Subject: FAO Head Teachers - weekly news update 8

Text Box: SCHOOLS NorthEast weekly update
The future of our region is in school

This week... it’s Enterprise and Global Entrepreneurship week. Good luck to all of the schools who are taking part in enterprise

activities and challenges this week.

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News and Events

Not to be missed: Heads Up Event:

Testing times - are schools made to measure or fit for purpose?

SCHOOLS NorthEast invites you to join Professor Peter Tymms, Director of Durham University’s Centre for Evaluation and

Monitoring for a timely and topical discussion of the future of school performance assessment. The event will be held at the

Lindisfarne Centre, St Aidan’s College, Durham University on Wednesday 26 November from 4pm-6pm (light refreshments will

be served).

This event is free to attend and open to all, but places are limited so please R.S.V.P to - info@schoolsnortheast.com or call: 0191 280 5037

Redesigning learning, redesigning school, redesigning leadership

The Specialist School and Academies Trust hosts the 16th National and 5th INet conference on Leading System Redesign. The

three day conference and exhibition will be held at the ICC Birmingham from 26-28 November 2008. Key speakers will discuss

System redesign, an approach to schooling, and in particular to the transformation of education, based on the belief that individual

schools and educators are not only the appropriate source of systemic change in education, but the best source. For more details

or to book your place at the conference or on a break-out session, go to - http://imm.specialistschools.org.uk/NatConfNew/default.aspx,

email - ssat@mmmlive.com or phone - 01905 343550.

News round-up

Local News

· Schools get green light for revamps (The Journal)

· Happy Birthday to Barnard Castle school (Northern Echo)

· School’s sports hall transformed (Northern Echo)

· Region’s pupils fail to shine in national guide (The Journal online)

‘Coasting’ schools

· Coasting schools told to improve (BBC News)

· Good GCSEs, but 'coasting' schools must do better (The Times)

· 'Coasting' schools must be ambitious, says government (The Guardian)

· When schools looks are deceiving (BBC News)

· You must do better, schools to be told (The Independent)

Comments on Ofsted

· Themed lessons get Ofsted thumbs down (The TES)

· New Ofsted inspections attacked (BBC News)

· Head Teachers' union accuses Ofsted of wrecking schools (The Guardian)

· School inspections "superficial to point of worthlessness" claims think tank (Children and Young People Now)

· Ofsted accused of sub-standard school inspections (The Independent)

Credit crunch affects schools

· Credit crunch hits private schools (Daily Mail)

· Small schools will be forced to shut or merge (The Guardian)

· Small private schools fear the worst (Times Online)

Academies and Diplomas

· Poor white pupils are left behind (The Guardian)

· Head Teacher expectations key to working-class attainment (Children and Young People Now)

· Academies accused of covert selection as number of poorer pupils falls (The Guardian)

· Few sign up for flagship diplomas (The Guardian)

· New blow for diploma qualifications (Daily Mail)

· Low uptake for vocational diplomas (Children and Young People Now)

Other education news

· Primary schools in major rebuild (BBC News)

· Zero tolerance pays off for Head who suspends two pupils a day (The Independent)

· Pupil voice to become law (The TES)

· Failing schools turned round by 'Super Heads' (The Independent)

· Leading Article: Skills and knowledge (The Independent)

· Asbestos risk to children in 13,000 schools MPs warn (The Independent)

Star pupil

St Bede’s RC Primary School - The South Shields school has been named FA Charter Standard Primary School of the Year

for the North of England. The award was recognition for the work done in building football links with clubs in the community.

Well done St Bede’s!

Could do better

School Bullies! – As anti-bullying week begins, a survey by the NASUWT union highlights that it’s not just children who suffer.

The report shows that two-thirds of teachers had been subjected to some form of bullying or harassment during the past two years.

Head to Head - a week in the life of a North East Head Teacher

Ken Tonge has been Strategic Head of the Ashington Learning Partnership Trust in Northumberland for just under a year. The

Trust covers 5 schools, 2 First, 2 Middle and a High, with a pupil population of 3,000. Each school has its own Head Teacher and

together they work as a senior leadership team for our virtual all-though school. Before this, ken was Head of Ashington High

School Sports College for 11 years and Head of De Brus School in Cleveland for 5 years before that.

Last week was typical in the way that it didn’t follow any pattern. In my current job no two weeks follow the same pattern.

Last week involved some intensive lesson observations over 2 days in Hirst Park Middle School, a trip to London to give evidence

to the House of Commons Education Select Committee and a day working in schools in Leeds in my role as a School Improvement

Partner.

The two best things that happened at school last week were that firstly I was delighted at the quality of teaching and learning I

saw in the middle school. What lovely children and what a fantastic atmosphere! It makes my job a privilege to get to see this kind

of quality education. The other good thing also happened at the middle school. Last summer I went round all our schools with a

photographer preparing for our Trust prospectus. One first school girl had such a charming smile we used her face on a full page

spread at the back of the prospectus. I came across her again last week when observing a Year 5 Humanities lesson. She’d moved

up in September. She hadn’t seen the prospectus so I went and got a copy for her. When she saw it she beamed all over again!

The biggest disappointment of last week was to learn that even though we have had a lot of success raising funds for our Trust, a

sizeable bid we had sent to NCSL for a Schools’ Business Management project hadn’t gone through. We’d had an inkling from NCSL

people that it might be too ambitious and they were looking to projects which were simpler, just about developing the role of School

Business Managers. We’ve had them for years and were looking to take the idea a step further with a sophisticated structure of

school support and support staff development over our five schools (....and beyond!). Hmphhh!

The funniest thing that happened last week was not at school but in Westminster. I was giving evidence as the Chair of the

National Steering Group for Trust and Foundation Schools. After answering one question comprehensively (and eloquently, I thought),

the Chair of the assembled MPs said, “You sound like Gordon Brown.”I replied without thinking, “Really? As dull at that?” It was then

that I remembered the two television cameras, the two scribes from Hansard and the press and public gallery were behind me.

One thing that would have made my job easier last week (and generally) would have been less emails!

Top of my to-do list for this week is to really get stuck into reviewing the Trust-wide policies that I’ve been promising to do for nearly

a year.

My hero of last week was the Assistant Head Teacher at Hirst Park Middle School who spent a day with me observing lessons and

giving feedback...then volunteered to have her lesson observed. Well done, Linda!

My villain of last week was the person at the DCSF who had the idea of putting 40 million pounds into ‘coasting schools’ with

‘complacent leadership’. I wonder if it occurred to the DCSF that there might be some more deserving causes out there!

If I could go back in time and change something about education I’d dump the National Curriculum and go back to the seventies

and early eighties when we could create bespoke programmes of learning to match the needs of our learners, when we didn’t live in

daily fear of the Standards Police banging on our doors and when we could really focus on making learning meaningful and enjoyable

as a result of our own initiative and creativity.

My question for this week’s Head is: when was the last time you had a lunch break?

If you would like to take part in our ‘Head to Head’ feature and tell us all about your week, please contact the team at

info@schoolsnortheast.com or call us on 0191 2805037.

Funding and opportunities

Engage those parents!

As part of the drive to increase parental engagement, the government has set the deadlines of September 2010 for secondary

schools and September 2012 for primary schools to offer online reporting to parents. To help prepare your school for this, you can

download a free toolkit that tells you everything you need to know to get your school ready.

Go to – www.becta.org/schools/parentalengagement

Need a School Bursar or Business Manager?

The National Bursars Association, the professional organisation for bursars, school business managers and administrators in the

UK, can provide professional support to your school and to senior management. Membership of the Association is open to individual

Bursars and also to senior support staff. It serves the maintained sector in particular but also welcomes those working in other

educational sectors.

Go to - www.nasbm.org.uk, or call 01788 573300 details on membership.

North East in a Nutshell – know your region

The North East has the only county in England with its own tartan - Northumberland's black and white check, known as the Shepherd

Tartan.

Wise words

"Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody

can understand."

General Colin Powell

SCHOOLS NorthEast is your network. Please get in touch with your ideas, concerns, views and experiences- email: think@schoolsnortheast.com

To unsubscribe to this weekly update, please email us at – info@schoolsnortheast.com

Have a good week!

SCHOOLS NorthEast Team

Katie Stonehouse

Communications Officer

SCHOOLS NorthEast

Tel: 0191 280 5037