyday school activity.

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The schools that took part identified the following benefits: that facilitating outside learning can cost very little, it helps to engage and inspire children and it can improve the general wellbeing of pupils and teachers alike.

This project provides strong evidence, for the first time, that increasing curricular outdoor learning has multiple benefits. This was recognised in Ofsted reports which cited the benefits of high-quality learning in natural environments for pupil progression, enjoyment of learning, and spiritual, moral, social and cultural development in Natural Connections schools.

To find out more about the Natural Connections project you can read their full report at www.naht.org.uk/ naturalconnections.

NAHT is working with ASCL and the Education Development Trust to support Inspiring Leadership 2017. Last year’s event was a runaway success which attracted nearly 1,500 senior education leaders.

Moving into its fourth year, it has quickly become a key calendar event for leaders across the country to meet, share ideas and get inspired.

This year’s conference will cover a variety of themes including innovation, leadership, partnership, development and technology. A carefully curated programme of thought-provoking speakers and practical masterclasses will give a fresh perspective on leadership, both within and beyond the education sector. Inspiring Leadership 2017 aims to facilitate the perfect opportunity to meet peers, share experiences and exchange views and ideas to take back to the workplace. Delegates will also have unrivalled access to updates on technology, products and services to improve their work environment via the extensive exhibition.

We are thrilled to announce the first confirmed speakers for the 2017 Inspiring Leadership conference.

To be the first to find out more about this year’s event, including keynote speakers and workshops, follow the event on Twitter @InspLdrshipConf or visit www.inspiringleadership.org/.

• This year the Inspiring Leadership event will be held at the ICC in Birmingham from Wednesday 7 to Friday 9 June.

Leading school improvement Among all the demands faced by school leaders, prioritising and improving teaching and learning is a key challenge, not least because it is the area which will make the biggest impact on pupils’ motivation and outcomes.

By taking time to consider creative strategies and the long-term view, it is possible to define a successful school ethos that upholds these core values and is not shaken by the fluctuating educational landscape and accountability measures. This Prince’s Teaching Institute residential conference on 30 January will

provide secondary school leaders with the time and space to step back from the day-to-day, and give opportunities for them to consider how a leadership focus on teaching and learning can improve school standards and develop the quality of teachers. Delegates will meet a diverse community of school leaders from around the country and share leadership strategies in a collaborative environment. This will allow them to develop practical ways to make a difference in their own schools, and gain ideas for developing and sustaining a culture of learning for all staff and pupils.

The keynote speaker will be National Schools Commissioner, Sir David Carter, and will also feature NAHT president Kim Johnson and Dame Alison Peacock, the new CEO of the Chartered College of Teaching.

To find out more and to book a place, please visit www.princes-ti.org.uk/events.

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WELLBEING

Feeling the strain THE PRESSURE of headship is becoming a growing concern

within the profession. We take a look at the issues affecting staff on a daily basis and how problems can be overcome. o one goes into a head teaching or school leadership role expecting it to be a walk in the park.

Nevertheless, what is becoming abundantly clear.

Nevertheless, what is becoming abundantly clear, is that the pressures and strains of headship, the mental toll of a job that brings with it considerable emotional ‘heat and burden’, grindingly long hours and intense scrutiny and accountability, is becoming a growing concern and worry within the profession.

We can see this, for starters, within the well-documented problems many schools and governing bodies nowadays have in recruiting for headship roles, with one of the most recent warnings being that of the Future Leaders Trust, Teach First and Teaching Leaders, which in November predicted the

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profession will face a shortage of 19,000 head teachers and other senior staff in England by 2022.

We can see this, too, in NAHT’s own ongoing warnings about teacher supply and demand at all levels – to cite but tw wo recent reports, its survey in Nove ember that nearly a fifth (17%) of schools are unable to fill all their advertised posts, and its report, The Balancing Act, publisshed lasst

summer, which highlighted that just a third (36%) of deputy and assistant head teachers and vice principals aspire to headship, with inspection, accountability and sheer workload key worries.

Slightly older, but still verry relevant in the context, is NAH HT Work-Life Balance Survey from m 20 008-09, which concluded that 85% of respondents reported experiencing g wo ork-related sttress, and that 12% had d ta aken time off work k as a result, of be etween a day and a maximu um of 18 we eeks.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

CHILDREN’S MENTAL HEALTH WEEK

Above: James Hilton suffered work-related stress after 15 years as a head.

One person who knows all about the mental and emotional toll headship can take is James Hilton.

James worked as a head teacher for 15 years until in 2007 he suffered a breakdown brought on by workrelated stress. In January last year he published Leading from the Edge, his account of how he came back from the brink and strategies for dealing with the stresses of the role. He now runs workshops, training and presentations, and has worked closely with NAHT on helping heads develop the right strategies and techniques to cope.

Stress and emotional and mental wellbeing <are not just ‘live’ issues in the context of staff and head teacher health. There are the wider challenges, too, that schools face around managing and supporting the mental and emotional wellbeing of their children, and their role in terms of supporting parents, carers and communities.

A growing issue within this, too, is the problem of cyber bullying and social media, as witnessed by health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s call in November for under-18s to be prevented by social media companies from texting sexually explicit images.

Children’s Mental Health Week, run by the charity Place2Be (www.place2be.org.uk), is run precisely to raise awareness of these mental health issues among children, and what schools can do to help, as well as to help break down stigma. This year it will take place from 6–12 February.

Place2Be itself offers a range of services for primary and secondary schools, providing support for children, parents, teachers and school staff, and currently is working with 282 schools across the country.

At primary level this includes offering one-to-one counselling, drop in/selfreferral services, and group work on issues such as transition into secondary school, bereavement, friendship and self-esteem. It also works with parents, grandparents and parents and school staff.

• For more details about the week go to: place2be.org.uk/our-story/ childrens-mental-health-week.aspx.

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WELLBEING 10

BECOME A ‘MINDFUL EMPLOYER’ Mindful Employer is an NHS initiative that was launched back in 2004 and is designed to be a way employers can stand up and make a very public commitment to supporting the mental health and emotional wellbeing of their employees.

The initiative includes a charter for employers to sign to show they are “Positive About Mental Health”, and since 2004 some 1,567 employers have become signatories.

So, how does it work? The charter is completely voluntary and not an accreditation. However, by signing up it will allow you to display the Mindful Employer logo, much as you would be able to show an Investors in People logo if you signed up to that more HR-based initiative.

By signing up to the charter, it will show that, as an employer, you are aiming to: • Show a positive and enabling attitude to employees and job applicants

“It is often a combination of things. It can sometimes be difficult for a head teacher to open up to people for fear that they will be somehow judged, whether by parents, or by the governing body or, indeed, by Ofsted,” James tells Leadership Focus.

“One of my biggest mistakes was that I stopped networking.

So, I cut myself off from about the only group of people who might have understood the issues I was dealing with, even though very often I’d go to heads’ meetings and come back with a longer to-do list than I had gone there with.

“I do think part of the issue is there is an atmosphere now where there is very high accountability, higher than it has ever been, yet at the same time low levels of trust in the profession. I think, taken together, that is quite a toxic combination.

“One thing I do think is very important is that it should be on the governors’ agenda, ideally as a permanent item for discussion.

Too often there is that sense of isolation, which is why networking is so important. And then there can simply be geographical isolation.

In counties like Lincolnshire or Devon, for example, schools can be so spread out that the opportunities to get together are relatively small,” James adds.

with mental health issues. This will need to include positive statements in local recruitment literature.

• Ensure all staff involved in recruitment and selection are briefed on mental health issues and The Equality Act 2010, and given appropriate interview skills.

• Make it clear in any recruitment or occupational health check that people who have experienced mental health issues will not be discriminated against, and that disclosure of a mental health problem will enable both employee and employer to assess and provide the right level of support or adjustment.

• Not make assumptions that a person with a mental health problem will be more vulnerable to workplace stress or take more time off than any other employee or job applicant.

• Provide non-judgemental and proactive support to individual staff who experience mental health issues.

The role and support of governors and the governing board is critical, agrees Julia Steward of Chrysalis Leadership Development, who has carried out research on the stresses and strains of moving into, and sustaining, a headship position, and who now runs support programmes based on that research.

“Governors have an important role. You need to be able to talk to someone who is prepared to listen to you without vested interests or an agenda – and that may need to be someone outside the organisation,” she says.

Above: Julia Steward researches the stresses and strains of headship and runs support programmes.

• Ensure all line managers have information and training about managing mental health in the workplace.

More widely, as Richard Frost, Mindful Employer team lead at Workways (the NHS body that runs the initiative), points out, becoming a Mindful Employer sends out a very visible signal to your employees around stigma and openness and to the wider community about your commitment to good practice in this area.

“The charter is a way to make a public pledge; to set out an aspiration. One of the guiding principles is about ensuring the workplace is a safe place for people to talk about mental health, and to give managers the tools and confidence to support them,” says Richard.

“There are some schools that struggle with this more than others. Often it comes down to the management team providing a lead and working to ensure

“From my work with groups of head teachers I’ve found that, if one person is prepared to share their own vulnerability, others will do so too. But it does take someone to put their head above the parapet initially. If everyone colludes in a ‘conspiracy of silence’, then nothing will change. There is so often in education a culture of putting children first, which is only right. But, to be able to do that properly you need to be there for them yourself.”

Julia’s research found that heads do commonly fall into the trap of running faster and faster on the spot to try to look after everyone else, at the expense of taking care of themselves.

The survey of nearly 50 heads, 60% of whom were in their first headship, found they worried about “feeling ineffective”, failed to acknowledge their own achievements and failed to take the time to look after their own wellbeing.

In response to the statement “I take care to look after my health and wellbeing”, 60% of 10 years plus heads said “no”, along with 40% of heads with one to three years’ in the job and about a third of heads with four to nine years experience. Similar percentages (60%, 50% and slightly over a

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

the prevailing culture is one where staff will feel supported. It is about supporting your staff. But on top of that the mental wellbeing of pupils and children also needs to be an important consideration.

“Leaders need to be modelling behaviour; if there is an obvious lead from the top, then people will follow that lead.

If you are putting staff wellbeing firmly on the agenda and you and your managers are seen as approachable on this, then that will filter down through the team.

“If you look after your staff, they will perform better and, in turn, that will help to deliver a better school environment.

You will also be making savings because you will not be having to cover for staff sickness or having to pay out on sick pay as much,” Richard adds.

• You can find out more about the Mindful Employer initiative at www.mindfulemployer.net.

third) agreed with the statement “I worry I am not good enough”.

The research also conducted semi-structured interviews with six head teachers with varying years of experience and discovered common fears around “not being good enough”, around leaders needing not to be “vulnerable”, around feelings of isolation or of being “found out”.

“It is important to take time to recognise your own stress levels, which is something I know heads often find difficult to do because they are so busy. You also need to recognise that managing stress is not a quick fix; it needs to be a lifestyle choice,” Julia emphasises to Leadership Focus.

“NAHT has an important role to play here, and I think it can help with making this more public and more recognised. If middle and senior leaders are not stepping

up to leadership because of worries about the stress and anxiety that goes with it, what are we going to do?” she adds.

NAHT president Kim Johnson echoes James’ and Julia’s focus on the role of governors in this context. “Governors, the governing body, have a very important role to play in this, as they take statutory responsibility for the health and wellbeing of head teachers. But, too often, they do not realise this,” he says.

“If things continue as they are I am not sure whether, by 2020, we’re going to have the head teachers we need in this country.

It has long been recognised large numbers of heads are going to be retiring. But what is worrying is there are just not the replacements coming through.

“So it is about finding and identifying those people, but also

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60%

of heads in their first role are worried about “feeling ineffective”

WELLBEING

SEVEN THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP YOURSELF From her research, Julia Steward of Chrysalis Leadership Development recommends seven key actions heads can take: Prioritise sleep. As busy as you may feel you are, a good night’s sleep – or at the very least not burning the candle at both ends all the time – is the foundation of wellbeing and is at the heart of giving you greater emotional resilience.

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Notice what supports or undermines your emotional resilience. And the obvious corollary from here: do more of the former, less of the latter.

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Change habits of thinking that are unhelpful. Julia suggests you should also practise mindfulness.

Don’t assume this means going all open-toe-sandaled Lotus Position.

Mindfulness can be as simple as becoming more emotionally intelligent to yourself and those around you, recognising how you mentally respond to stress triggers, and making the space occasionally to step back mentally from the daily onslaught.

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Build in reflection time.

Julia recommends one-to-one coaching may be valuable here. What is important is to create a protected space – whether inside or outside work – where you can ‘let go’ and do your best thinking.

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Take responsibility for what is your responsibility and let the rest go.

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Cyber bullying has become a growing problem throughout schools.

Identify stressors in your school that can be changed.

And the HSE’s stress management standards highlighted in this article (page 15) can be helpful in this context.

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Acknowledge there’s no quick fix. Sustaining resilience needs to be a lifestyle choice. It is also important to accept there will be times where you lose focus on resilience, when it will be all hands on deck. But what is also important is to ensure you give yourself space afterwards to recover.

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about ensuring they stay within the profession. And within this supporting and protecting their health and wellbeing is vital.

“As heads, we recognise it is a privilege to be leaders. People, too, recognise they will need to perspire if they want to become heads.

“But we need to make stepping up to become head something people feel is also tenable from a health and wellbeing perspective; that it is something they can realistically aspire to,” he adds.

Wigan branch secretary Mike Wilson proposed further ways in which NAHT could support health and wellbeing in a motion to annual conference last year.

His motion, backed by conference, called for a survey of NAHT branches to ascertain what policies/procedures are in place to address health and wellbeing, to seek to ensure all employers adopt good practice and introduce procedures to promote health and wellbeing, and to work to expand the provision of dedicated mental health and wellbeing and resilience training packages for staff in schools.

“As head teacher, you are responsible for the health and wellbeing of all your staff. You need

to put in a range of measures to try to support staff, middle and senior leaders. But who looks after the head teacher?” Mike points out.

“It is pressure that just builds – if you are ‘only’ Good and not Outstanding, if you need to maintain your Outstanding and so on. And if you are Satisfactory that should be okay but, as far as Ofsted is concerned, it means you still require improvement to become Good.

“I am recently retired, but I had a very good governing body, which had had guidance around how to support and look after me.

I would like to see NAHT work in collaboration, in partnership, with the DfE and National Governors’ Association and work to address these issues,” he adds.

An extra stressor in Wales has been the Welsh Government’s school categorisation system, argues NAHT policy director Cmyru, Rob Williams.

“It is a very blunt way of measuring things, and often heads do not feel they are in control of the process. It is very outcomes-based, so heads are very, very much at the mercy of any given cohort in any given year,” he points out.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

CASE STUDY

Melanie Jenkins is head of Llysfaen Primary School in Cardiff, which has 450 pupils, 40 staff and is rated Good with Outstanding features.

“We run a series of ‘I Can’ Able and Talented challenges for our school across Cardiff. One of our governors, who is also a parent at the school, is a member of the the city’s Royal College and asked if we might be interested in running an I Can challenge with the college around the role and use of social media.

“I said yes immediately, I thought it was a brilliant idea because one of the things we are keen to develop in the school is our children’s oratorical skills. We invited the six schools in our cluster to select four Able and Talented children from each school to come and take part in the debate.

“The motion was: ‘This house believes that social media is anti-social’. The Royal College facilitated the debate, which took place in October, and invited various local dignitaries, including Rob Williams from NAHT and the children’s commissioner for Wales, Sally Holland, among others.

We held a debate where the overwhelming conclusion was that children did feel social media was anti-social

“And there is no pupil progress measure to it. If you, for example, have a small cohort and a large number of children on the SEN register, then you are never going to be able to get the outcome you need to be above average. I feel for many heads the situation in school has become far more challenging but with far less support.

“For heads, the duty of care lies with the governing body, but these are, of course, just volunteers, who also have their jobs to do. So a head teacher can often end up feeling isolated with no one, really, to turn to or confide in. You can be quite far away from your colleagues.

“There can also be a sense that you feel you should be able to cope. There is the perception that if you feel you are struggling it is somehow an admission of weakness or failure; that if you are a ‘leader’ you cannot be seen to fail. And

“All the children did preparation beforehand, including as homework, which helped to get parents and families involved in discussing it as a topic. Various classes did work on it too, looking at the reasons for and against social media being anti-social.

“The event started with the children in the audience being invited to vote on what they thought before the debate happened. Then two children each were invited to speak for the motion and to speak against it. Then they were asked questions. And then the vote was repeated at the end.

“The overwhelming conclusion was that the children did feel social media was anti-social, which was, we felt, a very interesting conclusion. The college was amazed because it had only tried this debate question among sixth formers and it had not thought about trying to engage primary school children with it.

“We also found when the topic was introduced into classes it generated a lot of discussion, especially around the role of social media in terms of cyber bullying, and how it can also lead children to become, or feel, isolated.

“It has fed very clearly into our wider anti-bullying work in the school and awareness has been heightened. It has been so successful we are now planning to do an event like this every year. The debate was also a great way to boost children’s confidence and self-esteem. Year 6 took part in the debate in October but Year 5 children were in the audience, and so next year it will be their turn.”

that can be really unhelpful in this context,” Rob contends.

An NAHT survey of Welsh members in 2015, for example, found nearly three-quarters (74%) felt their stress levels were higher than the year before, with the volume of new initiatives and Estyn being the primary factors (47% and 41% respectively). Even more worrying, more than three-quarters (76%) said they had felt bullied at work in the previous year.

So, what can help? Rob argues making a few very deliberate steps can make a difference, not only for yourself but also in terms of gradually giving others ‘permission’ to have a work-life balance or be open about the fact they may not feel as if they are coping.

“It can just be small, practical things, such as enforcing that everyone has to be off site by 4.30pm twice a week. That’s not just helpful in itself, but also in

terms of the wider message it sends out. For teachers, it is often in their nature that they just get on with the task at hand, get the job done, irrespective of what time of day it is, whether it means they’re working late at home or at the weekend.

“If you’re sending emails late at night or on a Sunday afternoon, you may feel you’re being superefficient and getting on top of your workload. But it’s not great for your own work-life balance and, second, for the person receiving that email, it can be something they then start thinking or worrying about. So, even if you feel you have to catch up out of hours, perhaps just leave the email in your drafts folder until the morning.

“You need to make it clear to the governing board or the local authority that they have an employer’s duty to be proactive in managing the health and wellbeing of their employees, and that includes you, the head teacher.

13

WELLBEING

“There can also be a sense that you’re not ‘allowed’ to be anywhere else but school; that you have to stay longer than is expected, do more than is expected, to be the school ‘leader’. But if you’re not careful, you can just grind yourself down,” adds Rob. “A head who feels they must know everything, and be equipped for everything, is simply setting him or herself up for a big fall. Being a head is about building up teams of people, people who have various skill sets and who you can trust.”

“Trust is paramount at all levels of leadership,” agrees James Hilton.

“It is also about modelling the behaviours you want to see in your team and your people. Your school does eventually become you and if you are, say, firing off emails over the weekend, that is not going

CASE STUDY

14

to help either you or your staff achieve a better work-life balance.

“Things like ‘no work Wednesday’ where you deliberately don’t take your laptop home are important. You have to make at least one workday evening a week sacrosanct and make sure you have time for yourself, your partner, your family.

“I do think NAHT has a very important role to play in this.

Historically, people have tended to think of a union as being somewhere to turn to about pay or conditions or if they’re in trouble – and, of course, it still is all that.

But people are much less likely to turn to their union for help if they are facing a mental health crisis.”

The Teacher Support Network is now the largest support service provider for teachers in the UK,

Andrew Marlow is vice principal of Old Trafford Community Academy in Manchester, an Oftsed-rated Good primary school with 440 children and 62 staff.

“We are located within a pocket of deprivation, and we have a very multicultural but also very transient community. So, we do a lot of work around community and child social and emotional wellbeing. We feel the school has an important community role in this area.

“This includes running drop-in advice sessions and citizenship classes for parents and toddler groups. We have lots of parents who do not speak English, and so they frequently come up against language barriers, especially in terms of barriers to accessing the legal system and we try, where we can, to help with that.

“It is about attempting to look at what it is that caused children’s social and emotional issues and trying to combat that at an early stage. We signpost to a lot of different agencies when it is beyond what we can do as a school. For example, through our Children and Young People’s Services (CYPS) we commission to have a social worker on site for two days a week.

She works with children and families at the more complex range of early help.

She also co-ordinates other services and can work in the family home to forge home-school and social care links.

36%

of deputy and assistant head teachers and vice principals aspire to headship, with inspection, accountability and sheer workload key worries.

“We also work closely with our Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in the school and we have the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children working in assemblies with Year 5 and 6.

“Often it is about working with a particular child to investigate what is going on at home, and what might be having an effect, and then just trying to join things up. It is expensive to do, but we strongly believe it pays off; we feel the expense is well worth the results.

“For example, take attendance.

There was one child we had who was working with CAMHS but who had a very poor attendance record. We got CYPS to work with him on what was happening. He was coming in late every day, at about 10–10.30am.

“We arranged for him to come to our breakfast club, which starts from 8am. That way we know at least that, if he is late, he will still be here for 9am.

and is able to provide information, coaching and counselling on both professional and personal issues. In addition, personal legal queries will be referred to its Law Express partner.

The specialist team of coaches, advisors and counsellors can provide services over the telephone and online. They are extremely experienced at the particular forms of stress that occur within a school context and are uniquely able to deliver appropriate responses and interventions. A number of staff are Welsh speakers.

Any member seeking counselling in respect of both personal or professional issues, or with a personal legal query, should be advised to contact the NAHT Counselling and Support Line: 0800 917 4055.

Sometimes it can be small factors that make a difference and, in the case of this particular child, he now has good attendance and we are able to support him and his family effectively through the range of services we offer.

“We’ve also looked closely at the curricula, and how we adapt it. Mental health in children is, we all know, a very important issue right now. Issues come and go and funding and provision appears and then disappears. So, it is about trying to make social and emotional mental health sustainable.

For us, it has been less about adding things to the curriculum and more about adapting what we already do.

“We have redesigned the curriculum plan to revolve around three core values: social and emotional wellbeing, communication and physical development. We got together as a whole school staff to spend a day working out what it

Looking after our own mental wellbeing is the best way to ensure we are able to look after the mental and emotional wellbeing of our children

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

SIX KEY STRESS ‘TRIGGERS’

The Health and Safety Executive’s Stress Management Standards are, technically, a tool organisations can use to gauge how well they are managing staff stress and supporting their wellbeing.

However, the six core stress ‘triggers’ the HSE identifies can also be a useful measure by which to look at and reflect upon how you are managing your own role and the types of areas it could be helpful for you to look at in terms of reducing stress and pressure.

THE SIX TRIGGERS ARE:

was we felt children, parents and families needed to succeed.

“For example, most recently we have taught all our English, including the current poetry unit, through aspects of social, emotional and mental health and our three core values. The music curriculum too is now tied to the links between music, movement and wellbeing, as well as learning an instrument. We have adapted our lunch break to offer the children different opportunities for development.

“It can be reading, art, sport or flexible playtimes, so teachers can make decisions around the general health and wellbeing of the class.

Longer or shorter breaks make the school day more emotionally and socially friendly. We also have an art therapist who works with targeted groups of children to run different activities that then become part of their day.

“For children who are struggling through school and have social and emotional mental health needs we can now offer intervention such as an eight-week plan, as we have structured the school in such a way that the support is cost-effective and sustainable. It might take eight weeks, it might take ten, but we normally manage to help them transition back into class. It is a short-term intervention that is a very visible measure.

“We also work hard to support the mental health and wellbeing of our staff. We offer work-life balance events, such as car valeting. All staff are offered free gym membership which they can use in a number of gyms across the area. We commission a specialist occupational health provider to offer free counselling and up to six free sessions of physiotherapy each year. The art therapist has also offered sessions to staff.

“We give regular planning time above PPA. We encourage staff to continue academic studies and have, for example, supported several staff members by funding their first year of a three-year distance-learning university course. Staff are encouraged to follow their own interests and are supported with proportionate leave of absence to pursue these hobbies.

“We also have a very thorough return-to-work policy, and we run weekly meetings for staff to ensure we can support all aspects of staff health. No staff meetings are allowed to go beyond 4.45pm. You have to stop and, if you haven’t finished, pick it up the next day. It can be small things like that which make a difference. Ultimately, we recognise that looking after our own mental wellbeing is the best way to ensure we are able to look after the mental and emotional wellbeing of our children.”

DEMANDS. This includes issues you may face in terms of workload, work patterns and your working environment.

CONTROL. This is how much say you feel you have in the way you do your work.

SUPPORT. This includes the encouragement, sponsorship and resources provided by your organisation, line management or colleagues and, in the case of head teachers, your governing body.

RELATIONSHIPS. This includes the behaviours of colleagues, your relationships at work, your team dynamic, conflicts and so on.

ROLE. This includes whether you or the people in your organisation fully understand your roles and whether the organisation ensures that there are no conflict between them.

CHANGE. This is how organisational change (large or small) is managed and communicated in the organisation.

• You can find out more about these, and general stress management, at http://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/standards/.

15

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LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

Leaders together LEADERSHIP FOCUS talks to vice president Colm Davis following news he is to stand down after being diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and catches up with his successor Anne Lyons on her role moving forward.

otor Neurone Disease (MND) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that it is estimated by the Motor Neurone Disease Association affects some 5,000 adults in the UK at any one time.

For the public, it is often most associated with the renowned physicist Professor Stephen Hawking but, within education, former chief inspector of schools Sir Chris Woodhead suffered from the condition for nine years before his death in 2015.

Now, sadly, its shadow has passed across NAHT with the news that vice president Colm Davis has been diagnosed with MND, and therefore has taken the difficult decision to stand down and pass the vice presidential baton to Harrow branch secretary Anne Lyons. It also, of course, means it will be Anne who steps up to take over the presidency when Kim Johnson’s term of office is completed in April at the national conference in Telford.

“I had had some signs that something which I thought was minor was wrong with me for the past few years, which I continued to ignore because I seemed to be able to function effectively. Unfortunately, however, everything came to a head in May,” Colm tells Leadership Focus.

M

“The diagnosis was, of course, devastating for me. I have been on NAHT council for more than 12 years and it would have been lovely to have had a Northern Irish president installed this year, and I did think I could have done a lot for NAHT locally and nationally.”

Although MND can be fatal, Professor Hawking’s longevity – he will be 75 this month (January) – is evidence this is not always the case, and Colm, for one, is doing his best to maintain a positive outlook.

“I am determined not to let MND beat me. Through determination and hard work, my school has been Outstanding for the last six years, and I aim to ensure that it will always be Outstanding,” he says. “The staff are brilliant and the kids deserve only the best.”

The school in question is Tor Bank School in Belfast, a special school in Dundonald in the city with 200 children with severe learning disabilities and about 120 staff, and where Colm has been principal for 14 years.

“Before I was diagnosed, over a period of one-and-a-half years, I had various MRI scans and other electronic tests to attempt to get to the core of the slight muscle twitches (which I now know to be what are called ‘fasciculations’). I wondered if I had had a slight stroke, or the onset of

17

I am determined not to let MND beat me. Through determination and hard work, my school has been Outstanding for the last six years, and I aim to ensure that it will always be Outstanding.

INTERVIEW 18

Parkinson’s or MS. MND was never mentioned throughout these tests.

“Unfortunately, there is no formal diagnostic test for MND and so the information-gathering process is about eliminating everything else before you can make a diagnosis,” Colm recalls.

“From the recent tests, however, it was clear to the consultants that I had suffered some muscle wastage, especially in my tongue and my left hand. At times my speech appeared to be getting worse, with more slurring, and that was when I really noticed something was wrong. It was also more nasal sounding than it used to be and these signs became more evident in April and May this year.

“When I first got the diagnosis at the end of May 2016, although devastated and shocked, I thought that perhaps I could still continue as normal. But by the end of June I realised the impact of fatigue kicking in by mid-afternoon was having a severe impact on daily living. Then there was my voice too, which was becoming even more slurry when I was tired or stressed.

“I started to get more self-conscious of this and recognised that the stress of being NAHT president was going to be too much for me in the long term. In some ways, it was a relief to make the decision to stand down; it meant that at least this pressure was removed from me for now. But it was, of course, a terribly disappointing decision to have to make and people at NAHT were extremely empathetic and supportive.

“I decided that, even if I could not continue my NAHT role as a national president, I could at least go back to school after the summer break.

Having only one day’s sickness leave in more than 22 years, I felt determined to continue. But, within two months,

by September/October, the reality and stress of managing such a complex school was definitely having a detrimental effect on my health.

“The staff were brilliant but I still felt exhausted even after resorting to reduced days. I was lucky that governors and the educational authority were supportive when I decided to take time off on sickness leave after the Hallowe’en break.”

Colm remains proud of his achievements within NAHT, and

rightly so. “There have b een lots of been ard achievements and it’s ha ard to single out any one for special mention; however, I am particularrrly ly proud ofile of having raised the pro o file of Northern Ireland issues, especially the challenging issues fa acing SEN acing schools within Northern n Ireland. By ying our getting involved in lobbying mbly local government assem mbly the profile of these children has been ecisions raised and important de e cisions made at local level,” he ssays. ays.

What, then, would have ve been the focus of his presiden ncy? “My ncy? presidency would have been very children child-focused; ‘putting c hildren first’ eme. would have been my the e me. In all the nment obsession within govern n ment about academies and gramma ar schools – ar and there are a lot of ch hallenging hallenging issues – it does sometim mes feel mes that children get forgottten ten about.

So, I very much wanted to go evel and back to the grassroots level plains. focus on that,” Colm exp plains. est issues we “And one of the bigge est also face, in my opinion,, is national challenges leadership. With all the challenges er in a present leaders encounttter da, da, the changing political agend challenge still remains ass to how focused, to keep school leaders focused, d, and motivated and enthused d, h at going also how do we keep th hat u rnout’?” without it leading to ‘bu urnout’?” e focus of Aptly, considering the hip Focus, this edition of Leadership ould ould have health and wellbeing wo area for been a further priority area le on him. “We too often battle regardless, and that can n take a wellbeing. toll on our health and wellbeing.

So, it is about us needing g to ally and become more emotiona ally physically resilient. That would have been a big goal of mine,”” says Collm.

Which, naturally, brings the conversation back to his health and the long-term outlook. Despite the diagnosis, Colm is determined not to let MND dominate his life “I have always been a very positive person and I take each day as it comes, so I am trying to look at the positive side of life,” he says.

“I have been extremely lucky as a school leader to find my vocation – to work with children with severe learning difficulties – and that remains my driving force,” Colm adds.

Above: Anne Lyons has been a head teacher for 23 years and will take up Colm’s role.

Encouraging and bringing on middle leaders is going to be one of the areas that I want to focus on during my tenure.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

Motor neurone disease (MND) is a progressive disease that attacks the body’s motor neurones, or nerves, in the brain and spinal cord. Essentially, messages gradually stop reaching the muscles, which then leads to weakness and wasting.

MND can affect how you walk, talk, eat, drink and breathe. However, not all symptoms necessarily happen to everyone and it is unlikely someone with the condition will develop all the potential symptoms at the same time, or in any specific order.

The muscles first affected tend to be those in the hands, feet and mouth, dependent on which type of the disease an individual is diagnosed with.

The condition does not however usually affect the sight, sound or touch. Some people

It is in the nature of teachers that, when bad things happen, you step up and get on with sorting things out.

“Indeed, encouraging and bringing on middle leaders is going to be one of the areas that I want to focus on during my tenure. NAHT also has a vital role to support leaders in terms of abiding by their values and making sure all the procedures within the school are open and transparent, and that they are following the appropriate advice.

“Nowadays it is really easy to get yourself into trouble as a head teacher, so the advice and support NAHT can provide is crucial, both in terms of helping members when things have gone wrong, but also ensuring they do not go wrong in the first place.

“There is also an important other side, which is about developing leaders and working with the powers that be – the DfE and others – to develop good models within schools, especially around things like assessment.

“One of the strengths of NAHT is that we do not just complain, we try to offer solutions, and that is something that is really important,” Anne adds.

experience changes in thinking and behaviour and cognitive impairment.

Early symptoms can often be quite slight, such as clumsiness, mild weakness or slightly slurred speech, all of which can be attributed to other reasons. It can be some time before someone feels it necessary to see a GP. Although there is currently no cure for MND, symptoms can be managed to help people with the condition to achieve the best possible quality of life.

MND can affect any adult at any age, but most people diagnosed with the disease are over the age of 40, with the highest incidence occurring between the ages of 50 and 70.

The condition affects men approximately twice as often as women, but this can vary depending on the type of MND.

MOTOR NEURONE DISEASE IN NUMBERS

5,000 Estimated number of adults in the UK with MND at any one time

6 300

Number of people per year diagnosed with MND in the UK

The risk of a person developing MND

35%

19

Percentage of people with MND who experience mild cognitive change, with 15% reporting more major behavioural change as a result of their condition

SUPPORTING CHILDREN AFFECTED BY MND

MND is primarily a condition that affects adults, although it is not unheard of in children. To that end, the role of a school in this context is most likely to be around supporting a child who has a parent or relative with the condition.

They may as a result be juggling caring responsibilities alongside their education as well as dealing with a range of worries, fears and anxieties for the future.

A good first port of call for advice and guidance is the Motor Neurone Disease Association, which has a specific section on its website precisely on this topic, http://www. mndassociation.org. More widely, the website offers a range of resources on the condition and its effects.

If you would like to donate to the Motor Neurone Disease Association, NAHT has set up a dedicated JustGiving page: www.justgiving.com/ fundraising/Colm-Davis.

Source (panels one and two): Motor Neurone Disease Association

WHAT IS MOTOR NEURONE DISEASE?

terms of encouraging teachers to step up into headship roles, the development of NAHT edge has been an important step by NAHT, Anne contends.

“I think edge is excellent because we have to support and encourage middle leaders.

One of the difficulties NAHT has had in the past is that it has been an excellent forum for head teachers but much less so for middle leaders, and so I am glad that is changing.

ONE IN

or Anne Lyons, head of St John Fisher Roman Catholic Primary School in Harrow for 23 years, stepping into Colm’s shoes will, naturally, be bitters a bittersweet moment, given the context.

“I was lying on a beach in Cuba when th call about Colm and it was a I took the sh huge shock,” she recalls to Leadership Focus. ““It was devastating news, for him persona personally of course, for all of us, but mo widely for NAHT, considering also more what he has contributed, and would have co continued to have contributed.

“But iit is in the nature of teachers that, when ba bad things happen, you step up and get on with sorting things out; you have to support each other. And that is what we shall do with Colm. I want to ensure tthat his legacy, his contribution, o she emphasises. carries on,” Anne has worked within primary educatio since the early 1970s, initially education ma as a maths teacher before moving into headshi In her time at St John Fisher headship. she has taken it from one form entry three from 250 to 650 children. to three, The growing autonomy of schools, first tthrough the introduction of local mana management through the 1988 Education Act and more recently through acad academisation, has been a profound cha change for school leadership and the role of the school leader, she argues.

“L “Local management has, arguably, been positive for head teachers in terms of giving them more control over their sta staffing and support of their school, equipme facilities and the quality of the equipment, school. But it has also meant heads have had devel to develop a whole range of different skills, skills we have always had to an extent, but which h have had to become more explicit.”

Again Against this backdrop, and against the backdro of the ongoing recruitment backdrop and rete retention challenges schools face in

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LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

Taking on the workload challenge MIDDLE LEADERS offer a unique and important perspective on combatting excessive workloads in schools. Over the course of the last 12 months we have seen the emergence of a growing commitment from the government to try to tackle the issue of excessive teacher workload. Earlier this year three workload challenge reports were released focusing on marking, planning and data management.

WORKLOADS AND THE RECRUITMENT CRISIS

Recruitment difficulties for the main middle leadership roles in schools are pronounced.

Recruited with ease

17%

Recruited with difficulty

60%

Failed to recruit

23%

a key role in tackling excessive workloads in their schools.

In the context of a whole profession that is dealing with ongoing recruitment and retention issues, it cannot be a surprise that individuals are feeling the impact of unfilled posts within their schools. NAHT’s annual recruitment survey findings released last November found that for the third consecutive year, school leaders reported that there was no improvement

in teacher supply, and there was no improvement in the struggle to recruit newly qualified and experienced teachers, middle leaders and senior leaders (including school business managers) and head teachers.

The report concluded that decisive action was needed to deal with the ongoing recruitment crisis, by making teaching a more attractive profession to join, and to stay in. Managing workload is, of course, key to this.

21

Source: NAHT Annual Recruitment Survey 2016

ithin each of these reports a number of useful recommendations were made. The reports questioned a number of unnecessary practices that have developed over time such as overly frequent data collection and ‘triple marking’.

Many would argue that our current accountability regime has a lot to answer for here, and that such activities were actively encouraged by some Ofsted inspectors. However, the signs here have been encouraging too.

For example, the most recent School Inspection Update makes it very clear that “Inspectors must not give the impression that marking needs to be undertaken in any particular format and to any particular degree of sophistication or detail.”

While it might take some time for these messages to fully trickle down, it may just be that we are on the verge of a real change.

NAHT has been campaigning hard for government to put this high on the education priority list and we are enlisting the help of middle leaders across the UK to support us in establishing best practice within schools and laying out the next steps for the government to take.

We believe that school leaders and, especially middle leaders, are ideally placed to take these messages on board and to play

W

Above: The profession is dealing with ongoing recruitment and retention issues.

WORKLOAD CHALLENGE 22

No time for CPD

Of course, the vast majority of teachers and school leaders want, and need, to be continually developing in order to meet the demands of the job and excel in areas of interest. Without time being made for Continuing Professional Development (CPD), school leaders are left lacking in confidence and demotivated in meeting the demands of teaching while undertaking highstakes management duties. In October, the Education Policy Institute (EPI) conducted a report on teacher workload and professional development in England’s secondary schools. They concluded that “the current long-hours culture among teachers in England is restricting access to continuing professional development, the amount of it undertaken on average is very low, and that confidence in teaching skills is associated with more manageable workloads. These factors are likely to be contributing to the trend of teachers leaving the profession at an early age in England – and the result is that we have one of the youngest and least experienced teaching workforces in the developed world.”

MARKING

• Refer to ‘feedback’ in your assessment policy, with marking one part of this but giving weight to a range of other methods of feedback, including verbal.

• Organise small-scale trials of proposed changes and gain feedback from staff, pupils and parents before implementing them across the school.

• Be wary of setting an expectation as to the frequency of marking. If this is essential, be realistic about expectations.

• Question and consider discontinuing the implementation of practices which require teachers to provide evidence of feedback for external audiences; for example, verbal feedback stamps.

Tips for cutting down workload – government reports So with all this doom and gloom centred on the lack of new recruits, limited CPD opportunities and an increase in teachers leaving the profession, where does that leave teachers and school leaders with tackling the workload challenge in the day-to-day running of their schools?

Last year, the government released three reports on three key areas to focus on when considering workload; these were: marking, lesson planning and data management. Although these reports offered sound recommendations, there were a limited number of practical actions which schools could undertake to reduce workload. We have used these reports to create some practical tips for you to use in your school.

LESSON PLANNING

• Develop a clear rationale with your staff about the purpose of planning.

• Be flexible in terms of planning documentation and expectations of all staff using the same pro-forma.

Instead, collaboratively decide on which headings must be in any lesson plan and the reasons why these are important, then allow staff to adapt this to suit their own needs, as well as the needs of their pupils.

• Make sure your school has effective IT systems in place so that schemes of work, plans and resources can be shared and updated.

• Allocate time throughout the year so that staff can discuss curriculum and qualification changes and can then organise any changes to their schemes of work, plans and resources.

DATA MANAGEMENT

• Summative data should be

collected only as frequently as essential to ensure appropriate action can be taken in between collections. Unless there are issues of performance to address and monitor, summative data should not normally be collected more than three times a year per pupil.

• Review assessment which leads to data generation and consider a range of approaches (including standardised tasks/test items).

• Do not collect data outside of agreed data collection points. Take a strategic view of the assessment demands throughout the school year and implement an assessment and data management calendar.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

Taking responsibility for workloads

But as much as school leaders and teachers are dealing with workload at ground level, we cannot forget the role that government plays in making teaching an attractive proposition.

It is vitally important that teachers are incentivised to progress through the ranks and all school staff are able to balance their career alongside their home life. NAHT general secretary, Russell Hobby, commented: “We welcomed the workload review groups the government set up last year and have promoted their recommendations. However, the government must accept responsibility for the major role it has to play in teacher workload. Individual schools can do nothing about the timing or the content of government reforms or the weight of accountability. Too often teachers are collateral damage in rushed and chaotic reforms.

“That England ranks so low in the time teachers are given for CPD is a real worry. We pa articularly need development op pportunities that encourage teachers to feel confident in stepping up to leadership in the future. School leadership is a hu ugely rewarding job that allows tea achers the chance to make real ch hange in their communities, raise sta andards and improve children’s e chances. But, as things stand, life jus st a third of the middle leaders we e surveyed earlier this year had an ny aspiration to become head tea achers. That will not give us the number of heads we need.

Workload, risk and the culture of blame that surrounds school leadership make for a toxic fog that must be dispelled.”

Hobby added: “In a high-stakes system, the government has two choices: to ensure the right incentives are in place so people take on career risks, or address the high stakes accountability system itself. Unfortunately the government has chosen to do neither. We know that teachers’ pay is not keeping pace with other graduate professions, with a significant impact on recruitment and retention. We also know that they are treated poorly. The government must recognise that, unless they end their policy of real-terms pay cuts and create better working conditions, the profession will struggle to attract the best and brightest.”

NAHT policy advisor Sarah Hannafin agreed, adding that the series of changes to policy that government has made in recent years has been a key factor in adding to teachers’ workloads. “The government has a key role to play in reducing workload for teachers and school leaders; thought needs to be given to the impact of introducing or changing policies.

In addition to the ongoing challenges of recruitment and funding, secondary schools are currently dealing with reformed qualifications at Key Stage 4 and 5 which require new planning and resources; and primary schools are coping with a new curriculum and testing regime.

The profession needs a period of stability from any further change.”

Shut up shop and shut down emails

• no meetings on Mondays or Friday afternoons; • no back-to-back meetings.

Head teacher at Ysgol Y Deri, Chris Britten, manages more than 200 staff in Penarth, Wales. He identified last year that workloads for the leadership team were fast becoming unmanageable, so put some key rules in place to change the culture of overworking in his school.

Chris also added it was important to “Make sure to work with your admin team not against them. It was important to get the admin team onside as their work was enlisted in getting this cultural shift off the ground. As a result of these changes staff are much happier. 90% of our budget is spent on staff so it’s important that they feel valued and happy when they come to work. It’s so important that staff have time to dedicate to their families so that they can deliver excellent teaching when at school.”

Rules include:

• everyone must leave school by 5.30pm each day; • no email traffic on evenings and weekends;

23

WORKLOAD CHALLENGE 24

How are schools combatting the workload challenge?

NAHT edge director, James Bowen, believes that the key to understanding and resolving the workload challenge is for middle leaders to work hand-in-hand with senior leaders in identifying future solutions for minimising workload. “Middle leaders, with the support of senior leaders, are uniquely placed to take the lead when it comes to tackling unnecessary workload and now is the time to do it.

“If we sit back and wait for change to come, we could be left sorely disappointed and frustrated. The government has fired the starting pistol and now it is up to us to grab the baton and run with it. With that in mind we’ve spoken to members and education specialists to ask their solutions for managing workload.”

Resources – go back to basics

Lara Ginn is a middle leader at a primary school in central Slough and a member of NAHT edge’s advisory council. One of her key suggestions is to maximise the use of resources in the classroom.

“Hours spent resourcing a lesson does not guarantee

good quality learning. Overresourcing or resourcing every lesson in the same manner, for instance with yet another PowerPoint or yet another worksheet, does not result in a varied or engaging diet for our learners. Often lessons with fewer resources and a greater level of face-to-face interaction are of a much higher quality.

School leaders should promote this belief and teachers must step back and believe in their own ability to deliver high quality lessons rather than taking comfort in overly detailed plans and endless resources.

Planning and resourcing, whether supported by a bought-in scheme, a scheme created by a school or no scheme, should be about the quality discussion and thought, based on knowledge of the pupils and the setting, between professionals. Highquality teaching and learning experiences are borne out of this dialogue and not out of hours spent producing endless piles of paper.”

Become a pragmatist

Understanding what needs to be done and what can be done is key to balancing workload demands. We spoke to HMI and

national director Sean Harford who outlined the reasoning behind the Ofsted myth-busting document. Common misconceptions were being circulated regarding what Ofsted required upon inspection which frequently led to more work being undertaken by teachers and senior leaders who were already under serious time constraints. In a conversation with NAHT edge last year he said, “Sometimes recommendations for schools were written in a way that may lead to unnecessary workload for teachers.”

CONCLUSION

The government must take ownership for creating solutions by working with schools.

James Bowen writes: “Leaders will need to closely examine all aspects of school life and be ruthless about those things that have the greatest impact in order to keep workload under control in difficult circumstances and to support staff wellbeing.

“As part of our ongoing campaign on workload, this term NAHT edge will be running a series of roundtable events in schools. These will provide an opportunity for middle leaders to discuss the issues they face in managing a demanding workload and also provide an opportunity to explore possible solutions. These ideas will feed into a report later in the year and we will ensure that they are also shared with the government.

“We are currently looking for schools that are interested in hosting such events. All you need to provide is a room and some middle leaders – we will do the rest!”

How is your school beating the workload challenge?

If you and your staff have developed some smart ways of cutting down workload and would like to host a roundtable event at your school please email nahtedge@naht.org.uk

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SEND

STIMULATING CONFERENCES

for all school leaders including SENCos NAHT IS passionate about specialist education provision. Early this year we are hosting two high-profile SEND events, both of which aim to stimulate debate and instigate meaningful progress in their respective fields. A dedicated NAHT conference working group has ensured fantastic content has been formulated in both cases, so that our member and non-member delegates are presented with the very latest thinking and tailored advice on special needs provision.

ARE YOU READY FOR ‘THE BIG SHOUT’?

26

By the time you read this, NAHT will have hosted its sold-out conference ‘The Big Shout – Girls on the Autism Spectrum’.

Conference planning chair Professor Barry Carpenter CBE believes this will prove to be a landmark event where speakers shine a light on the vulnerability and complex needs of girls on the Autistic Spectrum. “Importantly, there will be a focus during the event on preparing a ‘call for action’, really getting to grips with the urgent need for further development,” says Barry who is chair of the Autism and Girls Forum. “We will end the day having explored the big issues. What further research is needed? What are the implications for curriculum? And what are the implications for school leadership?”

Bookings for this event – and media interest – have been high, with delegates expected from as far afield as Norway, Poland, Gibraltar and Spain as

well as across the UK. The event is high profile because families, school leaders, health professionals and education journalists have recently woken up to the lack of understanding around girls on the Autistic Spectrum. It’s widely felt that there are thousands of ‘lost girls’ in the UK, who are on the Autistic Spectrum without a formal diagnosis.

“There is an urgent need for genderspecific research, which would help us diagnose, and inform us all of the support these girls need in life,” says Barry.

“For instance, it’s emerging that autism presents differently in girls and boys, with girls being much better at ‘masking’ their autism. The misconception that ‘girls are rarely autistic’ means teachers, educational psychologists or special educational needs professionals often fail to look for signs of autism in girls. Consequently girls are ill-served by a range of services, and this is what we must address.”

Barry says that the Autism

To find more details, please go to the NAHT website at www.naht.org.uk/welcome/naht-events/conferences.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

SEMINARS/WORKSHOPS

Spectrum Condition and Girls Forum roundtable which took place in the House of Lords on 8 November 2016, chaired

by Baroness Sheila Hollins, was hugely valuable and will be discussed at The Big Shout. The forum has raised concerns that those living without appropriate support are at risk from mental health conditions, exclusions from school and even exploitation. We’re thrilled that Baroness Hollins will be Guest of Honour at The Big Shout, taking part in the Q&A panel and sharing her thoughts on how parliamentary dialogue is developing.

There is so much more to shout about. Delegates will meet and hear first-hand from two girls with autism from Limpsfield Grange in Surrey, the only state-run school for autistic girls in the country. An incredible line up of eminent speakers includes Professor Barry Carpenter, Dr Rona Tutt OBE, and keynote speaker Professor Francesca Happé, the latter covering: ‘What is known about girls on the Autism Spectrum?’

Closing the conference will be broadcaster Carrie Grant, mother to girls on the Autism Spectrum, and perfectly positioned to give the family perspective.

“This event brings together highly qualified teaching experts with equally passionate people from other disciplines. Sharing knowledge is the only way we can make progress,” says Barry. “Together we’re on a journey of discovery for, and with, girls with autism, and The Big Shout will go a long way to ensuring their voices are heard.”

Delegates will also need to choose carefully between the eight workshops, designed to inspire, stimulate and empower those working with pupils with SEND. Workshops are booked during the conference booking process.

SPECIAL SCHOOLS, SPECIALIST AND ALTERNATIVE PROVISION CONFERENCE 2017

In March – spanning the evening of Thursday 9 March and Friday 10 March – we’re delighted to be hosting our annual Special Schools, Specialist and Alternative Provision Conference.

For 2017 the poignant title ‘Creating stability in changing times’ aims to sum up what must be achieved in the current climate. Following the biggest changes to SEND for a generation via the Children and Families Act in 2014, and reform of SEND funding for pupils with high-cost SEND, school leaders have a great deal to consider, and this event is designed specifically to motivate and offer practical advice for those on the frontline in special schools, specialist, and alternative provision.

“NAHT’s conference working group, chaired by Paul Williams, has worked tirelessly to bring together the leading lights in SEND to share their ideas and knowledge,” says Dr Rona Tutt OBE, who is also a member of the group and a past president of NAHT with vast experience of SEND. “Wellbeing of staff and children is a massive consideration for teaching leaders, and those working in SEND have a vital role to play of course. Unfortunately they can feel isolated, so it’s been very powerful over recent years to use this conference as a platform to bring special needs out of the shadows and give them the support and recognition they deserve.”

The next big focus must be on stability she says. “With funding issues to address and increasing numbers of children coming through with complex needs such as dual or even more than dual diagnoses, we really need to be prepared and build effective practices.”

Paul Williams is head teacher at Shaftesbury High School which is a special needs school in the London borough of Harrow. He’s also chair of the SEND Council at NAHT, a member of the NAHT National Executive and chair of our conference working group. Paul believes the power of this event is its ability to bring SEND colleagues together to “talk about issues and areas of mutual concern”.

“For people who come along it’s a very helpful reminder that they are not alone.

It’s confirmation for them that the concerns faced around the country are not dissimilar,” says Paul. ‘Stability’ is difficult to achieve when there are unanswered questions around SEND assessment and high-needs funding, he acknowledges.

“There are also unknowns and therefore instability around the neurological reasons why children have difficulties. All of these issues will be tackled in the presentations and workshops during the event.”

A highpoint will be Will Ord’s keynote speech. Will specialises in helping schools to develop ‘growth mindsets’, thinking and communication skills, and mindfulness in both primary and secondary schools. And another coup is having Diane Rochford, author of the influential Rochford Review, involved. She will be leading one of the workshops.

To make it as easy as possible for delegates to attend without disrupting their week too much, this conference has a new format for its fifth year of operation.

Now running over one day, with the option to attend a dinner and networking the evening before, this new arrangement means NAHT can offer the same high quality of workshops and speakers, but at a lower rate than before.

If you’re joining on Thursday evening you can put your questions to panellists for the question and answer session. Panellists will include NAHT general secretary Russell Hobby and NAHT president Kim Johnson, among other expert speakers.

The conference working group is confident that delegates will leave this event feeling inspired and better equipped to meet the needs of SEND students in all phases. “The great ambition of educationalists working in this field is to give these young people an inclusive, fulfilling childhood and a good education,” says Paul.

“They must feel part of the education system and not simply an add on, and it’s imperative that events like this help talented school leaders overcome challenges and concerns, and help SEND students realise their potential.”

THEY INCLUDE: 1. Ofsted update 2. Assessment for SEND students from the outcomes of the Rochford Review, led by Diane Rochford 3. Securing stability through the introduction of the

National Funding Formula for schools and high needs 4. Engaging your students in Parliament and democracy 5. The SENCo as a Manager and Leader – how to lead SEND provision effectively in your schools

6. Restriction and deprivation of liberty: Ofsted’s interpretation and the law 7. Engaging learners with complex needs; From Neurons to Neighbourhoods 8. Coming to the Tribunal: Naming a school in an EHC Plan.

27

A LEGAL VIEW

position, pending the outcome of the appeal, we brought employment tribunal proceedings against the school’s governing body and the local authority as well as against the academy trust, as separate respondents.

NAHT SOLICITOR The responses to the claims were (from the Richard Winterbottom governing body) that it no takes a look at a longer existed and the academy topical issue. trust said that the member was dismissed in November 2014 and, according to the TUPE regulations, the academy trust was only responsible for those employees who had transferred n the legal department we are to its employ on 1 March 2015, i.e. they fortunate in that much of our were not interested in the case at all. casework is challenging. We are Also, although the academy trust still dealing with the following unusual initially indicated a willingness, after case at the moment. the transfer, to hold the appeal, it then The Association’s member was a indicated that it would not do so. head teacher and, despite the best After several adjournments, the exertions of our regional officer, she appeal was heard in November was summarily dismissed by the 2015. Entirely down to the dogged governing body of her school following determination of the regional officer a two-day hearing in November 2014. and our member, the appeal against the The member appealed the decision to decision to dismiss was upheld, on both dismiss and that appeal was first due to procedural and substantive grounds. be heard on 26 February 2015, but was However, this raised a very interesting adjourned. It subsequently transpired issue because the member’s school no that on 1 March 2015 the school closed longer existed and the academy trust down and reopened on the same site as refused to acknowledge her existence.

The employment tribunal was asked to an academy under the control of a multi academy trust. On the same date the determine the following question: does school’s governing body was dissolved a successful appeal against a dismissal and there was a transfer of staff under the heard by the local authority revive the TUPE regulations from the school to the employee’s contract of employment, academy trust. The member and we were transferring it to the academy trust? not informed about this development, but The academy trust’s stance at the hearing was that the local authority had heard rumours in the community.

The matter was passed to the legal decision to hold an appeal and allow department and early conciliation it, nine months after the transfer of proceedings were issued whilst a the undertaking, was not capable of full merits assessment could take placing an obligation on the academy place. Thankfully, our experience and to accept a transfer of an employee knowledge of the education sector under the TUPE regulations.

The trust asserted that it had no prompted us to think outside the box and ensure that all bases were covered. liability or responsibility as our member Early conciliation proceedings was not employed at the date of the were issued separately against the transfer, in effect that as the academy governing body of the school and the trust had not retained conduct of the local authority, as would be usual in appeal, clearly on the advice if its own claims for unfair and wrongful dismissal, lawyers not to involve itself at all, then the matter of our member’s employment but also against the academy trust – a belt and braces approach, which was of no interest to it at all. has proved to be the correct one.

Although we were not officially The member’s appeal against the required to attend the hearing, dismissal was adjourned on a number we ensured that we did so as the of further occasions. To protect her governing body no longer existed

I

28

and the local authority and the academy trust were each contending that the other was responsible for our member’s employment.

There was a real paradox in our member’s contention at the hearing that she should be reinstated by the academy as it meant, ironically, she was in effect arguing in favour of her own employment tribunal claims being struck out.

After a long delay whilst the employment judge considered the complex issues before him, the decision was promulgated on 3 June 2016 that the correct respondent to the proceedings was the academy trust.

He stated that “the retrospective effect of the claimant’s successful appeal was that the claimant’s employment transferred to the academy trust and her dismissal vanished”.

However, extremely sore about the decision, the academy trust did not reinstate our member but rather, by an email to me dated 13 June 2016, it invited her to submit her resignation. Then, without any further communication, by a letter dated 16 June 2016, it terminated the member’s employment (again!) on a summary basis asserting that the termination was for some other substantial reason.

Our member was dismissed without notice, without any procedure having been followed and without any communication with the academy trust at all, save for the invitation to resign.

The academy trust is contending that the position of head teacher is filled and it has “no other suitable vacancy to offer [the member]”.

In reply, we have amended our first claim to be one for the unpaid wages since the first dismissal in November 2014 until the second dismissal in June 2016, and recently obtained a judgement for the full amount.

Also, we have issued a second set of employment tribunal proceedings in relation to the second dismissal, again alleging unfair and wrongful dismissal.

No defence has yet been served by the academy trust.

This case highlights the value of the association’s membership subscription, and demonstrates the strength and expertise of the different skills in our representation and advice department – with solicitor and regional officer working well in tandem for the benefit of the member.

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REGIONAL REVIEW

Review of the year

2016

ast year was another incredibly busy year for NAHT. We’ve been working hard to improve the lives of our members and make schools better for everyone. From fighting the government’s chaotic assessment plans to making the case against forced academisation, NAHT has been at the heart of the debate to ensure that the voice of school leaders is heard loud and clear.

Away from our campaigning activity, NAHT continues to support its members on a day-to-day level through producing high quality advice, representation, professional development, and communicating important information regarding developments in education as well as the benefits of membership.

As a democratic and membership-led organisation, NAHT is constantly seeking feedback as to how it can better support and represent its members, so if you have anything you’d like to tell us, please get in touch and let us know by emailing leaders@naht.org.uk.

L

43

The number of consultations we responded to on emerging policy issues.

We’ve responded to

562

30

press enquiries Members have made more than

4,000

appointments with our specialist advisors

23

The number of times we’ve been cited in the Houses of Parliament

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

We’ve held the following:

1500

The number of membership enquiries handled per month.

We’ve sent out 35 NAHT e-newsletters, and 45 NAHT edge newsletters We’ve produced more than 100 advice documents for members.

16,000 The approximate number of calls taken by our advice team

7 36 136

conferences

courses

regional events

31

ASSESSMENTS

Assessment campaign

where are we now?

MOMENTUM IS building to reform unworkable and unpopular elements of assessment. As we kick off 2017 we look back at the achievements of NAHTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assessment campaign, and ask what happens next?

32

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

from secure fit will be part of the consultation. NAHT president, Kim Johnson, is equally eager to keep pressing government on this.

“At present the system seriously disadvantages pupils with special education needs and dyslexia,” he says. In terms of secondary assessment, NAHT is highlighting the difficulties of recruiting to meet the new subject demands, and the dangers of a narrow curriculum.

While the proposals do improve some of the difficulties heads, teachers, parents and children have faced regarding assessment, Russell considers NAHT’s position at the start of 2017 to be “the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end”.

A bit of background

ot surprisingly, assessment has dominated NAHT’s campaign and lobbying work in the last year. Have our efforts paid off? We think there’s reason for optimism. NAHT has fought the current chaotic assessment regime, and presented the government with workable alternatives. A big win has been our success in influencing the government to make important concessions to assessment at KS2.

There’s still a long way to go, but as we venture into the much-needed consultation process with the Department for Education this January, general secretary Russell Hobby says he believes that a fair and well-managed assessment programme is within reach.

“In the last year assessment has been at the top of the minds of school leaders, whether they’re responsible for primary, secondary or special educational needs provision,” says Russell. “It’s been a worrying and stressful time for members and so I’m pleased that progress has been made. We have been determined to send a clear message to government about what isn’t working, and what needs to change. After a huge amount of work on our part, they’ve listened, made changes, and are ready for further dialogue.”

N

Above: NAHT policy advisor Sarah Hannafin believes the balance between statutory tests and in school teacher assessment must be recalibrated.

For Russell Hobby, 19 October 2016 was a turning point. This day saw the publication of education secretary Justine Greening’s assessment reform statement to Parliament, cementing several big wins for our assessment campaign (see box). “The list of government proposals is far from perfect, but there are significant gains in there,” he says. “Government is scrapping the Year 7 resits, and ending the KS1 SPaG test which is great news; there is the promise of a full consultation on assessment which we feel is vital going forward; and there’s been a commitment not to use 2016 data to drive decisions on intervention in schools.”

Far from complacent, Russell says he knows NAHT members want more to be done. At primary, we need to move away from ‘secure fit’ for writing teacher assessment. The proposals for a compulsory EBacc cause significant concern and the new Progress 8 measure is off to a rocky start.

It’s expected that a move away

Tougher SATs were introduced for 2016, to reflect the new national curriculum which was launched in 2014. But it immediately became apparent to our members that the process of changing primary assessment was rushed and shambolic.

Primary school leaders witnessed a series of U-turns and mishaps, including the scrapping of baseline measures, repeated clarifications of teacher assessment, and even leaked test papers. When it came to results time in July, the country learned that almost half of participating pupils in England (47%) failed to meet the new tough KS2 standard in reading, writing and mathematics. The education secretary of the day, Nicky Morgan, said lower results should not be interpreted as a decline in performance by pupils.

However in the minds of teachers, parents and pupils, the damage was done. NAHT and other teaching unions called for the government to undertake a full rethink of the primary assessment system, certain that school leaders and teachers couldn’t possibly endure another year of the chaotic and unfair system.

It’s been a worrying and stressful time for members ... we have been determined to send a clear message to government about what isn’t working.

33

ASSESSMENTS

Big wins in 2016 NAHT’s unwavering commitment to sort out the mess created by the government’s latest assessment regime has largely paid off, although more must be done.

Here’s a short summary of the achievements which became apparent on 19 October 2016 when Justine Greening’s reform to assessment was announced.

• We asked for a full review of assessment and accountability conducted in partnership with the profession. This has been achieved, with an open consultation beginning in January 2017, for implementation in the 2018-19 academic year. This will cover both assessment and accountability, including the role of teacher assessment.

• We asked for the government to rethink the introduction of further high-stakes tests, including the Year 7 resit and the use of KS1 test data in league tables. This has been achieved – the Year 7 resit is halted permanently, and we’ve stopped the addition of new tests for now.

• We asked for a replacement for the mess of writing teacher assessment, including consistent moderation. The new guidance, backed by mandatory local authority training, improves moderation and should ensure greater consistency. However the process is still cumbersome and unsatisfactory.

34

• We asked for an end to the KS1 SPaG test and this has been achieved. The KS1 SPaG test will remain non-statutory.

• We’re pleased to see the publication in October 2016 of the Rochford Review for children working below the national curriculum. The report will be included in the consultation. Clarity is now needed on what happens next in terms of implementation • We wanted revisions to the design of the KS2 reading test. This need has been recognised, with better sequencing of questions promised this year, although

Our members have made it clear that the government’s reforms of the system have alienated a substantial number of teachers, and proved upsetting for parents, and extremely unsettling and damaging for children.

In schools the unpopular and hard-to-manage assessment regime has been causing a host of problems and affecting morale among heads and their staff. Amanda Hulme, head teacher of Claypool Primary School in Bolton and chair of NAHT’s Assessment and Accountability Group feels the role of head has recently been “an emotional rollercoaster” due to the number of changes that have needed to be implemented in recent years.

better selection of texts remains a longer term goal due to the test development process. It is good that the test will be better designed but there is still a risk that the vocabulary will not be accessible to all.

• We called for full engagement on any future baseline assessment. This has been achieved as part of the coming consultation. It is a tricky topic but one that deserves detailed consideration if we want to take progress seriously.

Where we hope for further progress

• We want to see the end of ‘secure’ fit for writing teacher assessment at KS2. There is no move away from secure fit in 2017. Such a move will be considered as part of the full consultation. However, revised moderation guidance now makes explicit that ‘consistently’ does not mean a pupil meets the standard 100% of the time – a pupil can still be ‘secure’ even with occasional mistakes. This guidance also makes clear the primacy of teacher judgement. Although some progress has been made, this is disappointing in the short term.

• We feel that removal of levels in favour of scaled scores is not just creating issues in primary KS2, but is also having an impact on assessment at KS3 with schools needing to design and implement new systems. We will listen to the needs of secondary members on this issue and act accordingly.

• In the secondary phase, we’re mindful of new GCSEs, AS and A levels being introduced over the next few years. These have new assessment requirements; they are all linear qualifications which will have an impact on teaching and learning. This means there will be huge implications on workload for schools, in the form of planning and implementation. There will also be funding implications because new courses in every subject must be resourced. The government is still considering the matter and we will work closely with them and our members on this in 2017.

Head teachers dealing with stressed staff and pupils

“School leaders and the wider teaching profession felt we had been promised a new curriculum that would free up more time for working creatively with children, but the reality was the complete opposite,” says Amanda. “More work has been created, taking teachers and heads away from core teaching activities. When it came to the new SATs for 2016, the reading test was too difficult with expected levels of attainment set far too high. The content was not relevant, and the system certainly not designed to help our children shine. Teachers and head teachers

have felt alienated and let down.”

Problems with assessment can affect the wellbeing of overstretched teaching staff in schools, and this has a knock-on effect to the wellbeing of children in their care. “In teaching today we also face a crisis in recruitment, and this has been vastly exacerbated by what’s been happening around assessment,” says Amanda. “The job of head teacher is not as appealing as it was. In fact sometimes you feel you’ve lost your identity as a real person, due to the pressure coming from all angles. There’s a sense that the government thinks ‘they’ll cope with whatever we throw at them’.”

Assessment being so tightly tied to accountability is bound to

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

generate stress, but the 2016 regime really pushed schools to the limits, with many heads contacting NAHT to voice concerns and to ask for advice because of the unfairness they were dealing with. Siôn Humphreys, a specialist advisor in NAHT’s Representation and Advice directorate, says the two big concerns were “inconsistency of practice in moderation between local authorities”, and “the introduction of the ‘secure fit’ methodology to judge the abilities of children, replacing the more subjective ‘best fit’ methodology”.

“In late May to late June 2016 we saw a marked increase in the volume of calls to do with teacher assessment and moderation, compared with other years,” says Siôn. “This was a highly emotive issue with heads talking about Year 6 teachers not wanting to go through it again, to parents complaining, to children feeling upset and anxious. We were able to feed these concerns directly to our policy team, who in turn took matters to the STA. This means we have been able to shape our assessment campaign work around this vital member feedback.”

Formation of the independent Assessment Review Group

In June 2016 NAHT set up an independent Assessment Review Group, involving ATL, the classroom teachers’ union, and a number of leading education professionals and academics. The review has been looking at primary and Key Stage 3 assessment, considering current assessment procedures, in particular statutory testing, the role of teacher assessment, and the impact of accountability requirements, with a view to putting forward a coherent system for the long term.

Members of the review group include Professor Dame Alison Peacock, head teacher of The Wroxham School in Hertfordshire, and assessment expert Professor Robert Coe, from Durham University. It is chaired by Dave Ellison, deputy head teacher of Foxfield Primary School in Woolwich, south-east London.

“Like everyone else involved in primary assessment, I have been disappointed and concerned by the recent crisis in assessment, with mistakes and misjudgements

making the system not fit for purpose,” says Dave. “The assessment group has taken a detailed look at the best evidence available on what an assessment system should look like, from both here and abroad. We hope our report will go some way to help fix a broken system.”

Amanda Hulme is a member of the group and is confident that the work being carried out will deliver results. “The aim of the independent Assessment Review Group is ultimately to find a system that will work better for children, for parents, for teachers, for school leaders. We know we need to be accountable and we know that assessment – and even testing – is an important part of the education system.

But this must be proportionate and focused on improving the learning of pupils,” she says.

We hope our report will go some way to help fix a broken system.

35

ASSESSMENTS

At the time of writing, a report with recommendations to the primary assessment system up to Key Stage 3 was being finalised by the group. It will be made available to the Department for Education’s consultation, and is likely to help shape the planned reforms.

Pressure from the regions and in the corridors of power

36

Out in the regions our campaigning voice was powered by the thousands of members who signed the NAHT assessment pledge. NAHT regional officers spent the year rallying support and carrying out extensive campaigning work alongside other important issues affecting members. A total of 136 local events were held, attended by more than 4,000 members. Paul Whiteman, NAHT director of representation and advice says: “Seeing as many members as possible face-to-face is tremendously important in this type of situation. Through discussion we can fully understand their concerns and what they want done.

Also, crucially, we can get a good understanding of how far members are prepared to go to influence change.

This depth of understanding was important to give our negotiators the confidence in their arguments.”

Meanwhile there’s been constant dialogue with the DfE. A potent string to NAHT’s bow has been the ability of former deputy general secretary Kathryn James, who stood down at the end of last year, to carry out top-level lobbying work in Whitehall.

“We have always been able to give a strong evidence-based position to the government thanks to members taking part in our surveys and putting a clear voice and solid data to our campaigns,” says Russell.

“We work very hard to negotiate and influence in a meaningful way, meeting the right people, putting the pressure on where we can, and coming up with ideas and solutions.

You can talk, of course, but there is also a sanction at the back of it all

ASSESSMENT & SEND – THE ROCHFORD REVIEW The Rochford Review group brought together expertise in assessment, special educational needs and working with disadvantaged pupils. The purpose was to advise the minister of state for schools on solutions for assessing the abilities of pupils who don’t meet the standards required to take the national curriculum tests.

The Rochford Review published its initial report in the Spring and interim pre Key Stage standards were introduced as a result for use in Summer 2016. In its initial work, the Rochford Review considered the assessment of the group of pupils who fall in the gap between the top of P scales and the level of the tests at Key Stage 1 and sought to bridge

that gap with additional standards for reading, writing and mathematics.

The final report of the Rochford Review of assessment for pupils working below the standard of national curriculum tests at Key Stage 1 and 2 was published on 19 October 2016.

The report recommends the replacement of P scales as an appropriate means of statutory assessment at the end of Key Stage 1 and 2 for those pupils working below the age-related expectations of the national curriculum tests:

1. WHO HAVE SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS AND DISABILITIES (SEND) 2. WHO ARE COPING WITH DISADVANTAGE OR DIFFICULT HOME CIRCUMSTANCES 3. WITH ENGLISH AS AN ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE (EAL).

The proposals aim to create an inclusive assessment system with better alignment to the new national curriculum for all pupils capable of and engaged in subject learning (English reading, English writing and mathematics) that allows progression to mainstream statutory assessment.

The review makes various recommendations to government and these will form part of the consultation process on assessment.

In the meantime schools should continue to use the pre-Key Stage standards and P scales for the statutory assessment of pupils working below the standard of the national curriculum tests.

The review makes various recommendations to government and these will form part of the consultation process on assessment.

SATs RESULTS 2016 Department for Education statistics

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

that can be used if necessary, and this puts us in a powerful position.

We have been influential in the press too, raising the profile of this campaign when it matters. And the outcome has been encouraging.

This year we have actually persuaded the government to abandon a manifesto commitment, and that is very unusual.”

Above: Robert Campbell is executive principal at Impington Village College, Cambridge, and on NAHT’s National Executive.

Impact on secondary – Year 7 resit scrapped The chaos surrounding SATs results in 2016 has meant that data for secondary schools to use to monitor student progress is not as robust as it could have been.

Schools rely on assessment data for the transition from KS2 to KS3, and not having a reliable resource means heads and their teams face real problems when it comes to helping students move forward at this crucial stage of education.

Robert Campbell, executive principal at Impington Village

Official data shows just over half (53%) of 11-year-olds made the grade in reading, writing and mathematics in 2016.

College in Cambridge, and a member of NAHT’s National Executive says: “We welcome the fact that more sophisticated data, in the form of scaled scores, is being made available as children make their transition. With any incoming system it takes time to come to terms with new benchmarks and the new entry points, and work out how best to use the data. Unfortunately the confusion over the 2016 SATs has undermined the value to some extent, and of course it’s not ideal that the results have been overshadowed by so much controversy.”

Robert perceived widespread relief in secondary schools when it became clear the Year 7 resit was being abandoned. “We would have been most unhappy to see those resits taking place,” he says. “Knocking the confidence of so many young students, at the point they are entering into secondary education, would have been a total disaster.”

This means 47% of pupils are considered not to have made the grade in the three Rs by the end of their primary years.

NAHT has worked hard to achieve this change of policy, and we are pleased that the new secretary of state has listened to the concerns of school leaders and teachers.

“It was a flawed strategy with potentially significant negative impact, both direct and indirect, on primary and secondary schools, teachers and pupils,” says Sarah Hannafin, NAHT policy advisor.

“Pupils would carry the label that they have ‘failed’ the KS2 SATs and would necessarily need to be taught separately from the Year 7s who passed, denying them the opportunity to explore learning in a wide range of subjects, and finding new strengths and interests.”

Introducing a test would not help students to improve their literacy and numeracy skills, NAHT believes. What is needed is high quality teaching and learning, identification of strategies which really work to help those students, which can be shared across the secondary sector, and adequate funding for schools to implement these. NAHT is very pleased that the government recognises this as the way forward too.

Next steps

Looking ahead we face a year of important further developments in 2017, as the much-needed consultation begins. Having surveyed NAHT members in the wake of October’s assessment reform statement, it’s clear that the vast majority are encouraged by what has been proposed. “The overall sentiment is that members recognise progress so far, and want NAHT to keep negotiating hard with the DfE to deliver a system that is fit for purpose,” says Russell.

“They definitely want a move away from secure fit and a reality check on the EBacc proposals.”

According to Sarah Hannafin, the consultation process, with direct input from NAHT as well as the independent Assessment Review Group, is expected to drive

In 2015, 80% met the required standard in reading, writing and maths.

37

ASSESSMENTS

further positive developments. “The consultation on assessment is an opportunity for NAHT to further influence long-term changes to the assessment system,” she says. “Our response will argue strongly that the balance between statutory tests and in school teacher assessment must be recalibrated. Assessment is at the heart of good teaching and learning, but currently its true purpose, to support the learning and progress of pupils, is distorted by highstakes accountability measures.”

James Bowen, director of middle leaders’ union NAHT edge and member of the independent Assessment Review Group agrees that a long-term review is absolutely critical. “Many of the current problems with assessment have been caused by rushed and ill-thought through reforms, so the news of a proper consultation and no major changes before 2018–19 is welcome,” he says.

“Middle leaders and teachers were immensely frustrated by the chaotic assessment system in 2016. KS1 teachers and leaders welcomed the news that the SPaG test will remain non-statutory. We have maintained for a long time that this is an inappropriate and unnecessary test for such young children, which does nothing to improve their writing skills.”

James says the focus now must be to continue to question the quality of 2016 data and to keep campaigning for fundamental change in the future.

“We take some comfort in the fact that the secretary of state has been clear that the data alone will now not drive any decisions on intervention.”

Members can be assured that NAHT and NAHT edge are heading into 2017 with renewed vigour and will be keeping up the pressure throughout the consultation process.

“This is just the start of a better way of working,” says Russell.

Above: Stuart McLaughlin is principal at The Brittons Academy in Rainham, Essex.

SECONDARY ASSESSMENT IN FOCUS 38

MY VIEW

Stuart McLaughlin, principal at The Brittons Academy, Rainham, Essex, expects a year of uncertainty and confusion around GCSEs and new accountability measures.

Secondary assessment generally is in a mess. A great deal of extra work is being created for heads and deputies trying to make meaningful sense of the new GCSE grading system, and develop brand new systems to calculate how students are performing at KS3.

For KS3, schools are using countless different systems to measure and report pupil progress, which makes it difficult for schools to be compared like-for-like, and for parents and children to understand attainment levels. This appears to be an ongoing issue for 2017 and beyond, with no universal assessment system for KS3 in the pipeline. Parents and Ofsted are left with no reliable means of knowing how well children are doing in one school compared to another. And this confusion has meant that during 2016 head teachers and deputies have taken on the onerous task of building completely new systems to measure and report. We had software and historic data in place before, but this has now been made obsolete by the new criteria, so we’re all working out how to start from scratch, and build new measuring and reporting systems.

Looking at assessment in KS4 (it repeats what comes next), the transition from the old to the new GCSE exams and accountability measures has created a huge amount of anxiety and uncertainty among teachers and school leaders.

In terms of new GCSEs, not knowing the grade boundaries for exams makes it impossible to know exactly how well the students are doing. The return to ‘norm referencing’ as opposed to ‘criterion referencing’ means we do not really know the position of students until the final exams have been taken and the results published. We can estimate how well a

student is doing given their starting point but the new system is making targeting intervention very problematic.

As someone who has been teaching for more than 30 years, it does not make sense that grades are not based on what you can actually do; instead, they are based on how well you do compared to others in the cohort. This will create a great deal of uncertainty with employers; a grade 5 in one year may not mean a person knows the same as someone who got a grade 5 in another year.

Not knowing where grade boundaries are also creates problems for the new accountability measure where schools are trying to assess their expected Progress 8 and Attainment 8 scores. In 2016 there was uncertainty around maths and English (with all other subjects still using the old GCSE assessment system). From this year, most subjects will have norm-referenced assessment. Parents, governors and Ofsted, quite rightly, will expect head teachers to be able to give an accurate position statement regarding the expected results in the summer exams, but this will be almost impossible. Given this new system, it’s like sticking your finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.

In terms of new GCSEs, not knowing the grade boundaries for exams makes it impossible to know exactly how well the students are doing.

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EVALUATION

ng Additional Learnin Needs and Educattion Tribunal (Wales) Bill ROB WILLIAMS, policy director at NAHT Cymru, ex xamines the im mplications of the Welsh Governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s latest pla ans for suppo orting children with additional learning needs.

40

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

THE BILL IS ONE PART OF THE WELSH GOVERNMENT’S OVERALL ALN TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME.

The programme focuses on five themes:

1 2 3 4 5

Legislation and statutory guidance Workforce development Implementation/ transition support Awareness-raising Supporting policy

he Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Bill makes provision for a new statutory framework for supporting children and young people with additional learning needs (ALN). This will replace existing legislation surrounding special educational needs (SEN) and the assessment of children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities (LDD) in post-16 education and

T

training. The Bill also continues the existence of the Special Educational Needs Tribunal for Wales but renames it the Education Tribunal for Wales.

In addition, there is a proposed Additional Learning Needs Code along with an outline of plans for implementation.

The Draft Bill reportedly has widespread cross-party support.

The earliest any proposals could take effect would be for the academic year 2017–18.

REASONS FOR CHANGE •Current legislation is 30 years old – no longer fit for purpose •Inefficient, costly and presents obstacles to early intervention •Not structured to be sufficiently child-centred •Families feel they need to fight for support •Unclear support structures and systems

When it’s changing – Timetable

The Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Bill will be introduced to the National Assembly for Wales in December 2016.

The Bill will be subject to scrutiny by an Assembly committee which will then either agree or disagree to the general principles of the Bill or make recommendations for amendments to the Bill.

There is an opportunity over a few months from January 2017 for amendments to be made to the legislation.

Once the Bill has been agreed by the committee and passed by the National Assembly for Wales it will then be submitted for Royal Assent. On receiving Royal Assent the Bill will become an Act of the Assembly and the new law may be commenced.

Following Royal Assent, the ALN Code and regulations which support the Act will then be revised (based on any recommendations for amendments) and consulted on, laid before the Assembly and published.

The Welsh Government has urged any stakeholders who are keen to share their views, concerns and positive responses to contact

their local AM during the Bill’s passage through the above stages.

The Welsh Government will also be publishing a consultation on proposals for implementation in due course, setting out plans for the timing and approach to rolling out the legislative changes.

The timetable is a critical period for school leaders to ensure that their educational settings are well prepared to adopt the new legislation.

As with all new legislation, many affected groups attempt to anticipate and prepare for it before it is implemented. While this is understandable, school leaders and governing bodies need to accept that the existing SEN legislation remains in place, and to undertake processes or take on elements of the new legislation prior to Royal Assent is not acceptable. The Welsh Government has made it perfectly clear that for the time being, local authorities and all those who work with children and young people with SEN must ensure that they continue to comply with the duties placed upon them by the Education Act 1996. They must also continue to have regard to the SEN Code of Practice for Wales.

41

EVALUATION 42

Main changes proposed in the new ALN Bill The Welsh Government identifies three main objectives: 1 Create a unified legislative framework to support children and young people aged 0–25 years with ALN in schools and further education; 2

3

Establish an integrated, collaborative process of assessment, planning and monitoring which facilitates early, timely and effective interventions; and Create a fair and transparent system for providing information and advice, and for resolving concerns and appeals.

In order to achieve these objectives ten core aims have also been identified: 1 The introduction of the term Additional Learning Needs (ALN)

4

Increased participation of children and young people

5

High aspirations and improved outcomes

A single legislative system covering the 0–25 age range

6

A simpler and less adversarial system

7

Increased collaboration

8

Avoiding disagreements and earlier disagreement resolution

9

Clear and consistent rights of appeal

10

A mandatory code.

2

3

A unified plan: The Draft Bill creates a single statutory plan (the individual development plan – IDP) to replace the existing variety of statutory and non-statutory SEN or LDD plans for learners in schools and further education

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

Areas of concern or in need of further clarification • The age range from 0–25 may seem sensible, however, the additional challenge will lie more significantly with Local Authorities, particularly 19–25 age group. SEN/ALN funding is already und der significant pressure within local authorities.

• The resource burden will fall more significantly upon schools. There is clear intent to ensure that those with ALN would be protected; funding challenges im mpact upon a school’s ability to deliver such a commitment.

• The challenge for the expressed multi-agency working will be establishing the most effective methods for securing such a collaborative approach particularly where previous attempts at jointagency working have been less successful.

• In terms of avoiding disagreements/ earlier disagreement resolution there is a need to establish an agreed process and protocol where the ‘reasonable provision’, as expressed within the Bill, is judged to be too difficult to meet. Who is responsible for establishing and determining what is not ‘reasonable’ and who ultimately decides the way forward – keeping the needs of the child/ young person at the heart of the process?

• Training in use of the draft ALN Code will be critical in order to ensure the desired consistency is delivered by key staff across all settings. The new ALNCo role is significant and preferably standalone.

• The level of increased administration and the legal responsibility for schools when delivering IDPs

•

•

•

•

•

for pupils will present significant workload and resource im mplications. Current statement-writing suppo ort from local authorities will cease to exist an nd any future legal claims against an IDP could therefore fall back to the school governing body.

One major area of concern lies within IDP sections of the legislation – Individual development plans: Local Health Boards (LHB) and NHS trusts.

There appears to be no statutory duty on them to provide the health provision – this suggests that the provision duty could fall back to the educational setting or local authority – this has resource implications and appears to be in potential conflict with the ‘reasonableness’ referred to in previous sections.

Also, an LHB or NHS trust can decide whether or not to secure amended provision even if an Educational Tribunal for Wales orders a revision of an IDP within the area originally secured by the LHB or NHS trust.

Further, the responsibility to specify the revision of additional learning provision ordered by an Educational Tribunal for Wales that the LHB or NHS trust has originally agreed to secure then appears to fall back upon the governing body or local authority.

Clearly, for elements of an IDP that fall within the LHB or NHS remit, it should be the legal duty of the LHB or NHS trust to provide the provision and revise the same provision should it be directed by an Educational Tribunal for Wales.

NEXT STEPS Ulttim mately y, the concerns outlined above could result in a system hat further dissadvantages those pupils who need support most. th NAHT Cymru has been undertaking briefing sessions for members nd willl continue to respond to invitations to do so. an

What can you do?

Provide an update to your governing body – ensure they understand the implications, the specific roles (including ALNCo) and the potential for dispute, particularly in terms of the local authority and the school.

Write to your local AM, outlining your concerns and encourage the governing body and relevant stakeholders to do the same.

Feed your concerns directly into NAHT Cymru – cymru@naht.org.uk – type ‘ALN Bill Feedback’ in the subject areas.

43

REGIONAL REVIEW

Rising to the

challenge 44

THE SOUTH WEST region covers a large area from Swindon and Wiltshire in the east to Lands End in the west and is one of the NAHT’s most rural settings. n education terms the South West has more than three-quarters of a million children in schools, and while many may associate the region with cream teas and seaside holidays it also has its fair share of challenges.

Education funding, for example, is significantly lower per pupil than the national average despite there being several areas of high deprivation.

There are also many small rural schools that are already finding it hard to balance the books after several years of rising prices for services and the real terms funding freeze from central government.

NAHT is, however, rising to these challenges, and has been working hard over the past 12 months to get itself better organised and face them head on.

Working with regional and national officers the Regional Executive has now adopted an ambitious plan under the auspices of NAHT’s Regional Review Programme which aims to get every branch up and running by the end of next year.

As an early adopter region for the Regional Review Programme,

I

the South West has already organised and held 35 meetings on topical issues such as the now defunct White Paper, Education Excellence Everywhere and forced academisation, Education and Adoption Act and Coasting Schools and assessment, as well as delivering training and development sessions for members on a range of issues such as dealing with complaints and avoiding the usual bear traps.

These events and training sessions have attracted nearly 600 head teachers in the region since January 2016 making NAHT one of the biggest providers of training and advice for school leaders in the region (as compared to local authorities, for example).

Branches which are more active now than 12 months ago include Somerset and South Gloucestershire; all of which are meeting regularly to discuss the things that matter most to members in those areas.

Training on how to support colleagues at work has been arranged for around 50 members, and has identified 11 new officials

across several branches and the region is now beginning to build a pool of representatives who are ready to help school leaders from across the region in the unfortunate event they should experience difficulties at work.

Commenting on this success, South West president, Vanessa Lucas, said: “We are really lucky to work in such a wonderful part of the world however if you work in a rural school or in a part of the region that’s a long way from London or the big city centres then it’s easy to feel isolated. That’s why it’s so important we work together to strengthen the NAHT and support each other as professionals.”

The Regional Review focuses on building NAHT’s capacity to support members in the workplace and to ensure their views are heard on the regional and national stage.

The region has been keen to work with parents to explain the dreadful situation caused for pupils and teachers alike as a result of last year’s debacle in assessment.

South West regional secretary, Simon Hague, said “School leadership can be extremely rewarding and demanding. Being a school leader in the South West brings a unique set of challenges – for example low levels of funding, rural poverty and the move towards academisation. NAHT has responded by increasing its activities at branch level, engaging members and ensuring the support is available for school leaders when they need it. NAHT is uniquely placed to support school leaders through these challenging times.”

THE SOUTH WEST REGION BIDS FAREWELL TO STEVE CLEVERLY After 13 years of service to NAHT members in the South West, the region’s regional officer, Steve Cleverly, is retiring. Steve has worked tirelessly to assist members across the region and has been a huge support to school leaders experiencing difficulty at work as well as championing NAHT issues over the years. He will be sadly missed and we wish him all the best for the future and a very happy retirement.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

Number of Pupils (DfE, 2015)

English as an additional language

775,753

Percentage of pupils whose first language is known or believed to be other than English (DfE, 2015)

total pupils in South West 396,533 PRIMARY PUPILS

PRIMARY

8,362 SPECIAL STUDENTS 2,118 NURSERY PUPILS 1,086 PRU STUDENTS

311,821 SECONDARY PUPILS

Predicted pupil increase from 2013-14 to 2018-19 (DfE, 2015) +11.0%

+9.7%

SOUTH WEST

ENGLAND

SOUTH WEST

ENGLAND Closing the Gap

FSM eligibility (DfE, 2014)

SECONDARY

SOUTH WEST: 12.8%

SOUTH WEST: 10.4%

ENGLAND: 15.6%

ENGLAND: 13.9%

SOUTH WEST

63.3% ENGLAND

EARLY YEARS

Percentage of pupils achieving a good level of development

80%

80%

SOUTH WEST

58.0%

ENGLAND

SOUTH WEST

KS2

Percentage of pupils achieving level 4+ reading, writing and maths

Percentage of disadvantaged pupils achieving 5+ A*-C GCSEs

SOUTH WEST: 41.1% ENGLAND: 45.1%

Attainment 2014-15 (DfE, 2015) 67.2%

SECONDARY

ENGLAND: 15.0%

Percentage of pupils known to be eligible for and claiming free school meals

NURSERY & PRIMARY

ENGLAND: 19.4% SOUTH WEST: 5.0%

+7.9%

+4.5%

SOUTH WEST: 7.1%

57.3%

ENGLAND

KS4

Percentage of pupils achieving level 5+ A* – C including English and maths

Percentage points below national average

4

Pupils with special educational needs (DfE, 2014)

Types of school in the South West (DfE, 2015) 21% of these are acadamies

(national average = 15%)

65% of these are acadamies

(national average = 56%)

1,863

337

224

85

state-funded state-funded independent state-funded secondaries schools special primaries

34

PRUs

8

18

nonnursery maintained schools special

Funding (DfE, 2014 and DfE, 2015)

Median per pupil funding the South West by LA and Academy*

£277

lower than national average

£5,307

£4,057

ACADEMY

LOCAL AUTHORITY

£197

lower than national average

*Data excluding Isles of Scilly. Academies data excluding special schools

16.2%

Total percentage of pupils in the South West with special educational needs (DfE, 2015)

0.8 percentage points above the national average

45

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It’s back...

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Inspiring Leadership 2017 so far…

Steve Munby will again challlenge us with his keynote while renowned BBC journ nalist Frank Gardner will inspire and move us with his persona al story; Drew Dud dley will sharre his belief that leadership is not a characteristic reserved d for the extraordinaryy and help us all to discover the leaderr within ourrselves; and James Kerr will tell us what we can learn n from the All Blacks – without moving from ou ur seats.

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LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

OPINION

RUSSELL HOBBY: General secretary

Delivering credibility t is a relief to leave 2016 behind. It wasn’t a great year in the scheme of things, with the culmination of a populist backlash seen in the Brexit referendum and the US presidential election. We are still working through the consequences of the 2007 financial crisis, when ordinary people were made to pay for the mistakes of the elite.

In many ways, we are still paying.

Sharing the burden when times are tough, and sharing the rewards when times are good, are essential parts of the fabric of a cohesive society, a society which offers something for everyone who participates. When people feel like they have nothing left to lose, why shouldn’t they take a risk or two?

The most frustrating thing about the backlash, though, is that it is not really about the voices of ordinary people or a genuine redistribution of power. It is merely one part of the elite using popular anger to settle scores against a different part of the elite: the net worth of Trump’s new cabinet would put Rockefeller in the shade. Brexit seemed as much about internal party politics as national interest.

Perhaps this seems distant from school leaders, but you feel the impact of these political conditions every day. They are the reason you can’t get social care intervention short of impending or actual tragedy; they are the reason your funding is eroding; they are the reason we are debating the return of grammar schools. Thankfully, you can help the next generation do a better job than we did, to build a more cohesive society. In an age of ‘post-truth’ politics, the knowledge you provide through your curriculum is almost a civil right. Curiosity,

I

critical thinking, literacy – these are the essential contributions that schools make to citizenship.

Equally important are the values of respect, empathy, kindness that turn citizenship from the transactional to the transformational.

We can be thankful that we get a better class of leadership in our schools than in our politics.

The PISA data at the end of 2016 suggested that, despite a decade or more of structural tinkering, the UK had not moved forward in the international rankings. Who would have guessed? We should actually be grateful that the dedication of school leaders has kept our system above the average despite this sustained onslaught of distraction.

Not for school leaders the politics of populism that can make the protestor feel good but leaves things worse for the people they supposedly serve. They work individually and collectively to make things better for pupils. It involves compromise and incremental steps forward; it seldom gets the glory or attention but it works.

In 2016 we prevented the Year 7 resit – a manifesto commitment that would have harmed every child in the country. No trade union has achieved more. In 2016 we worked with others to prevent universal forced academisation – a seemingly inexorable policy that

Above: Russell Hobby

was making conditions worse for members. In 2016 we prevented the use of raw data from that year’s SATs for intervention. A few years ago that would have been considered a flight of fancy. In 2016 we got the government to commit an extra £55 million a year to nursery education at a time of stringent austerity. This works.

Sometimes it might feel better to rage against the machine. There is a comfort in protest without worrying about what it achieves.

The consequence of that approach would not be greater achievement, but to surrender all those gains and all future gains. It would trade the welfare of our students for our own comfort. That is not worthy of a union of leaders and we have never taken that path. We argue, we campaign, we persuade and we negotiate. We suggest and we deliver credible alternatives. And we leave the education system in a better state than when we started. So, what next in 2017?

We can be thankful that we get a better class of leadership in our schools than in our politics.

47

CYBERBULLYING

Online SAFETY The publication of the refreshed version of ‘Keeping Children Safe In Education’ (KCSIE) provides an ideal opportunity for schools to evaluate practice in relation to ensuring pupils’ safety online.

48

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

he definition of ‘inappropriate content’ has broadened over time. The original connotation of indecent or pornographic material remains important. Changes in technology have increased the challenge of managing this risk.

Possession of ‘smart’ phones (and, increasingly, tablets) has given children and young people greater opportunity to access such material.

KCSIE acknowledges this but is not hugely helpful when it states “the school and college should carefully consider how this is managed on their premises.” The obvious response is to ban mobile phones, as some schools do, but enforcing such a policy is fraught with practical difficulties. NAHT’s advice includes proposing that Acceptable Use Policies incorporate content on ‘bring your own devices’ usage. For schools seeking a template to base this on the association signposts members, to National Education Network (NEN) model document (see reference (1) at the end of this article) There are occasions when a school discovers pupils accessing inappropriate material, either on personal devices or school machines. If this involves indecent images or videos of children or criminally obscene adult material the content should be referred to the Internet Watch Foundation.

(2) Determining whether material is criminally obscene is clearly a judgement made by experts in the field but a broad rule of thumb is that it is likely to ‘deprave or corrupt’ the viewer. The IWF website expands on this.

The scope of ‘inappropriate’ has expanded in recent years with the growth of gaming. An online safety consultant working with Year 5 pupils found that the majority had a detailed knowledge of Grand Theft Auto. Most of the parents knew this but the majority were unaware that it is far more than an animated car caper.

The Guardian sought to quantify the extent to which children and young people were exposed to this in an article published in 2014. It produced a conservative estimate that at least 250,000 children and young people were

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accessing such material. This was conservative because it didn’t take access on smart phones and tablets into account. The government is proposing, via its Digital Economy Bill, to introduce mandatory age verification for those seeking to access online pornography. This may well make it more difficult for those under 18 to gain access but it must be borne in mind that attempts to police the internet have not been conspicuously successful in the past.

For schools, restricting access is but one challenge. Equally, if not more so, important is how to respond pastorally and educationally. The former involves achieving a balance between the punitive and the supportive and will include working with parents to address the issue. Some parents may not grasp the seriousness of such behaviour while others will need help in talking to their children. An excellent resource that schools may wish to share with parents is found on the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) site (3).

The educational challenge is wellsummed up by CEOP:

“As the researcher Martin Flood noted, ‘pornography is a poor, and indeed dangerous, sex educator’.

Pornography rarely presents sex in the context of a loving relationship and there is concern that early exposure to hardcore pornography

could give young people unhealthy views about the opposite sex and what they can expect from them.”

This leads us to the need for PSHE programmes to include pornography in an age-appropriate manner; CEOP’s words virtually define the learning objectives. NAHT has a close working relationship with the PSHE Association and commends its document laying out the dimensions of teaching in this area (4).

Given the risks inherent in the online world and the extent to which young people and, increasingly, children, lead online lives, the pressure on schools to address online safety proactively increases. KCSIE is explicit on this matter, stating that schools “should ensure” (para. 68) that children are taught about online safety.

Many organisations have produced materials to help schools deliver this. Examples include Childnet (5) and the PSHE Association (6).

Childnet’s resources are based on the requirements of the national curriculum’s computing content.

For a broader approach to online safety in schools the South West Grid for Learning has an extensive range of free resources (7) “Being subject to harmful online

Above: Restricting access to inappropriate online content is one of the challenges facing schools

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interaction and engaging in online interactions that incur the risk of harm” may initially appear to be the same thing. There is, however, a crucial distinction.

The former refers to being, to varying degrees, inadvertently exposed to material which draws them in, as it were; whereas the latter refers to purposefully seeking out particular sites.

Various scenarios can be envisaged to illustrate harmful online interaction. These include entering into online relationships in chat-rooms and the like, with individuals claiming to be a peer. The reality is that it is an older person purporting to be younger for the purpose of ‘grooming’ children. This is also a risk factor with online gaming, one which parents in particular do not always fully understand. Many organisations provide advice but NAHT signposts members to the UK Interactive Entertainment’s guide (8). It is the trade organisation for games manufacturers.

NAHT’s core advice regarding cyberbullying is that it should be dealt with in the same way as more established manifestations of bullying. This is not, however, to ignore those aspects of cyberbullying which distinguish it from related behaviours. This has been comprehensively defined by the organisation Kidshealth.

“Cyberbullying is the use of technology to harass, threaten, embarrass, or target another person. Online threats and mean, aggressive, or rude texts, tweets, posts, or messages all count. So does posting personal information, pictures, or videos designed to hurt or embarrass someone else.” (9)

As with similar behaviour there is likely to be a significant ‘dark figure’ when estimating the extent of the problem. Surveys do suggest that it is a significant issue, however. In one survey conducted in Wales in 2013 one-third of 11 to 17-year-olds questioned had suffered cyberbullying.

Schools face two problems when incidents of alleged bullying are raised. The first is to establish whether the behaviour is bullying in the true sense, or an incident of unpleasantness and unkindness.

The second is the difficulty that

sometimes exists in acquiring evidence to support the allegations. In theory gathering evidence, when cyberbullying is alleged is more straightforward in the sense that screen shots, for example, may be taken. A distressed person on the receiving end may not have the presence of mind to follow such procedures.

However, this reinforces the desirability of including this and related strategies in PSHE and other lessons on cyberbullying .

Several organisations have produced guidance and advice relating to cyberbullying. NAHT finds Childnet International’s resource called Cyberbullying: understand, Prevent and Respond to be a comprehensive and practical document (10).

Often the requirements of pupils with special educational needs are neglected when online safety is being discussed. These young people can be vulnerable in a number of ways. Childnet is a further source of good practice in this context (11).

‘Sexting’ has emerged as a significant problem in recent years.

UKCCIS’s guidance for schools and colleges (endorsed and promoted by the DfE) discusses the difficulty of defining ‘sexting’.

The guidance proposes the use of a clumsier term, “youth produced sexual imagery”.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

Key terms • ‘Youth produced’ includes young people sharing images that they, or another young person, have created of themselves.

• ‘Sexual’ is clearer than ‘indecent’. A judgement of whether something is ‘decent’ is both a value judgement and dependent on context.

• ‘Imagery’ covers both still photos and moving videos (and this is what is meant by reference to imagery throughout the document) (12) NAHT advocates that familiarity with this guidance is essential reading for all those involved in safeguarding in schools. The document emphasises the key message that sexting is potentially a criminal matter and should also be treated as a safeguarding concern.

The above covers the reactive side of sexting but, as is the case with other aspects of approaching online safety, it demands to be addressed proactively by being part of PSHE provision. The UKCCIS document includes an extensive list of high-quality resources for this purpose.

NAHT also recommends Childnet’s ‘Crossing the Line’ which provides useful resources for teaching across the range of online safety concerns, including sexting (13).

Returning to the current Keeping Children Safe in Education, it emphasises the importance of effective filtering in school IT systems. A cynical response involves readers entering “how do I get around my school’s internet filtering?” into Google.

It yields well over six million ‘hits’. This is not to decry the need to have filtering systems that are as effective as possible.

The UK Safer Internet Centre has produced what it claims to be the most comprehensive guidance for schools (14).

The shortcomings of filtering and blocking are acknowledged by the UK Safer Internet Centre.

NAHT is given to understand that early in 2017 it will make available a resource called ITAlert which will create alerts when attempts are made to use defined search words.

This is not an alternative to filtering and blocking but rather a means of augmenting such software.

The above implies the need for schools to have robust online safety policies in place. Many schools adopt model policies produced by local authorities.

Many of these are derived from templates produced by the South West Grid for Learning (15). Schools may wish to review their policies by using a free tool called 360safe (16).

Frequent reference has been made to the UK Safer Internet Centre’s work in this article. Some readers may have contacted the Professionals Online Safety Helpline (POSH) (17) when

parents and others resort to social media to abuse, vilify or threaten teachers and the school, compromising professional reputations. POSH also advises on all aspects of online concern. It is a service provided by the UK Safer Internet Centre. Many schools will have encountered it through participation in the annual Safer Internet Day. In 2017 this will take place on 7 February. (18) Members are strongly urged to consider joining the thousands of schools throughout the UK and Europe that participate in the event.

References

(1) http://www.nen.gov.uk/usingconsumer-it-devices-in-schoolsoptions-opportunities-andissues/ (appendix 1) (2) https://www.iwf.org.uk/ (3) http://parentinfo.org/ (4) https://www. cornwallhealthyschools.org/ documents/SRE_pshe_assoc_ pornography.pdf (5) http://www.childnet.com/ resources/esafety-andcomputing (6) https://www.pshe-association. org.uk/curriculum-andresources/curriculum (7) http://swgfl.org.uk/productsservices/esafety/resources (8) http://www.askaboutgames. com/ (9) http://kidshealth.org/en/teens/ cyberbullying.html (10) http://www.childnet.com/ resources/cyberbullyingguidance-for-schools (11) http://www.childnet.com/ resources/star-toolkit (12) https://www.gov.uk/ government/uploads/system/ uploads/attachment_data/ file/551575/6.2439_KG_NCA_ Sexting_in_Schools_WEB__1_.

PDF (13) http://www.childnet.com/ ufiles/Crossing-the-Line---fullpdf.pdf (14) http://www.saferinternet.org. uk/advice-centre/teachersand-professionals/appropriatefiltering-and-monitoring (15) http://swgfl.org.uk/productsservices/esafety/resources/ online-safety-policy-templates (16) https://www.360safe.org.uk/ About-the-Tool (17) http://www.saferinternet.org. uk/professionals-online-safetyhelpline (18) http://www.saferinternet.org. uk/safer-internet-day/2017

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INSTEAD SECONDARY 52

STRONGER TOGETHER In this issue we take a look at three secondary schools that are part of Instead, NAHTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s School Review Programme.

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“

It is flexible, you can design the process yourself. It can be challenging; it is a bit like having a critical friend – but it is really good for the school as well as being an excellent development opportunity for everyone.”

What is “it” in this context?

No less than Instead, NAHT’s School Review Programme, a key part of NAHT’s ‘suite’ of school improvement programmes, which include Aspire. And the speaker is Alan Mottershead, head teacher at Canon Slade School, a 1,650-pupil (including sixth form), 200-staff Outstanding secondary in Bolton.

When Instead was launched by NAHT four years ago, its initial iteration was as an improvement model for primary schools. The fact the process works through schools coming together in clusters naturally leant itself

more to neighbouring groups of primaries collaborating than often more geographically disparate secondary schools.

Yet the model was always envisaged as something that could work for both primaries and secondaries, and a pilot between three secondaries within the Bolton area – Canon Slade, St James’ Church of England High School in Bolton and Lowton Church of England High School in Wigan – has very much proved the point. So much so that NAHT is this year intending to roll Instead out to secondaries across England and Wales, as well as working to maintain the programme’s growing momentum within primary schools.

As NAHT deputy general secretary and chair of NAHT’s Instead project group Nick Brook explains: “Peer-to-peer review and

Above: The pilot scheme between three schools in the Bolton area has proved a huge success.

school improvement are both of critical importance to NAHT. It is about putting into practice our ambition to take back ownership of standards, as well as shining a light on the failings of government policy around inspection. But it is also about showing there can be an alternative way that is positive but also rigorous and robust.

“Through taking part in a recognised initiative such as Instead, schools can demonstrate to Ofsted, to government, and to regional schools’ commissioners that they can be trusted to develop and improve. The more that peer-to-peer review is shown to work, and the more that schools use it, the more compelling the case that schools should be allowed to get on with this themselves,” he adds.

So, how does Instead work?

Readers of Leadership Focus

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acted as a reviewer for both the primary and secondary model.

“Instead is something all secondary schools will benefit from, irrespective of their union.

“In fact, the secondary pilot involved one NAHT school (Canon Slade) and two schools where the heads are members of ASCL, so it is very much for all schools,” Julie enthuses.

“It is quite a brave process, you do have to lay yourself bare, warts and all, if you want to get the most out of it. It is about having people in your school, picking everything apart. You give people the freedom to see everything they want. It does have its uncomfortable points; it is not a warm bath. But the discomfort is worth it. It has a real integrity to it. It is seen by schools as being both fair and robust. will undoubtedly be aware we examined the programme back in April last year, but it is nevertheless worth reiterating its mechanics (and see the panel on next page for a fuller outline).

The programme, which costs from £1,650 per school, follows a pretty simple model. It is designed to be a process of peer review and self-review, with school leaders and leadership teams visiting each school in their cluster to see how they work and interrogate their strengths and weaknesses.

It is an opportunity to get away from the ‘noise’ of day-to-day school leadership and to drill down into what makes their school, and the others in their cluster, stand out terms in terms of learning, assessment, leadership and general environment – and, from there, examine how to improve still further.

The process is supported and directed by an external lead reviewer and normally takes place over the period of a term or more. A bespoke 12-page report with action points is then drawn up, which each school can use to help them drive forward and sustain real improvement.

In the case of the secondary pilot, the lead reviewer was Julie Nash, a former head of Cape Cornwall School at Land’s End and who has

Above: The schools were able to work together well as they were not competitors and as such were happy to learn from each other.

63% of Aspire pilot schools improved their rating by at least one judgement in their most recent Ofsted inspection.

Right: Alan believes Instead is an opportunity to see schools as moving, developing entities and gives control of your own school improvement.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED “The framework has been tweaked slightly since the primary pilots, but so much of it is generic anyway, and it can apply to any school. It is about growing your teachers, growing your leaders and growing your links with your local community,” Julie adds.

Tim Keeling, project manager for school improvement at NAHT, strongly agrees that, as a model for school improvement, Instead can – and does – work at both primary and secondary level. The three secondary schools in the pilot, as our case studies show, have all taken away important improvement pointers.

“We always had it in mind that Instead could be useful for secondaries, which is why we undertook the pilot. It is an inclusive programme that can be applied to almost any

What is NAHT Instead?

NAHT Instead is a peer review programme that provides school leaders with an alternative way of evaluating school strengths and vulnerabilities.

What is the structure of Instead?

Clusters of three or four schools evaluate their own schools and those of others in their cluster. Reviews are structured around an assessment framework, and are focused on identifying strengths and weaknesses across the full spectrum of school delivery.

The framework focuses on school performance and, rather than assigning a grade, signposts which aspects of the school need to be:

• Prioritised • Developed • Maximised • Sustained.

Evidence is provided to support and illustrate the findings. Self-evaluation and reflection are key aspects of the review and report writing exercise.

Each review takes two days plus some additional time to discuss, draft and agree the report.

Schools negotiate the timing of each review with the lead reviewer and other cluster members.

What support is provided?

All participants are trained prior to undertaking reviews.

Reviews are guided by a lead reviewer trained

to probe, facilitate and mediate. All lead reviewers are school leaders with current and relevant experience of the phase and context of the school being inspected. They receive additional training on organising reviews and the importance of capturing the school’s values.

What does it cost?

Participation in the programme for NAHT members costs £1,650 for schools with fewer than 100 pupils and £1,950 for schools with 100 or more pupils. Nonmembers pay £2,500. As participation is voluntary, no funding is available.

CASE STUDY

Alan Mottershead is head of Canon Slade School in Bolton “We certainly gained a lot from the process.

We chose to work with two schools that were not competitors, and so we were unashamedly happy to do the visits and learn from them.

“Just to be able to go into somewhere else, you realise that there are different ways to organise and prescribe your school. We also chose schools that were not that far away geographically so we could look to maintain contact once the process was completed, which we have done. We were determined it shouldn’t feel like an inspection, and we have pursued sustained contact and learning from each other.

“Julie came up and did a preliminary visit. We took her to all three schools so that she could get the lie of the land and meet some of the staff. The natural response of teachers is, ‘is it an Ofsted inspection?’, so it is important to explain it carefully that it is, as its name suggests, Instead not Ofsted; that it is simply about taking a look at ourselves.

“Where someone like Julie is valuable is in being an external pair of eyes, someone who is not going to duck things and will tell it like it is. At St James and Lowton the process was very much led by the senior leadership team, with senior leaders taking Julie around. But we decided we were going to go for much more of a free-for-all approach.

“So we simply gave them a lanyard and said ‘go where you like’. We gave complete free rein. Although, of course, we did forewarn staff. We also emphasised that people would not be graded; it was not about them but about looking at the whole school. I also think the process can be a real opportunity for both

Instead is an opportunity to see schools as moving, developing entities senior and middle leaders to get involved.

“Most of what we felt was strong about the school was confirmed by Julie’s report – that we are quite a traditional, dedicated school in terms of our teaching methodology. We have a very settled staff here, many of whom have been teaching for very many years.

“It was extremely valuable to get that outside perspective, that outside voice, to highlight some areas for us. One was progress – that we could learn more about the progress the children were making – and another was differentiation.

“One concrete change, therefore, is we have appointed a second assistant head to take on a teaching and learning role, who started in September.

This has been a direct and attributable consequence of Instead.

“For me, one of the many problems with inspection is you get an action plan, but then you never see them again; there is no follow-up investment in the school. That is one reason why we want to arrange an anniversary visit for Julie to come and visit all three schools again.

“Instead is an opportunity to see schools as moving, developing entities; to recognise that schools do not just operate from a fixed point. It is also really good to feel you are in control of your own school improvement.

If we believe in school-to-school support, then Instead is a framework for allowing that to happen.”

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school environment – primary, secondary, faith, special and so on – it goes across the whole range,” Tim explains.

“I would say it is preferable when schools are in a cluster geographically. But it wouldn’t need to be all secondaries within a cluster, you could have a mix.

The quality of the peer-to-peer review is the real strength of the programme. It is about creating relationships and trust between schools, and to develop enduring relationships that carry on after the programme itself has concluded.

“It can be a real platform for learning and development. For any school leader aspiring to

CASE STUDY

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continuous improvement, this is one way to do it,” Tim adds.

And the improvement ‘journey’ need not start and finish with the formal Instead process. Alan Mottershead at Canon Slade points out that the Bolton cluster is intending to bring Julie Nash back to the three schools in the Spring to carry out a two-day progress review. “We’d like to review to see what impacts there have been and how we can make them last,” he says.

However, there is one final important point to make.

Despite its name, NAHT is very clear Instead should not be seen as instead of Ofsted or Estyn – it is not about

Tania Lewyckyj is head of St James’ Church of England High School in Bolton, an Outstanding school with 1,100 pupils and 160 staff, a National Teaching School and School Direct provider.

“School improvement has long been a real driver of mine. We are in a relatively robust position and awaiting Ofsted after five years. Being part of the Instead pilot gave us a process that has allowed us to reflect on where we are now and plug any gaps. It has also allowed all of us to identify great practice as we visited each establishment.

“One of the powerful elements is that you have free range; it is about seeing the school warts and all, whilst accompanied by an expert external advisor.

We wanted to focus on teaching and learning and our QA processes.

“It was not necessarily what you would call a relaxing process, but we did like the fact it wasn’t Ofsted, which was taken on board by the staff.

People are much happier to say ‘we haven’t got this quite right yet’ if the discussion is taking place in a safe environment.

“Of the three head teachers in the pilot, I was the most established in post– I have been a head for seven years – and I had long wanted to send our SLT and middle leaders into other schools, but before now had never had the opportunity. What the Instead pilot gave myself and the SLT was the chance to question peers, to dig deep and to learn a great deal about how others operate.

“What we found, by and large, was a validation of our direction of travel – Instead is a valuable tool for full quality assurance, especially because of the external validation element. It has also been valuable in terms of the ongoing relationships – I know I can pick up the phone and share things confidentially with a colleague.

But to get that relationship, the first meeting does have to be well managed and the process understood by all, which is where the external advisor comes in.

Below: Head teacher Tania Lweycky values being able to share ideas and learn how others operate.

Instead gave my SLT the chance to question peers, to dig deep and see another side.

throwing down an inspection gauntlet to the government.

“Instead – and this has to be stressed – is not about schools not having accountability. It is not about replacing inspection; there will always be a place for that. It is about schools embracing and taking ownership of improvement alongside inspection,” argues Nick Brook.

“Instead is also much less judgemental about how a school is ‘doing’. Because of this, it allows schools – heads, senior and middle leaders but also teaching staff more generally – to reflect, to look at where they are strong, to look at where there may be weaknesses or vulnerabilities,” he adds.

“We felt the whole process was supportive and yet robust. The external reviewer – Julie Nash – who is there from the beginning of the process to the end, was essential and took away the pressure of school heads writing the final report.

“One of the best aspects was having time to go into other schools and really dig deep over two days, and at the same time, pick up so many new ideas/ systems that we could take back into our own school.

Relationships have become stronger, senior teams have become involved and all parties have benefited in one way or another.”

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

our strengths in those departments.

And, as a result, we’ve seen a significant improvement in results.

“There is a closeness and honesty to the process; it is about a willingness to share and learn.

How well you all fit together is, of course, important, but we have got a partnership now that I think is going to develop from this process.

“The Instead model, I believe, very much works for a secondary structure. We all had had a prior connection – I had known Tania for many years, for example – which probably makes it easier for me to lay the school open, to lay it bare. Being RI there is a constant pressure to get ‘things’ in place, to get things right. But I do think now having done the Instead process that will be a contributory factor – hopefully – to an improved picture when Ofsted next visits.”

How does Instead link to Aspire?

Above: Julian Pollard says the Instead model has driven improvements at his school

CASE STUDY

Julian Pollard is head of Lowton Church of England High School in Wigan, an RI school with 600 students and 38 teaching staff.

“Lowton is my first school – I have been head now for just two years – and I was Ofsteded in my first year. Going through that inspection process so early on was challenging, as I was still working to understand the school and its strengths and weaknesses. What Instead has given is an opportunity to evaluate these in a way that is much less judgemental.

“What was also valuable was the opportunity to work with other heads, to go into other school situations. There is a robust judgement aspect to Instead, and the biggest value for me was being able to look at our strengths and how we could support and develop those.

“I, for example, took a lot from Tania’s model at St James’ in terms of CPD. I’ve completely restructured the school day to give staff more CPD time, again along the St James’ model. Staff now have dedicated development time, and that has come out directly from the Instead programme. It has been a massive, fundamental change.

“If I had started it from scratch there would undoubtedly have been a lot of teething problems and environmental issues. But by doing it this way, by using and learning from the model that was already in place at St James’, it was a much more accelerated process. Staff now do some quite intensive training after school, which has been a big change.

“We’ve also changed the curriculum to be more like Canon Slade’s ‘deep and wide’ model, where you have ‘buckets’ of subjects, and so can better maintain

There is a closeness and honesty to the process; it is about a willingness to share and learn.

As highlighted within the main feature, NAHT Instead is part of the NAHT’s suite of school improvement programmes, which includes Aspire.

Aspire also begins with an assessment of participating schools. These schools are consequently taken on a ‘journey’ of improvement by a range of experts from NAHT and delivery partner Edison Learning.

They also benefit from working in partnership with schools in their cluster.

The programme typically lasts three years.

The Aspire pilot saw participating schools gain a number of benefits.

Highlights included: • 63% of Aspire pilot schools improved their rating by at least one judgement in their most recent Ofsted inspection.

• Aspire pilot schools had twice the improvement of schools nationally for progress and attainment, with strong gains in mathematics at level 5.

For more information, visit www.naht.org.uk/aspire.

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CHARITY PARTNER

Educating early CLAIRE HARDING, from NAHT’s charity partner, the Family and Childcare Trust (FCT), looks at the ways parents can support early education at home. ll parents want their children to do well, and one of the most important things parents can do is to help their children learn at home early on. We’ve had strong evidence confirming this for more than ten years, and the Effective Provision of Early Education Study’s results are still striking: “The quality of the learning environment of the home (where parents are actively engaged in activities with children) promoted intellectual and social development in all children … The home learning environment is only moderately associated with social class. What parents do is more important than who they are.” (Kathy Sylva et al, 2004) Children who go to a nursery will get the most out of the early education they receive if they are also learning with their families.

There is some evidence that families which are not in paid work end up doing less home learning activities when their children start their early education.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, this was not true of parents who were employed – which suggests that the issue may be more about confidence than time. The same study showed that many parents would have liked to get more guidance on what they should be doing at home from their child’s nursery, but that they didn’t tend to get it – possibly because providers themselves lack confidence about how to best engage with parents.

With their well-qualified staff and trust from families, maintained and school nurseries are ideally placed to support parents with learning at home. Individual nurseries will know best how to engage with their families – but in general, parents should be encouraged to use words and

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numbers with their children as part of everyday life. This might include counting fruit at the supermarket, talking about sizes and shapes, playing alphabet games, making up rhymes and singing songs. Books are central – not just for learning to read but learning to use and enjoy the printed word. Children who read for pleasure go on to do better at school, and parents can help by showing that they also enjoy books – whether that’s reading a novel to relax, looking at a car instruction manual, or following a recipe. Parents who speak languages other than English should be encouraged to read with their child in their own language – dual language picture books may be useful resources for a child to share what they have been doing at nursery with a parent.

It can seem that home learning is expensive: newspapers are full of articles about ‘educational’ trips, and parents are deluged with adverts for toys which claim to support various aspects of development. The academic evidence is rather different (and less profitable): the difference

Dual language picture books may be useful resources for a child to share what they have been doing at nursery with a parent.

comes from reading with children, taking them to the library, singing songs and rhymes, and helping them paint and draw. Libraries and children’s centres often have free activities that are available to all local families, and will often have publicity materials that you can share. Parents don’t need to have a lot of education themselves to make a difference to their children. This doesn’t mean that providing effective home learning is easy or even possible for some families: poverty, bad employment practices and illness make things much harder.

But schools should reassure parents that they can give their children the best possible start even if they didn’t have a great experience of school themselves and don’t have much money.

Schools which don’t have nurseries will of course find it hard to engage pre-school parents – although there may be opportunities where pupils have younger brothers and sisters.

Where children tend to go to the same private or voluntary sector provider before they start at a particular school, there may be opportunities for partnerships: schools might help nurseries make sure children are ready for reception, and collaborate to support transition for children who might find it more difficult. Parents tend to be concerned about their children’s move to school, so advice and support at this time is likely to be welcomed.

FIND OUT MORE… FCT campaigns for affordable, accessible childcare and better support for parents. It lobbies government, conducts research and provides information, advice and support.

Visit www.familyandchildcaretrust.org for more information.

NAHTURALLY TAILORED TRAINING FOR OUR MEMBERS’ NEEDS For occasions where standard ‘off the shelf’ training courses might not fit your requirements.

We offer value for money bespoke training, delivered to your staff, at your venue of choice by high quality facilitators.

For more information please contact events@naht.org.uk or visit naht.org.uk/events

CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Leading learning Where will NAHT courses take you next? t NAHT we’re passionate about helping our members and their leadership teams build further skills and the confidence to progress steadily and safely up the educational career ladder. We know that in education it’s vital to avoid the possible pitfalls that can sometimes hamper progress for an individual, a team or a school.

Today head teachers and leadership teams in all phases are under pressure regarding assessment, accountability, budgeting, recruiting and pupil wellbeing to name just a few big issues. Our member surveys inform us of exactly which areas you feel need to be addressed, and how.

So we have set out to find the best course facilitators, the most inspiring speakers and the richest content, to meet the frontline needs of the

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profession. Each course reflects the By investing in training for their latest education policy and practice, leadership teams, we believe head teachers can improve staff loyalty and we factor in interactive elements and provide useful take away levels and retain the talent the materials for maximum impact and sector so badly needs. Our ‘tailored’ value. Courses range from how to training courses are proving form or join a multi-academy trust, to popular for exactly this reason safeguarding children, to assessing – a cost-effective way to meet pupil progress for those working specific professional development needs on site, at a time to suit below the national standard – see the your team. Schools are working to full course list for 2017 (on the right).

With retention in teaching at a low tight budgets so we strive to keep prices as low as we can. Tailored point, and teachers reluctant to step training starts at £90 a head, up to leadership, now is the time for heads to offers excellent training conferences start from £125 per and professional development to delegate, and courses from £225 per delegate. With our events you their staff. Many of our courses are can be assured of top quality designed to help aspiring leaders progress with self-assurance, content and delivery that will cope with workload and inform, inspire and provide We have a range of essential skills to drive changing structures, and courses available. school improvements and master the administrative Full details and side of running a school. support rewarding careers. booking forms are

NEW COURSES Assessment in practice Assessment is the hot education topic of the day so spaces on this course are in high demand.

‘Assessment in practice’ has been designed to help school leaders develop the skills to lead outstanding assessment in their school; learn how to use assessment data to best effect; to move teaching and learning forward; and to maximise student progress and achievement.

Delegates will develop an understanding of the current government policy around assessment for learning, and be guided on how to communicate the school’s assessment strategy to external visitors. We recommend that those attending download the NAHT Assessment Commission Report prior to the event, and bring a sample of their assessment data, which is used to inform teaching and learning on the day.

available on our website. www.naht.org.uk/ trainingcourses.

MEET THE COURSE FACILITATOR: PHILIPPA OLLERHEAD Philippa Ollerhead has 22 years’ experience in education and regularly delivers training for the Open University and NAHT in educational leadership and management. She has many years experience of supporting and delivering training to the primary, secondary and post-16 sectors, and has been the lead manager on four section 5 inspections.

Philippa is also experienced in the rigours of DfE academy conversion and Free School quality monitoring.

Critical thinking in Early Years How do children demonstrate critical thinking? What provokes children’s thinking? How can teachers

monitor the impact of resources, the environment and interactions on the quality of children’s thinking?

This course explores the most challenging characteristics of early learning within the EYFS – how young children demonstrate ‘Creative and Critical Thinking’ in action.

We surveyed Early Years members in May 2016, and many requested a course on this fascinating subject. Course facilitator, Julie Fisher, focuses on the three EYFS strategies for thinking, and explores how to support, challenge and provoke young children’s thinking.

MEET THE COURSE FACILITATOR: JULIE FISHER Julie Fisher is a nationally renowned Early Years adviser and also visiting professor of Early

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | JANUARY 2017

Childhood Education at Oxford Brookes University. She has taught children from 3-12 years and has been head teacher of two urban, multi-cultural schools.

Julie is an experienced Early Years author whose books include the recently published Interacting or Interfering: improving interactions in the Early Years (OUP, 2016).

School financial health and efficiency With school budgets tightly constrained and costs rising above proposed incomes, leadership teams are today struggling to secure financial health for their schools. This programme will consider what good financial health looks like in schools, and explores the pros and cons of tools proposed by the Department for Education to help schools.

Our experienced facilitator will share practical tips, techniques and specially designed templates to help schools implement good financial health processes. The use of Benchmarking Scorecards and Value for Money metric tools prepared for schools by the DfE are covered on the course. The aim is to help schools rise above the pressure of the moment, to secure sustainable and affordable educational outcomes.

MEET THE COURSE FACILITATOR: LARRAINE COOPER Education finance expert Larraine Cooper has worked in the international currency markets and has professional qualifications including Accountancy (Distinction) and Monetary Economics. She formed her own consultancy in 1986 and has worked with HE institutions, FE colleges, schools and LAs. Today she works with schools through the NAHT financial courses and on a 1:1 consultancy basis, focusing entirely on finance and business aspects of school management.

KEY CONFERENCE DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

NEW AND ASPIRING HEADS’ CONFERENCE 2017 London – Wednesday 17 May 2017 Manchester – Wednesday 24 May 2017

NAHT’S NATIONAL SCHOOL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE 2017: ‘ENABLING EDUCATION’ Birmingham – Tuesday 20 June 2017

TESTIMONIALS “The way in which Philippa delivered the course and the pace at which she led the day was perfect.

This was one of the best courses I have been on for a long time! Thank you.”

Lana-Lea O’Keefe, head teacher

“The range and quality of the documents provided was excellent, and the course covered all the key points needed to support the school to approach the decisions required when considering academy status.”

David Metcalfe, head teacher

COURSES We offer a wide range of courses which run throughout the year, around the country. Full details are available on our website www.naht.org.uk/trainingcourses • Appraisal and difficult conversations • Appraisal training for new appraisers • Assessing pupil progress for those working below national standard • Assessment in practice • Benchmarking – an important starting point for school efficiency • Budget setting in difficult times • Building leadership capacity for new deputy and assistant head teachers • The Common Inspection Framework: understanding, preparing and managing • Decoding mental health: promoting emotional wellbeing • Ensuring curriculum and assessment coherence; the pivotal role of KS3 • Exploring academy status • Improving progress: avoiding coasting • Improving quality and standards in the Early Years • Leading critical thinking in the Early Years • Leading school safeguarding • Leading behaviour change • Moving towards forming or joining a multi-academy trust • Ofsted and SENCo: the new framework and expectations • Pupil Premium: making and costing the case • Recruitment and retention within the teaching profession • Retirement and working longer: present and future options • Schools’ financial health and efficiency • The SENCo as strategic leader • School financial value standards.

EASY BOOKING FOR ALL ON EVENTBRITE

Let’s make life easy! Last year NAHT introduced Eventbrite to speed up and simplify the process of booking on to our conferences and courses. The online registration platform is widely used in the world of event ticketing, and members will benefit from having a secure, user-friendly registration system that cuts out the complications of manual booking. We’ll be rolling this out across all our events in the coming months, so we hope you’ll find booking to be a breeze in 2017.

CONFERENCES

Find out more about our conferences at www.naht.org.uk/welcome/ naht-events/conferences/ • Girls on the Autism Spectrum: The ‘Big Shout’ conference • Special schools, specialist and alternative provision conference • New and Aspiring Head Teachers’ conference • School Business Management conference.

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THE FINAL WORD

SUSAN YOUNG: Education columnist

Growing bright futures “

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When I started here, I thought ‘Goodness, how many board games have we got in this school?’ But every teacher uses them because they’re all about structure, turntaking, and working with others,” recalls new head Karen Harrison of her first weeks in the job.

Peter Gladwin School is a warm and welcoming primary in the Brighton suburb of Portslade, where wellbeing has to be at the heart of supporting children’s learning. Proportionally the city’s most over-subscribed school, its pupils come from a ‘tiny’ catchment area in the second highest band for deprivation, now attracting families moving from the expensive city centre.

Some 6% of pupils have complex special needs: many others have difficulties with attachment, challenging behaviour and family lives. Families are engaged with the school, and support goes both ways.

So when Karen arrived in 2015, Peter Gladwin was already successfully focused on children’s wellbeing, with a part-time counsellor, a learning mentor and an underpinning system (pioneered at the University of Brighton) called Working With Others, which supports children to do just that.

The focus for Karen and her “wonderful, experienced” staff is to build on this with resilienceand self-esteem-building initiatives for everyone, more nurturing and increased counsellor hours.

“A number of our children aren’t ready for learning – their needs are psychological,” she says. “They need to feel safe,

they need self-esteem … our main thing is for them to feel safe and happy, and the children’s voice is very important. Every decision we take, we think: how is this going to affect the children?”

So children take part in decision-making. They voted for the school’s new values: pupil voice questionnaires are taken seriously. A wildflower bank in the playground was researched, planned and funded by The Garden Gang, one of the new mixed-age pupil voice groups which every child joins, to work on a school development-linked ‘mission’. Others looked at boys’ writing and the school website.

“They worked as groups, they all completed their missions, and it raised their self-esteem.

Three groups presented to the governors. They were amazing: I would never have thought they could have done that in September. They were so articulate, so passionate about the mission and what they’d achieved. I was so proud of them and the governors were really impressed,” says Karen.

There is a new emphasis on exercise, with yoga, a daily field run, and inclusive bike, netball, football and basketball clubs and teams. “We talk about getting fitter, and how it can make us feel happier. We’re also showing children how to look

Above: Karen Harrison.

after themselves with relaxation, and that can be through yoga, not just your iPad.” The school’s own challenges around funding and space (there just isn’t enough, given the need for bespoke education and multiagency meetings, let alone the plans for intensive nurture groups and structured outdoor education) mean lots of bidding for grants – for instance to ensure every Year 6 pupil had the chance to attend a residential last year. “We’re opening doors and providing opportunities – if we don’t provide them, nobody will. New experiences and challenge are part of wellbeing, learning about themselves, and building resilience.”

Friday’s new growth mindset assemblies sum it up. The achievement certificates were designed by pupils: each is accompanied by a sunflower seed, which children are keen to grow. “The sunflower is our emblem, and it’s very symbolic of growth mindset,” says Karen.

“You start with a little seed: nurture it and its future is bright.”

Every decision we take, we think: how is this going to affect the children?

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