Nursery Schools Summit

Lucy Driver, Head Teacher St Pauls Nursery School and Children’s Centre and Sally Jaeckle,

Strategic Lead, Bristol Early Years Service

In this workshop we will be celebrating partnership working between the Early Years Teaching School and Bristol City Council Early Years Service

Bristol’s Nursery School Heritage

There are twelve maintained nursery schools and the nursery tradition in Bristol goes back to the McMillan sisters - most schools are approaching their 90th birthdays:

• All offer integrated Children’s Centre services - early education, health and family support

• All have been judged good or outstanding by Ofsted with outstanding pedagogical leadership

• All share a commitment to distributed leadership, researchful practice and capacity building

• Three have been designated a National Teaching School ( BEYTC)

Bristol’s Changing Context:

27% increase in the number of children aged birth to four since 2006, compared to a 14.5% increase in the population overall

30,700 children in Bristol under five years of age and the population is becoming increasingly diverse

2,500 two year olds are eligible for early education

26.1% of children living in poverty

Co-Construction : key principles for genuine partnership between the Local Authority and the Bristol Early Years Teaching School:

• Promoting a culture of reflective practice and continuous quality improvement

• Providing inspiration, provocation, support and challenge, while encouraging innovation and creativity

• Coordinating, signposting and brokering support, building on the experience and expertise of the sector

• Quality Assurance and accountability – monitoring, evaluating and evidencing impact

• Making best use of local resources

Bristol Early Years Teaching School

Partnership and Vision:

‘There is I believe, actually nothing more powerful to say about education than this: that all people, however young or however old, have enormous drive and capacity to learn;…...that the most effective teachers trust learners, enhance their self esteem, have no need to control them, provide an unconditional support which doesn’t go too far; and value all types of intelligence in all areas’ Paul Ginnis ( Freethinkers Guide to the Educational Universe)

• Equitable Pedagogy

• Capacity Building

• Critical Enquiry

• Cohesive Communities

• Equal Partnerships

• Promotion of social inclusion

• Advancement of education of children, families, practitioners

Leadership Characteristics – the key ingredients

• Professional altruism and generosity

• Integrity and transparency • Respect for individual

contributions and personal agency

• Courageous conversations • Time to think • Flexibility and openness to an

iterative approach • Entrepreneurialism • Developing ownership through

co-construction • Emotionally intelligent ways of

working

Early Years Statutory Responsibilities include delivering: • high quality, integrated early childhood services, including

health, early education and family support,

• the Free Early Education Entitlement for all three and four year olds and 40% of the most disadvantaged two year olds

• sufficient children’s centres to meet local need

• sufficient childcare to meet the needs of working parents or parents in education or training

• Professional development and support for all early education and childcare settings deemed ‘Requiring Improvement’ by Ofsted and a power to support continuous quality improvement across the early years sector

‘The Teaching School ‘BIG SIX’

Teaching schools are part of the Government’s drive to give schools more freedom and take increasing responsibility for managing the schools system. As well as offering training and support for their alliance themselves, teaching schools will identify and co-ordinate expertise from their alliance, using the best leaders and teachers to: • Initial Teacher Training • Specialist Leaders in Education • School to School Support • Continued Professional Development • Research and Development • Talent spotting & Succession Planning

Interdependencies between The Early Years

Teaching School and the Local Authority:

• Vision • Accountability • Capacity • Resources • Alignment • Ambition • Reflection • Clarity regarding

roles and responsibilities of all partners

The whole early years sector - private, voluntary and independent settings, childminders, nursery classes and reception classes, nursery schools and children’s centres - has a collegiate responsibility to work together to improve outcomes for children and families, reduce disadvantage and narrow the achievement gap at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage.

The Role of the Local Authority – the umbrella and the glue:

• The umbrella: providing a democratic, objective and impartial overview of strengths and areas for development across the city, drawing on quantitative and qualitative intelligence to agree strategic priorities, tailored to local need.

• The glue: a danger of increased fragmentation could lead to gaps and duplication of services - the Local Authority has a key role in bringing services and service providers together to build strong partnerships and facilitate joint ownership, accountability, coherence and alignment

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Putting Partnership & Co-construction into Practice

Specialist Leaders of Education- recognising expertise across the sector:

• Intelligence sharing • Identifying priorities • Joint recruitment / designation • Joint planning for roles and

responsibilities • Shared induction and professional

development • Driving innovation and research • SLE brokerage and deployment • Joint accountability for impact and continuous quality improvement • Capacity building

• SLE Deployment • National Leaders of

Education • Local Leaders of

Education • LA Strategic Leads • Priorities meetings • Quality Assurance • Monitoring and

Evaluation – evidencing impact

• Leadership pathways

• Researchful practice

• Progression routes through Lead Teachers, SLE’s, Network Lead Teachers

• MLP route

• Post NPQH

• Inclusion and Diversity

School : School Support Capacity building

Research and Continuing Professional

Development:

• Research website

• Bristol Standard Self Evaluation

• Professional development including gap research tasks

• Redcliffe Research Hub

• Documentation – making learning visible

• Collaboration with HEI’s and other partners, including Early Years Masters Modules

• Participation in local SEFDEY programme

• 5x5x5= creativity

• Commissioned CPD linked to strategic priorities

Initial Teacher Education:

• 60 Students this year • 100 next year, to include

salaried and unsalaried Schools Direct Places, and EYs Teacher

• 2 HEIs • Co-constructing models • SLE Mentors • 24 school partners this

year • Shared delivery of

professional studies

Benefits and Transferability

• Alignment of strategic roles and responsibilities

• Equity and parity across Bristol schools and settings

• An informed approach

• Better use of resources – avoiding gaps and duplications

• Development of researchful practice and evidence base, through a teaching hospital model

• Progression into leadership rooted in research and participation

• Opportunities for growing expertise from grass roots

Discussion and Reflection:

• How can maintained nursery schools share their expertise more widely?

• What partnership opportunities are available in your local area?

• What are the benefits and challenges of investing in a systems leadership model?