Case study
Key theme: collaborative leadership
Established cluster aligns education improvement partnership work with extended services work
Nottingham’s Sherwood cluster of schools develops extended services as a seamless extension to their existing strong collaboration.
Summary
Nottingham’s Sherwood cluster of schools has linked their existing education improvement partnership (EIP) work and the extended services (ES) agenda by enabling each school to employ a parent liaison worker. Extended services have also been made a key strand of the cluster’s EIP ambitions, ensuring the close collaboration of their EIP manager with their newly appointed cluster co-ordinator.
Key learning/outcomes
- Headteacher commitment is a critical factor in this cluster’s success. Headteachers must attend meetings to access resources. The chair models an effective style of collaborative leadership.
- Easy, fit-for-purpose processes have resulted in meetings being valued and valuable.
- Parent liaison workers provided ‘quick wins’ for the cluster and helped reduce headteacher workload.
- Taking the time to consider what they wanted (and when), which included the appointment of a cluster co-ordinator, has paid dividends. The cluster co-ordinator role is now being reviewed, one year on, with a view to tailoring it to changing needs.
- Collaborative leadership is strong and growing across a range of levels throughout the cluster – between existing/new headteachers and the children’s centre, between the education improvement partnership manager and children’s centre, between parent liaison workers and between the children’s centre and other agencies
Background
Nottingham’s Sherwood Cluster was already a strong collaborative group of schools, which had been working together as an education improvement partnership. Delivering extended services around this cluster model seemed a natural extension to the work already being done. The cluster initially worked with its education improvement partnership manager - co-ordinating the work of the cluster in that context. A successful argument was made for the case for using extended services funding to employ parent liaison workers, which is seen as a key milestone within the cluster.
At the start of National College’s project a cluster co-ordinator was employed to work closely with the education improvement partnership manager, enabling the cluster to develop a clear focus on extended services alongside its other collaborative work. This role has shifted and grown over the past year with support from a National College consultant.
In Sherwood, the collaborative leadership structure is focused on an extended services steering group, which arose out of the already established education improvement partnership steering group. All headteachers are members of the steering group, which meets monthly to lead and manage the business of ES as a strand of the wider EIP agenda. The local authority extended services development officer also attends the extended services part of the meeting. The cluster co-ordinator is employed by the lead school for extended services within the partnership and is funded through the extended services budget, which is managed by the education improvement partnership manager.
Key challenges and issues
- Aligning the work of extended services and education improvement partnership work.
- Ensuring the new cluster co-ordinator’s role fitted the needs of the cluster.
- Extending coherence across all areas of collaborative work and types of stakeholders; ensuring the involvement of new stakeholders including the children’s centre and area partnership officer.
- Early commitment to establishing parent liaison worker posts.
Solution or approach
- Strong and focused direction provided by lead headteacher to initiate extended services programme
- ES cluster meeting follows on from EIP meeting to allow work to take place on the same day and involve all stakeholders.
- A highly proactive, newly appointed cluster co-ordinator has developed strong operational work across the cluster. She:
- knew the area well, having come from a local sports and physical education teacher background
- was proactive in establishing communication; eg, setting up a website for the cluster’s work
- took on an early and significant co-ordinating role with regard to the core offer
- ensured an effective flow of data to enable recording systems to operate smoothly using the Continyou evaluation model
- The cluster chair ensures EIP and ES agendas work closely together and involves parent liaison workers in key meetings in recognition of the importance of their role.
- The cluster engaged in an early planning day with their National College consultant and began to use the school improvement planning framework tools to support its work. At the end of the period, the cluster ran a ‘one year on’ session using the tools.
- The early appointment of parent liaison workers was seen as a ‘quick win’ by the headteachers.
- it had early impact on headteacher workload by creating greater capacity within the schools for dealing with parental concerns and establishing a clearer sense that schools could offer something for parents as well as for their children
Next steps
- To review the role of the cluster co-ordinator in order to shift the nature of her work and strengthen her strategic role.
- To consider more formal governance arrangements within the cluster.
Further information
For further information contact Liz Anderson, Cluster Chair: headteacher@northgate.nottingham.sch.uk