Happy Wednesday!
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“Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.” - Frederick Buechner
This week, we welcomed Headteachers and Teachers to our first Great Teaching Toolkit (GTT) WELL learning community. Last week, we welcomed Headteachers and Teachers of some of our Targeted Grant schools to a collaborative reflection meeting.
Over the last two weeks, I have read 100 evaluations of WELL funded implementation. I have also been exchanging emails with a number of you, visited some schools, and met some Headteachers on Teams. I need to say thank you for all of this.
As a kid from a Council House in the Black Country, I knew I wanted to be a teacher from the age of 7. My parents, with very little money but with the most enormous love, supported, encouraged and sacrificed to make sure a dream became a reality. Social justice and fairness have been key drivers ever since. I have been blessed to work in education for 38 years. With so many challenges in the world and when education can seem to slip down priority lists, it can drain and can feel like a fight. Belief and sense of purpose can take a knock. You do more than you know to remind me that Education does matter, and the work that you do every day of the week really matters.
The opportunity to direct WELL is a career highlight. It feeds my spirit, and the only aim is to do something good, that supports you in your mission to make a difference to children and young people. To give those experiencing disadvantage every chance of success. I know that I will not have the privilege of ever meeting many of the children that this project serves. But I do meet with you. I hear your kindness and I hear your passion. I know that you are making a difference. Last night’s interactions at GTT, reminded me why education is absolutely a vocation, and interactions with so many of you this term, written and verbal, have also given me faith and belief.
Thank you,
Dale.
Messages from the WELL Team:
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We would like to reinforce the key ambition of WELL is to make a positive difference to disadvantaged pupils, so please ensure your monitoring arrangements include a regular review on the key impacts for this group.
Implementation Evaluations
An enormous thank you for the WELL-funded implementation evaluations that have been submitted. These will be invaluable not only in helping us to understand whether the WELL project is achieving it's aims but will also enable us to share learning for the benefit of every WELL School.
A school by school summary will be shared with the WELL Board and a 'sharing of learning report' will be shared with all schools before the end of term.
The commitment to evidence informed implementation from our schools is outstanding. Over the next phase, we will be working to identify and share the practical strategies that are making the biggest difference in the quality of provision and pupil progress.
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Implementation Plans
A big thank you also to those schools that have submitted their Implementation Plans for WELL Phase 3.
These are now being quality assured, please look out for an email with an update on your plans/grant allocation over the next few weeks.
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Call for evidence 'Curriculum and assessment review'
Closes for Responses Friday 22nd November
We intend to submit a WELL project response to the Department for Education 'Call for Evidence: Curriculum and Assessment Review'.
If you would like to submit a response for your school, please be reminded that the deadline for all submissions is this Friday (22nd November) and can be submitted via the government website HERE.
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 New Development Officer - Our Team is Growing!
We are delighted that Beth Loughran-Layton will be starting in the Cumbrian Award Development Officer role from next week. Beth will be making direct contact with our current Cumbrian Award Schools, to collect current pupil participation numbers, give details of Award resources and arrange visits to support delivery.
Cumbrian Award x Poverty Proofing UK
Thank you to those schools that attended the Cumbrian Award Poverty Proofing UK training on Monday 21st October at Whitehaven Golf Club.
The slides for this session will be sent to all attendees this week.
Details including next steps for this project and how to get involved will be sent out to all the initial training session attendees before the end of term.
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'BElong, BElieve, BEcome'
The overriding aim of Cumbrian Award is to enable every pupil to “Belong, Believe and Become”.
The focus on belonging is going to become a key feature of external focus and scrutiny and CA can really support schools to integrate this into curriculum and culture.
If you are interested in starting next term, please email WELL@cumberland.gov.uk and we will support you to get going.
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Reciprocal Reading Secondary Evaluations
DEADLINE - Friday 29 November
Thank you to the Secondary school's that attended the Reciprocal Reading Secondary Subject Leaders Celebration Event before Half-Term.
This is a gentle reminder to return your school's case study evaluation of this work to the WELL@cumberland.gov.uk by Friday 29th November.
We look forward to reading the evaluations.
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Reciprocal Reading Mixed Phase - Day 2 (RESCHEDULED)
Wednesday 4th December 09:30 - 15:30, Energus
We are looking forward to seeing those school's that were due to attend Day 2 of the Reciprocal Reading Mixed Phase Cohort in the Summer Term last academic year, at the rescheduled session on Wednesday 4th December from 09:30 - 15:30 at Energus, Lillyhall.
In preparation for this session, Andy Taylor has kindly requested to bring your Reciprocal Reading booklets to the training, that were handed out at the Day 1 training last year. Please email WELL@cumberland.gov.uk, if this presents itself as an issue, in advance of the session.
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Autumn Learning Community
Tuesday 19 November 15:30 - 17:00, Online
It was great to see the 27 WELL schools now participating in the GTT programme at the first GTT learning community meeting of this academic year yesterday (19th November).
Please find the link to the recorded video of Professor Dr Stuart Kime at the 'Developing Great Teaching with Great Teaching Toolkit' session held in September on your YouTube page HERE.
If you attended this learning community session and have any feedback or suggestions for the content of the Spring learning community, please email these to WELL@cumberland.gov.uk.
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MITA - Day 3 Session
Thursday 28th November 09:30 - 12:30, Online
We are looking forward to seeing the Senior Leaders of the schools participating in this project again at the Day 3 session on Thursday 28th November, Online.
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Sally will be supporting each school to develop an implementation plan for this work, focusing on making the best use of our brilliant Teaching Assistants (TAs) in your school's setting.
If your school is participating in this project with Sally and haven't yet booked your TAs on the 6th January INSET Day session, please do so with the school development team as soon as possible - School.Development@cumberland.gov.uk
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Spring Term Cohort
Coming Soon!
The Cumberland Education Psychology Team has capacity to deliver a Spring Term ELSA cohort.
Please note the Cumberland waiting list for this training is larger than the capacity of a single programme.
We will be contacting those schools that do have a place on this cohort directly and as soon as possible. We are working to try secure a WELL specific cohort and will update schools on this as soon as we have further information.
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Annual Events Planner and Programmes Padlet 2024/25
The WELL Programmes Padlet outlines all of our high quality professional development programmes available for 2024/25.
All WELL Events and upcoming training sessions for the opportunities included in the padlet, are detailed in the WELL Annual Events Planner.
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Events on the Annual Events Planner with a 'green dot' are bookable via SLA Online/ School Development Team. For all other events, please email WELL@Cumberland.gov.uk directly to express an interest.
The Annual Events Planner is a live link and will be updated throughout the year.
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Sign up for WELL Events in the following ways:
- Registered users can book through our online system SLA Online
- By emailing the School Development Team at school.development@cumberland.gov.uk
- By calling the team on 01228 221315 / 221316
Thank you for taking the time to read WOW.
Do you have any feedback for WELL on Wednesdays?
Is there information missing from this newsletter that you would like to see or have a suggestion of how we can improve engagement? We would love to hear from you. Please email WELL@cumberland.gov.uk with all comments.
To find this WOW and all previous versions - please visit our website.
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