How colleges can build better partnerships with schools: 10 top tips

A gaming student at Blackpool and The Fylde College, which was recently awarded outstanding by Ofsted for its partnerships with regional colleges. Photograph: Guardian

1. Begin modest

Delivering pilot versions of an event permits you to check what operates best on a smaller sized scale and spot any locations for improvement.

An instance is our super finding out days, in which we run actions on a distinct job or subject at a school. For 1 of the pilot days I ran a workshop on making a double web page advert for a magazine, as I have a background in promoting. I imagined it had gone well, but when I asked the pupils regardless of whether they had appreciated the session they explained it was okay, but that they manufactured posters all the time at college and it was the very same point.

It was an crucial lesson to understand early on. Talk to youthful men and women about what they would like to do. You may possibly consider you have a good thought, but that isn’t going to mean they will.

two. Assortment is crucial

Diverse pursuits appeal to diverse pupils, so you need to develop a variety of alternatives when operating an event at a school.

The biggest blunder we created was at first not providing pupils sufficient variety for the duration of super finding out days. Young children consume experiences quickly, so occasions that permit pupils to try out out a range of duties have a tendency to be the most productive. When we run the balloon automobile challenge day, exactly where students design and race a vehicle developed from scrap, they move in between job roles till they locate what interests them most. They can perform on the mechanics of the auto, calculate how considerably it is going to value and brainstorm concepts for how to market place the motor vehicle.

3. Help colleges with the difficulties they face

One problem that is come to our interest is that some schools struggle to provide beneficial details, guidance and guidance. We’ve often supported colleges with conventional careers suggestions, such as a single-to-1 sessions, but three years in the past we realised we’d been missing opportunities to be much more imaginative.

Following a conversation with a business instructor, who was obtaining it hard to get their totally free school meal pupils interested in enterprise skills, we decided that a lecturer with a background in retail management would run a session on the various task roles in a supermarket. They talked about the behind the scene jobs you may well not believe of, the salaries individuals were probably to obtain and the possible for job progression.

Young folks are frequently uncertain about what they want to do and it really is useful to get them considering openly about the distinct paths they can consider, rather than simply informing them about distinct roles.

four. Support college students with their exams

When working occupation events, maths, English and science teachers supply us with the leading twenty banana skins that trip students up in their GCSE exams, and we talk about these in the course of the day, explaining why the expertise matter in the context of the jobs industry.

We also run occasions focused on improving a selection of core topic abilities. At the moment, we are devising a motorway accident scenario to consider location in a college assembly hall, which will become an emergency hospital. College students will have to function by means of medical scenarios that test their maths, English and science expertise – writing patient notes, prescribing medication and communicating with the press.

5. Find ways to support colleges with out often being there

Delivering colleges with sources is a great way to supply support without having physically being in the creating. Our images of blood splatter have proved to be especially beneficial for maths teachers, who use them to teach calculating form area, velocity and distance.

We’re also creating a financial institution of actions based mostly on the prime 20 banana skins pupils have a tendency to trip on for the duration of exams that colleges can dip into.

6. Don’t underestimate the knowledge in schools

Occasionally we have assumed we are providing a special perform-associated knowledge to college students for the first time, only to find out that the identical thought has been run really efficiently ahead of by school workers. You require to work difficult to bring a fresh standpoint and it’s critical to talk to schools about whether or not they have completed anything at all comparable in the previous.

7. Allow colleges choose who to target

With the balloon auto challenge, the place pupils perform in teams to design and race a auto built from scrap, we have a group of students who are managing directors who oversee the distinct teams.

The initial time we ran this challenge I explained that the initial ten people who put their hands up could be managing directors. It was a undesirable move. The staff was far also an eclectic mix of college students and two of them did not get on. Mercifully, inside 45 minutes a instructor stepped in to alter the group to folks they imagined have been much more suitable.

Sometimes it performs letting pupils dictate what action they’d like to do, but when it comes to working a complex job exactly where students are undertaking one thing uncommon then it’s greatest to look for guidance from the school.

8. Avoid logistical headaches

Collapsed curriculum days are generally very difficult for colleges to control on site. Anything that turns timetabling on its head runs the risk of confusion and people receiving misplaced.

The very best way to organise a day is by doing work with what’s standard for the school, so make clear what is occurring in the assembly and then split college students into their kind groups for each activity. It is also helpful to have kind tutors stay with their group throughout the day and we constantly sit down with somebody from the senior leadership team to go over our plans prior to the event. There’s nothing at all worse than having 300 children and 15 teachers being irritated and lost.

9. Staff-educate with college personnel

Wherever feasible we run routines jointly with teachers. If I’m educating creating for advertising, I can bring market expertise but teachers know the context of what I am teaching. They can make hyperlinks with what college students have been learning and flag up points that will be valuable in an exam.

ten. Let colleges to come up with the wackiest idea feasible and run with it

Present schools what you can do by saying to them: inform us what you want us to do and we’ll organise it.

One particular college when asked for their college students to come to our campus exactly where we train men and women for the navy. It was a great fun day exactly where pupils also received to learn about their subject. For instance, whilst steering a ship in our simulator we taught them about trigonometry.

Andy Iredale is the director of pupil recruitment at Blackpool and The Fylde School. He tweets as @andyiredale.

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How colleges can build better partnerships with schools: 10 top tips

Co-headship: why we think two heads are better than one

Co-heads Nick Tildesley and Evelyn Holdsworth share the responsiblity of working John Donne primary college in Southwark. Photograph: John Donne

Can you inform us how you came to perform with each other as co-heads?

Evelyn Holdsworth (EH): I was approached to turn into head of a new college to be formed from an amalgamation of two schools. It was a complicated and difficult circumstance. I’d previously accomplished items as a solo head in tough circumstances and had identified that when you work with each other as a two or a team of individuals who have a sturdy, shared philosophy you can deliver about modify in a positive and sustained way much far more swiftly, which was what was needed here.

Nick Tildesley (NT): I was a deputy head in Lewisham but knew Evelyn personally. It all took place by possibility that Evelyn asked if I would like to operate with her. So we had been appointed as a staff to this situation.

What has been the division of labour amongst the two of you?

NT: When we started out off we looked at dividing up specific locations but soon realised it really is also difficult to define like that – and you may define it but folks ignore it. So we really operate together. We have identified that’s the way it worked. 1 of keys is that we like each other. We never sit on the very same seat, but there is a culture and ethos that we share. It’s our selection to try and share on paper and each and every other way the obligation. So the two of our names go on the Ofsted report, that adjustments items.

How have you continued working together as co-heads?

EH: The model of co-heads worked so nicely that we became co-heads of a school called Pilgrim’s Way which had previously been judged as getting at the bottom of all the schools in London. We had designed and began steering the whole model of joint headships.

NT: We had been approached by Southwark Nearby Authority (LA) in 2005. At the time it was becoming run by Cambridge Training and had been given further funding to boost outcomes. Southwark didn’t have substantive heads in a number of schools and asked us to support them recruit some. But as we are constantly somewhat off message, we came up with a various idea that would introduce real sustainability into the system.

So how did you build your concept?

EH: We knew from experience that there was a problem recruiting heads for hard community colleges – it is large risk for younger heads because they have not had the encounter and also for a lot more knowledgeable heads because they are getting asked to place their neck on the line. If you do not be successful it really is not a query of okay, attempt yet again. You have been in charge of a college that is gone into a critical class on your watch – you are out. Number of individuals would recruit you once again, it truly is a higher risk strategy. But we knew there are tons of heads with fantastic skills who desired a challenge but didn’t fancy committing prospective professional suicide. We place an advert out which explained you could perform as pairs, we have been inundated with large-top quality replies. We had been also involved in Nationwide College study into joint headship.

What’s so excellent about the co-head model?

EH: It can be lonely at the leading and I’ve misplaced count of the times I have observed heads struggling in schools. I watch and be concerned and realise that individual is going to be broken and leave training. I see heads on their personal, miles down the wrong path, and think if only you’d had an individual with you this never would never have happened.

Do you the two operate complete time?

EH: Yes. We now each operate complete time at John Donne primary college. Our part right here has been by means of different distinct phases. This was a job share until finally two years ago when we were every spending 50% of our time undertaking operate with the LA and 50% as heads.

Has your co-head part threatened by modifications in the way LAs function with schools?

NT: We are extremely fortunate that our chair of governors has a great depth of understanding about how organisations and colleges work. So the local authority dimension is lessening, but our chair mentioned as long as you can bring globe class educational experiences for the youngsters then it is really worth possessing each of you complete time.

What rewards does the co-head model give you now?

NT: Portion the deal is we operate as national leaders of education and we are a national support school. We are finishing the Ofsted training and supported mentoring of headteachers. Since there are two of us we can model our philosophy that this is really learning local community.

EH: We have received the capability to give our staff remarkable options in instructor development, working closely with, for example, Swedish colleges on leadership and other instructor developmental tasks. I believe joint headship models distributive leadership as effectively. Our staff say what helps make them satisfied is to break new ground and we work on the basis of why not?

Do you often agree with each other?

EH: Not always. But we have a core philosophy. For instance in recruitment we are like minded that we recruit the individual not the abilities, so we look for attitude and philosophy rather than a track record in raising achievement. The greatest teachers and teaching assistants (TAs) are the ones who are truly existing as themselves and have the greatest relationships with the youngsters and then right after that you can much more or less teach anything at all.

How critical are SATs consequence and amounts?

NT: There are young children in this college who are as vibrant as children in personal sector schools. Why should not the inner city young children we teach apply to Oxbridge if they want to? That is sort of what drives us rather than these statutory bits of testing. We get excellent final results, but SATs are an final result, they are not our principal objective.

Our function is to generate initial-class learners and the result is you get really great outcomes. There are distinct methods to that end. Other schools have totally different methods of getting great benefits. We hope to stand out from the crowd, at the second there is a whole lot of talk of driving young children in a linear style, a didactic strategy. We don’t feel that produces good learners.

EH: I went to Brazil 10 many years in the past with the British Council and it was a actual lifestyle changer in all kinds of techniques. The young children we met were from quite bad families and were quite explicit about saying our route to freedom is our training. They couldn’t imagine how we could have any behaviour problems in the Uk since they had been driven by the want for schooling. A lot of of our households who reside in this element of Peckham have come to the United kingdom from other nations for some thing comparable to that. So you feel you have to not let them down underneath any circumstances.

Could you perform alone now?

EH: Speaking personally, I’d never ever be interested in going back and taking on a single headship once more.

Do men and women feel you are married?

NT: The children do. They usually get in touch with me Mr Holdsworth, which is rather humorous! Apologies to Evelyn’s husband.

How can your college afford to have two heads?

EH: We had some governors here the other day from an additional school who asked, how can you possibly afford it? But I’ve acquired to the stage when I think: how can you afford not to? This school has gone from becoming 150 plus undersubscribed to being full with bulge courses, and that alterations your price range, we can bring in whatever we can to the college so it offsets our expenses as properly.

NT: The co-head model is not flavour of the month with the Department for Training. You can’t in fact have two heads so we are a co-headship, a shared headship. Officially there is a single leader at any time in the college and the other time we are undertaking other developmental routines.

How can other colleges consider on this model?

EH: You want a governing body that’s ready to be brave but it is attainable to do and there are plenty of various techniques to do it. You could even have 3 days each with a changeover day in the middle, but for me that is not the greatest since there is as well significantly time when you are not working together. You also want to find an individual you could operate who is interested in a collaborative way of operating.

Additional reading on co-headship

Headteachers that want to uncover out much more about the co-head model could be interested to read the Independent Review into College leadership which Evelyn and Nick contributed to. The entire report is interesting and it truly is really worth searching at paragraphs 19, five.44, five.52, 5.75 and five.76 which Evelyn and Nick come to feel that the co-head model addresses really successfully.

Also see the Hold your head report from the Institute of Schooling.

Evelyn Holdsworth and Nick Tildesley are co-heads of John Donne principal college in Peckham, south London.

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Co-headship: why we think two heads are better than one

Bill Gates charity challenges scientists to make better condoms

Graphene could be mixed with the latex used in standard condoms to make a stronger and far more pleasurable model, scientists believe. Photograph: Getty Photos

The “wonder material” graphene faces its stiffest challenge nevertheless in delivering thinner, more powerful, safer and far more desirable condoms.

A research group from the University of Manchester has received a Grand Difficulties Explorations grant of $ one hundred,000 (£62,123) from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop new composite nano-components for next-generation condoms.

The challenge is to create new technology that can make the condom much more desirable to use, which could lead to far more folks utilizing them.

Composite resources are composed of a mixture of two materials, in this case graphene and an elastic polymer such as the latex employed in classic condoms.

Graphene is the world’s thinnest, strongest and most conductive material, and promises a huge variety of varied applications from smartphones and ultrafast broadband to laptop chips.

It was 1st isolated by Sir Andre Geim and Sir Kostya Novoselov at the University of Manchester in 2004 and earned them the Nobel prize for physics in 2010.

The study will be carried out beneath the leadership of Dr Aravind Vijayaraghavan at the newly established Nationwide Graphene Institute at Manchester.

Vijayaraghavan explained: “This composite material will be tailored to increase the normal sensation throughout intercourse even though employing a condom, which should encourage and market condom use.

“This will be achieved by combining the power of graphene with the elasticity of latex to produce a new material which can be thinner, more powerful, far more stretchy, safer and, maybe most importantly, more pleasurable.”

He continued: “Because its isolation in 2004, men and women have wondered when graphene will be used in our everyday lifestyle. Presently, individuals picture employing graphene in mobile-telephone screens, meals packaging and chemical sensors.

“If this venture is effective, we might have a use for graphene which will practically touch our every day lifestyle in the most intimate way.”

Dr Helen Meese, head of resources at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, stated: “The prospective of graphene is limitless, and the grant to the University of Manchester to seem at worldwide wellness troubles underlines just how ground-breaking this wonder material could be.

“As properly as condoms, graphene could possibly be used in every little thing from batteries which charge in seconds to photovoltaic windows which make electricity.

“However, despite the United kingdom getting at the very forefront of graphene research, the country’s commercialisation of the materials has been woeful.

“Of the 7,500 graphene-based mostly patents filed throughout the world by 2013, only 54 are from the United kingdom, or significantly less than one%. In comparison, over two,200 are held by China and one,754 by South Korea.

“As it stands, the Uk is failing to harness the amazing potential of the material it has led the globe in creating.”

Bill Gates charity challenges scientists to make better condoms

The Learning Network Blog: What Would You Invent to Make the World a Better Place?

Questions about concerns in the information for college students 13 and older.

An automobile mechanic invented a tool to make births safer. He dreamed it up following watching a YouTube video about how to extract a misplaced cork from a wine bottle. If all goes nicely, doctors hope the inexpensive gadget may save lives — possibly hundreds of thousands of them.

If you could invent something to make the globe a much better area, what would you invent?

In “Car Mechanic Dreams Up a Tool to Ease Births,” Donald G. McNeil Jr. writes about Jorge Odón’s invention.

The notion came to Jorge Odón as he slept. By some means, he stated, his unconscious made the leap from a YouTube video he had just seen on extracting a lost cork from a wine bottle to the realization that the exact same parlor trick could conserve a child caught in the birth canal.

Mr. Odón, 59, an Argentine automobile mechanic, constructed his initial prototype in his kitchen, employing a glass jar for a womb, his daughter’s doll for the trapped little one, and a material bag and sleeve sewn by his wife as his lifesaving device.

Unlikely as it seems, the concept that took form on his counter has won the enthusiastic endorsement of the World Health Organization and main donors, and an American health care technology firm has just licensed it for manufacturing.

With the Odón Gadget, an attendant slips a plastic bag within a lubricated plastic sleeve about the head, inflates it to grip the head and pulls the bag till the child emerges.

Physicians say it has massive prospective to save babies in poor countries, and possibly to minimize cesarean segment births in rich ones.

Students: Study the whole characteristic, then tell us …

• What problem would you try out to address, either in your community or about the globe?


• If you could invent or develop some thing to deal with that problem, what would it be?


• Mr. Odón only managed to get his invention this far due to the fact his cousin knew an essential medical doctor in Buenos Aires, who had a good friend at the Globe Health Organization, who knew Dr. Merialdi, the W.H.O.’s chief coordinator for bettering maternal and perinatal well being. Who could you inquire to support you make your invention a good results?

Note: Last year we asked this same query, inspired by an indestructible soccer ball.

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College students 13 and older are invited to comment under. Please use only your very first name. For privacy policy factors, we will not publish pupil comments

The Learning Network Blog: What Would You Invent to Make the World a Better Place?

Kids Who Get More Sleep Avoid Overeating, Behave Better

A new examine has found that youngsters who get the right amount of sleep do not overeat, which lowers the likelihood of them turning into obese, reports Michael Harper from Red Orbit.

37 kids have been assessed and it was identified that the kids who consume fewer calories had been the ones who slept longer. A scientific explanation is that there is a reduction in the hormone Leptin which is responsible for regulating hunger.

This study also has the backing of earlier perform that has been carried out on this certain subject.

“It’s been nicely documented, for instance, that young children who really do not get ample rest at night aren’t just a lot more probably to grow to be obese grownups, they’re also far more most likely to be stressed and exhibit behavioral troubles.”

So, if receiving the sleeping patterns correct early on in little ones has positive aspects that will carry on effectively into their adulthood, then it is really worth producing the effort to get individuals sleeping patterns proper.

“Chantelle Hart, PhD, associate professor of public well being at Temple’s Center for Obesity Study and Education led the investigation, which is published in the journal Pediatrics.

Even though the outcomes of Hart’s research aren’t groundbreaking, hers is the initial to manipulate the amount of sleep the kids obtained every single night rather than observe young children in their normal cycles. Of the 37 eight- to eleven-year-outdated youngsters observed in the research, 27 % have been regarded overweight or obese.”

The University of Alberta found that because of the a lot of distractions in the bedroom that are of an electronic nature young children are sleeping more and more significantly less, which is negatively affecting their general overall health.

Paul Veugelers, a professor for the Public School of Well being, says that if dad and mom are interested in escalating the health of kids, then they must consider regulating the use of any technology that they have in their bedrooms. Stringent monitoring of their actions late in the evening is also essential for their bodily nicely-being.

Yet another research completed by the University College London concluded that in addition to the weight control that regular and adequate rest gives, youngsters who slept much more were much better behaved.

“Fixed bedtimes and lots of rest have been located to not just avert weight problems, they also make for nicely-behaved, content children. Final month the University College London published a study that found that youngsters who had a consistent bedtime each evening had been much less most likely to act out at college than individuals young children who went to bed at a different time each and every night.”

Kids Who Get More Sleep Avoid Overeating, Behave Better