SWIFT Autumn Term 2024 Leadership Forum
Committed to bringing together leaders from all educational settings within the area, our online Leadership Forums link to the best of local, regional and national.

For our 2024 Autumn Term event, we have two speakers:
Sarah McGinnis, Ofsted Assistant Regional Director and Professor (Dr) Tanya Ovenden-Hope, Dean of Place and Social Purpose and Professor of Education, Plymouth Marjon University.

Find more information here 

Sarah McGinnis | Ofsted Assistant Regional Director will be leading on updates followed by an opportunity for Q&A.

Professor (Dr) Tanya Ovenden-Hope | Dean of Place and Social Purpose and Professor of Education, Plymouth Marjon University will speak on Educational Isolation: Can a school’s place limit its access to resources and consider place-based disadvantage and the way it reduces coastal and rural school access to resources, especially teachers.

More Information about Our Speakers 

Sarah McGinnis has extensive experience of leading inspections of primary and secondary schools in a range of contexts and initial teacher training providers. She has also worked on national research projects.
 
More recently, Sarah has experience as a Senior HMI and is now the Assistant Regional Director for the South West. Before joining Ofsted, Sarah held middle and senior leadership positions in large secondary schools which included oversight of Post-16 provision. Her responsibilities included leading teaching and learning and curriculum development, self-evaluation and quality assurance, working with departments and individuals to raise achievement. 

Professor (Dr) Tanya Ovenden-Hope is also Visiting Professor at Canterbury Christ Church University, and is in her second term as an elected board member of the International Council of Education in Teaching (ICET), the British Educational Research Association (BERA) and as an invited advisory board member for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Teacher Development Fund. She also holds invited advisory and voluntary roles across a range of Education organisations and charities.  
 
Tanya’s research explores rural, coastal and small schools, using the concept of ‘Educationally Isolation’ to explain how a schools’ place can limit access to resources, such as a high-quality workforce. Tanya has maintained a special focus in her research on teachers and issues relating to their recruitment and retention, being driven by a commitment to championing equity in education. Her work in this area has been used by Academics and Governments internationally.  

Tanya is a committed and enthusiastic educationalist with over three decades experience in schools, colleges and universities in England as a teacher, teacher educator, educational leader and educational researcher. Tanya holds the highest professional status for teaching and learning in schools (Fellow Chartered College of Teaching), colleges (Fellow Society of Education and Training) and Universities (Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy). 

The author of numerous papers, reports, articles and books, Tanya is dedicated to exploring social inequity and educational disparity and has focused on the challenges for coastal, rural and small schools, specialising on issues of teacher recruitment and retention and professional development, since 2008.  Her two latest books are: "The Early Career Framework: origins, outcomes and opportunities" (2022) and "Exploring Teacher Recruitment and Retention: contextual challenges from international perspectives" (2020). Tanya’s most recent research report is, "Locality Matters: understanding how to support the challenge of educationally isolated schools" here 

Tanya is the Education Research lead for the University, leading UoA 23 in REF 2021 and is Director of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Group - Context Agency Place and Education (CAPE) and an active PhD supervisor and Director of Studies. Tanya developed and leads Plymouth Marjon University | Cornwall, and continues to extend Marjon’s contribution to place-based equity through transformational opportunities in higher education engagement for places that have been previously under-resourced. 

We are pleased to be working with The Colyton Foundation and Atom Learning to provide FREE access to Atom Home for all Key Stage 2 Pupil Premium/Free School Meals pupils in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset primary schools. 

The Purpose of this Initiative
Evidence shows that children from under-resourced backgrounds in the South West are amongst the least likely in England to attain highly at school, and to access Higher Education. 

The Colyton Foundation aims to work collaboratively with schools and universities throughout the
South West to increase levels of high attainment for under-resourced children, guided by their ‘cradle
to career’ philosophy. Partnering with leading universities and Multi Academy Trusts, The Colyton Foundation are dedicated to supporting high attainment for young people in primary and secondary schools, and Further Education.

As part of this work, The Colyton Foundation has established a partnership with Atom Learning to support pupils from under-resourced backgrounds to attain highly at Key Stage 2 by giving them access to Atom Home. This responsive online learning platform is proven to support successful attainment through tailored support that builds confidence, strengthens knowledge, and prepares children for the transition to secondary education.

Benefits for your Pupils
We understand the challenges faced by schools in ensuring that all children, especially those
experiencing disadvantage, have access to the best possible educational resources.

This Atom Learning initiative is designed to provide that much-needed support, at no cost to your school.

1. Tailored Learning
Atom Home adapts to each child’s learning level, ensuring they receive the right support for
their individual needs.

2. Key Stage 2 Focus
The platform covers all essential content in English, Maths, and Science, supporting your
efforts to raise attainment.

3. Comprehensive Resources
Pupils will have access to an extensive library of teacher-created practice questions, learning challenges, and resources to support their mastery of the curriculum. 

About Atom Learning
Atom Learning is an online learning and teaching company for Key Stages 2 – 3 with a range of products for families and schools to support with learning, exam preparation, teaching and assessment.

Atom Home is the home learning and exam preparation platform for Key Stage 2 pupils.
Practice questions, video tutorials and learning resources are created by experienced teachers and Atom provides targeted support to help all learners thrive.

Areas are identified where each pupil needs support and the difficulty of tasks is adjusted accordingly to provide a personalised learning experience.

This offer is FREE to all Key Stage 2 Pupil Premium pupils in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset primary schools​. Normally Atom Home would cost £575.90 per year. ​

Access Atom for your Pupil Premium Pupils
You can find more information about how to access and implement Atom Home for Key Stage 2 Pupil Premium / Free School Meals (FSM) pupils in your school in the link below.

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

Supporting your Professional Development  
This issue includes the following programmes, courses and events from our partners for your professional development intended to support and enhance the work of your school: 

• Teaching & Assessment in Primary Science Focus4TAPS 3 Day Programme

• Understanding and Monitoring Early Years - for Subject Leaders
• AQA Writing for GCSE English Language Paper 1 & 2 | Stretching Grade 3 to 4
• Two Day Paediatric First Aid
• An Introduction to Trauma Awareness for teachers and leaders
• Professional Communities
• Primary Subject Leader Briefings
• The Maternity Teacher Paternity Teacher (MTPT) Project
• Events for your diary

Teach Like a Champion (TLAC) | Building a Strong Classroom Culture
Training led by US-based Trainers from Dough Lemov's Worldwide training team, using some of the strategies included in the best-selling book 'Teach Like A Champion 3.0'.

We are pleased to bring you this first UPDATE of academic year 2024 - 2025. 

Associate & Strategic Leader of Teaching & Research Schools (ESW) Roger Pope CBE is prompted by a meeting with a nurse to consider how good leadership and management can motivate and retain staff.

"More fundamentally, it is about how we structure timetables, meetings, duties, admin, marking so that staff know where they are and are not subjected to last-minute or inexplicable and unjustified changes. It might be about having the courage to stop doing stuff in order to release time for staff to do other stuff properly."

Doug Lemov disciples will already be familiar with his Teach Like a Champion (TLAC) motivating mantra. But you now have the opportunity for your own school teach like a champion to be trained up on this new dynamic SWIFT programme. It is perhaps a happy coincidence that TLAC is suggestive of the mnemonic TLC in tune with our Teaching School Hub values. 

The results are in from our annual Teaching School Hub (TSH) School Leader Satisfaction Survey for the last school year, 2023 – 2024 with some helpful feedback to steer our programme delivery. We thank those school leaders who took the time to feedback. Thinking about leadership, save the date for our forthcoming Autumn Term Leadership Forum on: Thursday 21 November 2024 from 1530 – 1715 (online). Ofsted Assistant Regional Director, Sarah McGinnis, will be joining us as keynote speaker with more speakers to be announced. More info to follow! 

A leader we very much enjoy working with is this issue's interviewee, Director of Kingsbridge Research School, Jon Eaton who shares his reflections on the role. And you can read Jon's blog on the Improving Writing in Secondary Schools programme and what the evidence says.

Our sponsor SchoolPro TLC keeps us informed on important guidance updates on Biometric Data for MATs and Schools from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Make sure you're all secure.

Other sponsors, Educatering have been busy working with school catering teams to provide their healthy nourishing food and expertise in the kitchen. Exeter Supply Partnership showcase some of their start of term professional development for their supply teachers with Early Years and Key Stage 1 Workshops. Whilst ONVU Learning introduce their new ONVU Learning Rewards initiative designed to recognise and celebrate the engagement and achievement of users within their platform. It looks good.

As the Autumn Term gathers pace we wish you all a rewarding and productive final few weeks and thank you for taking the time to read this issue. 

The results are in from our annual Teaching School Hub (TSH) School Leader Satisfaction Survey for 2023 – 2024.
​
School leaders were invited to complete a short satisfaction survey on how they believe they have been supported by SWIFT on the Golden Thread programmes plus other Continuing Professional Development, including the High Prior Attainment training day led by The Colyton Foundation.

We are consistently committed to listening and responding to our school leaders and teachers and are grateful to those of you who took the time to feedback about what matters most so that we can improve our programme delivery.
​
Working together as SWIFT, Colyton and Kingsbridge Teaching School Hubs seek to deliver programmes intended to upskill staff in order to boost teacher recruitment and retention; ultimately, to promote better educational outcomes for all pupils in schools, especially the disadvantaged. Hence, it is important to us that our programme delivery is high-quality, relevant and adds value to the endeavours of busy schools in our constantly changing times.
 
A key survey question was whether leaders had been able to access professional development relevant to their setting’s needs and development goals. Certainly, this has individual implications for us as a starting point – although future planning would benefit from more detail. However, a resounding 63% completed agreed, 31% somewhat agreed and a thoughtful and very honest 6% neither agreed or disagreed. 
 
School leaders were also invited to note their satisfaction with their school’s overall experience of working with Teaching School Hubs last year. 69% completed agreed, 30% somewhat agreed and 1% neither agreed or disagreed. The numbers speak for themselves. But clearly prompt a deeper thinking about the sometimes-subjective understanding of survey dynamics. 

With opportunity for further comments, we are very grateful to those school leaders who took the time to share their thoughts. Overall, the prompt, supportive responses and smooth administration and organisation by our SWIFT Team was praised.
 
Several leaders praised our support for Early Career Teachers (ECTs) as part of the Appropriate Body Service and the guidance and advice provided for them to fully support the ECT and help them to make robust progress and they liked our platform to upload and provide evidence for their ECTs.
 
Particularly positive was a comment about benefitting from being part of our wider SWIFT network and appreciation of professionalism and core values. Partnership is at the heart of our SWIFT work and it is rewarding that is reflected back at us. Another school leader commended our seminars as productive, meaningful and relevant, which is very positive.
 
One leader had yet to work with the Teaching School Hubs, which is a valid consideration for us about our marketing and how we present SWIFT to schools. We certainly understand that the educational landscape can be cluttered and confusing.
 
Guiding comments were constructive about improved clarity of our communications. For example, dates for expected termly ECT progress forms to assist time management and planning for schools. Although interestingly, another praised the clarity of ECF assessments etc.
 
Given the variety of communications from different members of the SWIFT Team, one school leader would ideally prefer to have a single point of contact. We also value the reflective comment about SWIFT emails being crisper and concise in view of numerous email communications and we will take this point seriously in considering the reading workload for school leaders and teachers.
 
And finally, in tune with the modern time, one responder was interested in climate awareness training for leaders. It is important to us that we bring meaningful training to you, so watch this space.
 
64 school leaders responded to the survey and we are grateful for your honest feedback and reflections that will helpfully steer us in our onwards work.
61% leaders responded from Devon schools, 23% from schools in Plymouth and 16% in Torbay.
Primary school leaders were the highest responders at 55%, followed by 34% from secondary, and 6% from Special Schools, 3% Alternative Provision and 2% from the private sector. 

Nevertheless, the results were encouraging and thoughtful feedback and we are grateful to all those school leaders who took the time to respond.

Beyond the survey, please feel able to message us with any comments, reflections and/or suggestions about how we can work better and smarter to serve you. We are always pleased to hear from you and you can click on the links below to contact us.  

Report by Jude Owens, SWIFT Executive Assistant