Phew wot a scorcher!
This clichéd tabloid headline pretty much sums up for me both the weather and what the term has felt like in CUREE. My sailor brother ascribes the reappearance of summer (last seen about five years ago) to a ‘high over the Azores’. He tells me that this tends to stay put so we might be in for quite a lot more fine weather – and it would make a change for some of this to happen during the school holidays when there’s a chance to enjoy it.
The ‘high over CUREE’ right now is probably our work with Durham University and other partners in putting together what we think is the biggest ever research trial programme in education. Over 180 teaching schools and 760 of their alliance schools will be trialling over the next two years one of seven interventions focussed on closing the gap for vulnerable pupils. I’ve been inspired by the enthusiasm to engage with this enterprise I’ve met from school leaders and practitioners. I’ve felt this in the focus groups and other activities we’ve run specifically to consult people about the trials but also in spontaneous encounters at, for instance, the Seizing Success conference, the National Challenge Partners’ conference and the NTEN launch in the Houses of Parliament. It has been a mammoth task to get this far and now we are asking the schools to tell us which interventions they would prefer to trial. If you are one of the participating schools, please fill in our questionnaire before the summer holiday so we can work with your priorities! See the Closing the Gap article below to see how to do this.
Meanwhile in the equally exciting world of Further Education, we’ve had a remarkably busy year. We have continued working with colleges old and new on staff development programmes, customised research route maps and the like. We’ve had the opportunity to work in a new partnership with 157 Group and the RSA supporting colleges trying out new ways of designing the curriculum. But we suspect the initiative, working again with 157 Group, that will have the biggest long-term impact is the SKEINFE pilot where we explored in-depth evidence about how colleges are supporting professional learning for their teachers and the way that vocational expertise and pedagogic skills come together. We are really looking forward to hearing about how our pilot colleges take forward their plans early in 2013-14. Some of our work this year (and a lot over several years) has been supported by LSIS and its predecessors. We reach the end of an era this month with the closure of LSIS but we look forward to an equally productive relationship with the new Education and Skills Foundation. There is plenty to build on and sufficient challenges to rise to!
Many of the heads, leaders and practitioners we’ve met in the past few weeks have looked, to be honest, in serious need of a rest and with a bit of luck you are going to get one starting any day now. If you’ve still got the odd planning and/or training day to work through, I hope some of the material below and on our website is of some help. See you in September
Philippa Cordingley - Chief Executive