WERDELINEDUCATION
Stalham Academy and Henderson Green Primary were both pronounced hopeless cases, yet within two years of their first Cooperative Learning twilight both had achieved Ofsted "Good" and 90% combined in SATs (2017 and 2019, respectively). Cooperative Learning is, simply put, the single most cost-effective approach to outstanding teaching and learning because it summons the collective capacity of all the unique individuals that make up your school. It is also among the most well-researched approaches, according to the EEF. *
But Cooperative Learning is not magic. To accomplish such eminence, Stalham and Henderson had something else in common: A leadership 100% dedicated to the meticulous integration of Cooperative Learning with all the paraphernalia of contemporary education: pupil data tracking, staff wellbeing and performance management, behaviour and SEN interventions, curriculum, schemes of work and every other element you can think of. The point is that while Cooperative Learning can succeed in even absolutely failing schools, the Achilles heel will always be a leadership too overloaded to truly benefit following the training.
I am therefore delighted to partner with maverick former school leader Yasir Master. Yasir has been honing a bare-bone, empowering support program for struggling leadership teams in the UK's most underperforming independent faith schools and under his insignia Educating Excellence, his fully fledged program is finally available to the state sector. The program includes everything from reorganising the school budget to all-comprehensive data management systems to meet Ofsted requirements, draw action plans and, crucially, directly support Cooperative Learning in the classroom to match Stalham’s and Henderson’s outcomes.
Therefore, our partnership presents the ideal "instant-impact" intervention for any school threatened with forced academisation or re-brokering following poor Ofsted grading. The full intervention scales from a few days to a few weeks, at which point leadership and staff are able to demonstrate to inspectors that the situation is under control and then move forward with full ownership. No further interventions are required from external consultants.
Links
Stalham Academy
Henderson Green Primary Academy
"Why bad boys love school" article on how Cooperative Learning impacted behaviour at Henderson
Educating Excellence
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*) Education Endowment Foundation Teaching & Learning Toolkit
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“It's been refreshing to work with an outside provider who really listened.”
- John McConnell, headteacher at George White Junior School, December 2016.
Watch the interview in the primary school video gallery.
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