NAHT Leadership Focus September 2017

Issue 79 / September 2017 / £5

THE MAGAZINE FOR NAHT AND NAHT EDGE MEMBERS

FOCUS

NEW term NEW challenges NAHT Aspire three years on Supporting improvement for over 120 schools

Our pull-out CPD wall planner Keep track of key dates this winter and spring

The fight against asbestos We’re campaigning for action

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

OPINION

ANNE LYONS: NAHT president 2017/18

Striving for improvement here’s a definite theme to the articles in this edition of Leadership Focus; improvement.

Even though school budgets are at breaking point, there’s an expectation that schools will always continue to improve.

The government expects it, even if they seem reluctant to pay for it.

Parents expect it because their children face uncertain futures.

And we expect it too, because there’s always some bit of school life or some part of the school premises that could do with freshening up.

One thing’s for sure, if we want to make things better, nobody’s coming over the hill to give us a hand. We’ll have to do it ourselves.

Three years on, NAHT’s Aspire programme has helped to improve more than 120 schools. You can read about the difference Aspire has made to NAHT members and their schools on page 10. Our Aspire partnership with EdisonLearning is a full-colour example of the amazing transformations that are possible if you put responsibility in the hands of school leaders. This autumn we’ll be working with the government to see how we can expand Aspire to help more schools.

We also need the government to face up to an undeniable truth. If improvement is to be sustainable, schools need to be funded fully and fairly. In July, Justine Greening announced that she’d be moving £1.3bn of DfE funds into the schools’ budget. It’s clear that she was listening to our campaigning. The problem remains the Treasury. So our continued campaign efforts will be focused on getting them to pay

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their share of the extra cash that the education system needs each year.

Of course, schools are only as good as the staff teams we’ve assembled. Continued improvement comes from looking after them and paying them fairly for the work that they do. NAHT has been one of the leading voices in the campaign to improve pay for all public sector workers. We’re clear that the 1% public sector pay cap has to go.

Otherwise we risk not being able to recruit and retain the people we want to see working alongside us in our classrooms. You can read an update on our work on page 34.

If you follow NAHT on Facebook, you’ll see that right at the top of our page we talk about “campaigning to improve schools for everyone”. I think this is a neat way of describing what the association does every single day. While there’s a long way to go, our negotiations with the DfE are making a big difference to the way primary assessment is evolving.

I don’t think there’s another trade union that could have pushed the government as hard as we have done on this issue, and been able to say that we’ve been making progress. I’m encouraged that our deputy general secretary Nick Brook

Above: Anne Lyons

and his team will stay on the case this term. Take a look at Nic Paton’s article about their work on page 14.

And for those of you yet to meet our new general secretary Paul Whiteman, have a look at his column on Page 41 of the magazine. Before taking up the post, Paul spent five years as NAHT’s director of representation and advice. For me, this means that NAHT will continue to put members’ needs first. If you know of any colleagues who are embarking on new leadership roles, make sure to mention that NAHT exists to protect, represent and advise all school leaders.

Within the association, we’re continually trying to improve what we do to support members, so that you can get on with the job of developing your school, safe in the knowledge that we’ve got you covered.

Another academic year is upon us.

I hope that being with NAHT means you feel you can do great things, no matter what comes your way.

One thing’s for sure, if we want to make things better, nobody’s coming over the hill to give us a hand. We’ll have to do it ourselves.

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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, Steven George, Magnus Gorham, Russell Hobby, Steve Iredale, Kim Johnson, Helena Macormac, Judith Stott, Paul Whiteman, Rob Williams.

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@nahtnews

EDITORIAL TEAM Editor: Nic Paton.

Publisher: David Gale.

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SALES DIRECTOR Ian Carter Tel: 0207 183 1815 Leadership Focus is published on behalf of NAHT by Headlines Partnership Publishing Ltd, Headlines MediaHub, Radian Court, Knowlhill, Milton Keynes MK5 8PJ.

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www.headlines.uk.com Tel: 01908 393303 Email: nic.paton@headlines.uk.com

Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation: 30,151 (July 2015 - June 2016) ISSN: 1472-6181 Š Copyright 2016 NAHT All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be copied or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher. While every care has been taken in the compilation of this publication, neither the publisher nor NAHT can accept responsibility for any inaccuracies or changes since compilation, or for consequential loss arising from such changes or inaccuracies, or for any other loss, direct or consequential, arising in connection with information in this publication. Acceptance of advertisements does not imply recommendation by the publisher.

The views herein are not necessarily those of the publisher, the editor or NAHT.

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LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

When I look around the association, I feel very lucky.

I see leaders everywhere.

Everyone has the potential to make difference, to make a contribution.

Contents 41

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News round up The latest from across NAHT and NAHT Edge.

10 NAHT Aspire Three years since its launch, how has Aspire helped schools?

14 Assessment How our assessment

Paul Whiteman

campaign continues to address the culture of high-

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stakes testing and accountability.

18 #iwill Engaging young people in social action.

22 Early Years Take a look at what the Early Years Sector Council has achieved.

26 The fight against asbestos We look at NAHT’s latest campaigning work regarding asbestos in school buildings.

32 Wall planner Your pull-out guide to our Winter and Spring CPD.

34 Waging war on the pay cap What has been the impact on schools of the public sector pay cap?

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38 School funding still in crisis NAHT calls for more action.

40 Continued protection How NAHT Life membership can help you.

41 Paul Whiteman A view from our general secretary.

42 Motor Neurone Disease Association Support is available for families affected by MND

43 Wales – policy update Rob Williams, head of policy for NAHT Cymru, highlights his current priorities.

44 Virtual wonders We look at the latest developments in AR and VR in the classroom.

48 Top tips for middle leaders Director of NAHT Edge, James Bowen, covers the main demands placed on middle leaders

51 Change for the better NAHT (NI) has achieved an agreement with the ETI.

56 Assessing school readiness Findings and conclusions from our member survey.

60 Your professional development A focus on three exciting NAHT conferences, coming soon.

62 Final word How head teacher Tina Daniel advocates learning from research.

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NEWS ROUND UP

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

NEWS IN BRIEF EDUCATE AGAINST HATE

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Educate Against Hate is a resource hub created by the Department for Education and the Home Office, giving teachers, parents and school leaders practical advice and information on protecting children from extremism and radicalisation.

The website offers a range of resources for school professionals, from Prevent duty implementation guidance to lesson plans and classroom discussion topics.

Earlier this year, the DfE commissioned the Association of Citizenship Teaching to develop resources to support teachers to lead knowledge-based classroom debates with their pupils on topical issues relating to extremism, fundamental British values, equality and contemporary political and social issues. The first set in the series was launched on 4 July and focuses on the topic of religious freedom. Resources cover primary, secondary and post-16 education and include training and guidance, reporting concerns and promotional materials.

Visit the Educate Against Hate website to find out more: educateagainsthate. com/teachers.

You’re never too young to talk mental health t what age should children start to learn about mental health?

And how can schools help young children to have the skills and vocabulary to talk about their feelings?

This month the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families is launching its “You’re never too young to talk” mental health campaign, aimed at primary school children in Years 5 and 6.

The campaign is based on the premise that all children can be encouraged to share ‘big’ and ‘small’ feelings and can help their friends talk about problems that are bothering them. The centrepiece is an animation made for children by children along with a lesson plan and an assembly plan. All the films have been carefully tested and piloted in schools. They’ve received rave reviews and are available free via www.annafreud.org/ what-we-do/schools-in-mind More materials from the Anna Freud National Centre are available free to

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schools that join the Schools in Mind network. This network gives schools access to materials designed to help promote mental health in school communities.

Support for this campaign has come from Wellcome Trust and Jo Malone London.

A Talking Mental Health poster is included with this magazine so that you can publicise the fact that you are talking about mental health in your school.

The Anna Freud National Centre regularly holds free workshops around the country, designed to help school professionals find solutions that promote the mental health and wellbeing of entire school communities: The next two dates are: • 2 October: Manchester • 5 October: Newcastle If you are interested in attending a workshop more information can be found in the training area of www.annafreud.org

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

IF YOU HAVE A NEWS STORY TO SHARE PLEASE CONTACT THE EDITOR Email: nic.paton@headlines.uk.com

Primary schools call for help to deliver sex and relationships education ew research by charity Coram Life Education (CLE) and specialist insurer Ecclesiastical has found that one in three primary schools need more help with identifying children’s needs in relation to Sex and Relationships Education (SRE).

The results reveal that while the majority of schools are confident teaching about friendships and family, they want more support to teach puberty, reproduction and feelings, and staying safe and consent. Furthermore, two thirds of schools say they need more guidance on statutory requirements and three quarters want more advice on consulting parents about SRE. The research comprised a survey and focus groups conducted amongst 85 head teachers, PSHE co-ordinators and teachers responsible for teaching SRE throughout the UK. The findings have informed a new primary school Relationships

Education programme developed by CLE in partnership with Ecclesiastical Insurance Group, which will help schools meet their statutory requirements for SRE (renamed Relationships and Sex Education) from 2019.

The new programme, launching in September, will comprise a comprehensive set of age-appropriate lesson plans (and related activity materials) for Years 1-6 covering all aspects of a balanced, Relationships Education programme. The research reinforces that teachers want support and guidance to implement safe and effective SRE programmes.

More than 20 teacher guidance film clips will be available to subscribers, aligned with recommended content set by the Department for Education. The programme will be available for more than 2,000 current CLE schools, and to any primary school that subscribes via the charity’s online platform SCARF.

Harriet Gill, managing director of Coram’s education and wellbeing programmes, said: “Only four years ago, Ofsted stated that primary schools were ‘leaving pupils ill-prepared for physical and emotional changes during puberty often experienced before children reach secondary school’*. We believe this programme is an important step forward in meeting children and young people's needs and entitlement to education in healthy friendships and relationships, puberty and reproduction, staying safe and consent.”

CLE is the leading provider of Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education in UK schools. To find out more about the CLE charity and the new Relationships Education programme, please visit www.coramlifeeducation.org.uk *Not yet good enough: Personal, social, health and economic education in schools 2012 (Ofsted, 2013).

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Photo: Coram Life Education

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Time to enter the Education Resources Awards 2018 NAHT is once again delighted to be supporting the Education Resources Awards, which take place on the second evening of The Education Show, 15 March 2018, in Birmingham. These important awards highlight hard-working teaching professionals and amazing educational establishments.

They aim to encourage the raising of educational services and product standards across the UK. NAHT members are invited to enter either of the following two categories:

LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION This award will be presented to a member of the teaching profession or an educational professional working in a setting, school or college, nominated by his or her peers or themselves, for some special leadership quality or qualities.

This might be the way that a teaching environment is managed; for qualities displayed in managing an educational purchasing policy; for the way in which the respect of pupils has been gained; or for outstanding innovation or creativity.

EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENT OF THE YEAR This award will be presented to an educational establishment from any phase, which can demonstrate effectiveness and real value to the community it serves.

Winners are selected by a panel of teachers, education journalists and senior influencers who evaluate all entries based on individual sets of specific criteria. The deadline for entries is Monday 5 February 2018.

For more information please visit www.education resourcesawards.co.uk

NEWS ROUND UP

IF YOU HAVE A NEWS STORY TO SHARE PLEASE CONTACT THE EDITOR Email: nic.paton@headlines.uk.com

Announcing the new Institute of School Business Leadership The National Association of School Business Management (NASBM) will soon transition to the Institute of School Business Leadership (ISBL).

NASBM’s 3,000 members have endorsed this change.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? In addition to a change of name, ISBL will offer a more formal representative body for school business leaders.

ISBL members can expect clearer standards, robust continuing professional development, new qualifications and rigorous evaluation of practice. In

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addition, ISBL will provide quality assurance, research, events, resources and policy interpretation to help keep members on top of their game.

With high numbers of business practitioners joining the education sector from non-teaching backgrounds, now is a fantastic time to make a positive change for the future. To help school business professionals better integrate into their school leadership teams, ISBL’s professional standards framework will provide a clear career development path.

This will offer achievable goals while building closer working relationships between teaching staff and business professionals.

Right now, all leaders are under pressure to make schools run more efficiently.

With government education policy and reduced local authority input as it currently stands, this is not something we can escape from.

So, if you’re a school business leader, for the benefit of your school, your team, yourself, the profession (and of course, your pupils) please join ISBL

on this important journey and become a member today.

Stephen Morales (pictured above) is CEO for the National Association of School Business Management, which is transitioning to the Institute of School Business Leadership.

ISBL will launch at the association’s annual conference in November this year.

2016/17 – NAHT’s year in review from a policy perspective AHT has been a hive of industry this year. Our policy and campaigning work has been fuelling key changes to the education landscape through reflecting the views of our members and securing the best outcomes for the pupils in their schools.

NAHT’s head of policy, Valentine Mulholland, outlines the variety of last year’s campaign strategies. “Some of our campaigns are quite long term, but along the way, we have secured some key wins over the last school year. We develop strategies appropriate to the issue. This means that while funding has been a major, visible campaign, our work on PSHE and relationships and sex education has been more long-term engagement with partners to lobby the DfE.”

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Assessment Our assessment campaign has already secured significant successes over the last school year including: the reversal of the government’s policy to introduce Year 7 resits; a halt to intervention based on writing data for the past two years; and significant improvements to the

mess of writing moderation with new guidance (developed with significant input from NAHT) which was backed by mandatory training for moderators. The KS1 SPaG test remains non-statutory and the phonics resit has been shelved.

Our demands for revisions to the KS2 reading test were heard, with this year’s test noticeably better in its design. Our call for a full review of assessment was also realised with the publication of the consultations on primary assessment and the Rochford Review.

Funding Early in 2017, we joined forces with NUT, ATL and support staff unions to launch a major funding campaign, School Funding in Crisis, setting up nearly 70 regional and local events to raise awareness of the issues. We reached thousands of members but also governors and parents through our campaigning materials. We saw the momentum of our campaign generate a massive parental campaign too. When the general election was called, an estimated 800,000 people changed their vote over the issue of school funding and this kind of pressure

meant that the government have committed £1.3billion more funding from April 2018, and assured us that no school will lose per-pupil funding because of the new national funding formula. It’s a step in the right direction but we will continue to campaign for the Treasury to commit more funding for mainstream, high needs and nursery schools to redress the realterms cuts they have experienced.

Curriculum On 1 March 2017, Justine Greening announced that Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) would be compulsory across all schools from September 2019, following lengthy campaigning by

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

Voice Box joke competition for schools Fill your classrooms with laughter this autumn and grow your pupils’ confidence by involving them in Voice Box – the joke competition for schools across England, Scotland and Wales. Run by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) in partnership with NAHT and supported by The Communication Trust, the competition reminds people that all children need support to build their communication skills and confidence and some need additional specialist help to speak and/or understand what is being said to them.

Hundreds of pupils took part in the 2016/17 competition and finalists comprised children from both mainstream and special schools, who used a variety of means, including sign language, to tell their jokes to a packed audience of politicians and parents. Many of the children said afterwards that their experience of taking part in the competition had been a positive one and had impacted significantly on their confidence levels. One child also said that the competition had

NAHT on behalf of our members. The government will also be able to require all schools in England to teach Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE). Following our campaigning for pupils in all schools to have access to PSHE, NAHT is delighted that these regulations would apply to both primary and secondary, maintained schools and academies. NAHT will now continue its work, engaging with the government to ensure the development of clear guidance materials for schools on RSE and the future regulations and statutory guidance on PSHE Education.

Governors Many years of NAHT’s campaigning for governing bodies to be able to remove governors for poor conduct has finally paid off. On 30 March 2017, regulations were introduced to enable governing bodies of maintained schools to remove

helped him to make friends.

Over the years, Voice Box has also given many schools and speech and language therapy services the opportunity to engage with local MPs and the media. This has increased public awareness of how communication difficulties impact people and the valuable role that speech and language therapists play in supporting them.

If you would like to get your school involved, visit www.givingvoiceuk.org/voice-box for more information. The competition will run from 2 October to 1 December with a grand final hosted in London in spring 2018.

elected governors where there are serious or repeated conduct issues. These powers will come into force from September 2017.

Plans for the year ahead NAHT’s new general secretary, Paul Whiteman, has promised that the association will continue to build on last year’s achievements. “I’m clear that we can’t rest on our laurels – we need to recognise our successes but keep the pressure up. We’ve got a lot of work ahead to achieve our campaigning goals.”

Priorities for 2017/18 • School funding: With our high profile ‘School Funding Still in Crisis’ campaign, we’re working hard to secure more funding for schools in November’s Comprehensive Spending Review. Schools need an additional £2bn a year to reverse real-terms cuts, so there’s a significant way to go. See p38 for all the details.

To keep up-todate with our latest campaigns and policy work make sure to follow us on twitter @NAHTnews and keep an eye out for updates to our campaign pages on our website.

HAVE WE GOT YOUR CORRECT DETAILS? Have you recently moved house? Changed your telephone number? Moved to a different school or changed role? As a membership organisation and registered trade union, it’s important that we have your most up-to-date personal details, so we can contact you with the latest information regarding your membership.

NAHT and NAHT Life members can update their details online by visiting www.naht.org.uk/ update-details, and NAHT Edge members can let us know of any changes by contacting us on membersupport@ nahtedge.org.uk

• Assessment and accountability: Following the government’s response to the consultations on assessment expected this month, NAHT will continue to campaign for further improvement and a move away from the high-stakes nature of statutory tests and the data produced from them.

We will also continue to oppose the compulsory nature of EBacc and any government policy which threatens to narrow the curriculum for pupils.

• Teacher and school leaders’ pay: We will campaign for an end to the public sector pay cap, both alongside other public sector unions and separately in making the case that the decline of pay in our profession is driving a crisis in recruitment and retention.

• Wellbeing of pupils: Health services must take responsibility to increase capacity and provide a range of accessible services for children.

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NAHT ASPIRE

NAHT ASPIRE: What it’s done for us

Three years since its launch, NAHT Aspire has an established track record of helping schools and MATs undergo sustained improvement, as our latest performance figures confirm. We talk to school leaders about how this has been achieved, and what they’ve learnt along the way.

AHT Aspire was born out of our philosophy of supporting members to be as successful as possible in their own schools. In 2013 NAHT secured Department for Education funding for a pilot scheme involving 32 schools that had received successive satisfactory or requiring improvement (RI) judgements. The programme ran for three years with the outcomes independently evaluated by the University of Derby.

Developed with our partners, EdisonLearning, the Aspire programme is characterised by a “working with, not doing to” approach, and is based on a research-based holistic view of how schools work. It interweaves work on leadership, assessment for learning, pedagogy, the learning environment, and student and family support – the “five strand design”. The programme is defined by a number of features, including termly Network Days which draw senior and middle leaders together to introduce new practices, solve issues together and celebrate schools’ successes. These are complemented by Development Days in schools, which see Achievement Advisers working with all staff to meet identified school priorities, implement the strategies, and evaluate impact.

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Published in May 2016 at NAHT’s Annual Conference, the University of Derby evaluation confirmed the pilot’s success in terms of improved Ofsted grades, pupil outcomes and the boost to the leadership across the whole school. “The ambition is to roll out the programme in as many as 100 schools – from RI right up to Outstanding,” said Kathryn James, NAHT’s deputy general secretary at the time.

We have achieved this ambition, and the rollout sees us working with more than 120 NAHT Aspire partner schools from every Regional School Commissioner region, and with every Ofsted judgement.

The evolution of NAHT Aspire

The full three-year programme remains unchanged, but we have flexed the model to meet the needs of small schools, single schools and multi-academy trusts (MATs). We have also adapted the programme to reflect the changing pressures schools are facing, and the budget constraints they operate in. The programme now comprises 30 components that can be drawn upon to create a bespoke Aspire programme for an individual school or a group of schools working together.

The objective remains to create a long-term, sustainable school

improvement model. However, the introduction of the components has allowed Aspire to meet some of the shorter-term demands that schools face. For example, a major area of development has been in the area of Precision Pedagogy.

This provides teachers with practical strategies that can bring rapid measurable improvements in foundational knowledge within half a term, along with approaches to break down goals into manageable steps for ‘stuck’ learners.

Above: Children from West Borough Primary School, which was recognised as good by Ofsted this June.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

ASPIRE FACTS:

Today NAHT Aspire programmes are active in all eight government regions

120 40,000 schools and approximately

Does Aspire work for MATs, federations or collaborations?

A number of MATs have adopted NAHT Aspire as the common strategy for school improvement across their Trust. These include primary, secondary and special schools. Other groups of schools have found adopting a collective approach has enabled them to work more closely together without fears of dominance of one school over another, with everyone learning something new together and Achievement Advisers being “honest brokers”.

What about the impact?

Ofsted statistics and an analysis of inspection outcomes for the period September 2016 to the end of March 2017 highlight how well

primary schools partnering with NAHT Aspire are performing.

This 2016/17 Ofsted analysis noted that there was “a lack of improvement of schools that require improvement over previous years” and that “some of the schools that did not improve have had consistently poor inspection outcomes for an extended period of time”. NAHT Aspire partner schools, however, can be seen to have bucked this trend. In the same reporting period, a greater percentage of NAHT Aspire partner schools previously judged to be “requiring improvement” have progressed to become good – 70% versus 64% nationally – while one Aspire school jumped from inadequate to good.

The results were similarly very positive for NAHT Aspire partner

learners are taking part

Looking at the overall numbers of schools that have been inspected at the start, 19 of the 91 were rated good or above. Now, following further inspection, 61 are rated good or better.

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A greater percentage of NAHT Aspire partner schools previously judged to be “requiring improvement” have progressed to become “good” when compared to the national average – 70% versus 64% nationally. And one NAHT Aspire partner school jumped from inadequate to good.

(Source: Ofsted analysis Sept 2016 to March 2017)

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NAHT ASPIRE

schools previously judged as good, with 83% retaining this grade, again ahead of the national average.

And all this in the context of NAHT Aspire partners starting from a far more challenging position than was generally the case for the national group in the same period – which this Ofsted report refers to as “a much stronger group than those inspected last year”.

While strong, outstanding and good schools see the advantages of our ambitious, proven and sustainable, long-term approach to school improvement, the majority of our partners are aiming to address urgent concerns. Initial analysis of the 2017 Key Stage

2 SAT results suggests that the current NAHT Aspire partner schools have improved by more than 10% in the proportion of learners meeting age-related expectations in reading, writing and mathematics combined, moving them overall from being below the national average to surpassing it. NAHT Aspire encompasses these statutory ‘givens’, but also aims higher, for

Outstanding

Good

Requiring improvement

Inadequate

At the start of the partnership

0 (0%)

17 (29.8%)

39 (68.4%)

1 (1.8%)

Now

2 (3.5%)

36 (63.2%)

16 (28.1%)

3 (5.3%)

ASPIRE CASE STUDY: Shaping the school improvement vision across a Trust

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example in intentionally developing learners’ characteristics, values and habits that last a lifetime and their voice in the life of the school.

The dividend of NAHT Aspire partnerships is powerfully illustrated through summarising the baseline and present Ofsted status of current partner primary schools that have been inspected since the pilot scheme. The numbers speak for themselves!

Gary Wilkie is CEO of the Learning in Harmony Trust – comprising eight schools in East London and Essex that have just completed their first year working in partnership with NAHT Aspire. We asked Gary for his thoughts on the programme so far, and how it has driven improvement across the Trust.

“What we needed was a common language of school improvement. We felt that if we didn’t have this then everybody assumes they are talking about the same thing when they are not,” says Gary. He felt this common language had to be the language of school improvement, not a rewrite of Ofsted. “We want to be great schools, and not driven by ever-changing Ofsted criteria.”

So why choose Aspire? “Could others have provided this service? Maybe,” says Gary. “But while some schools or Trusts are looking for instant results, we are looking for sustainable year-on-year improvement. My perception is that the whole modus operandi of Aspire is sustainability.”

This, combined with a recommendation from one of the Trust’s head teachers who had been involved in Aspire before the school joined the Trust, led to the partnership commencing in autumn 2016.

The Collaborative Quality Analysis (CQA) was a shared experience, explains Gary. Achievement Advisers led the initial CQA, training school leaders from within the Trust to enable them to complete the CQA with the rest of the Trust schools. Gary found that the introduction of the Aspire school improvement language provided a framework for an extremely useful set of conversations that sharpened their thinking. “Known strengths could be mutually agreed as best practice and shared across the Trust, defining what can be used to move forward and delivered in a sustainable, consistent and coherent model.”

Moving into year two of the partnership, what are the next steps? Here Gary acknowledges the role of the Achievement Advisers and how they can act as both a supporter and provider of challenge for each school.

“Our advisers are not precious, they seek outcomes not sovereignty,” he says. “These are the characteristics that identify the relationship as a partnership, and not just a transactional arrangement.”

What have been his overall impressions of the programme so far, and has Aspire helped him in his capacity as a leader? “It’s been a very positive first year. The jury is still out regarding whether or not Aspire has provided all the answers – we haven’t yet established all the questions.

But Aspire will continue to challenge, evolve and develop throughout the life of the partnership. As a leader it provides a route to honest conversations and drawing out answers; a chance to share thoughts. The programme develops additional leadership capacity and helps us to decide our Trust-wide priorities.”

Would he recommend Aspire to every Trust CEO? His reply is open and insightful: “What every CEO should do is consider who is providing their Trust with an external perspective, and additional capacity where necessary.

There is huge value in having the conversation with Aspire – ‘How can we shape our Trust?’. No two Trusts are treated the same, as Aspire is unique to each customer and their requirements. This tailored approach is where Aspire comes into its own.”

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

What does NAHT Aspire involve, and what does it cost?

Whichever Aspire route is taken, the journey begins with a Collaborative Quality Analysis (CQA), which is very similar to NAHT Instead.

The CQA is a two-day joint enterprise, where senior leaders and Achievement Advisers agree a set of judgements against 39 Features of Highly Effective Schools. This allows schools to build on their areas of strength and address those areas in need of development alone, or draw on the resources and expertise of NAHT Aspire Achievement Advisers to assist them in moving forward.

The programme is then delivered through Network Days and in school Development Days.

The cost depends on the size of school and level of engagement; an Aspire component can be as little as £500, through to a full partnership model at £15,000 per year, which approximates to between a half and 1% of a typical primary school’s budget.

WEST BOROUGH PRIMARY: SUCCESS BEYOND THE PILOT Ashley Crittenden is head teacher of West Borough Primary School and Nursery in Maidstone, Kent, which has 451 children and 65 staff. We previously met Ashley in Leadership Focus in May 2016.

Here we update on the progress made.

West Borough Primary School was one of the original pilot school,s with their three-year Aspire partnership ending in 2016. The school subsequently continued to work with NAHT Aspire through continuing partnership on a less intensive basis. At our last meeting Ashley described how the school had benefited from the programme. She detailed how the CQA was identifying strengths and areas of the school for development, the team’s focus on core values, and the introduction of achievement teams to name a few.

In the article Ashley reported her disappointment at the outcome of a 2015 Ofsted inspection that again determined that West Borough”requires improvement”

despite being rated good for behaviour, and outstanding for Early Years.

Well we can now share the encouraging news that West Borough was inspected again in June and has been recognised, rightly, as good overall with outstanding in leadership and Early Years.

Pupil outcomes have continued to climb through 2016 and into 2017. In Ashley’s own words: “I still stand by the fact that Aspire was a vital turning point for us.”

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The NAHT Aspire programme has had a transformational impact on our two schools.

GLENN LIVINGSTONE, EXECUTIVE HEAD TEACHER OF THE GRENESTEDE ACADEMY TRUST IN WEST SUSSEX.

Aspire in action: Elm Park Primary School Nick Brook, NAHT’s deputy general secretary spent time at Elm Park Primary School in Essex in March 2017, and found it to be an excellent example of Aspire in action.

“The walls of Elm Park Primary School are adorned with inspirational and powerful phrases. The word ‘Aspire’ greets visitors as they enter the school’s spacious, modern interior.

While it was no doubt a coincidence that this should greet us, that first impression rang true throughout the visit: everyone at the school was driven to deliver the best education possible, in the smartest possible way. This, Elm Park’s head teacher, Victoria Morris told me, was partly

where NAHT Aspire was helping.

“We pull no punches when talking about the level of commitment and engagement required to make Aspire work; it’s a ‘do-with’, rather than ‘do-to’, programme, and the level of engagement at Elm Park was obvious. It was inspirational to see how the whole school leadership team had embraced the programme with such enthusiasm and passion; even acknowledging that this may have made them come across as incredibly keen at the termly Network Days they attend with other schools in their cluster! We discussed the school’s journey with around 15 staff members, all of whom were enthused, vocal and passionate about the new tools, systems and processes at their disposal.

Nick Brook

“Aspire is clearly well embedded at Elm Park, and has helped guide the school’s improvement journey in recent years. A sense of aspiration now permeates the school – most clearly heard and felt through talking to the many confident, articulate and ambitious pupils we met during our visit.”

WHERE CAN I FIND OUT IF NAHT ASPIRE MIGHT BE RIGHT FOR MY SCHOOL? Find all the details on Aspire at the website www.nahtaspire.co.uk/about/ You can also ring 0844 809 9219 or email info@nahtaspire.co.uk for more information.

ASSESSMENT 14

Onwards and upwards NAHT’s policy wins on assessment this year have clearly demonstrated our influence in Whitehall, but there’s more to be done. Nic Paton explores how NAHT’s powerful assessment campaign will continue to address the culture of high-stakes testing and accountability.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

n Twitter it was branded #SATsShambles, #semicolongate and “spiteful pedantry”. James Bowen, director of NAHT Edge lamented the fact it showed a clear loss of a sense of perspective, and outgoing NAHT general secretary Russell Hobby described it as an indication that our testing system nowadays appears woefully unable to “apply reasonable common sense”.

What are we talking about? July’s media storm over inconsistencies in marking of Key Stage 2 SATs tests for 10- and 11-year-olds of course, and, notoriously, the SPaG tests that marked down pupils for the shape and size of their semi-colons, even though they were in the right place.

“It has got to the point where it feels like the tests are trying to trip the children up. We would much rather shift back to an assessment system where we are celebrating what the children can achieve,” argues Amanda Hulme, head teacher at Claypool Primary School in Bolton, NAHT north west president and chair of NAHT’s assessment

O

group. Her comments epitomise the exasperation many head teachers and teachers feel about the current assessment and testing regime.

“Even the language and the way results are reported now feels wrong. Many children do not achieve the standard, even if they have made a lot of progress, it is just so negative. We also feel there is an important link here between mental and emotional wellbeing; we want children to be able to have a sense of pride in their achievements,” she adds.

However, while there remains a deep sense of frustration among many within the profession at the overly-rigid direction of travel when it comes to assessment and testing, there are glimmers of hope that the Department for Education, under education secretary Justine Greening, may, finally, be listening and becoming more receptive to the views of heads and educational practitioners.

Last October, for example, Greening outlined plans to scrap the government’s hugely controversial plans for Year 7 SATs resits, and promised that there will be no new national tests or assessments until 2018/19. She also promised an end to the use of Key Stage 1 data in league tables, and an end of the Key Stage 1 SPaG test as a statutory requirement. of pupils studying NAHT has also had the full suite of some success in

75%

EBacc subjects by 2020

Above: James Bowen

pushing for revisions to the design of the Key Stage 2 reading test for 2017.

In July, Greening also confirmed that the government’s ambition to have 90% of pupils studying the full suite of EBacc subjects by 2020 – something that had worried many in the profession – had officially been abandoned. Instead, schools will have to meet a 75% target by 2022.

Then, of course, there has been consultation on primary assessment, to which NAHT made a detailed submission, and to which a formal government response has just been published. Changes to the assessment of writing at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, notably a move away from the “secure fit” model and revised teacher assessment frameworks, have also been confirmed this month.

NAHT still has concerns that it will be pushing to be addressed over the coming weeks and months, with the tone and content of the government responses to the primary assessment and Rochford Review consultations likely to be critical. The “mood music” coming out of the DfE appears to be more promising in some areas than others, says NAHT senior policy adviser Sarah Hannafin.

“The gains from the consultation will build on our successes from last year where we were able to cancel the Year 7 SATs resit, make the KS1 GPS non-statutory, prevent a further phonics resit, get the reading test redesigned and prevent the 2016 and 2017 data from triggering formal intervention by itself. One particular

15

ASSESSMENT

Above: Sarah Hannafin

negative is the government’s continued desire to introduce more tests, notably the times tables check.

NAHT will continue to oppose this.”

What the government response says around the future of SEND assessment will be another key focus for debate and discussion, argues NAHT senior policy adviser Ian Hartwright.

“The Rochford Review proposed that the statutory requirement to assess pupils using P scales should be removed. But, in many respects, that could leave SEND as a poor relation. A lot of the profession had invested in P scales,” he points out.

“We broadly support the view that something needs to replace P scales, but that something needs to capture more permanently where children are on the SEN spectrum.

It could perhaps be more of a focus on cognitive learning. But we agree there should not necessarily be a statutory requirement to be reporting these levels to the DfE. “The moment you report, you run the risk that someone will take that performance measure out of context and then distort the curriculum. But it is a really complicated area for different schools and different specialisms.”

NAHT, we all know, has a powerful voice in Whitehall and is influential when it comes to effecting change at the heart of education policy-making. Assessment is, naturally, a key area within this.

No one, for a moment, is suggesting we are anywhere near “job done” but, as Sarah Hannafin makes clear, maybe

NAHT’s policy position on assessment 16

NAHT’s policy position on assessment, updated in May, sets out NAHT’s core aims and aspirations for assessment, testing and accountability. Although it should be read in the context that the assessment landscape is moving fast (for example the government’s decision last October to scrap Year 7 resits), it outlines the following: • The current accountability system has the potential to distort and corrupt the curriculum and the diagnosis of pupil ability and progress. Too great a reliance is being put by government on external tests, particularly for school accountability purposes.

NAHT therefore believes an overemphasis on formal testing can have a negative impact on children and lead to a narrowed curriculum. If we identify compelling evidence that government policy on assessment and accountability continues to be harmful to the health and education of our children, NAHT will explore all options for action.

• Statistical and politically motivated manipulation of test and grade boundaries have harmful and unjust implications for both students and professionals in all phases of education and so is unacceptable in our education system.

• Evidence-based expectations of what pupils need to achieve in national assessments and examinations at any key

stage should be in place, thereby bringing greater fairness, transparency and stability across all phases and from year to year.

baseline but, in principle, it is better to measure progress from the start of school rather than the end of KS1.

• All those responsible for children’s learning should undertake rigorous training in formative, diagnostic and summative assessment. The government should provide support and resources for the development of independently accredited training for school assessment leads.

• We believe the phonics screening check is a poor use of staff time and reduces the amount of quality teaching time that other pupils in the class receive while not being tested. We believe the phonics screening check should be optional. If it remains statutory, it should not be carried out after Year 2.

• The primacy of teacher assessment should be protected, although we agree it should be informed by testing.

• Schools should peer moderate, working in partnership to ensure there is consistency between assessment in schools. External moderation is also an essential element in producing teacher assessment that is reliable and comparable over time, and all schools should take part in such moderation.

• We believe that assessments at KS1 should remain as they are at present, with teacher assessment (informed by tests) as the main focus for end of KS1 assessment and reporting.

• We are opposed to a statutory grammar, punctuation and spelling test at KS1 or KS2.

• We accept a national baseline as a progress measure of the cohort. There are many challenges about a reception

• There needs to be a redressing of the balance between external testing and teacher assessment at KS2, supported by an increase in the use of a sampling model.

We also believe there should be national sampling for all tests at KS2, rather than compulsory testing of the whole cohort.

• Writing must continue to be teacher assessed and there should be no further externally marked testing at Years 3, 4 and 5. Spelling, punctuation and grammar results should not be used for external accountability purposes.

• There is a need to develop a stronger climate of collaboration for the purposes of transition between KS2 and KS3 including increased communication regarding assessment of pupils’ abilities and specific areas for improvement to allow more focused teaching and learning and greater progress in Year 7.

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CASE STUDY – just maybe – we are finally moving away from a climate of #semicolongate, to something more reasonable and sensible.

As she says: “NAHT has had a campaign on assessment for the past two years, and I think it is significant that the government is engaging with us. But while we have achieved some good gains, the job is not finished.

“We hope things will improve further, and our work continues to aim to make statutory assessment proportionate so that members can plan their teaching and learning to be a valuable experience for the pupils, rather than it being distorted by high-stakes testing and accountability,” she adds.

• We welcome the scrapping of resit tests for Year 7 pupils who have not met the expected standard in KS2 tests.

• At KS4, there should continue to be multiple examinations boards available to retain flexibility to meet the needs of different pupils.

• We are opposed to the proposed English Baccalaureate as it stands.

We would argue that those subjects currently included in the EBacc are too narrow and are not the only subjects which are rigorous, demanding and serve as preparation for later life.

• The government must have a national system of judging the performance of pupils working below national norms.

• Clarification and clear guidance is needed on how special schools’ approaches to pupils’ outcomes will be judged by Ofsted. There must be a clear path from those working at the earliest developmental levels through to national expectations, and this should include a review of P Levels.

The Rochford Review proposed that the statutory requirements to assess pupils using P scales should be removed.

• We believe the national curriculum should be fit for purpose for all learners, and that formal qualifications suitable for all learners should be widely available.

SECONDARY VIEW Rob Campbell is head teacher of Impington Village College in Cambridge, a mixed secondary school and sixth form with approximately 1,370 pupils.

“The decision by the government last year that it is going to scrap Year 7 resists was very warmly welcomed. It is significant; the fact the government is going away from that is good.

“But at secondary level there is definitely continued concern about what is going on generally when it comes to assessment, for example what is happening with the EBacc. There are strong concerns about its relevance and applicability across the board. The government has said its target is 90% and, even if that has now pushed the timetable back to 2020, I do not think it can afford to push it.

“I want NAHT to continue to ensure the message conveyed at this year’s annual conference is recognised by the DfE. The message is that we need to have a curriculum that reflects the fact that not all children are going to benefit from a curriculum that is totally focused on English and maths, a couple of sciences, a language and history and geography. There have to be opportunities for children to have appropriate pathways that meet their needs.

“In my school, for example, we have a significant proportion of children with special needs, and for whom Progress 8 is totally inappropriate. We need something that reflects their needs, too.

• Government should conduct a full and thorough review of assessment through the foundation stage, primary and secondary, in advance of the introduction of the additional proposed changes in 2017.

I very much simply want government to be listening to practitioners.

• NAHT (Cymru) welcomes the Welsh government’s intention to create an independently regulated “made in Wales” examination system that is rigorous, robust and valued in and beyond Wales. We call upon the Welsh government to use all possible means to ensure that schools are fully resourced and teachers fully trained to achieve these important national objectives.

In developing such an examination system, there is an explicit expectation that the “currency” of new qualifications is carefully monitored by the Welsh government and Qualifications Wales to ensure pupils/students from Wales are not in any way disadvantaged in comparison to the rest of the UK.

“For example, I have some children for whom getting a 1 will be a miracle. That’s not about lowering expectations, it is the reality. So, it is about having a pathway that is appropriate rather than forcing some children into a curriculum.

“Secondary head teachers will also, undoubtedly, now be digesting the first new numeric 9–1 GCSE grade cohort results, and how these have compared to the old alphabetical system.

“Overall, I very much simply want government to be listening to practitioners; I want NAHT to continue to reach out to and engage with government; I want to continue to ensure that the assessment changes coming through secondary schools do not have a detrimental effect on the children. It is not just the challenge, but the nature of the assessment.”

17

SOCIAL ACTION

SAYING Can your students help drive positive change in the community? There are a growing number of school leaders who think so…

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“As soon as you engage young people in social action their learning outcomes and outputs rapidly improve.”

CAROLINE VERNON, HEAD TEACHER, VICTORIA PRIMARY ACADEMY, BARROWIN-FURNESS.

While you may not be familiar with the term “social action”, there is a good chance it is something that already happens at your school. Put simply, social action is defined as young people taking practical action in the service of others to create positive change.

A 2017 survey by The National Foundational for Educational Research (NFER) found 57% of primary and secondary teachers say that social action is part of their school’s culture and practice.

However, among 10-20-yearolds, only four in 10 currently participate and there is a persistent socio-economic divide, with 20% fewer participants from the least affluent backgrounds compared to the most affluent.

In 2013, the #iwill campaign was launched to address this and make participating in social action

something every young person can benefit from by 2020.

Social action can take many forms and is based on the passions of the young people getting involved and the needs of the community they are seeking to serve. Activities range from mentoring younger students in the playground at primary school, to visiting older people at the local care home, or campaigning for equal opportunities across the globe.

Research from the Behavioural Insights Team shows that social action which embeds six principles leads to improvements in qualities such as empathy, cooperation, resilience, problem-solving and also helps develop a stronger sense of community. Employers are also clear that participation in social action makes for better employees, a point supported by the release in July of fresh Department for Education (DfE) guidance for 16–19 study programmes that recognises social action as a form of work experience.

Why this matters

A recent report on social innovation from The Rockerfeller Foundation suggests that innovation and creative thinking are critical for society to respond effectively to the major societal challenges of our time. The report states: “Due to the complex,

systemic, and interrelated nature of the serious social, economic, and environmental problems confronting us, we need entirely new forms of solutions. Clearly, we humans must learn to think differently about our complex world and to work together in unusual and very strategic new ways.”

Despite living in an informationrich, digital age, young people often report feeling unable to influence global challenges. Through social action they get the chance to identify tangible opportunities to bring about change to the environment that surrounds them.

Perhaps this is why social action is associated with improved levels of wellbeing and reduced anxiety?

Social action in schools

Amanda Spielman, HMCI, Ofsted, says: “To understand the substance of education we have to understand the objectives… education should be about broadening minds, enriching communities and advancing civilization. Ultimately, it is about leaving the world a better place than we found it.” (Festival of Education, June 2017)

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

A recent study carried out by the Harvest Business Review, of more than 400 leaders in UK Academies, found that leaders who achieve long-term sustainable impact on school improvement are those who focus on the school’s role within the community and who look to build partnerships to help their students have an impact.

“In short, they take a holistic, 360-degree view of the school, its stakeholders, the community it serves, and its role in society.”

Effective education leaders already recognise that the purpose of education reaches well beyond academic achievements. Schools and colleges are often exciting melting pots of inspiration and activity where young people have the support, structure and stimulation to pursue their passions and turn their ideas

into action. Embedding social action through the curriculum or wider culture and practice enables young people to support school improvement through the framework of co-production.

Schools and colleges are crucial for encouraging young people from low-income families to participate. Research confirms that for young people from the least affluent families, teachers are the biggest motivation to get involved.

However, teachers in schools serving these communities are 27% less likely to say that social action is part of their culture and practice.

Meaningful social action should be youth-led. However, this requires young people to have the time and space to critically reflect on their environment (school or community) and not only come to a consensus on where they can

Below: Young people benefit from feeling empowered to turn their ideas into action

have the most impact, but also how to go about it.

Last year Ofsted produced a report on “how social action is applied to good effect in a selection of schools and colleges” that highlighted the best examples of social action in the schools they visited. These were designed with the intention of enabling young people to develop the spiritual, social, moral and cultural aspects of their learning with a “golden threa” of developing skills, knowledge and understanding.

The core educational elements of the best examples that Ofsted reviewed were the ability to connect social action directly with the real community issues, with learning opportunities through the planning and ”doing” as well as reflecting on and assimilating learning.

What do teachers say?

When done well, social action will be shaped by the passions, needs and thoughts of young people and the communities they identify with and care about – practices of one school or college are not always directly applicable to another. In 2015, the #iwill campaign convened 100 education leaders from across the UK. Here are their key recommendations on embedding social action: (see overleaf)

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SOCIAL ACTION

PUT YOUTH SOCIAL ACTION AT THE HEART OF YOUR SCHOOL OR COLLEGE

1

• Embed it in your vision and mission • Make it the lens through which the curriculum is learned • Appoint a senior leader responsible for youth social action.

2

INSPIRE AND REWARD YOUTH SOCIAL ACTION

• Recognise and celebrate social action in and out of school or college • Inspire students with role models who are strong social action ambassadors – e.g. peers; exstudents; parents; grandparents • Recruit staff who are committed to social action and inspire other staff members to get involved.

EMPOWER YOUNG PEOPLE TO LEAD THEIR OWN SOCIAL ACTION

3

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• Ask their opinions and harness their passions • Start as early as possible – 5 years old is not too young to make a difference.

4

BUILD STRONG PARTNERSHIPS

• Bring in high-quality providers – e.g. Duke of Edinburgh’s Award; National Citizen Service; etc.

(Combined Cadet Force; Free the Children; UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools Award; The Citizenship Foundation) • Work with local charities and employers to understand the local community and how young people can make a difference.

CASE STUDY North Ormesby Primary Academy INTERVIEW WITH: Chris Kemp-Hall, Executive Principal SCHOOL: North Ormesby Primary Academy (Academies Enterprise Trust), Yorkshire & The Humber, 203 pupils aged 3–11 Despite our students being from one of the most deprived communities in the country, they are the ones driving the social action in our school. Because we have embedded strong values of tolerance and acceptance across the school, social action is at the core of everything we do and has helped us build resilience, creativity and problem-solving skills.

Social action underpins much of our curriculum learning and we often seek out opportunities to link this into wider national and international events – campaigns such as National Literacy Day or Macmillan Coffee Morning. For example, our students recently organised

Social action was a key factor that secured our last judegment from Ofsted that moved us from ‘Requires Improvement’ to ‘Outstanding’

a mini festival where they built dens to raise money for Save The Children.

We see it as a mechanism for handing over the capacity for leadership. We encourage our students to look at their own classroom and what they can do to make it a better place to be. If they feel trusted and can take ownership of their learning environment, they soon realise they can also contribute to improving the school, their wider community and even bigger global challenges.

However, we believe the most value is gained from the day-to-day social action that takes place across the school from having sports leaders running lunchtime clubs, to getting our technology champion students to help train their teachers. An exciting project we’re currently developing in partnership with a local secondary school is using a peer mentoring scheme to get older, more confident students acting as translators and interpreters for our younger students.

Social action was a key factor that secured our last judgement from Ofsted that moved us from “Requires Improvement” to “Outstanding”. Our Ofsted report said: “Pupils not only take increasing responsibility for their own behaviour but are extremely thoughtful and caring towards one another. They enjoy the very many opportunities they have to develop their social skills, for example as members of the school council or prefects who help younger children.”

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

CASE STUDY Barrow-in-Furness Clinical Commissioning Group and local primary schools INTERVIEW WITH: Caroline Vernon, Principal SCHOOL: Victoria Academy (Inspired Learning Multi Academy Trust), Cumbria, 220 pupils aged 7–11

How can your school get involved in the #iwill campaign?

#iwill is a national campaign that aims to make social action part of life for as many 10-20-yearolds as possible by the year 2020. Through collaboration and partnership, it is spreading the word about the benefits of youth social action, working to embed it in the journey of young people and create fresh opportunities for participation.

Hundreds of education partners, along with businesses and voluntary sector organisations, have already made tangible pledges of support – why not join them? Also #iwillWeek is coming up (20–24 November) so why not support your students to develop a social action project as part of this growing UK-wide movement?

To find out more about social action and the work of the #iwill campaign visit iwill.org.uk

Victoria Academy in Barrow-in-Furness has built a successful track history of engaging their students in research in recent years; bringing businesses and schools together to develop meaningful learning opportunities, anchored in life beyond the school gates. So, it was no surprise when their local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) came to them to explore how children could be involved in improving the health of their community.

The area struggles with high levels of obesity and has one of the worst mortality rates in the UK. Public Health interventions that the CCG had tried simply weren’t working, and so an innovative approach to health and wellbeing seemed to be a positive alternative to try.

Working in collaboration, the school and CCG developed a project that would involve six local schools, including two in the most deprived wards, whose Year 5 students (aged 9–10) would become ‘“mini-researchers” into public health and prevention approaches for their communities.

The project kicked off with 300 students visiting a local college for an introductory day, where they learned about key public health issues, such as diet, exercise, smoking and resilience.

After the initial event, four students from each school have acted as representatives for their schools, attending workshops and connecting their peers to the central work of the project.

The project then honed in on one key issue affecting the health of the locality – diet. Each school’s mini-researchers developed their own idea to address not only the diets of the children but of their entire families, extending the positive reach of the project to parents’ wellbeing too. The ideas that came out

of the project varied a great deal from school to school, offering different types of learning and insights to the CCG. One of the schools decided to assess their tuck shop and the impact the snacks they sold had on students’ diets, whilst another launched “make and eat” parent restaurants, to try out affordable healthy recipes they could use at home.

The project will conclude with students presenting their findings to the CCG, offering their recommendations on health improvement from what they’ve learned. The presentations will bring all six schools together in celebration with not only the CCG but local GPs, councillors and leisure services.

The benefits of this work have been wide-ranging, from introducing new schools in the area to the benefits of social action, to empowering students to solve real problems and make a difference. Victoria Academy head Caroline Vernon has observed students becoming more organised learners as a result of taking part in the project, as well as improving their ability to make informed choices about their health and wellbeing. In addition, the multiple school approach has allowed children to meet and work alongside new students, which will greatly support their transition into secondary education.

Following on from the great success of its first year, the project is set to expand in the 2017/18 academic year, with additional schools joining, and a new focus on healthy living through exercise.

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EARLY YEARS

A strong voice for

Early Years 22

Early Years education has the power to instil positive attitudes towards learning, building confidence and resilience in young children. JUDY SHAW , chair of NAHT’s Early Years Sector Council, outlines what the council has achieved in its first year, and sets out key priorities for the future. arly Years is a unique and vital phase of education.

During these first years, we lay the foundations upon which later learning and success is built.

If we get it right, we have creative, confident, curious learners who are fully engaged in their learning. We introduce children to the joys of exploring and investigating, trying ideas out without fear of failure, learning actively. We are helping them engage by learning the skills of concentration, perseverance and resilience.

If we get it wrong, children simply will not thrive and flourish. They will not have the positive attitudes towards their learning and those characteristics of effective learning that are taught and developed so well through the foundation stage.

E

The key point here is that those areas have a huge and crucial impact on later learning outcomes.

In setting up the Early Years Sector Council last year, with its varied mix of school leaders and EY experts and academics, we have been able to establish our priorities and our views and contribute to the conversations with a clear, strong, positive voice.

Through a council dedicated to EY issues, we are able to fully explore, debate and swiftly respond to DfE initiatives and policy proposals, as well as the concerns of members.

It is a very diverse sector, and while most NAHT members are working in school-based settings, it has been crucial to establish positive and productive relationships with those organisations representing

settings within the private and voluntary sector. It has been great to meet with representatives from the Pre-School Learning Alliance and PACEY, and to share ideas and campaigns openly and positively.

We have been welcomed wherever we have spoken this year.

We were proud to contribute to the APPG on Maintained Nursery Schools. We have also met with the Department for Education and with representatives from Ofsted, and contributed to discussions and consultations around inspection and accountability, assessment, workforce reform and funding.

I have been amazed and impressed by the amount of incredibly high-quality, evidencebased research that exists into so many aspects of EY education and the impact it can have on a child’s life chances. It has been a pleasure, for example, to work with Save the Children in their campaign for a high quality nursery place for every child.

We know so much about how young children learn, how to provide a curriculum that gives the best opportunities, how to observe and

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

EARLY YEARS – OUR KEY PRIORITIES

JUDY SHAW

is chair of NAHT’s Early Years Sector Council, and head teacher at Tuel Lane Infant School, Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire.

assess their learning and how to ensure that adults working in every EY setting have the training, skills and knowledge to teach and nurture our youngest children. The role of our council is to ensure policies and initiatives from those in power are informed by this wealth of research, knowledge and wisdom and are evidence-based rather than driven by political ideology.

If we get it wrong, children simply will not thrive and flourish.

FUNDING As in all phases of education, funding has been a major priority so far this year for the Early Years Sector Council. We know from our members who work in Early Years that they are facing significant financial pressures, and this is why we campaigned so strongly at the end of last year for additional funding for maintained nursery schools.

Naturally we were delighted when the government responded to this pressure and announced an additional £50m a year until 2020. While we want to see an ongoing commitment from the government to fully fund maintained nurseries, this was certainly good news for this part of the sector. Moving forwards, a definite priority for us will be to continue to campaign for full and fair funding for Early Years.

30 HOURS FREE CHILDCARE OFFER The other major challenge facing the sector this autumn will be the rollout of provision for 30 hours free childcare. While we support the introduction of this, we do have some serious concerns about how the policy has been implemented, and we’re acutely aware of the financial pressures this is placing on all EY providers. At times, the policy appears to have been ill-thoughtout, without proper consideration for the sustainability of providers, particularly maintained nursery schools and PVI (private, voluntary and independent) settings.

Even the most well-intentioned ideas cannot work without sufficient funding.

Concerns have also been raised within the council that the introduction of the 30

hours policy for the children of working parents may inadvertently make it harder for disadvantaged families to access good quality EY education, particularly in areas where places are in short supply.

We also know that access to clear information for families and providers has been challenging. Registration and eligibility checks are complex and administration less than clear, causing confusion all around. Many of our members have found it incredibly hard to find out exactly how many families want to take up the offer, which has made planning a real challenge. We will keep a watchful eye as the initiative is rolled out, and seek the views and experiences of members in the coming months.

ASSESSMENT One of the thorniest issues the council has wrestled with this year has been that of baseline assessment. We are careful to consider this within the broader context of primary assessment, and in light of the the government’s recent primary assessment consultation. However, members of the council have been clear that we must recognise what is appropriate for young children. We agree with the view that progress should be valued over attainment, and that some form of baseline at the start of school is therefore necessary.

The current system which takes the end of KS1 as the starting point of progress clearly fails to recognise the critical work schools do with their youngest children.

With this in mind, we broadly support a baseline that is developed in consultation with the profession. We would not advocate formal testing at such a young age and would support a more observation-based approach carried out by familiar adults. We believe this should include aspects of personal and social development, and the characteristics of effective learning which we know to be key indicators of later attainment of all areas of learning.

We’re also clear that the results of any baseline should not be used to hold EY teachers to account, nor to set targets for a child’s future performance. Of course all of this should be seen in the light of the longterm NAHT view that data should only be part of the picture when judging school effectiveness. Any measure based on data alone will never tell you the whole story.

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EARLY YEARS

EARLY YEARS SECTOR COUNCIL: KEY FACTS

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WORKFORCE REFORM Earlier this year I was delighted to meet with Professor Cathy Nutbrown, who is a leading authority on the EY workforce.

Her expertise has helped to shape the council’s thinking in this area. We have a longstanding position at NAHT that a qualified teacher should lead the learning in every EY setting. And we also believe that EY teachers should hold QTS and that their training should reflect this. We read with interest the government’s recent workforce reform strategy, and look forward to continuing to engage with the DfE on this to ensure that the EY providers have access to highly trained and skilful professionals.

We’re clear that our youngest children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, deserve the very best professionals working with them.

NEXT STEPS Our congratulations go to Robert Goodwill, the newly appointed Early Years minister, and to Tracy Brabin, the new Early Years shadow minister. We hope both will be champions for Early Years. We look forward to meeting them and would hope to share and celebrate

the great practice and expertise within the EY sector, make them aware of our concerns and campaigns, and as ever with NAHT, offer reasonable, evidencebased, alternative ideas and solutions.

In the coming months the Early Years Sector Council will continue to fly the flag for EY education issues that matter, making full use of NAHT’s press and communications channels to keep raising our profile. An exciting development for us has been the planning of an Early Years conference, and this is now taking place in Birmingham on 6 October (see panel). The one-day event will celebrate the uniqueness of Early Years, and it will be both inspirational and full of practical advice and support. We are looking forward to meeting colleagues from all parts of the country for what promises to be a really fascinating and rewarding event.

High quality Early Years education makes a difference and changes lives. It can raise expectations and aspirations in families and communities, and have a longlasting impact on life chances. We urge the government to continue to invest in the future of our youngest children. That investment will pay the highest dividends.

● Set up: June 2016 ● Chair: Judy Shaw ● Deputy chair: Karina Hanson ● Members: 11 and one vacancy ● Number of meetings each year: 4.

Main policy areas:

● 30 hours free childcare ● Baseline assessment ● Supporting the early years workforce/ workforce strategy ● Nursery schools and their long-term viability.

EARLY YEARS CONFERENCE: ‘CELEBRATING AND SHARING THE PRINCIPLES OF HIGH QUALITY EARLY YEARS PROVISION’ NAHT has launched a brand new Early Years conference for October 2017. Experts will lead workshops around current thinking and evidencebased research, new initiatives, inspection and accountability, and Early Years pedagogy and practice. The conference is taking place on 6 October 2017 at Maple House, Birmingham.

CONFIRMED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS ● Michelle Dyson, Early

Years director, Department for Education

● Sue Robb OBE, head of Early Years, 4Children

● Gill Jones, HMI, deputy director Ofsted, Early Education

● Professor Kathy Sylva, honorary

research fellow and professor of educational psychology at the University of Oxford; Effective Pre-school and Primary Education Study and Parenting Research

Full content and details of workshops can be found on the NAHT website www.naht.org.uk/welcome/naht-events/conferences/early-years-conference-2017/

ASBESTOS

The fight against

asbestos

We’re helping school leaders tackle the deeply challenging, complicated and under-funded issue of asbestos removal from schools.

NIC PATON speaks to experts, and asks what school leaders can do to protect pupils and staff from asbestos in school buildings

26

hen your life depends on it, you use asbestos”. These words are horrifying to read now, but they are an original “sell” from an advertisement from the 1970s for the World Trade Center in New York.

In fact, a quick internet trawl reveals precisely why the fireretardant qualities of asbestos meant that it was for so long considered something of a wonder material, both in the home (asbestos-based oven gloves or dining table pads, anyone?) and, crucially, within buildings. In fact, what better way to protect our children from the dangers of fire than by incorporating asbestos into the very fabric of the buildings in which they are studying and working?

Of course, nowadays we know – tragically – much, much better. Far from being a wonder material, the growing recognition of the health risks posed by exposure to asbestos, even at low levels – especially asbestos fibres getting into the lungs and causing the untreatable cancer mesothelioma – meant it was banned from being used in any building constructed after 2000.

The problem for schools, and school leaders, is that much of the school estate dates from before that

W

time. In fact, there are thousands upon thousands of so-called ”system built” schools around the country that date from the 1950s to the 1980s, including, for example CLASP (Consortium of Local Authorities Special Programme) prefabricated school buildings. In many of these asbestos was an integral part of the building fabric, incorporated into everything from fireproofing through to floor coverings, ceiling tiles, wall panels and doorframes.

“About 85% of schools in the UK contain asbestos,” points out NAHT senior policy adviser Ian Hartwright.

“If it is sealed, and as long as the fibres cannot be released, then it is fine. But the problem is that much of the school built estate is already well past its sell-by date, and the asbestos panels and materials are now crumbling or degrading.

“Another difficulty with a lot of schools is that the asbestos is often accessible, so it can be damaged by children or staff. In every school you’re going to get bags banging against walls, doors being opened, shut and slammed and so on. Asbestos may be hidden in floors and walls or in ceiling cavities. But it can also be in railings, stairs, door and window frames. It also depends on, say, the quality of the ceiling, for instance if

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

ASBESTOS IN SCHOOLS B NUMBERS BY

86%

Percentageof of Percentage sschools estimated estimatedto tohave have schools bui buildings that that contain containasbestos asbestos buildings

319

Estimated Estimatednumber E number of of teacher deaths from mesothelioma dea deaths from mesothelioma since 198 since (however occupation 1980 1980 (however occupation is not is not recorded for deaths reco recorded for deaths amongaged those ofaged over figure 7474) so so thisthis figure in athoseover inrreality realityisislikely likelytotobe behigher) higher a ceiling ceiling tile tile were were to to be be disturbed disturbed, will that release asbestos fibres?

“So, it is really important that school leaders and teachers know and understand where there is asbestos in their school. They need to know not to, for example, stick drawing pins in the wall made of asbestos panelling for Christmas cards or decorations, as that might release fibres,” adds Ian. “Asbestos in our schools is a ticking time bomb, but it’s unfortunately one that not enough school leaders and parents are aware of,” agrees Labour MP Rachel Reeves, chair of the Asbestos in Schools group and, since July, also chair of the influential House of Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee.

“The government is too complacent on this. I have and will continue to push for a phased removal of asbestos, but in the meantime, it is vital that asbestos is managed well to mitigate the risks of exposure.

Raising awareness of this amongst head teachers and governors, and more generally, is an important part of my role as chair of the Asbestos in Schools group,” she adds.

Clearly, knocking down every pre-2000 school building around the country and starting again

from from scratch scratch is is unrealistic unrealistic. But But, Ian Hartwright argues, one of the big issues for head teachers is we don’t even have a comprehensive picture of the exact scale of the problem, let alone a national plan of what to do about it.

Earlier this year a report published by the DfE’s Education Funding Agency concluded that approximately 20% of schools they surveyed (in a voluntary survey) were “not fully compliant” with asbestos procedures “in that they did not have fully documented plans, processes and procedures in place at the time of the data collection, or did not know if asbestos was present”. In more than 100 schools, asbestos was of “significant cause for concern”, it added.

A report by the National Audit Office in February also concluded that “asbestos is a significant, and potentially dangerous issue in many buildings, including most schools”.

Worryingly, while it argued the DfE’s understanding of the condition of the school estate in this context was improving, this was “from a low base”. Equally worrying in the current financial climate, it calculated it would cost in the region of £6.7bn simply to bring all school buildings up to a “satisfactory or better” condition.

17 17

Number Number of of teachers teachers aged aged under under 74 74 who who died died of of mesothelioma mesothelioma in in 2014 2014 (compared (compared with with three three per per year year in 1980).

1980).The Thetotal totalnumber numberof of in support staff staff deaths deaths is is unknown unknown support

200300

Estimated Estimated number number of offormer former pupils pupils who who die dieeach eachyear yearas as adults adults because because of of exposure exposureto to asbestos asbestos at at school school during duringthe the 1960s 1960s and and 1970s 1970s

Over Over

100 100

Number of of schools schools for for which which Number asbestosisisof a “significant asbestos “significant cause for for concern”, concern”,according accordingto tothe the Department Department for for Education’s Education’s Education Education Funding Funding Agency Agency

27

ASBESTOS 28

And that’s, of course, without even considering the human cost, given that it is estimated 319 teachers have died from mesothelioma since 1980, with the likely figure much higher, as occupation is not recorded in deaths of people aged over 75. Yet mesothelioma can take at least 40 years to present after exposure.

And then there’s the fact that an estimated 200–300 former pupils die as adults each year because of exposure to asbestos while at school during the 1960s and 1970s.

“About 17 teachers die from mesothelioma each year,” points out Gill Reed, a former NUT health and safety rep in the London borough of Brent and now technical adviser to the Joint Union Asbestos Campaign (JUAC), of which NAHT is a part.

JUAC held an Asbestos in Schools conference in July, where six key campaign positions were articulated.

“What we are calling for is for the government to ensure its guidance for asbestos risk assessment and surveys takes into account the impact of water ingress on asbestos.

Earmarked funding for the removal of unsafe asbestos should be available, if necessary. Guidance has improved since 2015, but there is still a long way to go,” Gill emphasises.

“Schools should make sure they are complying with DfE

WHAT IS MESOTHELIOMA?

Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that develops in the lining that covers the outer surface of some of the body’s organs and is usually linked to asbestos exposure.

It mainly affects the lining of the lungs (pleural mesothelioma), although it can also affect the lining of the stomach (peritoneal mesothelioma), heart or testicles.

Asbestos fibres can easily get into the lungs, where they get stuck, damaging the lungs over time. However, because it usually takes time for this to cause any obvious problems, mesothelioma typically develops more than 20 years after exposure to asbestos.

According to the NHS, more than 2,600 people are diagnosed with the condition each year in the UK. Most cases are diagnosed in people aged 60–80 and men are affected more commonly than women.

In July, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published its latest statistics as to the number of people known to have died of the disease in 2015.

This concluded that past exposure to asbestos killed 2,542 people in Great Britain in 2015, compared with 2,519 in 2014.

Because of the long time-lag from exposure to diagnosis, these figures are a reflection of the fact many people were exposed to asbestos before 1980. However, annual deaths should begin to decline after this decade as exposure to asbestos has gradually become less prevalent, the HSE has argued.

guidance on asbestos surveys and risk assessments. Duty holders of schools that have substantial asbestos, like system-built schools, should invite an asbestos consultant who has particular knowledge of that model of building to advise on asbestos management, including the impact of building deterioration, maintenance and renovation.

Be proactive,” she advises.

“This is something the government cannot ignore; the buildings are deteriorating all the time, and nearly half of them are nearing, or are at the end of their life expectancy. The risk to pupils is high,” she adds.

However, it also has to be remembered that, when we talk about “government” in this context, devolution has complicated the picture, as NAHT Cymru policy director Rob Williams explains.

“The big debate in Wales for the past couple of years has been: whose responsibility is it? Education is devolved, but health and safety law is not. The Welsh government and the English government disagree about who should be taking responsibility for this. So, we just need some clarity, with no blame attached, as to what duty holders should be doing,” he highlights.

“As a new head, within the first few days of starting the role, I undertook

an induction with the local authority asbestos unit, which talked me through the plan and survey of the school and my responsibilities as a duty holder,” he recalls. “For example, to ensure contractors understood the issues on site and were properly supported. But, I suspect that is probably not the case anymore in all local authorities or schools.

“What you need is a visual plan to highlight where asbestos is located, whether in the floor or ceiling tiles or wherever, so that, if any maintenance or building work is undertaken, there are forms and processes that have to be gone through to make sure the contractor, staff and pupils are safe and that the conditions can be adequately monitored.

“You should think of it on a par with child protection and safeguarding, as that is what it really is – and it is everybody’s business.

Being informed is so important, yet head teachers have so many things they have to make sure they and staff are informed about. And then the moment parents hear the word ‘asbestos’, that creates huge fear everywhere,” Rob advises.

This fear factor can be a real issue in terms of how, as a school leader, you go about even talking about asbestos without terrifying parents and potentially scaring off valuable

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

HOW THE GRENFELL TOWER TRAGEDY MAY CHANGE THINGS

The Grenfell Tower tragedy in June – now, of course, the subject of a public inquiry – has cast an urgent spotlight not just on high-rise tower blocks and social housing, but the wider public built estate, including schools.

In July, for example, the Department for Education asked schools, further education colleges and universities to carry out building checks following the Grenfell fire.

This renewed focus on, and debate around, built infrastructure and health and safety could, in turn, mean there is an opportunity to encourage government to redouble its efforts

around asbestos within schools, argues NAHT’s Ian Hartwright.

“In light of Grenfell, asbestos is something we are now pushing quite hard. We feel, with the emphasis on health and safety post-Grenfell, there may be an opportunity to get some movement on this. There is strong support among the opposition parties,” he says.

“This is another disaster waiting to happen, a long-term disaster, but a disaster nevertheless,” he adds.

However, as campaigner Lucie Stephens also highlights, any individual post-Grenfell response by schools around fire safety – and somewhat ironically, considering that the original use of asbestos was to mitigate against fire risk – will need to

Left: Phoebe Osborne

teaching staff, agrees Phoebe Osborne, a solicitor with Ashtons Legal in Cambridge, who has worked on many asbestos-related cases.

“School leaders do not want to prejudice themselves in the employment market. And this is compounded by the fact that there is no budget for them to do anything anyway, to ensure they are adhering to their duties as duty holders. I was sitting the other day with a head teacher who said, ‘I have no money for books, let alone remedial work for the school’,” she explains.

“People do not like to be told anything adverse about the school where they’re sending their children or where they work. As soon as you say you have approved asbestos removal work, people are very reluctant to go back to

School leaders do not want to prejudice themselves in the employment market.

And this is compounded by the fact that there is no budget for them to do anything anyway.

take very careful account of the potential asbestos-related risks that any intervention or change could generate.

As she says: “Grenfell could, of course, now draw some attention to it [asbestos] but, in fact, if people rush to fit, say, sprinkler systems, then there is a risk this will simply disturb asbestos in the process.”

This is another disaster waiting to happen, a long-term disaster, but a disaster nevertheless

that school, and that’s something that worries head teachers.

“I have had a few parents from our Anglia Asbestos Disease patient support go up and ask about seeing the asbestos register, but more often than not they do not want to be thought of as somehow a ‘troublemaker’ parent, or they worry their child is going to be treated differently as a result. It’s the same thing with teachers applying for jobs at schools. They should really ask to see the asbestos register but, again, they don’t want to be thought of as ‘trouble’ or jeopardise their chances of getting a job.

“At the moment, things are not very transparent. It is about educating all staff and pupils; but it has to be much wider than simply a high-level conversation. It has to be out in the open in the same way as any other health and safety issue.

For example, it is not just about ensuring the contractor is being supervised properly, it is whether the school cleaning team that goes in afterwards has also been given proper guidance,” Phoebe advises.

“In terms of financial settlements, these normally depend on the earnings or pension at death, whether there is loss of earnings or loss of pension. For a retired person in receipt of State Pension, it could be £120,000 to £150,000.

For someone in, say, their mid40s or mid-50s with dependent children and a partner you might be talking more £300,000 to £500,000,” she also calculates.

What, then, in practical terms (and given the financial constraints all schools are under) can school leaders do?

One of the best practical courses of action is simply to engage with your local authority, whether or not you are within a MAT (which we will come to shortly). For example, since 2012 Nottinghamshire County Council has been proactive in running asbestos training sessions with schools, as Bob Watt, the council’s property asbestos/ condition specialist explains.

“We have a list of every school in our area and every head teacher and, if they have not attended, they get an invitation to do so. We have approximately 250 schools in our region, and we are now into single figures of those who have not attended.

“The sessions explain about asbestos and talk people through how the process should work. So, if, as a school, you are thinking about doing some work, this is where you find out information, this is what you need to be thinking about, and this is how it will fit into the overall inspection regime. It is about having a risk management process that

29

ASBESTOS 30

NAHT’S POSITION ON ASBESTOS IN SCHOOLS

NAHT has long argued that the safe management of asbestos in schools is imperative to ensuring the safety of pupils and staff.

As a key member of the Joint Union Asbestos Campaign NAHT is campaigning for the government to take more action to achieve this, including for: ● Data to be collected centrally on the extent, type and condition of asbestos in schools, and that this should become an integral part of the data collection of the condition of the nation’s schools. ● The government to develop a programme for the phased removal of asbestos from all schools, with the priority being given to those schools where the asbestos is considered to be most dangerous or damaged. ● The government to set standards around asbestos training, and requiring this training to be mandatory and properly funded. ● The Department for Education, and Health and Safety Executive, to review the “trigger” levels for asbestos fibres present in schools to reflect the particular vulnerability of children to asbestos exposure, and to develop air testing that can measure these levels. ● The government and schools to work together to encourage a policy of openness so that parents, teachers and support staff can be annually updated on the presence of asbestos in their schools and the measures that are being taken to manage it. ● A proactive inspection regime to be reinstated so as to determine the standards of asbestos management in schools as well as to ensure that poor practice is identified and staff and pupils protected.

ensures people are not exposed.

“I suggest three things. First, make sure that you have a register and that it can be accessed and viewed. Second, make sure you have your local Asbestos Management Plan in place. Third, make sure you know your building – so which bits were built before or after 2000, which parts have been surveyed before, and so on?” Bob advises.

“Of course, as a head teacher, you’ll have 77 other things to be juggling every day. So, it is also about making sure you have support on this from your team.

Who, for example, lets contractors in through the front door – perhaps the site or office manager – are they up to speed on all this?

“Also, let teachers know, and don’t forget supply and support staff and teaching assistants. If you have a CLASP building, you may know that you shouldn’t lift any ceiling tiles, but has anyone told the teachers when it’s time to hang up the Christmas decorations from the ceiling? Do you, too, have an induction process for supply teachers? Do you keep a record of who has undergone asbestos-related training, and when it took place?

“It is also important to have an exposure record system, especially as it may take 15–20 years for someone to get in touch about a claim. If you can show someone had been told not to lift ceiling

Left: Bob Watt

tiles, and that is what they did, then that is going to make the defence of any claim that much more straightforward. It is all about good record-keeping,” Bob adds.

One complication, however, is that the rise of academisation has meant the leverage and oversight role that local authorities have over schools to ensure they follow and implement an asbestos code of best practice is being eroded. Nevertheless, as Bob Watt points out, head teachers are accountable. “They are responsible for making sure this all happens, because, at the end of the day, it is their neck on the block.”

Indeed, Bob is at pains to highlight that many MATs, especially larger ones, do have good policies and procedures in place, and do still make use of available local authority expertise. “In Nottinghamshire, for example, we offer schools that hav hat have ave

As a country, of course we cannot afford £100bn – or whatever it would cost – to rebuild the whole school estate from scratch. But we ought to know about the extent of the problem and the extent of the risk.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

converted the option of continuing to work with us, on a fee basis off course.

“We can provide an audit and point the school in the right direction. The responsible person has to make sure that it has the right edures in place policies and proce to ensure the children, em mployees and contractors are all protectted, regardless of whether it is an academy or county school,” he adds.

NAHT is working hard to support members concerning asbestos, both at an individual level and at a national, campaigning level. At an individual level, this means supporting member claims concerning illness/ personal injury from asbestos and sharing and disseminating latest best practice information.

At a national level, NAHT’s role as a member of JUAC allows it to press the DfE and Health and Safety Executive on asbestos management within schools. More widely, NAHT’s campaigning stance on school

fund ding is, argues Ian Hartw wright, helping to o open a valu uable deb bate about where the money is going to come from to hellp school lea aders tack kle the deeply cha allenging an nd complica ated issue surrou unding the e future of ourr school built esstate.

And it is a deb bate that urgen ntly needs to be had, he e emphasises. “As a country, of course we cannot affo ord £100bn – or whatever it would cost – to rebuild the whole scho ool estate from scratch. But we ought to know about the extent of the problem m and the ex xtent of the risk, and th here ought to be a programme of phase ed removal. It is, I feel, an urgent priority y.

“We do not want our members and governing bo odies to be left holding the reins off this, because it is not their fault. Th here should be egister, and a national asbestos re it should be openly pub blished. If we’re not careful head teachers are going to be blamed for something that is not the eir fault.”

Useful resources

Th here arre a hostt off too ols and d re esources you can make use of, for yourrselff, fo or yo our tea ach hin ng sta afff, and for yo our go overniing or Trrustt board d.

• The go overn nmen nt’s offic cial asb besstoss man nagement gu uidanc ce ww ww.go ov.u uk/g gove ernm ment/public catio ons/ asbe estos-m mana agem mentt-in n-sch hoo ols s--2 2 • The He ealth and Safetty Ex xecu utiv ve, too o, hass a ra ange off usefu ul too ols an nd FAQ Qs www.h hse e.g gov.u uk/ serv vices/ /educa ation/ /asb besto os-ffaqs s.h htm • NAHT T’s own n adviice fo or sc choo ol le eaderss www.n naht.orrg.uk/ /welc come e/ad dvic ce/ /adv vic cehome/p parents s-and--pup pils-a adviice/ /asb bes sto osmanagem ment-in n-scho ools/ / • Hellpful guiidance and advic ce iss pro ovid ded d by the Asbe estos in Schoo ols gro oup, whiich can n be e fo oun nd att www.a asbesto osexpo osure escho ools..co.u uk/ / • Informa ation fro om JU UAC www w.juac c.orrg.u uk/ / • Modern n Govern nor hass laun nche ed a free e assbe esto os in schools e-learnin ng too ol, pro oduc ced in asso ocia atio on HT and JUAC and the In nde epen nde ent with NAH Asbestos Training g Prov viderss Asssocia atio on www.mode erngove ernor.c com/ /asb besto os-iin-s scho ools/ /

“MUM WAS TORMENTED BY THE THOUGHT THAT HER PUPILS MAY ALSO HAVE BEEN EXPOSED TO ASBESTOS, AND THAT SHE HAD NOT BEEN ABLE TO PROTECT THEM” Lucie Stephens has been an energetic campaigner concerning asbestos in schools ever since her mum, Sue Stephens, a former primary school teacher, died of mesothelioma last year.

She has launched a petition urging the government to do more to protect children and staff from asbestos exposure in schools, which has attracted approximately 11,000 signatures. Her own Freedom of Information requests have suggested there have been at least 115 incidents of asbestos disturbance in schools in the past five years alone.

“My mum was a teacher for 30 years, in primary schools in Buckinghamshire.

She primarily taught reception to Year 1, and loved it even if, by the end of her career, she was feeling teaching was becoming increasingly bureaucratic.

“She retired six years ago and, with my dad, moved to Devon. They were always busy and very healthy – there was lots of walking the dog on Dartmoor.

But then, in 2014, she found a lump.

Initially we thought it might be breast cancer, because it was on her chest.

“When she was diagnosed with mesothelioma, it knocked us all for six.

Mum had not been ill at all before then, so it was a really hard to take; we had never even heard of it, so it was huge learning curve. Historically, mesothelioma used to be a disease associated with industries such as shipyards, and very much a cancer that men tended to get.

“Within 18 months she was dead. Mesothelioma is a horrible, horrible disease. There is no cure. If it is caught early enough there are some surgical options, but mum already had it on the lining of her lungs. She had chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but it was only palliative.

“When she got the diagnosis, we were all horrified when we realised that it might have been caused by exposure to asbestos at the schools in which she worked. She taught for many years in an old temporary classroom, which has since been demolished.

“It was a grim building and she used to do whatever she could to brighten it up – putting up pictures and displays on the walls, hanging things from the ceiling and so on – anything to make it a more inviting space for the children.

“It used to leak from time to

31

Above: Sue Stephens

time, and at times it was repaired. There was even one time when, through colleagues, she heard that asbestos was being removed from the school – but it was never closed while that was going on. So there were, clearly, a number of periods when it is likely that she was exposed to asbestos.

“But the thing that used to make mum most angry was that she taught approximately 900 children in that classroom. She was tormented by the thought that those children may also have been exposed to asbestos, and that she had not been able to protect them.”

Lucie’s petition can be found at: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/ petitions/protect-our-childrenand-teachers-from-asbestosexposure-in-schools

SCHOOL LEADERS’ PLANN SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER THURSDAY 2

FRIDAY 8

DYSLEXIA K EE AWARENESS W

International Literacy Day

THURSDAY 14 L

Exploring academy status

WEDNESDAY 4

Pupil premium: making and costing the case

L

L

Being Ofsted ready

B

FRIDAY 22

FRIDAY 6 Early Years conference

Half-day briefings (primary assessment and school funding)

DAY 26 European Day of Languages

Developing your school’s mental health provision

THURSDAY 28 Assessing pupil progress for those working below the standard L of national assessments: life beyond the Rochford Review

STOP

FRIDAY 10

ROAD SAFETY W

31 OEcRt S

EEK

TEACH fE COVERED BY D AL IS STAFF APPRA S TO REGULATIONITTEN R RECEIVE A W EPORT R L APPRAISA ATE

BY THIS D

World Science Day B

SATURDAY 11 Armistice Day

L

MONDAY–SUNDAY 13–19 Anti-Bullying Week

THURSDAY 12 HR essentials for the school leader

B

Moving towards joining or forming a Multi-Academy Trust

M

TUESDAY 17 Half-day briefings (primary assessment and school funding)

THURSDAY 16 Retirement or working longer

L

Appraisal and difficult conversations

L

MONDAY 20 L

Universal Childrens’ Day

TUESDAY 21

WEDNESDAY 18 Exploring academy status

LE

Leading effective assessment in your school

L

FRIDAY 20 Child development in the Early Years

B

Half-day briefings (primary assessment and school funding)

Y

Benchmarking: an important starting point for school efficiency

TUESDAY 31

M

THURSDAY 23 Retirement or working longer

LE

Leading school safeguarding

L

FRIDAY 24 Primary conference

Half-day briefings (primary assessment and school funding)

B

B

WEDNESDAY 11 School financial health and efficiency

L

THURSDAY 9

TUESDAY 10

Jeans for Genes Day

20–27 Nov

Securinglong-term financial viability for your school

World Teachers’ Day

Appraisal training for new appraisers

L

WEDNESDAY 8

THURSDAY 5 Autumn School Census Day

THURSDAY 21

M

TUESDAY 7 Benchmarking: an important starting point for school efficiency

Walk to School Day

TUESDAY 19

Leading effective assessment in your school

B

THURSDAY 30 T

Strategic leadership of SEND

L

NER: WINTER AND SPRING ME L L U P ANDON T U O ME L K C I ST E WAL TH

DECEMBER

FEBRUARY

MARCH

THURSDAY 1

THURSDAY 1

HR essentials for the school leader

L

Developing excellence in learning and teaching with NAHT Aspire

M

THURSDAY 8

FRIDAY 2 SUNDAY 31

Developing excellence in learning and teaching with NAHT Aspire

Head teachers’ performance management to be completed

Securing long-term financial viability for your school

School financial health and efficiency

COUNTS ACADEMY AC TED TO TO BE SUBMITTION THE EDUCA S AND SKILL NCY FUNDING AGE

THURSDAY–FRIDAY 8-9 SEND conference

TUESDAY 13 Effective workforce deployment

JANUARY

FRIDAY 16 L

THURSDAY 15 Being Ofsted ready

L

THURSDAY 11 Exploring academy status

L

THURSDAY 18 Spring School Census Day

WEDNESDAY 24 Moving towards joining or forming a Multi-Academy Trust

M

FRIDAY 26 Strategic leadership of SEND

Mental Health conference

L

Developing excellence in learning and teaching with NAHT Aspire

L

WEDNESDAY 31 Deadline for publishing academies’ annual accounts on Trusts’ websites

r a M 1 3 R DEADLINE FO

SUBMISSION OF SCHOOLS’ E ALU FINANCIAL VSFVS) STANDARD ( ED

BY MAINTAIN SCHOOLS

B

TUESDAY 30

L

B

TUESDAY 13 Benchmarking: an important starting point for school efficiency

S

B

FRIDAY 9 Capturing theTeenage Brain conference

M

B

TUESDAY 6

c e D 1 3 R DEADLINE FO

National Offer Day for secondary schools

Assessing pupil progress for those working below the standard B of national assessments: life beyond the Rochford Review

TUESDAY 20 Effective workforce deployment

M

Developing your school’s mental health provision

B

21 Mar WORLD POETRY DAY THURSDAY 22 Academies and financial control

L

KEY > NAHT conferences NAHT courses Key school event dates National awareness dates B

LOCATIONS Birmingham LE Leeds L London S Stoke-on-Trent T Tiverton

V i s i t : w w w. n a h t . o r g . u k /e v e n t s Contact: events@naht.org.uk

M Y

Manchester York

PUBLIC SECTOR PAY

WAGING WAR on the pay cap Teachers are facing a seventh year of real-terms pay cuts at a time when we are heading into a full-blown recruitment crisis. NIC PATON reports on the impact this is having in schools, and looks ahead to NAHT’s campaigning plans on pay.

“ 34

am grateful to the STRB (School Teachers’ Review Body) for these recommendations and, subject to the views of consultees, I intend to accept all the key recommendations.”

With these apparently relatively anodyne remarks to Parliament on 10 July, education secretary Justine Greening condemned teachers to what the BBC termed continued “austerity pay limits”. NAHT found the news deeply disappointing.

Politically, despite being firmly in line with the government’s longterm stance since 2010 of keeping public sector pay tightly capped, Greening’s decision to accept the STRB’s recommendation of an

I

overall 1% pay rise and up to 2% for main pay scale teachers only was intriguing on a number of levels.

First, of course, there was the fact it came within days of the general election result, the outcome of which had led to very public political soul-searching on the future of the public sector pay cap, with senior Conservative cabinet ministers such as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt all musing out loud as to whether now was the time (finally) to throw some extra cash at public sector workers.

Second, at the time of writing, indications suggest we may yet see some moves by chancellor Philip Hammond in the autumn Budget to loosen the purse strings

in future by changing the 1% pay policy remit of review bodies.

Third, Greening’s decision apparently flew in the face of both a report just days earlier from the Office of Manpower Economics that the teaching profession has seen average pay fall by £3 an hour in real terms, and NAHT’s consistent warnings that teachers have already experienced an 11.5% pay cut in real terms since 2010, and even concerns from the STRB itself.

While the STRB had little option but to recommend what it did, given the cap in place since 2010, it also warned in its report that maintaining the cap in this way could lead to a “real risk that schools will not be able to recruit and retain a workforce

The current schoolteachers’ pay system is in an overly complex, underfunded mess that currently serves no one well.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

CASE STUDY

“PAY EROSION LIKE THIS MAKES PEOPLE FEEL UNDERVALUED” Rachel Younger is a school business leader in St Nicholas Church of England Primary School in Blackpool, which has 400 children and employs approximately 50 staff.

“We are lucky to have very dedicated people, very dedicated staff, and I am sure all schools would say that. No one, in my experience, goes into teaching for the money. You go into teaching for the moral imperative behind it – to do the best for children. People are going to continue to do their job for the children, regardless of whether their pay is capped or not.

“However, what pay erosion like this does is it makes people feel undervalued, not just within the school and education, but within society in general.

“The review body never talks about SBL pay because it says it is not within its remit.

NAHT is asking for this to be included because we are keen to have pay parity with other school leaders. I can see a recruitment issue with SBLs to be honest; we’re not there yet, but as the role becomes more and more demanding, it is attracting more people from the private sector because they offer the sorts of skills schools increasingly need. You’re not going to be able to attract those people if pay isn’t at least at parity.

“It is that the pay cap needs to be lifted; it is just as simple as that. We all understand that public money is limited, but this is not just one year; it has been year after year after year. It has been, in effect, a pay cut, a pay cut that just eats at how people – dedicated people – feel.

We feel undervalued and it would be good if the government were at least to recognise that this is an issue.

“It also feeds into the whole issue surrounding school funding and budgets, as schools cannot afford unilaterally to raise the cap by paying their staff more. We are struggling as it is to manage our budget, with extra costs such as rising pensions and the apprenticeship levy to factor in. For the last four years, we have had less money per pupil; each year it has decreased.

“We have drawn on our reserves for the last few years, but that option will run out in a year’s time. It is very worrying.

The cap needs to be lifted and schools need extra funding to pay for this.”

of high quality teachers to theory of performance-related support pupil achievement”. pay progression. But this should It warned: “Between now and not be confused by the need for all 2020, many schools will face both pay points to be uplifted to reflect real-terms reductions in the level increases in the cost of living. And of per-pupil funding and growing it simply will not work if it is not cost pressures. Difficult choices properly funded.” may be inescapable.”

A further issue within this is What, then, should head the question of pay levels for teachers make of this and, senior leaders and head teachers crucially, where will the pay battle themselves. lines now be drawn as we look to Valentine makes the point: the autumn and beyond?

“What we would like to see is “The current schoolteachers’ an overall review, not only of pay system is an overly complex, classroom teachers’ pay but also underfunded mess that currently leadership pay, which was not serves no one well,” summarises talked about at all in the latest Paul Whiteman, NAHT general review. The review body did not secretary. explain why its recommendation “We want to make the case that should not apply to all teachers. there should be a lift in public So, we need an overall review sector pay; there should of pay, for all teachers, be a proper review,” including leaders. agrees NAHT And we will be Between now and head of policy fighting to end 2020, many schools Valentine the public will face both realMulholland. sector pay terms reductions in The NAHT’s cap.” the level of per-pupil focus through Another funding and growing the autumn important cost pressures. (including message whatever NAHT will Difficult choices may comes out from be looking to be inescapable. the Budget) will get across – and now broadly be in members may need three areas, she contends: to be thinking about how First, NAHT will be pushing for a they articulate this locally – is pay framework that reflects what this needs to be communicated the pay level should be “and which and perceived as being about redresses the real-terms cuts we government, not school, purse have seen and the impact this has strings, highlights Guy Dudley, had on attracting and retaining NAHT senior specialist adviser. people”, argues Valentine.

“This is not – must not become – a fight against you, the head Importantly, second, any teacher. This is a fight between pay increase “should be fully teachers and government, but the funded, and not from the existing danger is that head teachers are school budget”, she adds. This right in the middle,” he warns. is especially relevant given that “What we need to be doing the current 1% rise will have to be is highlighting the impact funded from within already eyethis continuing cap is having wateringly strained school budgets, on schools, on school teams undoubtedly compounding the and, most of all, the quality of dismay felt by many head teachers the teaching and the learning (and school business leaders) when experience our school children are they look at trying to square their getting because of the effect this pay pressures with their wider has on recruitment and retention. financial situation.

“When teachers’ pay is eroded Third, as Valentine highlights, in this way, teaching is seen as less in the past few years there has been an invidious blurring by the professional; teaching is seen as a less attractive career destination. A DfE of the cost of living increase lot of our brightest young people with performance-related pay.

As she argues: “We support the now take a twin-track approach

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PUBLIC SECTOR PAY 36

to their career and so, if teaching is not working out financially, they’re going to jump ship and go somewhere else,” Guy points out.

“Then there is the wider question of whether it will lead to the quality of teachers schools are able to attract, suffering. When Ofsted comes around, if the reason a school has failed is because it cannot recruit quality teachers, that needs to be addressed. On top of that, there is the issue of people not coming into the public sector more generally or, once they are in, retiring early,” he adds.

This, in turn, may mean head teachers and school business leaders needing to become even more innovative and creative in terms of how to look to attract, motivate and incentivise their teams.

“Heads are going to have to think of ways to attract people into their schools, whether that is non-cash benefits, such as CPD, or career advancement opportunities, such as wholeschool responsibilities and TLRs. I also think head teachers will need to think carefully about retention as well as recruitment strategies; how to help head

teachers retain the talent they have,” advises Guy. “Succession planning is also likely to be valuable here. If people can see school leaders are planning for the future – and they are a part of that – they are more likely to stay.

Equally, heads should be looking at how better they can use and value their older staff. Often the knowledge and vast experience of an older teacher can disappear with them when they leave or retire.

“As well as pushing for better pay, head teachers need to be putting together a whole suite of policies and interventions to attract, retain and engage their existing employees. That is one thing that is already in their gift.

“So it is about looking at innovative ways to support their more mature workers. And that might be things such as ensuring there are flexible working opportunities – which also, of course, can be valuable for those juggling caring responsibilities – or even flexible retirement. Or they might, for example, be able to coach, induct or mentor other staff,” he adds.

What, however, about Wales and Northern Ireland?

As well as pushing for better pay, head teachers need to be putting together a whole suite of policies and interventions to attract, retain and engage their existing employees.

While devolved pay to the Welsh government is due to become a reality in Wales – perhaps even as soon as autumn next year – NAHT’s position is to view such a development with an extreme level of caution and even suspicion, argues NAHT Cymru policy director Rob Williams.

“In truth, we would have preferred not to have it devolved because there is a risk of regional pay by the back door, especially now that academies can set their own pay levels. We cannot have a situation where people in Wales and England are being paid significantly differently, as that could lead to a potential brain drain,” he warns.

“The cap has had the same effect in Wales as anywhere else – it has led to a whittling away of teachers’ pay. The message it sends out is that, irrespective of how successful or how good you are as a teacher, you deserve no reward. The government talks about trust and investment in the profession, but does not back it up with tangible action.

“Members are, rightly, very animated about it. It is a flawed system, a broken system, one that is overly directed by ministers and others – it has just become a talking exercise. There needs to be an honest conversation about what is happening about public sector pay and, within that, what is happening about pay for school leaders. We need to invest in leaders, but I am not sure leaders at the moment feel they are valued.

“As a head, my job was never about money; it was about doing the best for the pupils in my care.

But, as a country, if you want the best for your children, you do have to invest in those who are going to make the difference for them, and that is not the case at the moment,” he adds.

Within Northern Ireland, as Leadership Focus went to press, pay negotiations were still ongoing and no agreement had yet been reached for 2017.

“Members didn’t get any cost of living increase for 2015, but they did receive 1% in 2016. Basically, in times of ever-increasing pressure, members are not receiving the

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

CASE STUDY

“IT IS DRAINING FOR PEOPLE TO FEEL SO SQUEEZED WHEN THEY WORK HARD” Marijke Miles is head of school at Baycroft School, a special needs secondary school in Stubbington, Hampshire, which has approximately 180 pupils and employs 70 staff.

“I think the pay cap has had a real impact for special school colleagues in terms of how valued, or not, they feel. All teachers, but especially special school teachers, give enormously of themselves; there is a massive emotional investment in their work.

They are often dealing with challenging, stressful, even dangerous situations.

“There is a perception through the yearon-year flattening of pay that teachers are not valued; there is a dissonance here between the value we, as a society and as schools, put on caring for our children, especially our most vulnerable children, and what we are prepared to pay for it.

If we are not prepared to pay people properly, then it is essentially buying care for children at the cheapest rate.

“It is draining for people to feel so squeezed when they work hard. I was talking to a Unison representative colleague recently who told me that TA members are admitting to having to go to food banks because they simply cannot feed their family on the wages they are on. If the government is effectively forcing us to buy our staff at Poundland rates, then that is not good enough for our children, especially our special needs’ children who need the best and most talented staff, at all levels, to ameliorate their disadvantages.”

“Teaching has an ageing population anyway, and the pressures on teachers are enormous, especially balanced against family care commitments, and are not going away anytime soon. We will not be able to attract people into the profession, people will not see teaching as a viable career, if pay can’t even keep pace with inflation.

“Of course, no one enters teaching for the money, but if it is not going to allow you to meet your basic life aspirations, then I don’t think we will be able to attract the people we need and, moreover, those we do have, will leave in droves.”

relevant increases to which they are entitled. As in England and Wales, we are seeking an end to the 1% Treasury-imposed pay cap,” points out NAHT (NI) policy director Helena Macormac.

“However, we still have no government here as the political talks have not led to a resolution.

This means no education budget has been set, so there remains a great deal of uncertainty. But whatever happens we know there will be cuts and this will more than likely have an impact on pay,” she adds.

FURTHER BATTLES TO COME

Paul Whiteman feels there is a moral element to the public sector pay debate. “At one end, the government believes that

it’s morally right to continue with the cap so that debt is not stored up for future generations,” he points out.

“I don’t buy that – it’s just stubborn political rhetoric. The stronger moral argument is that until teachers’ salaries reflect how important they are, schools will always be at the back of the queue when it comes to attracting and retaining the highest quality staff,” he adds.

One way or another, and however the political landscape shifts in the coming months, NAHT and members on the ground have a serious battle on their hands to articulate the value – monetary and otherwise – of the teaching profession and the corrosive effect that the continuation of the 1% cap is having.

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SCHOOL FUNDING

School funding in crisis

38

We re-launched our funding campaign on 12 September – this time named ‘School Funding Still in Crisis’ - and held a Parliamentary Briefing to inform MPs of the devastating effect school cuts are having on frontline education. Now we’re calling on the Chancellor for action

“

At the moment, schools don’t have enough money. It’s as simple as that. School leaders know it, teachers know it, governors know it, parents know it,” said NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman as he opened our Westminster event to relaunch our school funding campaign earlier this month.

The well-attended briefing, held in the Houses of Parliament, was a chance for school leaders to meet MPs from all parties to help them understand the damaging effect that budget cuts are having on the quality of education.

Throughout the evening, NAHT members talked about the drastic measures they are being forced to take to balance

budgets that are now beyond breaking point. These include redundancies, a narrowing of the curriculum, an inability to invest in vital equipment, and a reduction in extra-curricular activities.

Among the most heart-breaking stories was the testimony of Clem Coady, an NAHT member from

Above: NAHT members at the funding campaign relaunch in Westminster

Mobilising parent power is key.

Parents are concerned and if that concern is mobilised and channelled effectively, when the Budget comes, we will see success.

Cumbria. He said, “My own children go to the school where I’m the head. I was faced with a situation where I had to make the teaching assistant in my own son’s class redundant because of the cuts to my budget. At the end of last year, I had to let the caretaker go. Now I do his job as well as my own. I came in over the summer holidays to paint the classrooms myself.”

The event was attended by dozens of NAHT members, all with similar stories to tell. And they had a receptive audience. Around 20 MPs from different parties turned up to hear for themselves what effect school cuts are having on the front line.

Earlier in the day, the government had announced

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

Above: Paul Whiteman, NAHT general secretary, (right) talks to MPs Ian Mearns and Emma Hardy.

that the Autumn Budget would take place on Wednesday 22 November, giving the speakers gathered in Westminster a greater focus for their campaign work.

From now until then, NAHT’s #TellTheChancellor campaign invites members, governors, parents and others to write to the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, to lobby for more money for schools.

Jack Dromey, Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington sponsored the event for us, and he had a rallying call for everyone in the room. “We must bring alive the consequences of underfunding”, he said. “Mobilising parent power is key. Parents are concerned and if that concern is mobilised and channelled effectively, when the Budget comes, we will see success.”

Many other speakers agreed that parent power was a key element of the next stages of the campaign.

As Paul Whiteman said, “I know that parents are right behind us. I was lucky enough to be at a rally of parents in Westminster in July.

The £1.3bn from Justine Greening

was announced 48 hours after that, as it happens, so that proves what parent power can do.”

While the DfE announcement was welcomed by many, all the speakers were clear that the money wasn’t sufficient. Nor were there any commitments to increase funding for the long term. NAHT’s goal is to secure fair and sufficient funding for all schools, with at least £2 billion of new money every year, providing enough to raise the 1% public sector pay cap and to make a success of the new national funding formula.

Although the impact of cuts weighed heavily on the minds of everyone in the room, there was also a sense of optimism. Closing the event, Anne Lyons, NAHT’s national president, remarked, “I have a feeling of hope that there are MPs who are going to support us and I don’t often feel that. It’s only by working together that we can make a difference.” Addressing the MPs in the room directly, she said: “Tonight, I hope we’ve given you food for thought and ways to apply some pressure, and ‘Tell the Chancellor’ that school budgets are still at breaking point.”

JOIN THE CAMPAIGN We are asking school communities to work together to highlight the impact the lack of funding is having now, and to call on the Chancellor for increased investment.

• Take to Twitter and Facebook and tell the Chancellor why more money needs to be invested in education using the hashtag #TellTheChancellor and follow the campaign via @NAHTnews.

• Write to your MP using our template letter.

• Write a letter to parents using our template letter.

• Attend one of our regional events.

For more information on the campaign, template letters and details of our funding events visit: www.naht.org.uk/fundingcrisis

HELP IS AT HAND THIS APPRAISAL SEASON

Most school leadership teams will be busy with appraisals during the autumn term, and are likely to be reviewing pay and appraisal policies and arrangements for the 2017/2018 academic year.

“This year, the task of managing the pay review process and pay recommendations will be particularly challenging for school leaders,” says Guy Dudley, senior specialist adviser at NAHT. “It is important to remember, however, that the (broken) pay system you have to work with is a product of government; it is not of your making.”

We recommend devoting a little time to creating a pay narrative, for all staff, to help them to understand the arrangements you’re putting in place. Staff are more likely to accept what you’re telling them, and support you if they understand the context of the pay arrangements, and the constraints under which you’re working.

To help you control costs, and explore options to maximise income for your school, we’ve put together a model pay policy, a pay policy guidance to help you navigate through the overall pay process, and a model staff appraisal and capability policy.

These can be found in the advice section of the NAHT website. We hope these tools will support you through your next steps.

USEFUL RESOURCES FOR APPRAISALS Find these documents on www.naht.org.uk • Our pay policy guidance (England) for 2017 • Model pay policy 2017/18 • Model staff appraisal and capability policy 2017

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LIFE MEMBERS 40

Continued protection with NAHT Life

In retirement it’s important not to lose all the support you received in your working life. NAHT Life membership can help provide the reassurance you need and could give your social life a boost.

AHT Life offers members the opportunity to continue membership of the biggest union for school leaders in retirement. In this way it’s possible for us to continue supporting these members, ensuring they receive excellent trade union services as they enjoy the retirement years.

Life membership provides retired colleagues with the reassurance that, should any action be taken against them, arising from their time in service and as a full member of NAHT, we will be there to help, providing legal advice and representation to achieve the best result. We can also help with questions regarding pensions, and we provide full access to the NAHT website (including the Life Member landing page) newsletters, magazines and social media. Other benefits include access to the NAHT counselling and support line, and a variety of services from affinity partners, some of which we are currently

N

reviewing with the National Life Members Committee (NLMC).

“Membership of NAHT Life also allows retired school leaders to continue to play an active volunteer role within NAHT regions and branches, if that’s what they want to do,” says Steve Iredale, chair of NLMC, and a Yorkshire region executive member. “NAHT Life members, who currently make up a third of the NAHT membership, play a vital part in the association in regions and branches in many different guises. Their involvement is helping shape the future of this association. For those still “NAHT active”, roles include playing a leading part in their branch, supporting and encouraging colleagues who are still in school leadership, offering wide ranging experience and guidance, and being a listening ear. There are also a growing number of Life members’ social groups appearing.”

Steve says he and fellow members of the NLMC want to ensure that Life members remain vocal within the organisation and beyond, whether or not members choose to still be involved.

“This is our focus as we look to improve our communications via the NAHT website, newsletters, blogs and social media, and play a supporting role at a national level within the NAHT Executive. Your voice matters!”

TO FIND OUR MORE VISIT WWW.NAHT.ORG.UK/LIFE OR EMAIL MEMBERSUPPORT@ NAHT.ORG.UK The NLMC communication and development officer is Michael Wilson. If you have any ideas or suggestions please contact Michael on the following email address northwest@nahtofficials.org.uk

Follow NAHT Life on Twitter @NAHTLifeMembers

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

OPINION

PAUL WHITEMAN: General secretary 2017/18

The meaning of leadership s I begin my first academic year as general secretary, I’m reflecting on what it means to be a leader.

NAHT’s heritage and reputation mean that I’ve got a fantastic platform to build on but it does feel a bit like I’ve been given the keys to an Aston Martin and told not to scratch the paintwork on my first drive.

Maybe you felt the same the first time you got the keys to your school.

Of course leadership isn’t easy and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.

There will always be times when you will seriously doubt yourself – you will wonder if you really have “what it takes”.

Lots of the members I’ve met since starting at NAHT nearly five years ago as director of representation and advice have told me how they’ve had plenty of moments when they felt hopelessly out of their depth. The key is to remember that pretty much everyone in a leadership position experiences this at some point.

My advice to new leaders taking up post this September is to take the time to build a strong network of support. That is what I am doing across NAHT. Leadership can never be a one-person show – it is vital that you surround yourself with the right people.

When I look around the association, I feel very lucky. I see leaders everywhere. Everyone has the potential to make a difference, to make a contribution, to have an impact. The challenges of providing your team with opportunities to shine and take responsibility are always outweighed by the positives.

A

For me, it’s about asking “can we do it better?” Can we make tomorrow better than today or yesterday? When I’m up in London at the DfE or talking to other policy-makers, that’s the question I’ll be asking them; on funding, on assessment, on inspection, and on recruitment. Whether leading a school or a trade union, the quality and style of your leadership makes an enormous difference.

Leaders set the tone, establish the vision and, critically, they make the weather. How a school leader chooses to interact with colleagues, pupils and parents plays a major part in determining the culture of the school. People watch their leaders carefully and, either consciously or subconsciously, take their cue from them. In schools where the leaders display characteristics such as trust, empathy and aspiration, you are far more likely to find it replicated in the wider school community.

Above: Paul Whiteman

When I look around the association, I feel very lucky. I see leaders everywhere. Everyone has the potential to make a difference, to make a contribution.

This responsibility can feel somewhat daunting for a new leader and there is no doubt that it takes enormous courage to step forward and to lead in the first place. I salute all of you who are making that leap for the first time, and all of you who are making that leap again for yet another rollercoaster academic year.

As Anne Lyons says elsewhere in this issue, NAHT is here to back you up when leadership becomes difficult. We’re also here to keep you out of difficulty and show you new ideas and perspectives. Throughout October and November we’ll be hosting a series of events to brief you on the changes to assessment and school funding. These briefings will be book-ended by our Early Years conference on 6 October and our Primary conference on 24 November. Take a look at the NAHT website for details on how to book and do try to get along to one of these events if you can. I hope to see you there, or at one of the many visits to schools and branches that I‘ve already got in the diary.

From Westminster to Cardiff, to Belfast and all points in between, I’ll be covering a great many miles to understand and represent the views and needs of all our members. Now I think about it, I might leave the Aston Martin at home and take the train. Just in case.

41

MNDA

Help for families coping with Motor Neurone Disease If a student’s parent or grandparent is diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) you may be looking for ways to support them. The MND Association has a wide range of information and services that will help hen a family member is diagnosed with MND, it’s very likely that any child or young person involved will be worried about the way things are changing. If one of your students has a parent or guardian diagnosed with the disease, the emotional impact will be huge, and home life will become disrupted over time, as a loved one begins to show symptoms and needs specialist care. If a grandparent is diagnosed, there could also be emotional distress, and lots to learn about, and cope with for the wider family. As the illness progresses, relatives – including children – may need to help out with extra tasks, or in some rare cases they may become the main carer, at the same time as going to school.

The MND Association works incredibly hard to ensure no one in this position feels alone. The charity provides a wealth of information to help children understand what MND is, how it develops, and what can be done to help the people they love.

MND Association’s age-specific resources (see right) have been designed to reassure children. These include a workbook to encourage conversations about the situation at hand, and a telephone helpline called Young Connect.

There is also practical help available including family events where those affected can meet other families learning to live with MND, and a Young Person’s Grant offering financial support. These grants of up to £250 are made available to help young people close to someone with MND. They can be

W

42

JACK’S STORY

Jack Purdy is now 13 and started fundraising in 2015 when his grandfather was diagnosed with MND. Through contact with the MND Association he has learnt a lot about the disease, and has taken part in Silence Speaks every year since its inception and raised a magnificent £866.14 from

used to help pay for a laptop or smartphone, a day out with the family to build a special memory, or to have a bedroom decorated to create a calm environment.

“With a vast number of fundraising activities and campaigns taking place throughout the year and a great deal of awareness-raising about the disease, our aim is to improve the lives of all those affected, including children whose parents and grandparents are diagnosed,” says Oli Hiscoe, community manager at MND Association. “The more money we raise the more specialist support we can offer, and if schools can help children access these resources, so much the better.”

MND ASSOCIATION’S RESOURCES FOR CHILDREN

• When someone close has MND – An interactive workbook for 4–10 year olds to enable a trusted adult to talk to a young child about MND, at a speed that feels appropriate.

• So what is MND anyway? – A guide about MND for young people and young carers.

• Supporting children and young people close to someone with MND – For any professional working with children who have a parent, guardian, grandparent, or close relative with MND. • 4A Communicating about MND with children and young people – An information sheet on how to help children and young people understand what is happening when someone close is diagnosed with MND.

JUSTGIVING

• Dedicated webpages - Providing information about MND, support options and news for children and young people. www. mndassociation.org/ypinfo

NAHT is supporting the MND Association this year, as our chosen charity, after our close friend and colleague Colm Davis was diagnosed with the disease.

If you would like to make a donation in his name, please visit our JustGiving page at www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ Colm-Davis

this fundraiser alone, along with his school friends at Top Valley Academy in Nottingham.

Jack’s school has been very supportive and invited him to give a talk about MND in assembly.

The school received an award for their charity work, which Jack had the pleasure of accepting from the Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire.

Jack says: “My granddad was an amazing person, he would have helped anyone and everyone.

When he was diagnosed I didn’t have a clue what MND was, but the it Association sent out an information pack explaining MND. My granddad went downhill very fast towards the end. He inspired me

• Young Connect helpline offers information and support on all aspects of MND – 0808 802 6262 and youngconnect@ mndassociation.org • Young Person’s Grants – MND Association offers a grant of up to £250 to support young people aged 18 or under who are affected by MND. Call 01604 611802 or email support.services@mndassociation.org • Family support events – Contact your nearest MND Association branch or group to find out more. www.mndassociation.org/ getting-support/local-support/

to fundraise because I didn’t want other people suffering like he did. I also wanted to do something because most people have not heard of MND. Now, nearly everyone in my school knows what it is, and that is what I wanted to achieve. I will always fundraise for the MND Association.”

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

ROB WILLIAMS , director of policy at NAHT Cymru, highlights his current priorities as we head into the new academic year.

Funding

NAHT Cymru will be undertaking a number of regional events for members and non-members during the autumn term 2017. We will also be aiming to launch our school funding campaign during the sessions. Please come along to make use of the information provided and to get involved – look out for further details this month for the event nearest you.

Curriculum and assessment

The Welsh government has said that reform of the school curriculum in Wales will lead to further changes to qualifications – but has stated that it is too early yet to say exactly how much will need to change. Current thinking is that the GCSE brand will continue, but that individual qualifications may need to change to reflect the demands of the new curriculum.

Given that significant changes to qualifications have already taken place in recent years, this again presents a huge challenge to schools trying to adapt to any new specifications while aiming to ensure stability for the students going through such a dynamic examination landscape. A period of less change is needed very soon if school leaders and teachers are to be able to embed the new curriculum and assessment practices, including qualifications, for the benefit of children and young people.

Accountability

An independent review of the role of Estyn in supporting education reform was announced by the cabinet secretary for education Kirsty Williams and the chief inspector, Meilyr Rowlands.

Professor Graham Donaldson

WALES POLICY

Wales – policy update Evidence submissions to consultations and inquiries

NAHT Cymru contributes to numerous Welsh government consultations and inquiries undertaken by Welsh Assembly committees.

A key element of our responses includes evidence supplied by school leaders.

Forthcoming evidence requests include: WELSH GOVERNMENT CONSULTATIONS: ● School Organisation Code.

This consultation seeks views on: • Revisions to the code reflecting feedback; • Propsals to strengthen the presumption against closure of rural schools in the Code.

will lead an analysis of evidence on inspections, looking at how standards can be best improved and what Estyn can do to improve and develop its own practices. Professor Donaldson has previously carried out reviews of education systems in Australia, Portugal, Sweden and Japan.

The review will also look at the impact of education reforms on the inspectorate. The initial stage of the review began in August and a report is due to be published in early 2018.

On 17 July 2017, the cabinet secretary released a written statement about Assessment for Learning. In it she announced some significant changes that should potentially affect current performance measures and accountability streams for schools.

She stated: “I would like to inform Assembly members that I intend to consult on ceasing the publication of teacher assessment and National Reading and Numeracy data below the national level from 2018 onwards. Using data from assessments designed to support the individual progress of children should have no place in a highstakes accountability system.”

Kirsty Williams says her aim now is to consult this autumn on the implications of introducing this and other changes, and NAHT Cymru will of course play its part in the consultation process.

CHILDREN, YOUNG PEOPLE AND EDUCATION COMMITTEE ● Inquiry into Teachers’ Professional Learning and Education – in particular, two areas related to the new professional standards for teachers: • Proposed implementation timescale; will teachers across Wales have the necessary time and resources to be able to genuinely match the descriptors of the new standards by September 2018?

• Is there, or is there likely to be, enough support and training available to help teachers transition to the new standards? ● Inquiry into Emotionally Resilient Children and Young People – focusing in particular on the “Together for Children and Young People Programm” (T4CYP) a multiagency service improvement programme aiming to reshape, remodel and refocus the emotional and mental health services provided for children and young people in Wales. The inquiry will consider: • How effective the T4CYP programme has been in promoting the resilience of children and young people through early intervention and prevention.

• Access to specialist CAMHS and the next step for CAMHS; whether we have seen the “step change” in CAMHS that is needed.

As a part of the above evidence-gathering, a survey will be launched on “Links with education (emotional intelligence and healthy coping mechanisms)” which will remain open throughout September – seeking views from school leaders, teachers, support staff and pupils.

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TECHNOLOGY

Virtual Wonders Virtual Reality apps can enhance learning, and prepare students for a future fu u dominated by technology.

We look at the latest developments in AR and VR in the classroom

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GETTING STARTED

VR VIEWERS Google Cardboard > Cost: £5.99 Google Daydream > Cost: £84.99 Samsung Gear VR > Cost: £99.99 Facebook Oculus Rift > Cost: £549 HTC VIVE > Cost: £759 t’s not often you can let your pupils loose on the ice sheets of Antarctica, or the surface of the moon. With Virtual Reality (VR), these amazing field trips become possible – in augmented form – and British pupils are already benefiting from using headsets and VR apps to look around 360-degree environments in far flung locations.

School leaders are citing enhanced engagement, improved retention, and the ability to block out common classroom distractions. So it’s not surprising this simulation-based technology is considered one of the biggest learning trends for 2017.

“Using VR in the classroom inspires pupils to use their imagination,”

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Above: Google Expeditions allows a class to don headsets and take part in the same VR experience, controlled by their teacher

says Julian Wood, deputy head teacher at Wybourn Community Primary School in Sheffield. “They can swim with turtles in the Great Barrier Reef, climb Mount Everest or walk with dinosaurs. By allowing pupils to have ownership over these amazing virtual experiences, they are engaged and motivated to complete better work.” Julian will be hosting a masterclass session at the EduTech Show on 6 October, looking at how Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) can be utilised in the classroom, and which apps are best for this purpose. His view, as an enthusiastic user, is that such strong imagery will stay with the children for a long time, helping

them to be more creative in their writing and artwork. “And I think that by immersing them so completely in an environment, it gives them greater empathy and understanding.”

Ubiquitous US tech giant Google is considered to be leading the way in classroom-based VR tools and software to deliver these experiences.

Over 1 million British pupils have been able to visit global locations without leaving the classroom using Google’s Virtual Reality Expeditions app which launched in 2016. Pupils wear VR goggles while their teacher uploads a series of landscapes that allow the children to look around in every direction, having a fully immersive, 3D experience. The teacher is also given the resources to explain what they are seeing along the way, and Google says it will be offering VR training to teachers to show how this technology can be used in a variety of ways to enhance literacy.

Headsets or smart phones?

Early VR experiences required expensive headsets, and indeed some schools – largely in the independent sector – have invested in Head Mounted Displays (HMD). These fully wearable headsets, such as the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, make

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

VIRTUAL REALITY APPS TO TRY King Tut VR – Explore the tomb of the legendary

Egyptian king and get lost in the secret chambers full of hieroglyphics and treasures.

it possible for the wearer to click control buttons for more interactivity, so that text appears, or movement into new areas is possible, for example. Today each headset costs in the region of £500 and you would need a powerful PC and decent IT support to get set up for successful lessons, so it’s unlikely that state schools can take this route.

The good news for schools is that you can enjoy a pretty good VR experience using smartphones, which can be turned into immersive devices using the latest educational apps. Pick up a budget headset such as Google’s Daydream View, the Samsung Gear VR, or even the simple Google Cardboard. Smartphones with low cost self-assembled VR viewfinders make it possible for schools to set up units for £5 to £10 each. Children can use their own smartphone, or take turns using a classroom phone or tablet.

VR experiences are also accessible through laptops. Although lacking the full sense of immersion that a headset provides, the popularity of tools like Minecraft hint that students enjoy being in 3D graphical spaces, whether wearing a headset or not.

Developments coming thick and fast

Certainly education technology firm Lyfta believes its unique offering brings additional educational value to the VR classroom experience. Lyfta’s virtual reality “storyworlds” invite pupils to explore new places and meet real people who live or work in those places, intellectually and emotionally engaging students in the personal stories and life situations of the people they meet. There’s a clear focus on global citizenship.

“When deciding what to feature we think very carefully about the curriculum, what students need to learn specifically, and how we can create meaningful and memorable experiences to help teachers who wish to explore certain themes and

topics,” explains Serdar Ferit, cofounder and co-CEO of Lyfta. “We look for really interesting, positive stories and we aim to meet specific learning objectives.”

The company has 60 schools in the UK and Finland using its learning platform. The real-life stories are built on 360-degree photography, and use Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technology, and are supported by detailed lesson plans, activity guides for teachers, and a library of artwork for students to access. Students can view the storyworlds – such as “the Awra Amba Village Experience” in Ethiopia – via headsets or through classroom computers and tablets.

Dora Plant, head teacher at Ashbrow School in Huddersfield, says the interactive documentaries her school trialled on the Lyfta platform provide an educational resource “which provokes pupils into thinking about people, places and the issues society faces”. She says: “The provocations help learners to poignantly imagine different futures, inspiring them to better understand the part they can play in creating a fairer, sustainable legacy.”

It costs around £3 per pupil, per year, to have access to the Lyfta platform, and (at the time of writing) schools in England can get the platform free for a year, via that Global Learning Programme which was set up to encourage schools to adopt global learning in schools.

There is an argument that these tools would also help children with special educational needs. “I feel that neurological research is needed to see how children react to this very different way of seeing and learning,” says Ferit. However he also makes the valid point that increasingly children are accessing VR headsets at home for use with computer games, so the novelty factor is likely to wane. He also hopes the computer game industry’s fast-tracking of the technology will not undermine

InMind – Travel into the brain and learn about neurons and brain tissue.

Apollo 11 VR – Students can have a front seat in this documentary style app, hosted on the Rift platform.

Earth AR – Motion detection and zooming

capabilities makes geography more interactive.

Anatomy 4D – Study the human body with clear images that come to life.

Sites in VR – Explore famous landmarks including ancient cities in all their splendour.

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Above: Students explore Lyfta’s ‘storyworlds’

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VR AND AR? Virtual Reality (VR) is an artificial, computer-generated simulation or recreation of a real life environment or situation. It immerses the user by making them feel like they are experiencing the simulated reality first-hand, primarily by stimulating their vision and hearing.

Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that layers computer-generated enhancements over an existing reality in order to make it more meaningful through the ability to interact with it.

the value of its use in education.

“Our concern is that more funding will go into developing artificial reality technology for use in violent computer games and entertainment, rather than in trying to make valuable educational tools,” he says.

For now the future looks bright for virtual learning. BT’s popular Tech Factor competition for 2017 revealed that schools are increasingly looking to bring new, sophisticated tech products into the classroom, in particular VR headsets, robotics and coding tools. In fact the number of schools asking for VR technologies increased threefold from 2016, as a clear trend for using VR headsets to enhance learning emerged over the last 12 months. Research by SuperData predicts that by 2020 the total global market for VR technology will be worth $40bn. If it helps children enjoy new experiences and develop social and empathy skills, VR could well be worth plugging into.

A LEGAL VIEW

I changed jobs in September. How will this affect my continuous service for legal rights?

NAHT solicitor SIMON THOMAS answers your legal questions.

Is it lawful to detain children in “safe” or “calming” rooms against their will?

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This is a question which has vexed and frustrated school leaders – as well as other professionals – for some years.

Several areas of law are relevant including Human Rights (article 5, the right to liberty), false imprisonment, assault, and use of force under Education and Inspections Act 2006.

In a motion to 2017 Conference, NAHT has been calling for coherent guidance from DfE/Ofsted.

The legal focus is often on the difference between a deprivation of liberty which is unlawful unless properly authorised, and a restriction of liberty which may be lawful – if it is reasonable and necessary.

The difference between deprivation and restriction is not easy to identify and tends to be a question of degree and intensity. There is little clear guidance and the cases which reach the courts tend to be quite extreme.

Another difficulty is that what is lawful may not necessarily be “acceptable” to Ofsted. Their Guidance on Inspecting Safeguarding in Early Years, Education and Skills Settings (August 2016) says under Signs of Successful Safeguarding that the use of any restraint significantly reduces or ceases over time (section 4.15).

The legal focus is often on the difference between a deprivation of liberty, which is unlawful unless properly authorised, and a restriction of liberty which may be lawful.

Following Martin Narey’s report similar words were removed from the Social Care Common Inspection Framework (SCCIF): Boarding Schools and Residential Special Schools (February 2017).

Sir Martin Narey recognised (in the context of residential care) that “exceptionally the use of restraint on particularly challenging children might not reduce over time”. 1 While we await guidance we can draw a number of conclusions from case law and the guidance that is available: • Risk assessment (which can if necessary include “dynamic” risk assessment) is key to being able to justify a restriction.

• use of “seclusion” or “safe” rooms will not necessarily amount to a deprivation of liberty or an unlawful restriction of liberty.

• A confinement of a young child may be less likely to amount to a deprivation of liberty than an older child.

• The duration and frequency of the confinement is important and should be kept to a minimum.

• It should never be used as a punishment.

• It should not be used as part of a behaviour management programme.

• It should only be used as a necessary last resort and should be the least restrictive viable option.

• It may be necessary (and therefore lawful) to use reasonable force to prevent a child leaving a safe room.

• Locking a child in a room (without lawful authority from the court) is likely to be unlawful other than in an emergency when there is no alternative.

• Where it is envisaged that children need to be detained regularly or for long periods, a court order would be required.

Residential Care in England, Sir Martin Narey, June 2016, p53 1

The two main employment rights that require a period of continuous service with the same employer are the right to bring a claim for unfair dismissal and the right to a redundancy payment. Both rights (subject to some exceptions for unfair dismissal) require continuous employment of at least two years (one year for unfair dismissal in NI). The amounts of a redundancy payment and, to a lesser extent, compensation for unfair dismissal, are also determined by the number of years of continuous employment.

The general rule is that if you change employer you break continuity and have to start again. There are several important exceptions which apply in the education sector and which are different for redundancy and unfair dismissal.

• Any change of employer that comes about because of a TUPE transfer will not break continuity for either purpose (E, W & NI).

• Movement between local authorities, governing bodies of maintained schools, and academies, will not break continuity for redundancy purpose (E & W).

• Movement between EA, grant maintained integrated schools, voluntary schools and CCMS will not break continuity for redundancy purpose (NI).

• Movement from employment by the governing body of a maintained school to employment by the local authority which maintained that school, and vice versa, does not break continuity for unfair dismissal (or redundancy) purposes E & W).

If members are in doubt about their continuous service they should contact NAHT for advice.

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MIDDLE LEADERS

TOP TIPS

for middle leaders

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Juggling the responsibilities of teaching, leading staff and managing your own career progression can be a tough ask for any middle leader. With September now fully underway, it’s an opportune time to consider introducing some new strategies to develop your approach to teaching, leading and learning. Director of NAHT Edge, JAMES BOWEN , provides ten top tips covering the main demands placed on middle leaders including: prioritising, managing a team and keeping up to speed with the latest developments in education.

Establish expectations and priorities

As a middle leader it is essential that you understand what is expected of you and where your priorities lie. Meet with either your head teacher or line manager to discuss their perception of the role of a middle leader in your school. Hopefully your job description should give you a good steer, but a face-to-face conversation will give you a stronger sense of your core role and what is expected of you. You can also use this as an opportunity to find out what they see as the immediate priorities in the area you lead.

Audit your skills

Everyone has their own profile of strengths and areas for development. It is vital that you know yours; self-awareness is a sign of an effective leader. Consider which aspects of the job you feel most comfortable with, and which areas you are less confident in.

Those that you consider to be areas for development can then form the basis of your own CPD plan or these can be explored further with your coach. It is also advisable to discuss your audit with a trusted colleague or your line manager to get an external view of your own evaluation.

Identify the current state of play

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Get a coach

Middle leaders can often be so busy thinking about the professional development of others in their team that they neglect their own.

When it comes to building your leadership skills and becoming more effective in your role, having a good coach can make all the difference. If a coaching culture has yet to be established in your school you may need to consider looking externally, or better still, why not look to lead the development of such a culture yourself?

What are standards like in the area you lead right now? Where are the strengths? What needs improving? Whether you have been in post for one week or five years, it is a good idea to stop and ask these key questions periodically. Your analysis should be based on evidence rather than just a “gut-feeling”. Once you feel you have a good picture of the current state of play, it is worth writing this down as a short “position statement” which you can then share with your line manager.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

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Establish a network

Strong networks can make all the difference for a middle leader. Networks can exist at many levels. Being part of a strong internal network of middle leaders within your school will allow you to share challenges, frustrations and successes with colleagues in a similar boat to you. You can also tap in to the expertise and experience of others who can offer advice. If this doesn’t exist already in your school, consider setting up a regular meeting between middle leaders where there is an opportunity to share projects or initiatives that you are each working on. You may also want to consider establishing a network beyond your own school. This can be a physical network or a virtual one.

Social media has made networking easier than ever. Groups such as #mltchat, #sltchat, #primaryrocks on Twitter are ready made networks of like-minded individuals that you can easily become involved with. And of course, you can also follow @NAHTEdge on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news and advice targeted at middle leaders.

Begin to prioritise and manage your time

Let’s face it, before you became a middle leader it wasn’t as if you were sitting around twiddling your thumbs and looking for things to fill your day! Life as a teacher is demanding, and now there are the leadership responsibilities to juggle too. The only real option available to you is to be ruthless in how you prioritise your time. Steven Covey’s urgent/important quadrant model can be a useful tool for this. You’ll need to consider carefully which tasks really matter and which will make a difference in the area you lead.

Beware of the seemingly urgent tasks that will have little impact and try to focus as much as possible on those that will bring about lasting change. This is not easy as there is so much that needs doing in school, but without a bit of forward planning, there is a danger that you will never get around to doing the really crucial strategic stuff that will really make a long-term difference.

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Become professionally informed

Recent research by LKMco and Teaching Leaders identified being “professionally informed and informative” as an essential element of being a successful middle leader. This is easier said than done. As a middle leader you are incredibly busy and trying to keep up to speed with the latest educational developments can feel like one of those “not urgent, not important” tasks. At NAHT Edge we can help you with this. Our weekly email newsletter will summarise the top stories that you need to be aware of, ranging from the latest Ofsted developments to major assessment announcements from the DfE. Our monthly podcasts provide you with the opportunity to hear from some of the key players in the world of education and are another great way to stay informed. You can find our most recent school leadership podcasts on our website, Soundcloud and iTunes.

Establish routines and expectations with your team

Routines play a major role in any successful team.

This includes your regular catch-ups, team meetings, etc. Routines bring a sense of predictability and order to the team, which in the busy life of a school is very welcome!

Alongside this, it is important to establish the expectations you have of your colleagues. For example, the team will need to know what they are expected to bring to meetings and how you expect them to contribute. If you don’t communicate your expectations clearly, you can’t complain if people fail to meet them.

Look after yourself

Being a middle leader is a highly demanding job. As such, you must look after yourself.

If you are exhausted or burnt-out, you will not be the effective leader that your team needs you to be.

Think of the aeroplane analogy where you are told to put on your own oxygen mask before helping those around you. Looking after yourself can take some planning and, ironically, a little bit of effort. Again, routines can help – establishing certain days when you will commit to leaving school a bit earlier is a positive step.

Equally, maintaining hobbies and non-professional networks outside of school is important too. It is very easy to let these things slip when school life gets busy but, in the long-run, doing so will do you no favours. From a professional perspective, consider what will keep you rejuvenated and enthused. This will be different for everyone but professional reading, visiting colleagues in different schools or attending courses are all potential sources of inspiration.

Refer a friend and share NAHT Edge member benefits

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The life of a middle leader is not easy, but it can be immensely rewarding.

At NAHT Edge, our aim is to provide you with the information, guidance and advice that you need to thrive in your role. We also offer peace of mind through our full trade union protection and high-quality careers advice.

If you know of a colleague who would benefit from being an NAHT Edge member take advantage of our referral scheme and receive a £20 Amazon voucher each www.naht.org.uk/naht-edge/referral

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LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

Change

Having pushed for a reform of the inspection system in Northern Ireland, NAHT(NI) can be commended for achieving an important new agreement with the ETI. HELENA MACORMAC , director of policy at NAHT(NI), explains how progress was made, and sets out the next steps.

for the better espite a backdrop of ongoing industrial action and looming budget cuts, NAHT(NI) has made significant inroads to ease the burden of the increasingly punitive inspection regime. Prior to the summer break, an agreement with the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) was struck. Now we seek to build on this success to obtain meaningful change in Northern Ireland, and a reform of the current system in order to benefit children.

D

Head teachers take action

Industrial action by the other teaching unions has been ongoing for six years in various forms. In autumn 2016, NAHT(NI) carried out a member survey to investigate the extent of stress caused by the industrial action in the profession. In many cases, the damage to schools was stark.

School leaders said the situation left them feeling unsupported, exposed and vulnerable. It was felt that employers had not been supporting school leaders. Relationships inside some schools were damaged

and professional development and support for young teachers seemed to be at a standstill.

Actions by the Education Training Inspectorate (ETI) served to exacerbate this already challenging environment.

New inspection procedures were introduced with limited consultation in December 2016.

These procedures conferred additional pressure on our members. As a union that is not involved in industrial action, many of our members were caught in the middle between non-compliant teachers and the requirements of the inspection regime. We were concerned that the judgements made by inspection teams were based on increasingly limited evidence as more teachers chose to disengage with the inspectorate as part of their lawful industrial action.

School leaders were concerned that reports were being issued that were not reflective of the real position of schools. At NAHT(NI), we received many concerned calls and emails from members whose schools could potentially not fulfil inspection requirements

Northern Ireland has the highestachieving primary school pupils in Europe, according to the Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS) report of 2015.

due to lawful strike action by staff.

We were determined that our members should not be penalised for this, and as a consequence we demanded urgent dialogue with the ETI, the education minister (who was still in post at this time) and the DE, to address this issue.

In addition, we were concerned that the chief inspector’s most recent report was not reflective of the true picture of the Northern Ireland education system. In her most recent report, Noelle Buick the chief inspector expressed concern over how children are taught, pointing out that about one fifth of lessons were “less than good”. Contrastingly, in major international tests in maths, Northern Ireland has the highest-achieving primary school pupils in Europe, according to the Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS) report of 2015. NAHT(NI) asserts that positive messaging and acknowledgment of the many outstanding achievements of our education system must be a priority. It is of great concern to our members that while such achievements are recognised on

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NAHT (NI)

the international stage, they are not acknowledged here. Such recognition is essential in enabling and upholding professional morale amidst challenging circumstances.

Employers failing to meet their duty of care

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Our members were clear that what was needed was an inspectorate that could provide an appreciative inquiry approach as opposed to one of punitive culpability. Such a system must recognise that school leaders are highly skilled professionals whose commitment and dedication to their challenging roles makes a real difference to the lives of children.

Despite requests of support to the employers amidst this challenging climate, no additional support was provided. This led NAHT(NI) to contend that the employers had therefore failed to meet their duty of care to school leaders as employees.

In light of the ongoing impact of industrial action and the actions of the ETI, the NAHT Northern Ireland Regional Executive decided in early February 2017 that action, including potential industrial action, should be taken. This was discussed at a meeting of the National Executive and consequently the decision to hold a consultative ballot with the Northern Ireland membership was taken. This was not done lightly.

Following the consultative ballot, NAHT(NI) informed the employers that we consider ourselves to be in a trade dispute.

We highlighted the intolerable pressure that our members are under and that we are prepared to ballot for industrial action.

We asked for an immediate change in notice for inspection and the burden of inspection being carried by NAHT leaders. We also called for the establishment of a school leaders’ consultative body to ensure that school leaders, as front-line practitioners, could connect directly with key decision-makers on a regular basis to consider fundamental issues including workload, accountability, budget and support for schools.

Since then we have had a series of meetings with the chief inspector, Department of

Education and the employers.

Whilst this work is ongoing, we are pleased that to date, a number of actions have been agreed.

Our ongoing work

NAHT(NI) continues to be involved in the negotiations for fair pay and conditions for our members in Northern Ireland. To resolve Our agreement the impasse between the unions with the ETI and the employers, working There will be agreed procedures groups have been established; ETI, for NAHT(NI) members during Workload, Administration, SEN, inspection in the context of Examinations, Assessment. ongoing industrial action We have representation by the other teaching on all groups. unions. This allows We continue to meet NAHT(NI) members with the ETI and the to participate in employers; we have inspection at the level agreed to provide that best meets the further detail on the need of the school. responsibilities and Teaching members issues that are the cause of NAHT(NI) will be of most concern among able to choose “without school leaders. To provide prejudice” whether they an accurate and up-towant to be observed date depiction of this, Our members or not and will not we issued a workload were clear that what be used as proxy for survey prior to the was needed was an the teaching quality summer break. After inspectorate that could in the school. The consultation with our agreement also allows sector committees provide an appreciative NAHT(NI) senior and regional executive, inquiry approach leaders to be in control we presented the as opposed to one of of the time spent survey to the employers, punitive culpability. during the inspection in and they have stated the face-to-face meetings. results will be important Members were notified of in the aforementioned amended procedures at the same workstream discussions.

Above: time as ETI notified the inspection Ultimately, our objective is Helena Macormac teams. NAHT(NI) will monitor to improve the educational the progress of this agreement, experience for all pupils, and and to ensure we track progress to reform the current higheffectively, we launched an stakes nature of testing and inspection watch survey shortly examinations. Our view is that after the agreement was issued. the punitive accountability system and sanction-driven The establishment of approach to intervention must be a permanent School addressed. Our contention is that Leaders Forum professional dialogue between As well as addressing immediate the ETI and schools should be pressures, the ETI has also utilised more fully to enhance committed to the establishment learning and support a system of a permanent School Leaders of appreciative inquiry. A system Forum. This will enable direct and of supportive accountability is regular consultation with school required which recognises that leaders and the employers, DE and the professionalism and capacity the ETI and other relevant bodies. of school leaders, ensures that Whilst it is very early days, we pupil needs are being met, and hope that the forum can provide that sustained improvement is a mechanism to ensure that being achieved. education policy is practitioner School leaders must be used driven. ETI and EA have agreed more effectively within the school to carry forward this work as a improvement process. Whilst priority and we have looked at the our work has gone some way to scope of the work of the proposed progressing this, we know this is forum together. part of a longer journey.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

NAHT(NI) funding campaign update NAHT(NI) is campaigning for a fairer education budget amidst a climate of cuts and political uncertainty.

n Northern Ireland, while we do not yet know the full impact of education budget cuts, we know the cuts are being felt acutely and are likely to get worse. The former education minister, Peter Weir, previously stated that schools here needed an extra £240m over the next three years just to maintain spending at 2015/16 levels. We know that with ever-increasing pressure on schools more funding is needed. It is imperative that learners are put first and adequate funding is allocated so that pupils can continue to receive the best education possible.

Over the summer, NAHT(NI) met with the education authority (EA) to address the severe effect budget cuts will have on our schools. A bleak picture was presented; the EA stated that they cannot balance their budget.

We were told that the DE and EA are facing substantial financial pressures. Due to the breakdown of the Assembly, the EA has stated it cannot draw down funds from other Departments – as would usually be the case – so is unable to cover all predicated school surpluses. In addition, there is no allocation yet of the DUP-Tory deal funds. However, as this funding will be split with Health, the EA has acknowledged that the funding

I

Over the summer, NAHT(NI) met with the education authority (EA) to address the severe effect budget cuts will have on our schools.

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that education will receive is likely to have minimal impact.

NAHT(NI) contends that this situation is unacceptable.

Education funding must be prioritised by those in power regardless of the state of the political institutions. Schools must be able to plan for the future and fulfil the commitments within their three-year plans.

In the coming months, we will be campaigning hard to address this. Our campaigning objectives are threefold: • First, more money must be put into the education budget overall. We are seeking meetings with key political figures to ensure education is appropriately prioritised amidst current political negotiations.

• Second, schools must be given control over a greater share of the budget. The overall education budget is being sliced too thinly

before it reaches schools and this balance must be addressed. We are convening a Budget Working Group to examine the year-onyear impact of consistent cuts.

• Third, we are calling for a revision of the basic amount given to every child to sustain the real costs of a child’s education. We will use sectorial representation to build a picture of what an appropriate AWPU (Age Weighted Pupil Unit) would look like.

We seek to lobby, with the support of other union colleagues, parents and governors, for a fairer and fully funded education budget. We will seek to reverse the real-terms cuts that schools are facing and review the way in which schools are currently funded.

Please see the NAHT(NI) web page for further advice and how to get involved at www.naht.org. uk/northern-ireland/

WALES NAEL

Coming soon:

The National Academy for Educational Leadership (NAEL)

Wales’ new National Academy for Educational Leadership is being shaped by the profession, for the profession. ANN KEANE , chair of the Shadow Board for the Wales NAEL, explains why this is so important.

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nlike in England, Ireland and Scotland, Wales currently has no college or academy that has a focus on promoting and developing leaders and leadership in schools and in the wider education sector. That will change when the National Academy for Educational Leadership (NAEL) is established as a national body by the spring of 2018, as announced earlier this year by the Welsh cabinet secretary for education, Kirsty Williams AM. The academy will be grantfunded by the Welsh Second, but it is critical that the academy should be “owned” by those leaders and aspiring leaders who work in the education sector. It will not succeed unless it meets both your current and future leadership-development needs.

At this early stage the academy is engaging with school head teachers, deputy and assistant heads, teaching and head teacher unions, regional consortia partners and local authority education leaders. It will eventually extend

U

its engagement to include FE, HE and other sectors. There has been some involvement from other sectors already, but the initial focus is on schools.

The Shadow Board – of which I am chair – has members who are representative of the sector – including Rob Williams, policy director of NAHT Cymru – and it has been meeting every month since December 2016 to take views and to discuss how the academy should be set up. The cabinet secretary recently agreed to our recommendation that the academy be set up as a company limited by guarantee.

To help the board in its deliberations we have held discussions at many workshops in venues across Wales to which head teachers and other stakeholders have been invited to share opinions and explore possible options. It has been heartening to discuss the vision, principles and functions of the proposed academy with you in those workshops, so I would like

Above: Ann Keane

to thank those who came along for contributing to the thinking about the academy. From survey and questionnaire responses and in the workshops we have held, it has become clear that the academy needs to work to achieve equity of access to leadership-development provision of consistently high quality across Wales.

If it is to succeed the academy must: • influence and be influenced by the wider reform agenda in Wales • make a difference for individuals in the system • be inclusive and accessible.

What will the academy actually do in order to make a difference?

Although the academy will not itself deliver leadership provision, what it will do is to quality assure or “endorse” leadership programmes so that all programmes work to the level of the best. Many of you have told

LEADERSHIP FOCUS | SEPTEMBER 2017

us about the kind of preparation for leadership that has worked best for you at different stages in your career, and we have also looked at what happens in other countries. The outcomes of these discussions will provide the basis for the criteria to be used in quality assuring provision once the academy is established.

We will be consulting the sector again in the autumn about the process of quality assurance so I do hope you will come along to those workshops.

In addition to endorsing leadershipdevelopment provision, what else will the academy do?

It will commission provision where there are gaps. It will offer support and advice on career paths. It will create an online community of peers and provide information and contacts. It will commission, use and share the products of research. It will inform policymaking in government. Most importantly, its agenda will be driven by stakeholder views and those stakeholders will be party to organising annual conferences and other events to exchange views, research findings and other relevant information. The academy might also set up a fellowship programme, something else that we want to talk to you about in the autumn.

It is also important to say what the academy won’t do: • The academy will NOT take over work that is currently done by other bodies – the regional consortia and others will go on delivering provision.

• It will NOT register members as the Education Workforce Council does.

• It will NOT act as a spokesperson for government but will represent the interests of stakeholders.

• It will NOT be overly bureaucratic or put extra pressure on head teachers. Rather it will try to facilitate opportunities

for professional development that the profession itself finds most useful.

• It will NOT build a grand new building or rent expensive premises but exist online on a website, and in a small office with shared corporate services.

• It will NOT have large numbers of staff, but rely on a handful of experts on its core staff, supported by stakeholders.

Principles

The principles on which, for now, we have agreed to base the vision for the academy include the descriptors listed below. We intend that the academy should be: • excellent (inspiring all leaders now and in the future) • collaborative (engaging with and beyond the education sector, nationally and internationally) • innovative (enabling learning and influencing national policy) • professional (evidence-based, ensuring high standards, integrity and moral purpose) • responsive (agile and flexible in meeting the needs of every learner).

These principles are all centred on enabling the leadership of learning and this does include learning and teaching in the classroom and the notion of the head teacher as a

Below: Ann Keane says the academy will be grant-funded by the Welsh government, but “owned” by leaders in the education sector.

leader of pedagogy of course. But the “leadership of learning” also refers to the “school as a learning organisation” in which all members are open to, and continue, learning.

The vision, principles and design of the academy are not set in stone. They are starting points from which to create a dynamic new organisation that belongs to the Welsh education sector and its current and future leaders. It will be up to you to help to make that a reality and to create a responsive and representative body that will strengthen the profession for the future.

Ann Keane is currently the chair of the Shadow Board for the Wales National Academy for Educational Leadership. She is the former HMCI Estyn.

YOUR CHANCE TO HELP SHAPE THE NAEL There is a genuine opportunity for NAHT Cymru members to shape the professional learning of educational leaders in Wales throughout the coming years, and school leaders should seek

to ensure that we engage at every opportunity and influence the work of the new academy.

There will be an update from the Shadow Board this term outlining ways to get involved.

But in the meantime if you’re interested please contact cymru@naht.org.uk and we can pass on your details to the Shadow Board.

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SCHOOL READINESS

Assessing school

readiness Findings and conclusions from our member survey.

eptember marks the annual arrival of thousands of children taking their first steps into national schooling. Over recent years school leaders have voiced a growing concern about whether children are adequately prepared for the social, academic and physical demands of school life.

Concern regarding the extent to which pupils arrive “school ready” is something that both school leaders and practitioners have been raising with NAHT and the Family and Childcare Trust for some time. Last term, we surveyed members to get a reflective picture of the issue.

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What is “school readiness”?

The concept of school readiness is hard to effectively define.

There are a variety of opinions regarding what constitutes a pupil as being “school-ready” and when compulsory school age should start. For the purposes of our school readiness survey we focused squarely on whether respondents believed a child to be ready to participate fully and successfully in the curriculum and wider school life upon reaching the current compulsory school age.

School readiness – our survey findings

Our survey found that cuts to childcare services and parental support groups are having longterm effects on the development of children, with 83% of surveyed school leaders reporting an issue with school readiness. This has also become increasingly common

over recent years, with 86% of respondents believing that the issue of school readiness had got worse over the past five years. The scale of the problem is greater than we first believed with almost a quarter (24%) of respondents stating that more than half of their intake was not school ready.

Reasons behind the lack of readiness were varied, but common concerns included speech, language and communication skills, social and emotional development, and physical development.

The situation was outlined as more severe for children who had not previously been in education or childcare.

Facilitating early support for children

Long-term cuts to health and children’s services have seen services diminish and, in some cases, disappear altogether. This appears to have a knock-on effect on the issue of school readiness and shows how important it is to fund services adequately.

School leaders frequently referenced a lack of funding as a barrier to helping to improve school readiness, which correlates with our own research on funding. The NAHT “Breaking Point” Survey, published in the autumn of 2016, identified that an increasing number of schools are facing deficit budgets and having to make some very difficult decisions in order to balance the books. Schools cannot be expected to plug the gap in the

Long-term cuts to health and children’s services have seen services diminish and, in some cases, disappear altogether.

reduction of local authority and health services that help support children in the early years.

The need for accessible parental support groups was identified as a significant method of helping to prepare children for school. More than half of respondents felt that offering parental support groups would assist with school readiness in their area. This follows on from what many respondents described as one of the barriers to school readiness: a lack of parental support and guidance. Similarly, just over a third believed that support for home learning would be beneficial. Almost a third (31%) said that working with local private nurseries and childminders would also help.

Investment is needed to improve levels of school readiness

The results of this survey show how important it is to have support services in place with adequate funding. Reductions in local authority and health budgets, combined with pressures on school budgets would appear to be having a knock-on effect on children’s school readiness.

Almost nine out of ten (88%) respondents said that funding was a barrier to improving school readiness and more than half (56%) said that funding was the greatest barrier they faced.

It is evident that support for parents, Early Years providers and schools is essential to help tackle the issue of school readiness.

Judy Shaw, chair of the Early Years Sector Council stated; “The findings from this survey clearly show that more money needs to be invested in Early Years. Fully supporting children and parents at the very beginning is essential in paving the way for an informed and successful journey through education for every child.”

We will continue to campaign for further investment in these areas so make sure to keep an eye out for our next steps.

Please read the full School Ready Report on the NAHT website.

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CHARTERED COLLEGE OF TEACHING

CHARTERED COLLEGE OF TEACHING – TWO TERMS ON What’s been happening at the newly formed Chartered College of Teaching? DAME ALISON PEACOCK, its chief executive and a leading light in education, provides a detailed update. s we embark upon a new academic year, I thought it would be helpful to provide colleagues with an update on the progress of the Chartered College of Teaching. I am delighted by the support of the NAHT and other unions as we carry out this important work.

In January we embarked on our mission to create a professional body for teachers, founded on the principles of collegiality, shared values and respect. Our early steps included a series of regional events to introduce this mission and to consult with teachers and school leaders on education in their area.

The inaugural conferences held in February brought together many of our founding members both in London and Sheffield, showcasing the enthusiasm and desire for what we are aiming to achieve.

Since then, we have visited more than 100 schools and spoken to thousands of teachers. We have organised events on assessment as well as connecting education research and practice, and we have developed an innovative teacher wellbeing programme. Towards the end of the summer term, more than 50 networks were announced across the country. This network programme will help the Chartered College build up the professional knowledge base of teaching and provide centres, connecting members to work on issues of direct concern to classroom practice, wherever they are located and whatever their setting, interests and experience.

These networks provide valuable opportunities for professional collaboration and development.

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Our website has now expanded, publishing collected knowledge and experience of members, providing access to a rich source of material to inspire and inform. The Chartered College’s member platform is set to become a go-to destination for accessing rigorous and relevant research evidence. Teachers will be able to locate the information they need to find solutions to classroom issues and to enhance their practice.

We have come a long way in a short space of time and there is still so much more to do.

The first peer-reviewed edition of our journal, Impact, is to be launched in September (an interim issue was published in May). The publication of Impact marks a significant step in the development of the Chartered College. This ground-breaking journal contains high-quality research papers and articles from teachers, school leaders, researchers and academics.

It reflects evidence-informed practice, covering the depth and breadth of the teaching profession and supporting our members so that they achieve and maintain excellence in their practice. This particular issue is guest-edited by Dylan Wiliam and will focus on assessment.

Our next milestone will be the launch of our Chartered Teacher programme.

This is being developed with our Professional Pathways Advisory Group and in consultation with members and the wider education community. The pilot programme will begin in January 2018 with an initial cohort of 100 participants.

At the Chartered College we are aiming high because we believe that teachers deserve greater recognition of their value to society and they

Above: Dame Alison Peacock

should be entrusted with responsibility for the future development of teaching. We want to create a professional development programme for teachers that is transformative, engaging, responsive and relevant to classroom practice. It’s also important that the Chartered College raises the profile of the teaching profession and celebrates teachers’ professionalism, hard work and achievements.

This Chartered College is working to connect the profession and support its members, encouraging them to share experience and contribute to an ever-expanding body of knowledge about teaching and learning, and help lay the foundation for a professional culture where evidence is brought to bear on key questions of effectiveness and improvement. Our ultimate goal is to ensure that each and every child fulfils their potential through having access to an excellent education.

In April I gave a keynote speech at NAHT’s annual conference in Telford. If you were there you will recall this emotional occasion where, speaking from the heart as a head teacher, I described my journey towards leading the Chartered College and my huge ambition for the future of our wonderful profession. Presenting at your conference was a personal highlight of the last two terms. Your support gives me the courage and energy I need for the time ahead as we work together to achieve a voluntary professional body that will truly serve the needs of a school-led system.

For more information visit the Chartered College of Teaching’s website https://chartered.college/

CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Stay on top of

your game

This au autumn, and as we head into 2018, NAHT’s CPD calendar calenda is packed full of fantastic conferences and courses that your you school leadership teams can’t afford to miss.

n the centre of this issue of Leadership Focus we’ve provided a handy pull-out wallplanner, designed to ensure you know exactly what’s coming up in the next six months, where and when. Don’t forget to pin it up somewhere handy for use at your school. In the meantime, here we review three major conferences, all coming soon.

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Above: Dr Andrew Curran, keynote speaker

Secondary conference: Capturing the Teenage Brain Friday 9 February 2018, Birmingham Driven by the ambition and enthusiasm of our Secondary Sector Council, NAHT has launched a one-day conference dedicated to secondary-phase issues. Taking place on Friday 9

SPECIAL SCHOOLS, SPECIALIST & ALTERNATIVE PROVISION CONFERENCE 2018 Friday 9 March, Stoke-on-Trent The annual Special Schools, Specialist & Alternative Provision conference comes to Stoke-on-Trent on 9 March next year, promising the usual blend of lively debate, insight into the latest SEND research, and fantastic opportunities to network and share ideas.

The event’s title is “Celebrating Success: Succeeding against the Odds” and it’s fitting that keynote speaker Aaron Phipps will be on hand to share his unique view of this theme. Aaron is a former Great Britain wheelchair rugby player and London

2012 Paralympic athlete. He is a Sky Sports Living for Sport athlete mentor, and a professional speaker who inspires audiences with his powerful story around resilience and positive choices. Not content with competing at the highest level in sport, in 2016 Aaron took on his biggest challenge yet: to become the first person in the world to climb Kilimanjaro in a wheelchair, unassisted. His take on the world of SEND, and his ideas about how to inspire and motivate children with learning and physical disabilities will be fascinating to hear.

We’re also delighted that Jean Gross CBE will be sharing her thoughts and ideas at this event. Jean is the government’s former Communication Champion for Children, and has been the chair of the “Bercow: Ten Years On” review of services for children with speech, language and communication needs. As an independent consultant, Jean is dedicated to advising and supporting those who are seeking to make a strategic difference for children who have special educational needs.

To book visit: nahtsend2018.eventbrite.co.uk

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F February in Birmingham, the conference aims to stimulate ideas for those working in secondary, as well as inspire a greater understanding of educational and neuroscience thinking on adolescence.

Delegates will take away valuable best practice advice and a host of teaching ideas.

Of particular interest will be the six specially commissioned workshops. Subjects being tackled on the day include: “Impact of peers on adolescent development – a neuroscientific perspective”, “The truth about resilience”, and “Warm pedagogy: An innovative and exciting curriculum for everyone”.

NAHT recognises that there are many challenges in the secondary phase today, from that of delivering a broad and balanced curriculum alongside the demands of an accountability regime, right through to how to understand and meet the needs of teens, particularly when mental health issues have become such a pressing concern in modern teenage life.

Rob Campbell, executive principal at Impington Village College, and chair of NAHT’s Secondary Sector Council, says: “We wanted to put on something that as secondary practitioners we felt was more profound – namely to understand and better cope with teenagers, using recent research and practice

Aaron Phipps, keynote speaker

The erosion of positive mental health in our children and young people is a deep cause for concern amongst teachers and school leaders.

from neuroscience. We’re particularly interested in ‘what works’ when it comes to trying to engage the teenage mind.”

Keynote speakers already confirmed are world-renowned cognitive scientist Professor Guy Claxton, , and Dr Andrew Curran, a practicing paediatric neurologist at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool. Both are committed e to using their knowledge of the er human brain to steer a greater ves, understanding of what moves, es learning motivates and encourages in young people.

Above: Guy Claxton, keynote speaker

MENTAL HEALTH CONFERENCE 2018 Tuesday 30 January 2018

In an exciting new venture, NAHT has joined forces with the Royal College of Psychiatrists to hold a Mental Health conference in central London on Tuesday 30 January 2018.

The theme of the joint conference is “Collaborative approaches to mental health of children: from issues to interventions”.

Professor Barry Carpenter, CBE, OBE, is chair of NAHT’s Autism and Girls Working Group, and has been instrumental in setting up this event.

He says: “The erosion of positive mental health in our children and m young people is a deep cause for concern am amongst teachers and school all sectors of education. leaders in al This confe conference will focus on the nature of the school as a critical environ environment for nurturing the emotional wellbeing of children, and emot the interdisciplinary nature of work in thi this field. There will be a clear focus o on what we need to know, what works, and what we have yet to develop.”

This will be a unique opportunity to learn from school leaders and psychiatrists who have worked collaboratively to deliver a programme of insightful talks and workshops.

• Find out more and book for all these conferences at www.naht.org.uk/events

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THE FINAL WORD

SUSAN YOUNG: Education columnist

Learning from research

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We realised if we were going to make this work we had to be brave,” says executive head Tina Daniel of her decision to turn all school inset days over to staff research last year, as part of a project to tackle “gnarly” issues around attainment in writing.

A teacher research project in her federation had seen Reception summer-borns reaching the expected level in writing rise from 60 to 86% in the first year, and82% in the second.

With senior leadership support, Tina decided to turn the three Oaks CE Learning Federation schools into a research learning community involving all staff.

The Hampshire federation has worked with a local teaching school alliance as well as research learning communities expert Professor Chris Brown of the University of Portsmouth.

“Chris asked what my legacy would be: I think it is that teachers have to do things which make a difference. Chris helped us be brave, challenge our staff, and be 100% committed. We needed a Chris to help us unpick things we already had, and look at our building blocks.

“We did a lot of work on addressing barriers to success. One was about being realistic about valid arguments from teachers, and I get that, having been a teaching head. We know there are issues about teacher workload if we are asking them to do research, so we have to give them time – the inset days – and make sure performance management is supportive. We’ve got to look at things which make a difference – that will be my epitaph and that’s where we’ve got to.”

The 15 teachers have been working on their own projects, all focused on the federation’s

target of improving the children’s writing, presenting early findings in the summer. “Some had got further than we thought: they were creative and developed some very exciting pedagogy, and the local authority and the teaching school alliance and our challenge partner were all saying how impressive it was.”

Tina’s interest in research grew from years as a teaching head. “Those days made me time-efficient – you have to do things that are going to make a difference. In one school, we didn’t start teaching till Monday afternoons because the children weren’t ready to learn after the weekend, so I’ve always been comfortable with the idea that we have the freedom to do what we want as long as it improves outcomes.”

Professor Brown’s involvement ranged from creating reading lists to practical support, and he is currently evaluating the federation’s progress towards becoming self-improving. “I’ve been a head for years and years and years, but one of the things Chris introduced was the idea of the opinion former – that you have to have those first followers who understand your vision, come alongside you and influence others to follow. We’ve learned a lot from the process.”

Why not just use existing findings? “You learn from research, what you know as experienced teachers, and what you know about your context: it’s about marrying those things together.

Another school might have fantastic results but it’s not your school, not your children, not your teachers and not your context. You could try their method but if it doesn’t work it’s probably not right for you.”

Above: Susan Young

Being a federation helps schools to work together on difficult issues, and Oaks now has a research culture, says Tina.

“We take what we know about research, become evidenceinformed in the way we try it out, we measure the beginning and the end. Only some of it – maybe 40% – makes a difference.”

She concludes: “I am only in this job for one thing, and that’s for my kids to do the best they can. I wouldn’t be doing any of this if it wasn’t that the children achieved better this year, were taught better, learned better and the curriculum was advanced.

The Early Years project showed a significant increase, and that we were able to sustain it. Now it’s about how we’re going to move forward, and our next challenge is parental involvement.

I am really excited about that.”