Happy Wednesday!

The latest from the WELL Team:

On behalf of everyone in the WELL team, our very best wishes to the children and young people and to all of you in our schools that are building up to SATs and examination periods over coming weeks.

Your effort and dedication really are an inspiration.

Cumbrian Award: Join the Award

BElong, BElieve, BEcome

To support our efforts/evidence to secure further funding and commitment from business and enable us to understand feasibility and likely growth of participation in the award, we would really appreciate if Headteachers of all WELL schools, that do not currently take part in the award, could take a couple of minutes to view the Cumbrian Award presentation HERE and complete a two minute survey to be found HERE before Friday 16th May.

Implementing WELL:

'Leading the way on Evidence Informed Implementation'

Universal/ Targeted Grant Implementation

We are pleased that so many of our schools have already confirmed participation in this groundbreaking project within WELL. We hope you found the information in our previous WOW helpful.  If you have not yet confirmed, please take some time to look at the PROJECT FLYER and PRESENTATION FROM DALE to inform your decision. If you do wish to make a commitment to this opportunity and the Universal and Targeted grant funding offer next academic year, we need schools to complete THIS FORM by Friday 23rd May.

Headteachers and Implementation Leads will need to participate in the initial 'launch briefing', alongside any colleagues who have a responsibility for implementation. The 'launch briefing' will take place on the below dates:

• Wednesday 18th June  09:30 - 12:30, Energus, Lillyhall
• Wednesday 18th June  15:30 - 17:30, Online
• Thursday 19th June 09:30 - 12:30, Whitehaven Golf Club

Bookings for these sessions are now available to book through the School Development Team.

If you are unable to attend one of these, due to prior commitments, or would like to discuss this with Dale please email WELL@cumberland.gov.uk and we will be in touch to outline ways we can support you with participation.

WELL Team News

We are pleased to announce that Lucy Gill has been promoted from WELL Project Assistant to WELL Project Officer and will be spending an equivalent of 2 days a week developing the Cumbrian Award alongside Beth Loughran-Layton, Cumbrian Award Development Officer.

Amanda Gallagher has joined the WELL team from the Summer Term 2025 as the WELL Project Admin Assistant. Please see a short biography from Amanda introducing herself below:

Amanda Gallagher

I have held a variety of administrative jobs since leaving school. The first of which was as a Legal Secretary. I then spent 8 years at the Carnegie, starting as an Admin Assistant before being promoted to Administrator a couple of years later.

I relocated to Preston where I became HR Administrator for the NNL (National Nuclear Laboratory).

A few years later I returned to Workington to focus on my family.

Looking for a job that would fit around my family I retrained as a Teaching Assistant. I was successful in getting a job which led to 1:1 work with SEN children.

The opportunity to work for the WELL Project has given me the chance to combine my administrative skills with my passion to help children and young people to achieve their full potential.

Town End Research School: Primary Writing Project

Coming Soon!

We are finalising a very exciting, sustained PD programme, in partnership with Town End Research School, in response to quality conversations with one of our clusters.  

The focus is on Primary writing and there will be an opportunity for clusters to express an interest in participating next academic year take part. This will be limited to three clusters and we will provide an outline of what commitments are required to inform decisions about fit and feasibility.

Details, including how to express an interest interest in participating will be included in our next WOW.

Supporting all Readers in Secondary School: Department for Education

The Department for Education (DfE) has recently published a helpful short course for readers at all levels in Secondary Schools, including supportive materials and resource links.

Please find the link to the DfE report below:

Supporting all Readers in Secondary School - GOV.UK

The 'Simple View of Reading', used by many of our schools involved in the Reciprocal Reading programme with FFT Education, is highlighted as a powerful tool.

Great Teaching Toolkit (GTT): 2025/26

Opportunity to get involved next year!

WELL is offering schools the opportunity to join the 27 WELL schools currently implementing Evidence Based Education's Great Teaching Toolkit.

A focus on the highest quality PD, aligned to your PP statement priorities and WELL funded priorities, offers a better bet to achieve sustainable improvement. We are making this funded offer for current schools and for any schools wishing to get moving over the next two years from September 2025.

If you would like to get involved with GTT in 2025/26 please email WELL@cumberland.gov.uk, by Friday 23rd May.

EEF's Deployment of Teaching Assistants Guidance Report

Briefing with Sally Franklin: 22nd May 15:30 - 17:00, Online

Sally will be delivering an online briefing, focused on the new EEF 'Deployment of Teaching Assistants' guidance report, for all WELL schools on:

Thursday 22nd May 15:30 - 17:00, Online

If you would like to attend this briefing, please email WELL@cumberland.gov.uk and we will share the meeting invite with you.

Our Disadvantaged Pupils

Last week, we welcomed the Primary Targeted Grant Schools to a network meeting at the ERA building.

As always, the conversation was open, supportive, and refreshing. We discussed the challenges of conflicting priorities and how 'firefighting' can have impact on momentum.

As you know, making a difference to all pupils, including making a positive difference to the social and academic experiences for our disadvantaged pupils, is the key ambition for WELL as a project.

We therefore encourage all of our schools that have received grants for implementation plans this year to find some time this term to reflect on your plans and in particular your aims and ambitions for disadvantaged pupils.

What does your monitoring approach tell you about how well your work has supported the achievement of this group of pupils and what are they experiencing differently as a result?

To what extent has your WELL funded implementation work aligned with/supported one or more of your identified challenges/priorities within your PP statements? 

Our evaluation approach will be shared in the next WOW and we look forward to working together with you to identify successes and learning.

WELL Schools: Shared Priorities Spreadsheet

Key priorities for 2024/25

A reminder that we have created a “live”  password protected spreadsheet on our website HERE, which provides an overview of what each of our schools are working on as their key priorities this academic year.

The password to access the spreadsheet is: w3llpr0j3ct2025

We encourage all of our schools to reach out to other WELL schools with similar priorities and share your insights with others.

Great Teaching Toolkit

2024/25 Cohort Schools

The Summer Learning Community for all schools that currently participate in the Great Teaching Toolkit programme will take place on:

Wednesday 7th May at 15:30 - 17:00, online

If you haven't done so already, please 'accept' the meeting invite as confirmation of attendance. An email from WELL@cumberland.gov.uk was sent to all GTT learning community attendees on 30th April with key messages and preparation from Stuart Kime and the Evidence Based Education team for the upcoming meet. 

We are also looking forward to the face-to-face GTT Celebration event taking place on Thursday 10th July 12:30 - 15:30 at Whitehaven Golf Club. To celebrate and share the successes and many strengths of teacher professional development approaches being taken within our GTT family of schools.

Continuing access to the Toolkit in 2025/26

As outlined in a previous WOW, if you currently using the toolkit and want to continue to have access, we need you to confirm no later than Friday 16th May by emailing WELL@cumberland.gov.uk.

To date, the number of schools that have expressed an interest/need for a WELL ELSA programme next academic year is not high enough to explore the provision of a WELL specific programme in 25-26.

Therefore, if you do want to train an ELSA next year, we need you to confirm this by emailing  WELL@cumberland.gov.uk,  no later than Friday 23rd May. 

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 are detailed in the WELL Annual Events Planner.

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.