Newsletter: One Cumbria Update 11

By 7 July 2021November 16th, 2021No Comments

Even as we hurtle towards the end of term, there is still much activity around the TSH.

 

ECF

Since the last Board meeting, Tina has been working hard with schools to make sure all systems and admin is in place for September, in particular around programme adjustments and implications for part time ECTs and those who join the programme mid-year. The Delivery Partner Agreement with schools has been finalised and sent to all schools that have expressed an interest. Please make sure you return this to Tina, if you haven’t already done so.

For your ‘to do’ list – schools need to register their ECT details (names and TRNs) with the DfE online service this month in order to trigger the associated funding. You should receive an email (it will be sent to the person named as ECF Lead when you originally registered) to confirm that you have expressed an interest with One Cumbria. If you have registered the names of your ECTs, and haven’t received this, please let us know and we will chase it for you.

We have appointed six ECF Facilitators who will start training with Teach First this week. If you missed this recruitment window and would like to know more about this role, please contact Tina. We will be re-visiting this opportunity in September as well.

We are hosting a presentation and Q&A session for ECF Leads (usually the member of SLT in schools responsible for ECTs) on Wednesday at 4:00; we have devised a draft timetable and costings for seminars and conferences from September 2021, which will be confirmed this week and sent out to schools ASAP.

Appropriate Body paperwork is now in place. This has been sent to schools and registrations and SLAs are being returned. We will be working with Shaun Monaghan (Keswick) in the North of the county and Hayley Gray (QES) in the South to provide AB services. I’ve attached FAQs from this week – if there’s anything else you need to know, please let me know.

NPQ

Scholarship funding arrangements for NPQs were released last week from the DfE. Details are in the attached document. The One Cumbria team has been contacting those schools who will qualify for funded NPQs and we are confident that these funding arrangements will see much increased interest in NPQs. Expressions of interest are already coming in, some through the website, others through personal contact and word of mouth. They represent a range of school types: primary, secondary, pupil referral units, special schools, and the virtual school, which is excellent. Please do get in touch with Alison if you would like to know more. The first courses will begin in November 2021, with a second tranche in February 2022. The NPQ suite is an important part of the DfE’s ‘Golden Thread’ of CPD that starts with ITT and supports teachers through their career and we are excited to be able to make this professional development available for lots of colleagues across Cumbria.

Alison has volunteered to take part in a work stream for Teach First so that we can be involved in the development of some of the material and gain some early insights into the materials and the programme construction. She says, “I am excited about what we can achieve by creating coherence and collaboration in the system and can see a point soon when the One Cumbria whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Every conversation we have at the moment creates links in a structure that is starting to build. I am very glad to be part of it.” Lovely to have positive feedback!

The Market Review for ITT has been published today; this is now open for consultation until 22nd August and will undoubtedly make a difference to ITT provision across Cumbria. We will respond to this when we have had an opportunity to reflect on the recommendations.

That’s about it for this update. The next one – Update 12 – will arrive in your inboxes at the beginning of next term. I’m aiming to get it out on Monday August 30th (yes I know it’s a bank holiday!) so it will be there for you when you return to make sure your ECTs and mentors are ready to make a flying start to the year. In the meantime, as always, do let us know if we can do anything to help.

I hope you all have a relaxing and peaceful break after a challenging year and look forward to working with you next term.

Judith Schafer

Director, One Cumbria Teaching School Hub