This is (y)our time
As we begin the process of recruiting for the penultimate cohort of Yorks100, we're keen to know if this is the moment you've been waiting for...
Making time
Yesterday, on Tuesday 4th November, I had the pleasure of hosting the Peer Review webinar for Cohort 2. This is a moment we booked in during those heady, light days of summer, knowing we’d need a moment to recalibrate and reconnect once the official ‘programme’ part was over.
The idea was that everyone would have visited each others’ schools as part of the peer review process and we’d reflect on the learning and celebrating the wonderful things happening in classrooms all over the county.
Inevitably, things got in the way of everyone seeing everyone else’s school in the first half term: cover, Ofsted, the sand-like quality of time once the school year starts. As one weary soul declared: how has it only been 2 days? It feels like 7 weeks already!
But what truly was remarkable, that everyone, bar none, has made a commitment not just to one school visit, but to an ongoing cycle of peer support.
Flinging open their doors, their policies, their resources, this group of professionals were hungry for some low-stakes, high-yield feedback from a group of peers they trust and respect. So they made it happen: by the end of the call, calendars were out and dates were in.
I was humbly reminded that there is never ‘enough time’ but when something is important (even if it isn’t urgent) good people make time for it and for each other.
Your time?
If this sounds like a group of people you’d like to get to know - you’re in luck! The Yorks100 programme is now recruiting for it’s fourth and penultimate cohort.
Our aim when we started in September 2023, was to find 100 headteachers across Yorkshire, over 5 years. We now have 56 people across cohorts 1-3. That means we need exactly 44 more like-minded individuals who want to be part of something big.
Our mission couldn’t get much bigger: we want to eradicate educational disadvnatage in Yorkshire. We want all children, regardless of socio-economic background or any other barrier they’re experiencing, to enjoy a life of choice and opportunity.
We believe that having 100 locally rooted, nationally connected headteachers who see it as their civic duty to make the system fairer is a good bet.
And we’re seeing results.
25% of our partcipants are headteachers.
More parents are engaging with family learning at Filey Church of England Nursery and Infants School.
More pupils experiencing disadvantage than ever before are meeting combined exected standard at Normaton Junior Academy.
If you’re looking for an opportunity to develop professionally and personally; if you want to have the time and space to visit fantastic schools all over the country; if you want to build your network of like-minded school leaders with bags of moral purpose, maybe this is YOUR time to apply for the fourth cohort of Yorks100.
Here’s more info on what the programme entails.
Here’s a form to join our mailing list and sign up for an info webinar or a 1:1.
Or send me an email at verity.howorth@reachfoundation.uk