Proud of our diversity

Reported widely this week has been the government proposal to 'shame companies into listing their foreign workers'. Although it is always possible that plans have been misreported, we thought we'd take this opportunity to state how proud we are of the diversity within the Elliot Foundation.

The Elliot Foundation was conceived as a charity committed to improving outcomes for all the children in its primary schools regardless of their backgrounds.  This sentiment extends to our employees.

We will never be 'shamed' into revealing their nationalities. We are incredibly proud of their diversity. We cannot divulge the ethnicity or nationality of all of our 1,500+ employees because we do not have their permission to do so.  

But the photo above is of all the staff in head office this morning, all of whom resoundingly endorse this message. They are, reading from left to right: British Nigerian, Kenyan British, British Sri Lankan, Nigerian British, Ukrainian, Somalilander and Polish.  Not in the photo is our British Jewish Office Manager and the photographer and author is a Balding Ginger European.

Our diversity is not the result of any policy or active plan. It is merely the product of drawing together people who believe that restricting children's life chances simply because of where they are born or the colour of their skin is unacceptable.

For the record, we will never employ a member of staff or not employ them because of their ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation provided that they are entitled to work in the UK.  Not only because it is illegal to discriminate on this basis but because it is morally wrong!

Fostering success

Now that the dust is starting to settle from the Education White Paper, there has been some time to reflect on its implications.  

Shortly after publication we shared with the DfE some thoughts on a number of the potential risks or unintended consequences of the policy outlines and suggested some ways of mitigating them. But the biggest issue probably now needs wider reflection, hence this blog post.

Here's the excerpt from our initial reaction to the white paper:

"Engineering success rather than just delivering a policy outcome: 

• All schools to become academies does not, of itself, improve outcomes for children
• MATs need to be successful
• The DfE doesn't actually know what success looks like yet
• All it knows is what it doesn't want"

Mitigation 

Engage existing MATs who have been successful over time and through growth to bring on new MATs through 'MAT Factories" - possibly becoming members of the new MATs that they help to create" 

Whilst the problem statement is quite clear, the mitigation suggestion is a bit off kilter. The difficulty is in the language and more specifically the use of the word 'Factory'.  Any genuine educationalist knows that success comes from suiting the learning to the learner rather than a one size fits all approach... So why would an industrialised approach to school and academy groups succeed? The short answer of course is that it won't.  

Much better would be to foster success. To identify those sponsor organisations [1] who appear to have succeeded in turnaround and acceleration of improvement in schools in different contexts and inviting them to foster fledgling MATs as they in turn seek to discover the best path for their own children.

The great advantage of this approach is that it moves aways from the tick box mentality, the seven secrets, or top tips.   The egocentric... 'Let me tell you why I am so wonderful and what you need to do to be as wonderful as me.'  It shifts the emphasis onto the learner whether they are a child or an academy principal.

Creating a MAT fostering programme would allow successful MATs and Local Authorities to build capacity in the next generation of school-led systems. It would be much more effective and more efficient than the command and control regulation and oversight approach. It would create breathing space for Regional Schools Commissioners to identify the most efficient levers for change and it would distribute risk rather than concentrate it.

We are already doing it where we can (and are always happy to support others build enduring model of success) but it would be great if there were a properly funded government programme to support it.


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[1] We are delighted that following the white paper the government is in discussion over allowing successful local authorities to set up their own MATs.  We have been suggesting this for over two years as the best way to retain expertise in the school system. 

Getting Reading Right

Getting Reading Right

A reading conference at Ramnoth Junior School

‘I’d like to do some training and development about how to improve the teaching of reading, real strategies which will help teachers. Maybe involve other schools and learn from each other' said Karen Crawley, Executive Principal at Nene and Ramnoth Federation.

She was talking to Sue Robinson in November 2015 and it was the beginning of an idea, which culminated in a successful reading conference on 21^st January 2016. The conference attracted 125 visitors from Elliot Foundation schools and from 20 schools from Peterborough and Cambridge.

Patricia Metham opened the conference with her keynote address. Until 2014 Patricia was Ofsted’s National Lead for English and Literacy. She engaged the audience with her knowledge and understanding about how to develop effective reading.

Identification of challenges and barriers to learning to read well, steps to success, ensuring many ‘real’ reasons and varieties of opportunities to read and planning a reading curriculum and its assessment were just some areas covered by Patricia in her highly evaluated session.

Afternoon keynote speaker, Judy Clark, Primary Literacy Adviser for the National Literacy Trust, mesmerised the audience with her obvious enthusiasm and passion for books and using quality texts to motivate and develop life long readers.

Ruth Leask, who is much valued as a consultant and former primary principal with the Elliot Foundation, presented a ‘sell out’ workshop on ‘inference versus retrieval’. Hearing comments such as ‘I’m always inspired by Ruth’ was another indication of the quality of the provision at this exciting conference

The Trust is a collaborative organisation. It was wonderful to see the high quality input from Hillingdon Primary’s Sabrina Kelly and Louise Maylor leading another packed workshop on Phonics. 

Highlees/Eyrescroft Federation is well known for the excellent relationships built with their parents and the community. It was a delight to have Gemma Brown presenting strategies used by this successful federation on engaging parents in building a reading community.

Variety and high quality were features of the day. Other workshops available included the Hounslow Language Service, Cambridgeshire Libraries, Norfolk Book Centre and several publishers

‘Getting Reading Right’ was the first conference held at Ramnoth School. It was organised by Karen Crawley, Becky Reeve and Ruth Leask. As the Development Director I am always impressed with the sheer hard work, commitment and collaborative spirit of our outstanding colleagues who organise or help to present for our events or programmes. They are what make the Elliot Foundation great and their belief enables our children to achieve

Already looking forward to our next collaboration!

Sue Robinson PhD