Our conference days are a fantastic opportunity for the cohort to come together to make sense of all they’ve learnt up to this point in the programme. We acknowledge the commitment of both the participants and their schools to enable this time and space.
The three main objectives of the conference days are;Â
Develop a deep and nuanced understanding of ‘disadvantage’ and how it originates and manifests within your region and community.
Understand and consolidate your own self-concept as an educational and civic leader and your vision.
Benefit from and contribute to your own network of educational leaders within and beyond your region.
We started strong towards meeting these objectives by spending time at the wonderful Chiltern Primary School in Hull, part of the Thrive Co-operative Learning Trust. We had an introduction to the school and the Trust from Jonathan and Kath Roe, CEO and Exec Headetacher at Thrive, along with Jaqui Marshall and Claire Lundie, Headteacher and AHT at Chiltern Primary School.
As ever, we want to dive into the journeys of these leaders; how did they find their way to their current positions? Where were the key decisions and moments of learning? A common takeaway here was about the importance of adopting a ‘varifocal’ approach; holding both what is immediate and what is coming down the track in mind at once.Â
We also asked what they expect when hiring Headteachers. The answer came in a surprisingly simple but effective answer;
Next we heard about the great work of Chiltern and Thrive more generally; situating this school in its particular context. Yes, we wanted to understand how disadvantage shows up here, hitting objective A, but we also heard about the multiple assets and bright spots in the community, such as the brilliant ‘Cook together, eat together’ events hosted at the secondary school Boulevard. Children and their families across both primary and secondary come together to, well, cook together and then eat together!
We asked for some reflections on the changes over time to the PD model at Thrive; here were just a few!
Finishing up the first part of the day with a tour enabled us to see all of this in action. We were really impressed with the careful thought that had gone into the various spaces, and to all of the extra curricular opportunities on offer.
The second section of the day, we devoted time to the presentations following the recruitment task participants had been working on. This is an overview of all of the domains of recruitment participants could have chosen to work on;
We acknowledged various challenges; sometimes a Trust owns the recruitment process so there is a bit of a battle trying to get a job description to be written with one specific school in mind; many schools are facing a social media problem, where google reviews, news stories and occasionally whole websites seem intent on undermining the reputation of the school; a few of our participants remarked that they were closer to making redundancies than hiring.Â
In the face of adversity, Yorks100 cohort 1 is steadfastly undeterred. The courage, perseverance and resourcefulness of the participants was both humbling and energising.Â
Following a re-writing of a job description, one person recounted going from no interested applicants to 7! Another shared the wonderful story of supporting an HLTA to apply for a teaching qualification. Others still discussed the changing of the interview process so that it better enabled relational conversations between existing staff and potential candidates;
The impact of this task has been far-reaching and will undoubtedly change the way these leaders think about recruitment in their own schools from now on.Â
Our afternoon session was due to be facilitated by the inimitable Sam Twiselton who was unfortunately unable to attend due to illness. However, we made the most of the resources she had prepared by thinking deeply about how to move teachers from the ‘task manager’ or ‘curriculum deliverer’ mindsets to one of ‘concept and skill building’ (i.e. teachers who have a deep understanding of why they’re teaching what they are, how best to deliver it and when children have mastered the content).
This then took us into an interesting discussion about leadership and finding the balance as a leader between managing the day to day tasks and leaving time for strategic thinking.
This brings us back full circle to the beginning of this article. We cannot overstate the importance of leaders having time out of their quotidian duties to;
Develop a deep and nuanced understanding of ‘disadvantage’ and how it originates and manifests within your region and community.
Understand and consolidate your own self-concept as an educational and civic leader and your vision.
Benefit from and contribute to your own network of educational leaders within and beyond your region.
Tune in again soon to hear about our insights from Term 3!
Thanks Verity. It was great to be able to contribute to the day, and great that Thrive had the opportunity to host at Chiltern PS. Really looking forward to being prt of the selection day for Y100 cohort 2.