Nov 7, 2023 | Communication, Leadership, Partnerships, Primary, Professional development, Secondary, Updates
This article was written for the Independent Schools Council website and also appeared on the Schools Together website in November 2023. It’s easy to see how some view partnerships with state schools as nice to have but non-essential. Historically, many such collaborations developed from individual passions and goodwill. But some schools are taking a more strategic approach. They have aligned partnerships with their school aims and ethos and have embedded partnerships in their school development plans, aware of how much impact they bring....
Oct 14, 2023 | Leadership, Partnerships, Primary, Professional development, Secondary
A school in East Kent regularly lets another use its sports pitches on Friday afternoons. It’s the sort of collaboration which happens all the time between schools in a trust. However, in this East Kent example, these are not schools in a trust but a different sort of collaboration: a state-independent school partnership. Here, an independent school is using the pitches at an academy. The academy finishes early on a Friday and the independent school is short of PE space. It’s a simple case of schools working together to solve a problem....
Oct 14, 2023 | Leadership, Partnerships, Primary, Professional development, Secondary, Updates
When I was appointed to the newly-created role of Head of Partnerships at the King’s School in Canterbury in 2014 some colleagues wondered if it had something to do with marriage guidance counselling! Partnerships are still a relatively new concept for some independent schools. Many are charities and look to fulfil their status through bursaries and outreach yet need to survive as businesses. Partnerships are different from outreach: co-designing educational projects with other schools can enable everyone to thrive; education is not a...
Mar 21, 2023 | Partnerships, Primary, Science, Secondary, Updates
Some young people are put off studying physics because of mistaken stereotypes. Planet Possibility is a consortium working to change this. Read on to find out what we are doing and how parents and teachers can be part of the story. If you close your eyes, what image comes to mind when you hear the word “physicist”? Fig 1 shows a recent Google image search for “physicist”. Does it confirm or shatter your own opinion? Fig 1. Google image search for “physicist” conducted on 29 September 2022 To those of us working in physics this...
Dec 21, 2022 | Leadership, Partnerships, Primary, Professional development, Secondary
At a recent partnership training event a participant asked me: “if independent schools lost their charitable status, do you think they would continue to partner with state schools?” My immediate answer was yes, of course they should – partnerships between state and independent schools bring enormous value to both partners. All schools improve by collaborating with others, especially when they plan their partnerships strategically. If it is genuine partnership which is mutually beneficial and involves activities co-created from the basis of a...
Dec 1, 2022 | Communication, Leadership, Partnerships, Primary, Professional development, Secondary, Updates
If you like to bookmark some reading for the holidays, here are some links to articles and blogs on the subject of school #partnerships which I’d particularly recommend. Some of the authors spoke at the #PartnerChat Symposium on 9th November 2022. 1. John Smith from RGS Newcastle– on bursaries vs partnerships:https://educatinghumansblog.blogspot.com/2022/10/measuring-performance-in-education.html 2. Lynne Bianchi from the Great Science Share for Schools – on listening as the best form of outreach...
Oct 19, 2022 | Business, Communication, Leadership, Partnerships, Primary, Professional development, Science, Secondary, Updates
This is an article based on a talk given at the WomenEd Global Unconference on Saturday 1st October 2022 by Christina Astin (Chair of Planet Possibility), Marilyn Comrie (Director of The Blair Project) and Olivia Keenan (SEPnet and QMUL). Some young people, including girls, are put off studying physics because of misconceived stereotypes. Planet Possibility is a consortium working to change this, radically. Read on to find out what we are doing and how education leaders can be part of the solution. In this article we want...
Oct 9, 2022 | Leadership, Partnerships, Professional development, Updates
One could have felt more en-burdened than en-lightened coming away from the joint HMC/IAPS conference for school leaders this week, given the focus on many of the current challenges and even crises in education globally. But conversations with fellow educators and some inspiring talks from influential leaders gave me hope. All the speakers agreed upon the transformative power of education. But how best to harness that power? Set in the elegant city of Edinburgh, the conference took its theme as “Enlightened Education”. If the...
Jun 17, 2022 | Leadership, Partnerships, Primary, Professional development, Secondary
[This blog first appeared in May 2022 on the FED website, following a FEDSpace Round Table event at which I was a panellist.] As we move into the second year of our work at the Foundation for Education Development (FED) and following the launch of the FED National Education Consultation Report, we hosted a roundtable discussion focussed on ‘Partnership working : Art or science? How to develop and manage long term, effective partnerships for education’. We asked Christina Astin, an education consultant working with schools and businesses...
Apr 1, 2022 | Partnerships, Primary, Professional development, Secondary, Updates
In education we often talk about “weighing the pig” as a metaphor for assessing student progress. “Does weighing the pig make it any fatter?”, we ask. Academic monitoring in schools has become the engine of accountability and SLTs up and down the land are forever discussing whether to spend more time learning or testing, in other words, feeding or weighing said pig. What about weighing the partnerships pig? How do we go about measuring the effectiveness of educational partnerships? Do they make...
