WWO Partnership for Brighton & Hove - the Details

The WWO Partnership will build on the informal networks and links that already exist between Brighton & Hove schools, and bring them together to create a more formal, sustainable and supportive group of schools, committed to collaboration and working together to collectively develop their performance and:

• Improve teaching and learning
• Improve and motivate staff teams and their professional development
• Ensure that training budgets are focused and spent on highly effective activities
• Submit joint funding applications and purchase group training
• Share and exchange best practice through collaboration
• Gain an efficient and effective way of achieving, measuring and evaluating your goals.

In the partnership, any differing emphasis of agendas will be satisfied within the WWO Partnership through the formation and interaction of smaller, more agile networks and cluster groups.

Listed in detail below is information about the WWO Partnership relating to:

• The context for Working With Others
• Measuring the impact - for use with Ofsted and Funding Applications
• Addressing the New OFSTED framework for January 2012
• Further Opportunities Within the WWO Partnership
• Next Steps for Establishing the WWO Partnership for Brighton & Hove

Working With Others

Working With Others is already well known to many schools in Brighton & Hove, and whilst some schools want to extend and further embed the WWO programme, others are looking to introduce it for the first time with their staff and children.

The WWO Partnership proposal takes this into account and is an opportunity for all Brighton & Hove schools to participate and benefit, regardless of whether they are just about to launch WWO or have been implementing it for several years. WWO offers the Partnership:

1. A facilitated framework for the Partnership
Cathy Ota has a wide range of experience working with groups of schools and other organizations that want to create an effective collaboration, helping them to achieve their goals and to their chosen timescales.
Working with individuals in groups and helping them focus on and achieve the task in hand is at the heart of the Working With Others programme.

2 A comprehensive and flexible programme for the building of whole school teams and the development of professional practice.
The team and group focus of Working With Others is used by many headteachers to improve communication and interaction between all members of their school team, including teaching staff, mealtime supervisors, teaching assistants and office staff.
The group skills learned by teachers in Working With Others training has a dramatic impact on improving children’s confidence and self esteem, enabling and teaching them how to become independent learners who can take responsibility for themselves, their learning and those around them. Teachers and supporting staff become re-energized and motivated reflective practitioners.

3. An accessible and practical programme for improving children’s learning and social skills, self-confidence and self esteem.
Working with Others addresses inclusion and equips children with the skills to support each other in their learning, evaluate their learning and problem solve. By creating effective team-working, children are able to take risks, ask questions, trust one another and feel comfortable with each other.
In learning how to respect themselves and each other, children’s social skills significantly improve, becoming apparent with a significant, positive change in both playground and out of school behaviour.

Measuring the impact - for use with Ofsted and Funding Applications

Using the same or similarly rigorous recording and measurement tools being developed for the Brighton & Hove Learning Mentor group of schools, it is proposed that this WWO Partnership should also include a performance monitoring system embedded within it, so that successes and results can be clearly demonstrated for both funding applications and OFSTED inspections.  This will be discussed further over the next few months, with the intention to launch this project with partnership schools in September 2012.

Addressing the New OFSTED framework for January 2012

The WWO Partnership proposal will support schools in addressing the new Ofsted framework for January 2012, which will report on four key judgements:

• the achievement of pupils at the school
• the quality of teaching in the school
• the quality of leadership and management of the school
• the behaviour and safety of pupils at the school.

All of which are a focus for and supported by the Working With Others programme and approach.

Agreed Programme for Partnership for Spring and Summer Term 2012

1. Steering group to be established and meet termly - for ongoing review, feedback and forward planning  
2. Network and smaller cluster group meetings - practical and relevant sharing of practice for practitioners hosted and held in schools and with staff teams across Brighton & Hove and/or for local clusters of schools
3. In school training and prgrammes of support to be tailor made for each school as required - INSET, staff meetings, TA and support staff training and supervision which can be run for individual schools or jointly
4. WWO Essentials Course for two members of staff from each partnership school: 1 day and half day per term, January 2012 - April 2013
5. WWO Co-ordinators - networking, support and training for WWO Co-ordinators, a practitioner from each school leading on embedding and implementing WWO as a whole school approach: 1 day per half term for total of 4 days between January - July 2012
6. Dedicated B&H partnership pages on WWO website with regular newsletter and updates.

Further Opportunities Within the WWO Partnership

1. Out of school training courses, one day and longer courses - these can be developed and offered according to priorities and needs of partnership and can include; specific training for TAs, MDSAs, supporting troubled and disruptive children, supporting positive playtimes.  
2. Increasing the Effectiveness of Learning Mentors in Brighton & Hove Schools - a project already in progress for launch in January 2012
3. Other possibilities - joint conference, transition days, WWO events, links with early years, accreditation, learning mentors, measuring and evidencing impact, to apply for joint funding for future projects, link with other WWO schools and partnerships across UK and internationally.

For further details, arrange a meeting or to call for your registration pack please contact Cathy Ota on 0781 7363193 or e-mail to cathy@cathyota.com