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Team Around the School

Team around the School : School improvement Team

Principles: Shared responsibility, partnership, open, transparent, accountable, simplified access to services, coordinated provision.

Activities: Regular in-school improvement support team, meetings - agreed actions, challenge & support, action planning/review cycle, analysis of data - shared understanding.

Champion: Ian Pratt

Manager: Neville Clark (School Improvement Adviser)

Members: Angela Gault ( KS3 Literacy Consultant), Anne Derry (KS1 Litearcy Consultant), Fiona Cooper (Science Consultant), Roland Clark (EMAg Consultant), Gill Gardner (Senior SEN & Inclusion Educational Psychologist)

Head teachers: Sue Machin ( Kings Charles Primary), Martin Blunt ( Bloxwich CE).

The Team around the School evolved to be the Improvement Support Team.

Aims:

In all schools to improve the performance of our pupils and staff.

For all schools and Walsall Children's Services to work together in order to enhance the effectiveness of the resources of Walsall Children's Services.

Objectives:

  • Develop a culture of partnership and trust between Walsall Children's Services and the schools.
  • Challenge and encourage the raising of standards in schools.
  • Identify good practices and share these with other schools.
  • Analyse all relevant school data and mutually agree the strenghts and areas for development across a broad range of issues.
  • Support schools via the appropriate support services and through a variety of agreed approaches.
  • Monitor and evaluate both the improvements and areas of concern of the schools and services of Walsall Children's Services.

    • Rationale:

    The School Focused Teams (Team around the School - Improvement Support Team) work in partnership with each school to:

  • Support and celebrate good practice;
  • Act as critical friend in challenging existing practice;
  • Interpret all data to identify key issues;
  • Agree improvement priorities;
  • Co-ordinate support services to meet agreed outcomes;
  • Monitor, evaluate and review impact of support;
  • Built on successful outcomes in subsequent cycles.

    • Annual Cycle

    SFT Team Meeting

    We must ensure all services and team members are fully briefed before the first meeting in school. Therefore analysis of data/information needs to be completed for the SFTs prior to all school meetings.It will be appropriate if each service has a clear understanding of their information about the school before the initial team meeting. School information can be found on the website following links for School Focus Groups A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, B4.

    School Meeting

    This is a meeting to determine the school priorities and request for support. Ideally the Head teacher, SFG Coordinator (SIA), the Chair of Governors and any other person requested by the school should attend the meeting. The draft agenda will include an opportunity for the Head teacher to outline the whole school view of their strenghts and areas for development. This may be in the form of a self eveluation document such as the S4.

    The purpose of this meeting is:

  • To produce agreement on areas of good practice. To analyse all relevant school data, etc.
  • Then to agree on areas of support, development and change.
  • Additionally, to identify a potential lead service/team in support planning.
  • To affirm and map a clear process for the School/SFT partnership in relation to the schools request for support.
  • To clarify the ways forward.

    • Final SFT Meeting (SFT members meet to discuss)

    All members of SFG will able to find the TAS forms and requests for support from the school on the website prior to their meeting.

  • Each SFG Representative to report to team concerning priorities of schools with which service team are involved.
  • Each SFG Representative to report to team where service team has been identified as potential lead service.
  • Discussion points: nature of support, allocation of time, allocation of personnel, work of members of service team already in place in school.
  • Outcome: pro-forma template to be completed in meeting for each school concerned. If all team members are present in the meeting this would enable discussion by specialists concerning the type and amount of appropriate support. It would also build a clear picture about work already carried out by service team as individuals in that specific school.

    • Possible questions in preparation for the meeting in school

    1. What is the basic function of the Improvement Support Meeting?To work in partnership with schools to agree the schools priorities for improvement, across all aspects of the School, and to feed these back to Walsall Children's Services, leading to a coordination and better use of the support delivered back to the school by Walsall Children's Services.
    2. Who will attend from Walsall Children's Services?

    Usually the School Improvement Adviser and another member of the School Focused Teams.

     


    3. Who should attend from the school?    		This would be normally the Head teacher and Chair of Governors, and whoever else the Head teacher feels is appropriate. In most cases however, we would envisage the Head teacher and a member/s of SMT of the School feel this is appropriate.

    4. What/will the meeting discuss?

     

    What the school priorities are for improvement as agreed between the school and Walsall Children's Services and the possible implications for support for the coming academic year. We would wish to be updated on innovations the school is undertaken and identify good practice that could be shared across the School Focus Group, and the Borough.

    5. Is this meeting additional to the external professional time that may in future be allocated to the school?

    No it is part of that allocation, but clarifies for the school and Walsall Children's Services, where time will need to be spent in the future.

     

    6. What does the school need to do before the meeting?Collect together the information that you feel supports your self evaluation and identification of priorities (possibly S4). Your School Improvement Adviser knows your school already, so his/her experience and work with you will guide them for the meeting.

     

    AGENDA

    Part A: Prepared By:
    Basic School DataSchool / EW
    Whole School IssuesSchool
    Whole School NeedsDiscussion
    Team Response Discussion
      
    Part B: 
    Agreeing who does whatAll
    Planning meeting form completedSchool
    Date of next planning meetingAll

     

    Form for Improvement Support Meeting: TAS 1

    Improvement Support Team - School meeting

    In attendance:

    School:
    SFT:

     

    Part A: Discussion with the school as to the findings of their self evaluation, and what the basic data shows as key issues.

    Agree and understand the issues together

    Action:

     

    Record: Key issues as agreed

    Part B: Global improvement issues - identify issues that may need to feed into the Whole Borough planning as areas for action across a group of schools or wider.

     

    Action:

     

    Record: Global issues for whole Borough planning.

    Part D: Planning time together - Initial planning together for the use of external coleagues time from within allocated amount. Plan for one term in the first instance, and joint working required.

     

    Action:

     

    Record: Initial proposed use of time to progress key actions within the school.

     

     

    Signed by SFG Coordinator:
    Signed by Head teacher: