About the school Blatchington Mill School and Sixth Form College is a mixed comprehensive school and sixth form for students aged 11-18. The school is based in Hove (Sussex) and has 1,700 students and 110 teachers. The school has specialisms in performing arts, mathematics and computing, applied learning and gifted and talented, and received “Good” or “Outstanding” in all categories in their 2013 OFSTED inspection.

Why NTEN? After hearing about NTEN, the school’s leadership team felt that joining the network would fit in well with their future CPD aims. Based in a comparatively small local authority and keen to build on their existing good practice, the school wanted to share their experiences and be inspired by other like-minded professionals around the country.

For the senior leadership team, there was another important reason to join the network. Gaining an independent view on their CPD meant really putting themselves to the test, to find out if what they were doing was actually cutting edge. This was a challenge that they embraced. “There was a really clear ethos behind NTEN which is all about accountability. For us, this meant sharing rigorously tested best practice and focusing on continuous improvement,” said Ashley Harrold, Deputy Head. Yet the appeal for him was the programme’s non-judgmental approach:

“What’s great is that it isn’t agenda-led or pushed on teachers from the top down. It isn’t OFSTED. You have the freedom to tackle CPD in your own way, but at the same time you have guidance in measuring your effectiveness and how to do even better. We felt that this flexibility and lack of imposition would be appreciated by our excellent teachers as we look to support them in their own development.”

Mixed Comprehensive School and Sixth Form College, Sussex

CPD Audit and Silver Award For Ashley, the CPD audit process was ”one of the best parts of our membership.” The school collaborated with Uplands Community College on the peer audit, with representatives from both schools given the opportunity to visit each other and discuss how they managed CPD in their school. Receiving the Silver Award gave Blatchington Mill great confidence in their CPD strategy.

The audit looks to provide an independent, non-judgmental assessment of both strengths and areas for development. For Blatchington, this meant re-examining evaluation of INSET days. Following the feedback in the audit, the school now has a post-course evaluation form, with a grading system for how the training will apply in teaching practice. This whole process is now linked back to the school appraisal system, and informs their assessment on improving teaching and learning. This means that staff are getting much more out of their internal and external courses, and the leadership team are more discerning about the INSET days that they endorse. This ensures that time spent away from teaching is beneficial for both teacher and student improvement.

It adds another layer of

thinking to the work that

you are already doing and

can give you a bit of

inspiration

Ashley Harrold—Deputy Head

Blatchington Mill School

The National Teacher Enquiry Network (NTEN) is a collaborative partnership of schools and colleges committed to innovation and improvement in staff professional development. To join, visit www.tdtrust.org/nten

Would you recommend NTEN to another school?

The school has already been promoting NTEN in their local area, and would be keen to see other schools come on board. “It adds another layer of thinking to the work that you are already doing, and can give you another bit of inspiration from someone who is working on the same problem or a fresh idea or approach,” explains Ashley Harrold. “The heart of it is that you need to review everything that you do and evaluate how things have worked. This is really how schools should be working, and NTEN really has been great in helping us do that.” Sue Pinnick agrees: “A Lesson study vision has huge potential in our school. We have been training new mentors and are excited about having much more emphasis next academic year on peer observations and coaching.”

“Feedback from staff regarding our new approach to INSET indicates that teachers appreciate having more of a say in the content of staff CPD. They like a workshop approach, as opposed to ‘death by PowerPoint’, and like the fact that we respond to their needs. They also value the opportunity to feedback on training effectiveness,” says Sue Pinnick, the school’s CPD lead. Ashley feels that this is all part of a very constructive process, which sees the school move away from assessing the quality of teaching and learning by simply looking at the aggregate score of “how good is every teacher from their lesson observation”. They now encourage reflective practice for every teacher, asking "how effective are the teaching strategies that we are using in school, and how does each individual contribute to what we do".

Sue Pinnick — CPD Lead

Lesson Study and Other NTEN Opportunities Whenever the school’s Teaching and Learning Communities meet to discuss the ongoing action research projects, feedback has consistently been positive. Ashley agrees that teachers feel happy with the way they can run lesson study, and appreciate the trust in the way they run their teaching. Enquiry questions for lesson study have mostly focused on pupil premium students and their achievement in lessons. There are currently some cross-curricular triads with English, Maths and Science teachers working together, which have had been shown some initially very interesting outcomes.

“There is much less pressure on the teacher whose students are being observed and it’s all about the learning. They have welcomed the chance to talk about challenges in teaching and learning, alongside looking at recent research and development,” says Sue. To help overcome timetabling challenges, the school has used IRIS cameras to film lessons where needed. Sue feels that this has been a successful tool in making the lesson study experience even more flexible and tailored to every teacher’s needs. “While some staff were initially nervous about using IRIS, the fact that it is completely voluntary has reassured them that it can be used in a developmental way, again underpinning our completely non-judgmental and bespoke approach to an individual’s own CPD.”

Being part of NTEN has given the school opportunities to participating in wider field research projects. For example, this year the school is part of an EEF study into engaging parents with school life through text messages. The study, which was run with Bristol and Harvard Universities, has been “absolutely fantastic”, according to Ashley. “Rather than have an idea and try to roll it out and assess it ourselves, we have had someone do an academic piece of research so that we can then use the conclusions to inform our practice . In fact, the study suggested hugely positive results for parental engagement with our school.”