Moving to Outstanding 2020

What to expect

There’s no doubt you became a headteacher to develop the best school for your children and community. As rewarding as this job is, I’m sure you agree, it’s a journey of constant learning and growth.

Are you learning from the best?

Every year since 2012, we’ve been bringing together recently outstanding headteachers at this flagship conference to share best practice with other headteachers.

How many outstanding headteachers and schools have you met in the last 6 months?

Come and meet six in one day!

Our speakers are truly inspiring. They have moved their schools forward under exceptionally challenging circumstances and they have received an ‘outstanding’ badge under the new framework (even though that’s not why they do what they do).

Our flagship event is extremely popular – in 2018 & 2019 tickets sold out in 2 weeks!

See for yourself what the day is like in our ‘Moving to Outstanding 2019- highlights’

Who should attend:

This event is perfect for Primary school (including Infant and Junior):

Headteachers
Deputy Headteachers
Assistant Headteachers
Senior Leaders
Middle Leaders
SENCO/INCO

How good is it?

What do your colleagues have to say about ‘Moving to Outstanding: Best practice from recently outstanding headteachers’?

It’s brilliant! Your headteacher peers have rated the day 9.4, 9.4 and 9.5/10 for the last 3 years.

“Thanks for another brilliant day of learning. You always provide the most wonderful speakers who are an inspiration to us all”. H McClenaghan Headteacher, Crowlands Primary, Essex

“Once again I’ve collected some professional nuggets of gold”. C Jones – Headteacher, Hearsall Community Academy, Coventry

“Absolutely loved the practical, inspirational speakers. Great to see it isn’t heads of schools with just amazing data. A real privilege to hear their journey” S Webb – Headteacher, Redgate Community Primary School, Liverpool

Beth Dyer, Headteacher- Nine Acres Primary, Isle of White

Click on the image to hear what Beth has to say about Moving to Outstanding 2019

Rebecca Harris- Headteacher, St Alban CofE Primary and Nursery & James Humphries- Headteacher, Kentish Town CofE Primary, London

Click on the image to hear their experience of Moving to Outstanding 2019

See for yourself with our ‘Moving to Outstanding 2019- highlights’ to get a feel for how good the day is:

Meet the speakers

Moving to Outstanding 2020 speakers:

Being ambitious for your school, team and pupils to create an inspirational school

Amir Lemouchi, Executive Principal, St Saviour's Church of England Primary School, achieved outstanding Sept 2019.

St Saviour’s is an inspirational school where pupils truly excel. This can be seen in their results with attainment at 83% but also in the impressive attitudes of the pupils, who are extremely enthusiastic and really proud to be there. Their results are not small feat given their diverse population, many of whom are eligible for the pupil premium.

Amir joined the Genesis Trust over 6 years ago as a Deputy Headteacher. In 2019 he became Headteacher of St Saviour’s where he built on already ‘Good’ foundations, to lead the school to outstanding in September 2019. Amir became Executive Principal across the trust in Sept 2019.

Leadership has played a fundamental part in developing this impressive school. As highlighted by Ofsted, ‘there is a relentless and tenacious drive to ensure that all pupils achieve highly. Leaders have developed a culture in which the highest expectations of pupils and staff are the norm”.

Amir will be sharing how they:
- Raised standards and expectations and keep them high, day in day out.
- Moved from Ofsted ‘Good’ to 'Outstanding'.
- Found leadership and vision underpins everything.
- Created a unique and exceptional school identity.
- Developed a broad and balanced curriculum (complete with three alpacas!).

The journey to outstanding, October 1999 – October 2019

Christopher Blunt, Headteacher, Spring Vale Primary School, achieved outstanding Sept 2019.

Spring Vale’s children receive exceptional education: since 2017 attainment has been around 90% and progress was in the top 10% of schools nationally. All this in a school which has grown in size and in the top 10% of deprived schools in the country with high SEN, EAL and mobility.

But it hasn’t always been this way…

In 1999 Spring Vale Primary School was put into ‘special measures’, under threat of closure with barely 150 pupils. At this point, the improvement journey began. Twenty years later, the school was judged ‘outstanding’, only the fifth school in the country to receive this rating under the newest Ofsted framework.

Chris Blunt joined the school as Deputy Head in 2006 and became the Head in 2010 - it’s fair to say he’s been a key part of this journey.

The exceptional nature of the school has been crafted over time by the team and Chris.

Chris will be sharing:
- How they built outstanding learning by changing the curriculum and focusing on three key drivers.
- How they led their inspection by planning for the phone call and having no regrets.
- Where they go from here, including next steps and reflections of the staff and children.
- The challenge of changing the mindset of children, staff and parents to make outstanding possible for all school stakeholders.
- Curriculum and Ofsted-ready resources will be shared during the presentation.

Crafting an exceptional school over time - taking the quick wins and investing in the longer term gains

Darren Woollard, Executive Headteacher, Blenheim and Temple Sutton Primary Schools, achieved outstanding February 2020.

Darren Woollard joined Blenheim Primary School in 2004 as a class teacher, and was promoted to deputy before becoming Headteacher in 2012. Since September 2020 he became Executive Head of Blenheim and Temple Sutton Primary Schools.

Blenheim is a large school, serving mainly British community, with a high proportion of pupils eligible for pupil premium and a high number of pupils with EHCPs, yet their attainment is 81% and progress is well above average.

Darren will be sharing how, over the years, he and his team have:
- created a culture focused on why they do what they do identified and put in place quick fixes
- focused on longer term, meaningful solutions - including redefining SEND for the school and adapting provision

Darren’s talk promises to inspire and give you ideas to take back your school.

Keeping things human - human-leadership instead of system-leadership

David Sammels, Headteacher, Mayflower Academy, achieved outstanding December 2019.

We’ve all heard reports of outstanding schools losing their outstanding judgement but not Mayflower Academy: Under David’s Headship, they achieved outstanding in September 2016 and were judged outstanding again in December 2019.

Mayflower Academy is a large school, serving a mainly white British population with a high level of pupil premium, SEND pupils and mobility through Key Stages 1 and 2.

To create this great school David has focused on people, developing them and creating a culture in which they can flourish - a culture driven by community spirit and an attitude of ‘together we can”.

David will be sharing:
- How to enable people to be effective.
- Their recruitment methodology which allowed them to recruit the right people.
- How to avoid burnout.
- Dealing with changes that are externally imposed with the wind.
- A toolkit of strategies to let people thrive.
- Creating truly distributed leadership.
- Fostering a two-way culture of influence.

Leadership for life: primary education only takes 8 years, but lasts a lifetime.

Jeremy Hannay, Headteacher, Three Bridges Primary School, July 2019

Three Bridges School serves a diverse community in Southall, was judged outstanding in July 2019 and was named the ‘the happiest school on earth’ by the Guardian. Jeremy believes that it is possible to have a happy school and one where children achieve - and Three Bridges is exactly that.

Headteacher, Jeremy Hannay, brings great insight to how we educate, both at school and national level, and he’s wonderfully vocal about what we need - many of you will be familiar with his inspiring letter to Ofsted: https://www.teachwire.net/news/dear-ofsted-we-got-outstanding-in-spite-of-your-high-stakes-approach-not-because-of-it

Jeremy is a great thinker and leader. His thoughts on leadership and how to truly educate, in the best possible way for all, continue to evolve.

Jeremy will be sharing his most current thinking with you at the event.

The bumpy road to outstanding: the cultural shift and the continuous journey

Joanna Savidge, Headteacher, Clockhouse Primary School, section 8, January 2020

Section 8 Ofsted report: Clockhouse Primary School continues to be a good school. There is enough evidence of improved performance to suggest that the school could be judged outstanding if we were to carry out a section 5 inspection now.

Clockhouse Primary School is a large, 3-form entry, primary school, with a higher than average number of pupils eligible for free school meals and a higher than average number of pupils with an EHCP.

It’s a school which has had a bumpy journey: 2005 - good
2009 - satisfactory
2011 - good, with outstanding features
2014 - requires improvement
2016 - good
2020 - good - there is enough evidence of improved performance to suggest that the school could be judged outstanding if we were to carry out a section 5 inspection now.

Headteacher, Jo Savidge, joined the infants in 2004, planning to stay for 3 years before moving on. 17 years later she is still there and became substantive Head in 2014.

Coming from a family of headteachers, her mother (a head) asked what could Jo bring to the school that would take it forward? Seven years later Jo has created an incredible school, one that has forged strong links with their community and created a team who are literally sitting on the Clockhouse bus, making the school a family and a home for everyone and making an incredible difference to the lives of the children they serve.

Jo will be sharing the key changes that moved the school forward: - Clockhouse's drip, drip, drip approach to school improvement (nothing revolutionary, but doing lots of little things well).
- Getting the right team in place.
- The turning point of their 2014 ‘requires improvement’ Ofsted.
- Getting the whole community on board.
- Raising expectations of the community.
- How Covid helped develop the culture, not hinder it.

Details for the day

Please see our Covid section for updates about rescheduling of events

Location:

Friends House, 173 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BL (nearest station Euston). Click on the map to load google maps.

Agenda:

Time Agenda item

9:30 – 10:00 Registration & coffee

10:00 – 10:15 Welcome – Sonia Gill, Founder & Director of Heads Up

10:15 – 11:25 Workshop 1:

Amir Lemouchi, Executive Principal, St Saviour’s Church of England Primary School – “Being ambitious for your school, team and pupils to create an inspirational school”.

Joanna Savidge, Headteacher, Clockhouse Primary School – “The bumpy road to outstanding: the cultural shift and the continuous journey”.

11:25 – 11:35 Break

11:35 – 12:45 Workshop 2:

Darren Woollard, Executive Headteacher, Blenheim and Temple Sutton Primary Schools – “Creating an exceptional school over time- taking the quick wins and investing in the longer term gains”.

David Sammels, Headteacher, Mayflower Academy. “Keeping things human – human-leadership instead of system-leadership”.

12:45 – 1:30 Lunch

1:30 – 2:30 Sonia Gill, Founder & Director, Heads Up Ltd

2:30 – 2:45 How Heads Up supports schools

2:45 – 2:55 Break

2:55 – 4:05 Workshop 3:

Christopher Blunt, Headteacher, Spring Vale Primary School – “The journey to outstanding, October 1999 – October 2019”.

Jeremy Hannay, Headteacher, Three Bridges Primary School – “Leadership for life: primary education only takes 8 years, but lasts a lifetime”.

4:05 – 4:30 Close

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Moving to Outstanding Conference 2020