1. Day Conference 2011 Building Successful Partnerships Exploring the possibilities for effective collaboration presented by federation, trust and academy status

2. Two Case Studies Mike Lavelle, Headteacher, Lincroft Middle School the Federation of North Bedfordshire Schools which has now become the Academy Federation of North Bedfordshire Schools Adrian Rogers, Headteacher, Robert Bloomfield School the Beds East Schools’ Trust (BEST)

3. A shift in the climate for schools? Andy Hargreaves contrasts: Karaoke World – you follow the bouncing dot – not all performances are the same – but are conditioned, and limited, by the same instructions Jazz world – participants are free to improvise – Jazz allows musicians to play their favourite instruments, develop their own styles, and take the lead at times. White Paper 7.14 In a much more autonomous system, schools will be responsible for setting their own priorities and deciding how best to meet them. ( The Importance of Teaching: Schools White Paper: Schools to work together to raise standards)

4. DfE – Academy FAQs Taken from current DfE website Slightly different than the DfE Booklets

5. Which mainstream schools can apply to become academies? Primary and secondary schools that have been rated outstanding or good with outstanding features by Ofsted can submit their individual applications to convert. In addition, any school – primary or secondary – can apply with other schools as part of a formal partnership, providing at least one is rated outstanding or good with outstanding features, or they join an existing academy trust with a proven track record of school improvement. Applications for outstanding maintained special schools will open in January 2011. All schools are encouraged to register their interest through the online form on the Department’s website.

6. Academy chains Who can now apply to convert to academy status as part of a chain? Any school can apply to join an existing academy trust. In addition, any group of schools, regardless of their individual Ofsted ratings, can apply in partnership to join the academy programme as long as at least one of the member schools is outstanding or good with outstanding features. The schools do not have to already be in a federation before applying. Each application will be considered on its merits, and the Secretary of State will only approve those where he is satisfied the schools have the capacity to enjoy academy freedoms and there are appropriate accountability mechanisms in place to support weaker schools to improve.

7. Academy chains Does every school in the group get the £25,000 grant towards the conversion? Can this be used to support the whole group? Yes and Yes. We know there are some smaller schools that find this a very attractive option and enable them to share expertise and resources to help support each other through the conversion process.

8. Federations and Groups of Schools If an ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ school with one or more outstanding features that wishes to convert is in a hard federation with another school (or number of schools), then that Governing Body may submit an application to convert covering all the member schools of that federation, even where some or all of the other schools are not outstanding in their own right. Any school, regardless of their individual Ofsted ratings, can apply to join an existing Academy Trust. In addition, any group of schools can apply in partnership, as long as at least one of the member schools is ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ with one or more outstanding features. Each application will be considered on its merits, and the Secretary of State will only approve those where he is satisfied there are appropriate accountability mechanisms in place to support the weaker schools to improve. Each school applying in partnership would need to submit a separate application and their Governing Body would need to pass a resolution to convert to become an Academy. Source Guidance for schools becoming academies

9. Multi Academy Models Collaboration (previously soft federation) Trust (Church school model – belong to a trust – represented on each governing body) Federation (Single governing body – previously hard federation) Collaborative Partnership Model Each academy exists as a separate entity with an agreement to work in partnership for specific purposes. Umbrella Trust Model Each academy has own funding agreement, company and governors. With umbrella trust. ‘Chain’ model with common sponsor. Multi-Academy Trusts There is one company and governing body - may delegate limited powers to schools. This is the model used by ‘brands’ such as ULT, Oasis, Harris and Ark. Previously Multi Academy Models

10. The Importance of Teaching: Schools White Paper: Schools to work together to raise standards Extracts from the current white paper

11. The Importance of Teaching: Schools White Paper: Schools to work together to raise standards 7.13 We will also establish a new collaboration incentive worth £35m each year. This will financially reward schools which support weaker schools to demonstrably improve their performance while also improving their own. The fund will incentivise improvements in attainment overall, improvements in progression and narrowing of the attainment gap between deprived pupils and others.

12. The Importance of Teaching: Schools White Paper: Schools to work together to raise standards 7.14 In a much more autonomous system, schools will be responsible for setting their own priorities and deciding how best to meet them. As the National Strategies and other field forces come to an end, we will support a new market of school improvement services with a much wider range of providers and services available for schools to choose from. We will work with a growing number of providers to make it easier for head teachers and teachers to find out about improvement services on offer as well as making high quality research, good practice and free resources easily available. 7.15 Local authorities will be free to define how they will support school improvement and will no longer be required to set local authority level targets. Local authorities might choose to offer school improvement as a traded service. This could include continuing to provide support and challenge to schools that want it, running improvement conferences, bringing people together to tackle local problems and brokering support from excellent schools to support other schools.

13. Central questions Pros and cons of academy status Single school – if judged outstanding - in-principle agreement to support another school to help raise standards. Chain or federation – routes to academy status if not judged outstanding A chain of academies – What would this look like? New possibilities through partnership – for school improvement…. Changed environment for schools - LAs and new autonomy – Opportunity for shared thinking and perspectives A way forward to a 21 st Century three tier system?

14. Materials from today All the presentations from today will be available for you to download from the NMSF website from tomorrow: www.middleschools.org.uk Please go to the ‘Conference Reports’ page You will also find useful papers provided by Adrian and a paper explaining the different multi-academy models.

16. Research - Middle School Spending tables 2011 When the spending tables were published in 2010, middle deemed secondary schools were missing from the secondary data (presumably because they did not have GSCE results). Now the data has been published – and this brief research paper considers -spending per pupil in different local authorities -what the tables reveal about the relative cost of middle schools compared to other types of school. Download your copy from the ‘Research’ page of the NMSF website www.middleschools.org.uk

17. 2011 National Conference Sustaining performance and achievement through partnership Stratford Manor Hotel, Stratford on Avon. Monday 17th October to Tuesday 18th October, 2011 Confirmed speakers: Graham Watts: An introduction to the Habits of Mind 21st century learning is not just about gathering information but about knowing how to act on it, knowing what questions to ask of it and being able to thinking critically about content and origin. The Habits of Mind give us the behaviours that shape effective inquiry and encourage independent learning. Alison Peacock: National Leader of the Cambridge Primary Review Network Malcolm Trobe: Policy Director, ACSL Cost: Full conference to members - £339