CLPT Development Model
The Trust has 3 strands which we want to continue to develop in order to better deliver our core aims:
1. School Improvement
Our approach is based on a changed model of school organisation; school improvement hubs replacing separate individual schools. The establishment of school improvement hubs as formal entities with an executive oversight from the CLPT will facilitate schools truly collaborating with one another for the benefit of all. We will build leadership and management capacity internally, by providing development opportunities for individuals, within schools and between schools in the CLPT. We will train and deploy our own National Leaders in Education (NLEs), Local Leaders in Education (LLEs) and Specialist Leaders in Education (SLEs) for deployment within and beyond CLPT.
The Central Learning Partnership Trust is self-sustaining and outward looking using its capacity to support those who are underprivileged, in difficulty, or in any other way in need. We build upon the diversity of our academies in order to broaden the experience of students and communities, and to challenge discrimination and prejudice in all of its forms.
Our model is based upon the creation of single-phase school improvement hubs, in which the collective resources can be used to impact upon all pupils in the partnership. Unlike other multi-academy trusts, our model enables support to be brokered from other than CLPT academies, if necessary.
The major benefit of the proposed model is the formalising of school to school support, with the resources of all the schools in a hub impacting on all students. The financial benefits and career opportunities that our multi-academy trust provides will also directly impact on outcomes.
The success of this particular partnership approach to school improvement is evidenced by the fact that Moseley Park was removed from its Special Measures category in February 2012, after just two terms of CLPT involvement. School performance rose from the key headline figure being below floor in 2010, to it being amongst the highest achieving schools in the region.
2. Management and Leadership Development
We are licensed through our membership of a Teaching School Alliance to deliver leadership programmes for the National College, up to and including NPQH.
Heath Park’s status as a National Support School, as a strategic partner in a Teaching School Alliance (Learners First Schools Partnership) and as a Teaching School in it’s own right ( Lead School in ConnectED TSA) means that our academies are in a position to provide whole school or targeted support to schools beyond Central Learning Partnership Trust.
Working within these TSAs means CLPT has access to over 250 schools, built around the learning community construct with local, regional and national partners with a school improvement agenda. These partnerships are school-led, driven by the need to ensure student progress and well-being and focussed on building excellence and addressing underperformance in equal measure. These partnership bring schools together as both providers and recipients of support.
CLPT has access to Leadership Licences Levels 1 – 3 awarded by The National College. We are presently delivering the National Qualification for Senior Leaders (NPQSL) and National Qualification for Middle Leaders (NPQML) in Wolverhampton, in addition to the ‘Improving Teacher’ and ‘Good to Outstanding’ programmes. All CLPT academies will have access to these professional development opportunities both as recipients and deliverers.
Rotherham and Wolverhampton face very similar challenges and much of our school improvement work, although not exclusively so, has focused primarily on challenging schools in inner urban environments. Developing sustainable support strategies for such schools requires much more than an input of effective leadership. Schools in inner urban areas, with high levels of social deprivation and youth and adult unemployment, require strategies which impact way beyond the school gates. What is required is a strategy which triggers a cultural shift in an area and restores its self-esteem and sense of worth; a shift which restores people’s belief in the value of education and its ameliorating powers.
CLPT has a focus on school improvement, leadership development and developing sustainable communities. In order to achieve this, there is at present a particular focus on the following:
- Closing the Gaps
- Progress of all Students
- SEN
- New Arrivals
- Leadership and Succession Planning
- Initial Teacher Training
- Targeted Professional Development
3. Academy Sponsorship
The vehicle through which we can deliver sustainable continuous improvement by maximising the impact of the very best school leaders on the maximum number of young people. This can be done as follows:
- Pool expertise of high performing academy leaders, practitioners, support staff and business managers
- Link you with Head Teachers who can support your school improvement needs
- Shared expertise and targeted support to underpin outstanding standards of teaching and learning
- Support for strategic planning for academy or school improvement
- Support structural change where this is the required school improvement route (but not change for change sake) and support any communications with Trade Unions
- Opportunity to shape policy development
- Quality assurance framework
- Behaviour management systems support
