The Offer Working Session

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Gaining Ground Regional Conferences

• The Offer Working Session

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Objectives of the Session

• To explain the offer in more detail including
  information on school to school and Academic
  Focused Study Support
• To share effective practice
• To provide an opportunity to respond to questions
  from delegates
• To provide some working time to consider the
  information required in the School Priority
  Profile and the Action Plan Proforma

Gaining Ground Regional Conferences
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The Gaining Ground Offer
Offer
Funding

20,000 pa over 2yrs
Academic Focused Study Support
DCSF funding LAs to fund SIPs
4 Extra Days of SIP support
National Strategies is funded by DCSF to roll out
this training
Support for establishing and embedding APP
School to School support
SSAT funded by DCSF
Funding to access additional specialist support
10,000 pa for 2 yrs
Schools may wish to consider forming Trusts.
There is 20,000 available to fund additional
support from DCSFs partners
Support for strengthening school governance
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School to school support
The Gaining Ground Programme

• David Douglass
• Specialist Schools and Academies Trust

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By schools for schools

• Raising and sustaining achievement
• Transforming learning
• Securing success for all students in all settings
  
• Creating and enabling a can do empowered
  culture
• Assuring quality through effective networks
• Inspiring, challenging and motivating

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Gaining Ground Ensuring progression
Inflection Point
(Adapted from Jim Collins, 2006)
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Transforming Schools - what we know worksThe
three waves of raising achievement

• First find, embed and sustain short term
  strategies that have been proven to make a
  difference in raising achievement.
• Secondly add value by maximising the
  effectiveness of what you have learnt and enhance
  the way you do it. Securing good rates of
  progression for every student.
• The third wave is something altogether more
  radical. It involves developing a personalised
  curriculum which ensures progression for every
  student by responding to what each student is
  good at and building on it. These schools will
  have a leadership structure which supports staff
  to set very challenging goals and to drive
  change.

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What are your priorities? What is already
changing? What still needs to change?
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• What are the best levers to pull for your school?
  
• Impactful reforms could include
• A focus on improving performance at departmental
  level
• Meeting the challenge of within school and within
  Department variation
• Building capacity in the senior leadership team
  to develop others
• Promoting effectively (from within?)
• Training
• Removing barriers to learning
• Access to and understanding of data
• A comprehensive revision of the curriculum
  offered
• Revising timetabling practices
• Student support workforce implications
• A strategic and departmental wide approach to
  lesson planning to remove silo working

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What happens now?
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Gaining Ground programme overview
1) The Gaining Ground School reviews its
priorities and actions points in its SEF in light
of its underperformance in rates of student
progress. A draft school priority profile is
prepared .
April
June
July
Aug
Sept
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• Support available to you in the coming year
• 12 days of bespoke in-school support from the
  partner school
• Termly support from an experienced SSAT
  consultant head
• An annual Raising Achievement conference for
  practitioners
• Regional events on specific themes (e.g.
  Maximising Progression at KS4)
• A senior leaders conference
• Wider support brokered via SIP as required
• Publications on key themes
• Interactive searchable website to share
  learning from each other

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David DouglassContact Tel [phone] Email
davidd_at_ssatrust.org.uk
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The Gaining Ground Offer
Offer
Funding

20,000 pa over 2yrs
Academic Focused Study Support
DCSF funding LAs to fund SIPs
4 Extra Days of SIP support
National Strategies is funded by DCSF to roll out
this training
Support for establishing and embedding APP
School to School support
SSAT funded by DCSF
Funding to access additional specialist support
10,000 pa for 2 yrs
Schools may wish to consider forming Trusts.
There is 20,000 available to fund additional
support from DCSFs partners
Support for strengthening school governance
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Academic Focused Study Support ( AFSS)

• Examples of AFSS
• book clubs
• specialist subject clubs
• talks from inspiring speakers
• visits to other schools or places of educational
  interest
• making links with local FE and HE institutions
• holiday clubs
• maths games or Olympiad type events
• workshops, e.g. drama
• parent/ child learning
• revision sessions

• Study support is learning activity outside
  normal lessons which young people take part in
  voluntarily..
• Taken from Study support a national framework
  for extending learning opportunities, DfES, 2006.
  Same definition used in 1998 version
• Academic-focused study support should be
  directly related to the core curriculum, focusing
  on raising standards of attainment and improving
  pupil progression.
• .

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AFSS and the Gaining Ground Strategy

• Motivates pupils and builds their self esteem
• Allows different teaching methods to be deployed,
  which can re-engage learners
• Allows more informal pupil teacher
  relationships to be developed
• Its impact is proven ( Mcbeath study, 2001)

• Motivates pupils and builds their self esteem
• Allows different teaching methods to be deployed,
  which can re-engage learners
• Allows more informal pupil teacher
  relationships to be developed
• Its impact is proven ( Mcbeath study, 2001)

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More information on AFSS

• 20,000 PA for two years
• Funding can be spent on drawing down support from
  national organisations who specialise in study
  support or for developing in-school plans
• Information on on what national organisations can
  offer is available in Gaining Ground AFSS
  guidance
• Outline plan developed with SIP, and support
  school, and submitted as part of Partnership
  Action Plan
• SIP is responsible for signing off plans and for
  brokering in support
• Only two criteria for plans
• The plans deliver AFSS
• AFSS delivers improved pupil progression

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Activity One

• Two tasks- 10 mins for both
• 1. Effective practice in School to School and/or
  Academic Focussed Study Support
• 2. Three questions you want answered, prioritise
  your top one

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Activity Two

• Consider your priorities to improve progression
• Start to run through the proforma document
• Consider what sort of school you could be matched
  with and how you might use their support
• Consider how you might use other elements of the
  package

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School Priority Profile
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Partnership Action Plan Proforma