We are pleased to bring you this next EVENTS newsletter with details of professional learning opportunities. 

Ensuring an Ambitious Curriculum for Early Years Pupils
This half day session will support you to consider how areas of learning fit into whole school curriculum planning, ensuring progression from Early Years into Key Stage One.
 
Highlighted Courses/Support:

• Supporting Children with ASD and High Anxiety
• FREE Support for Pupil Premium Key Stage 2 Pupils
• Good NPQ News to ring in the New Year!
• Professional Communities

• Primary Subject Leader Briefings
• Events for your diary

“Looking back now, I’m really grateful that my learning and exams gave me structure, motivation and skills for my working life.”
 
Justin Coombs joined national awarding Exam Board, AQA nearly ten years ago and is presently Executive Director of Assessment Technology, with responsibility for the design and development of the software systems used to deliver assessment, including administration of candidate entries and results, and scanning and marking of scripts.
 
Prior to joining AQA, Justin worked in software development roles in financial services, data science and medical technology.  In his role as Director of Systems Implementation at dunnhumby, Justin led the international rollout of their core data science platform through a significant phase of expansion.

Whilst Justin cannot now recall in any great detail his experience of exams as a learner – apart from an uncomfortable French A Level exam when he was poorly with a terrible bug - he certainly excelled in his exams; and embraced the content and skills learned from his subjects.
 
At A Level, Justin studied Maths, Further Maths, French and German and then went on to study Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Oxford.
 
We are pleased to find out more now about his role and insights of working for AQA.

1. What do you find to be most personally rewarding working for AQA?
For me, the most rewarding part of working for AQA is when we get to the annual A Level and GCSE results’ days.
 
As exams run through the Summer, we see huge volumes of exam papers arriving at our scanning centre in Milton Keynes, which provides an insight into the scale of the job that we do for the nation. So, it is great when we get to results day to take a moment appreciating the media coverage showing millions of learners across the country getting the grades they have worked for.
 
We can also enjoy listening to stories about them progressing onto university and college and, whatever comes next and reflect and be thankful for the fact that we have been able to help to move them forward.
 
2. What was your own experience of learning for GCSEs and A Levels?
I was fortunate in that I engaged with most of the subjects at GCSE and A Level; and much of this learning has been invaluable in my subsequent career. There is hardly a subject area that I have not applied – from the core skills of Maths and Computer Science typically associated with IT careers to the Geography, Modern Languages and Science, which have all helped me along my career journey.

3. What do you consider to be the most significant change in the exams system in recent years?
This is an interesting question, because aside from the COVID pandemic, where we obviously had to operate in a completely different system; the exams system has largely been stable since the last round of reform in 2017/2018.
 
However, at AQA, we have been working to refresh all our systems in order to make the lives of teachers and Exams Officers easier with the introduction of new technology and features, such as the digital media portal, which released new features for uploading audio and video over the last two summers.

4. What do you believe distinguishes AQA from other awarding bodies?
Fundamentally, the fact that AQA is a not-for-profit charity, rather than a commercial organisation.
 
Hence, at our core is our charitable purpose of delivering fair and accurate results and never to let a learner down. This means that we wish to ensure accurate and fair results for learners on results day that reflects their performance. It means that we offer some qualifications that other Exam Boards would not be able to offer, because we are driven by doing the right thing for education, rather than doing the right thing for shareholders.

5. How would you like to see exams evolve over the next ten years and how realistic is this thinking?
We anticipate that exams will evolve gradually over the coming years.
 
We are planning for an incremental shift towards digital assessment, as we recognise that digital skills are critical for today's young people who will be entering the workplace in the 2030 and 2040s. We know that many of today's students are used to doing a lot of their work on digital devices, but we still recognise the ‘digital divide’ in access to technology, so want to make sure every step we take drives greater equality.
 
But these evolutionary changes can only be within the boundaries of what schools can support. Furthermore, we completely recognise the challenges of teacher workload – so, we want to make sure that whenever we’re ready to introduce technology it has a positive impact for teachers and school leaders too.
 
We thank Justin for his dedication to all those learners who will be sitting and who have sat AQA exams in their educational career.

Starting 2025 with good communication intentions, we are pleased to bring you the January UPDATE. 

Associate & Strategic Leader of Teaching & Research Schools (ESW) Roger Pope CBE rings in the news year with good news that scholarship funding is being repeated for Cohort 4b:

"For many schools and Trusts, they are a key outcome of annual progress and development discussions with an allowance of funding built into annual budgets. In short, they are becoming an entitlement for staff."
 
You can find more information and how to apply here

For our January interviewee, we find out more about working for Exam Board AQA from Justin Coombs, Executive Director of Assessment Technology.

If you are currently on parental leave, or you have colleagues in your school/Multi Academy Trust (MAT), we encourage you to read more about The MaternityTeacher PaternityTeacher Project’s (MTPT) FREE return to work workshops - with the next session coming up on Monday 3 February 2025.

Our Data Protection expert sponsor, SchoolPro TLC unpicks the recently updated Subject Access Request (SAR) Department for Education guidance. As former school teachers and leaders, they are standing by to help you.

Meanwhile with our other sponsors. Goosemoor Educatering share some festive food and 2024 visual highlights and do feel able to get in contact should you like to find out more about catering for your school/MAT and/or foodie nutritional input to your curriculum. 

Exeter Supply Partnership are ready for the new year to support your primary supply teaching needs with their ethical not-for-profit ethos and ONVU Learning are also ready to support you with their dynamic teaching and learning classroom tool. Intrigued? Click the UPDATE link below to find out more.

Welcome back! With our warmest wishes for a happy and hopeful 2025. 

Team Achievements
The SchoolPro TLC Teams have their own expertise and are proud to have excelled in various projects with a commitment to deliver exceptional results and ultimately, to strive to exceed client expectations. Special recognition goes to the Data Protection Office Team for their outstanding performance in supporting schools with:
 
892 data breaches
671 Subject Access Requests
181 data decisions
 
The Data Protection Impact Assessors (DPIAs) saw a 74% increase on last year with 73 completed.
PLUS, numerous compliance checks and audits undertaken by the team and this does not even include an attempt to count the number of emails and phone calls responses!
 
The Training Team have supported (through the SchoolPro TLC online training platform) 11,922 school staff course completions across Cyber Security, Data Protection and Safeguarding training courses.
 
They have also run onsite and remote staff training sessions throughout the year and developed a number of new training courses focused on different Data Protection topics, including Subject Access Requests (SAR) management and How To Be A Data Protection Champion.

Finally, the launch of the ‘After School Sessions’ enjoyed a successful first in a sequence of training events on Safeguarding and Data Protection in the SchoolPro TLC Gloucestershire HQ in November.

Community Engagement
School Pro TLC are proud to have strengthened their commitment to corporate social responsibility, and participated in several initiatives that have made a positive impact on our community.
 
They continue with the SME Climate Hub Commitment and hope to carry on reducing emissions  into the new year and beyond with a target to achieve net zero by 2030.
 
Partnering with The Ocean Network in support of Surfers Against Sewage, this is an exciting relationship as they become a voice for the ocean in helping to protect the UK’s unique coastal environment. A cause that is close to the Team’s hearts.

Click on the logos below to find out more!

Looking Ahead | Strategic Goals for Next Year
Planning is in earnest for the launch of the new portal, which will increase team capacity with the intention of best serving schools and Trusts, whilst building on successes, and exploring new opportunities with partnerships to support SchoolPro TLC clients with even more cost-effective and high-quality services.
 
If you have yet to meet SchoolPro Safety, this new brand was launched in September, and offers a range of Health and Safety services; and will be joined by the upcoming SchoolPro Safeguarding, due to launch early this year.

The proof of delicious healthy food is certainly in the pictures, as you can see here some of their foodie highlights from 2024.  

Because they care, Educatering Team build on their love of food with positive healthy relationships with School Catering Teams.

As well as using the best produce, Educatering also provide two or three-week rolling menus for School Catering Teams. 

​They believe the best way to maximise the uptake in school meals, other than by providing better produce, is by creating exciting meals which the children will enjoy whilst also being nutritional.
​
Menus can be tailored and pupil voice and staff feedback is always well received.  Menus are updated termly or twice a year based upon preferences to move with the seasons allowing more local and seasonal produce to be used .

More Information 

Opportunity to Meet the Educatering Team

​Head of Catering, Rob Stevens will be presenting at the SWIFT School Business Management Professional Community on Tuesday 11 February 2025 AND the SWIFT Estates Management Professional Community on Tuesday 11 March 2025.