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NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2017 ISSUE 9

Teaching School Who’s Who

Pat Smart

Executive Headteacher

E: p.smart@greet.bham.sch.uk

Emma Arnott

Teaching School Manager

E: e.arnott.greettsa@greet.bham.sch.uk

Shirley Queenan

Teaching School Business Manager

E: s.queenan.greettsa@greet.bham.sch.uk

We warmly welcome new colleagues

Sara Shepherd as Interim Principal at City

Road, Gurjit Shergill as Acting

Headteacher at Arden and new Alliance

Partner Schools: Beeches Infants;

Canterbury Cross; Robin Hood; Shaw Hill

and Westminster Primaries.

GOOD NEWS!

We are delighted to be offering our

congratulations to: Hillstone and Wattville

who both retained their good Ofsted

rating; Heather Phil l ips , Adam

Protherough and Lee Wright who were

successful in passing the NPQ Facilitator

training ….. delivery of the programmes

are already underway!

Dear Colleagues

Already we’ve reached the end of another term and, although we’re all tired

and in need of a break, it’s good to look back at TSA activities so far this school

year. Lots of actions have taken place and this newsletter gives you a flavour

of the range we have been involved with - either leading or supporting. Much

work is increasingly commissioned through BEP and that is quite right. Our TSA is

committed to partnership working across the city including with other TSAs. I’m

aware we haven’t held a TSA meeting this term, but rest assured there is plenty

of work taking place.

Don’t forget to keep in touch with us if:

You have the capacity to support other schools; or

You have areas for development where external skills would help.

The appointment of new SLEs (awaiting ratification by NCTL) and LLEs (January

18) give us further capacity across the TSA, so please do contact us.

In the new year we can expect on-going national changes (e.g. no more

NCTL) growth of MATs etc.) and, for Teaching Schools, a new set of national

expectations and KPIs. We fully recognise the importance of demonstrating

our impact and welcome such changes.

The new annual KPIs are as follows:

Initial Teacher Training:

- At l east 15 teachers trained through school-led routes.

- Percentage of trained teachers who have secured a post within 6 months at

the national average or above.

CPLD:

- Delivery of at least 50 evidence-based CPLD days.

- At least 90% of participants believe the activity they attended will help to

improve practice and agree that the benefits outweigh any short-term

impact on workload.

School to School Support:

- Provision of at least 30 days of deployment to schools identified as needing

support.

- At least 90% of the support is rated as good or better by the supported school.

This should all help to keep us on our toes!

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, we wish you a happy and restful

break.

See you in 2018!

Pat

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TSA UPDATES DECEMBER 2017 ISSUE 9

TSA WEBSITE DEVELOPMENTS

The beginning of term saw the launch of

phase 2 of our TSA website to include an

Alliance Log-in area.

We hope that by now all Alliance

Headteachers will have logged into the

new web-portal and are finding the pin

board and other information useful. It

has certainly proved to be useful for all

of the NQTs on this year’s induction

programme.

If you have had any access problems

p l e a s e l e t u s k n o w -

greettsa@greet.bham.sch.uk

Also new this term is our Clevermail

e-marketing tool. This will deliver email

alerts to you with news of our latest

offers … please watch out for this in your

inbox so you don’t miss out!

GDPR

The General Data Protection Regulation will

be implemented on 25 May 2018. All schools

need to begin working now to ensure that

they are GDPR compliant!

Our GDPR Briefing on Tuesday 7 November

began with many of us feeling a sense of

trepidation about what may be ahead, and

it certainly gave us all so much to think about

in terms of being GDPR ready ……...

Mark Orchison set the scene very well for us

and helped us to understand the high

importance we must attach to this task as

well as encouraging us to consider our

numerous school systems and processes

which are covered by the regulation.

Following the briefing we have been able to

secure access to two more in-depth

workshops which will run in December for 20

Alliance schools . We also await confirmation

of two further workshops in January; all

generously funded by Microsoft.

GDPR is not to be ignored and we have been

given a fantastic, not-to-be-missed free

opportunity, particularly as we are all so

financially challenged!

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S2S SUPPORT DECEMBER 2017 ISSUE 9

SPECIALIST LEADERS OF EDUCATION RECRUITMENT

As a TSA, we are really pleased to have a great

group of Specialist Leaders of Education (SLEs)

who have provided high quality support and

training to schools within and outside of the

Alliance. As many colleagues will be aware, for

various reasons, the TSA hasn’t run a round of

new SLE recruitment for a couple of years.

During that time, some of our SLEs have moved

on significantly in their careers since they were

first designated, a number into Headship.

Alongside that, we recognise that there are

some fabulous staff in Alliance Schools coming

through into middle and senior leadership, many

of whom are beginning to get involved in school

to school support through the TSA, some of

whom would now be ready for the SLE role.

So, the time seemed right to look to designate a

new cohort of SLEs!

Taking into account the areas for which we

receive the most requests for support, our

priorities for designation this round are:

Phase leadership - EYFS, KS1 or KS2

English

Computing

Maths

Applications opened on 18 October and closed

on 13 November, with interviews taking place

early December. Once appointments have

been ratified by NCTL we will announce the

successful applicants. SLE core training,

arranged through ACTS, will take place in

January 2018, after which our new cohort of SLEs

will be available for deployment. We’ll keep you

informed as things develop; in the meantime, if

you are interested in accessing some SLE support

for your school, contact Emma.

LOCAL LEADER OF EDUCATION RECRUITMENT

The designation and deployment of Local

Leaders of Education (LLEs) has now been

completely devolved to Teaching Schools.

Local Leaders of Education are an

important part of the government’s plan to

give schools a central role in the self-

improving school-led system; they are

associated to and deployed through a

Teaching School Alliance for their system

leader work.

In the 2014/15 academic year, Greet TSA

led on the Birmingham LLE designation pilot

alongside another teaching school, and we

are really pleased to be taking a leading

role in the current round of LLE recruitment

for Birmingham, organised through ACTS;

another example of the growing

collaborative working between the

teaching schools in Birmingham for cross-

phase city-wide working. This is a great

opportunity for serving Headteachers from

schools judged good or better by Ofsted,

who have a proven track record of

providing school improvement support, to

apply for this well-respected designation

and become more involved in system

leadership in Birmingham.

We look forward to working with ACTS

colleagues from across all phases and

sectors of education in this - and future -

recruitment rounds, and to hopefully

designating new cohorts of LLEs to increase

leadership capacity, raise standards and

support further improvement in Birmingham

schools.

** SYSTEM LEADERSHIP UPDATES **

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S2S SUPPORT DECEMBER 2017 ISSUE 9

STRATEGIC SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT FUND

As colleagues will be aware, earlier this year the DfE announced the Strategic School

Improvement Fund: a grant of £140 million nationally, for this and the next financial year,

to support school improvement. Throughout the two years, there are a number of

‘windows’ to submit evidence-based bids for funding, with sub-regional collaborative

working as the absolute watchword.

We were very pleased that the SSIF1 bid - put together by colleagues from Birmingham

teaching schools and BEP - was successful, bringing £500k into the city to support 20

identified schools. Each of the supported schools is linked to a teaching school to

provide support to address specific areas identified in their latest Ofsted Inspection or

through a Baseline Review. The DfE is, quite rightly, monitoring the work, and Teaching

Schools are held accountable for the quality and impact of the support they provide by

the BEP Scrutiny Committee and through mid- and end-point reviews of the school they

are supporting.

Greet TSA is named in the bid for two of the supported schools, and it’s really great that

one of our newest partners, Canterbury Cross Primary School, has offered to provide the

support for one school. Leaders in the two schools have already established a really

positive working partnership, and we look forward to celebrating successes as things

progress.

But there’s no standing still …. The SSIF2 bid, focussed on improving reading in Primary

Schools, has been submitted, with the outcome expected to be announced in January,

and colleagues are already thinking forward to SSIF3 and future bids. This is a fantastic

opportunity to access much needed funding for school improvement and it’s so

important that all stakeholders work collaboratively on these bids to maximise success

and the effectiveness of the work.

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ITT DECEMBER 2017 ISSUE 9

SCHOOL DIRECT

As recruitment for School Direct 2018/19 gets underway, the TSA

has been on the road again!!

Throughout October, we were involved in 4 Train to Teach events

in various locations across the city: the Education and Teaching

Fair and School Direct Recruitment Event at Newman University; a

Birmingham school-led ITT recruitment event at Joseph

Chamberlain College, organised through ACTS and, most recently,

in the Great Hall at the University of Birmingham, the first of the two

national Train to Teach events taking place in the city this

academic year. Across the events we met over 100 prospective

applicants keen to pursue a career in Primary teaching.

At Newman in particular, it was really encouraging to meet former

Greet pupils and other students who had come along specifically

to meet us as they had heard good things about our School Direct programme, and are

particularly keen to train to teach with us.

More events are planned for January (see overleaf). Colleagues are warmly invited to join our

stand to meet prospective applicants, and please do encourage those in your school

community who may be interested in a career in teaching to come along to meet us and find

out more.

In addition to being involved in these large, local events, this year, instead of running our own

School Direct Open Evening, we decided to trial a series of ‘drop-ins’ in the run up to

applications opening. Not only did these give prospective applicants the chance to visit

different schools across the Alliance and meet staff, leaders, current and former trainees, as

some of the drop-ins took place during the school day, those coming along also had the

opportunity to experience a taste of daily life in our schools and meet some of our fantastic

children. Many thanks to colleagues from Starbank, Nelson Mandela, Greet and Regents Park

for opening your doors and giving of your time to chat to (hopefully) some of the trainees and

teachers of the future!

The NCTL’s processes for School Direct recruitment have changed for 2018/19 and we have

been allocated 16 places in total: 2 salaried and 14 training programme. For the salaried

course, that is our absolute maximum, but for the training programme we are free to recruit

above the number allocated, should we receive sufficient high quality applications and are

confident we can provide placements for them.

Applications opened on 26 October, so now we wait in anticipation and hope of receiving a

good number of strong applications to start the training year in September 2018 . . . .

If colleagues are interested in getting involved in the recruitment process for School Direct

2018/19, or want to find out more about the programme, please contact Emma:

e.arnott.greettsa@greet.bham.sch.uk

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ITT DECEMBER 2017 ISSUE 9

Look out for our new banners promoting

Primary School Teacher Training, currently

displayed by Alliance schools across the city!

Our next Train to Teach recruitment events will

be:

Train to Teach Roadshow

Saturday 20 January 2018, 10.00am - 4.00pm

at Edgbaston Stadium, B5 7QU

ACTS Train to Teach in Birmingham

Wednesday 24 January 2018, 5.15 - 8.00pm

at Joseph Chamberlain College, B12 9FF

SCHOOL DIRECT 2017/2018

Our School Direct class of 2017/2018 have

made a great start to the year and have

really bonded as a group!

During the first half term they spent time in

their Home School, getting to know their

class, observing other year groups and

acclimatising to life in school, as well as

taking part in Alliance-based training

sessions in our schools and Masters study

days at Newman. After a well-earned

break over half term, they are now firmly

and successfully into their first assessed

teaching placement. We wish them all the

very best for this term, this year, and in their

future teaching careers!

Our trainees show off their culinary skills!

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CPD DECEMBER 2017 ISSUE 9

CREATING SPACE FOR PSHE

Hi! I’m Lana Gaskin and I am the PSHE Leader for

Create Partnership Trust. I have worked in PSHE for many

years, initially as a class teacher and subject leader then

later on as a PSHE Adviser for Birmingham Local Authority.

Currently, in addition to my role working in the Trust schools, I

also lead the TSA NQT Induction Programme, as well as

outward-facing work, supporting schools across Birmingham

and beyond to develop their PSHE provision.

In schools, I see the value of PSHE work for children and

young people in so many different ways and on various levels, so I wanted to share with you

my interest in the wider world of PSHE and why I think it is such an important curriculum

subject.

My key areas of interest are Relationship & Sex Education (RSE) and

Mental Health & Well-being (MHW). One of my most recent experiences was the delivery of

a Mental Health Workshop for parents at a local school. During the workshop, parents

engaged in interactive techniques that they could use at home. Many commented on how

valuable they had found the experience, asked for advice and said that they were going to

complete some of the activities at home with their children. Over the following few weeks,

parents stopped me outside of school and commented on how useful the techniques were

when they used them with their children.

RSE - another hot and controversial topic so valuable for children and young people.

Relationship building is key to all of our lives, and as I have taught about building healthy

relationships, understanding how we change and grow and personal safety, I have had

numerous young people come back to ask for advice with issues around friendships,

personal development and concerns about the future. The topic is very broad but I

passionately believe it needs to be taught so that pupils learn how to safeguard themselves

in all types of relationships, understand how to manage change and know where to go for

help should they need it. This is most certainly an essential curriculum area for our society in

the 21st Century.

If you are interested in finding out more about Lana’s work, or in accessing some PSHE

support for your school, please contact Emma Arnott.

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DECEMBER 2017 ISSUE 9

Our TSA Board:

Azita Zohhadi (Nelson Mandela); Julie Berrow (Brookfields); Emma Arnott (TSA); Julie Davies (Leigh Trust);

Sheenagh Edger (Greet); Joanne Hill (BCU); Jo Jones (Story Wood); Christine Mitchell (Clifton); Shirley

Queenan (TSA); Cath Rindl (Nansen); Pat Smart (TSA); Emma Tyler (Greet).

Our Alliance Partners:

Acocks Green Primary; Alston Primary; Arden Primary; ARK Tindal Academy; Aston Tower Community;

BCU; Beeches Infants; Benson Community; Blakesley Hall Primary; Bordesley Green Primary; Brookfields

Primary; Canterbury Cross Primary; Chandos Primary; City Road Academy; Clifton Primary;

Conway Primary; English Martyrs Catholic Primary; Gracelands Nursery; Greet Primary; Hillstone Primary;

Hodge Hill Primary; Ladypool Primary; Leigh Primary; Lillian de Lissa Nursery; Nansen Primary;

Nelson Mandela; Newman University; Park Hill Primary; Redhill Primary; Regents Park Community; Robin

Hood Primary; Shaw Hill Primary; Somerville Primary; St. Anne’s Catholic Primary; St. James’ CE Primary;

St. John’s CE Primary; Starbank; Story Wood School & Children’s Centre; Ward End Primary; Wattville

Primary; Welford Primary; Westminster Primary; Wyndcliffe Primary; Yardleys.

The Greet Teaching School Alliance

Greet Primary School, Percy Road, Sparkhill, Birmingham, B11 3ND

Tel: 0121 303 1587 Email: greettsa@greet.bham.sch.uk www.greettsa.org

@greet_tsa

A great mixture of fun and learning

at the recent NQT residentials!