Regional workshops were piloted for the first time last month, hosted by Lord Lawson of Beamish Academy in Newcastle. The event was very successful, perhaps because it is the only occasion on which schools in different ‘sub-regions’ come together at a regional level to share some of their strongest practice over the year.
Sessions presented by schools from across the region included ‘Emerging from The Wasted Years – Ensuring Challenge at KS3′, ‘Questioning for Challenge’, and ‘A whole school and inter-school approach to action research based on the Spirals of Enquiry model’.
I think we all benefited from learning about Lord Lawson’s approach to life without levels, their work to prevent the gap from emerging in KS3, their quality assurance process and lots more.
“We all want to do the best for our students, but it can get very insular when you’re just working in your school and you’re not going and having a look at what else is out there… One of the most valuable things about whole education is that opportunity to talk and actually share ideas and find out what other people are doing… When we’ve had a look at what’s really made our school improvement in the last two years a lot of it has come back to either what we’ve seen at different schools through Whole Education or what we’ve done with the projects… It really is moving us forward.”
– Deputy Headteacher and Whole Education Champion
We look forward to running regional workshops across the country next academic year and do get in touch with your Network Facilitator if you would like to host one.
Heather Tyldesley
Whole Education Secondary School Network Facilitator
