Why stop at outstanding? Surrey Square: building a lasting legacy

Nicola Noble and Liz Robinson are joint heads of Surrey Square a school with high diversity, high EAL and high levels of special needs. Judged outstanding in December 2016 the heads have set about making the school sustainably outstanding. Previously an Infant and Junior school, the schools merged in January 2011 and the two heads went on maternity leave soon after; on returning they realised the school was not as strong as when they left it. As a new all-through primary school they secured Good at the next inspection but the co-heads knew they wanted the school to be outstanding whether they were there or not. They set out about being outstanding in a on-going, lasting way:

‘Our vision is summed up in our mission - ‘Personal and academic excellence; everyone, every day.’ For us, the ‘and’ is absolutely critical; high attainment in core skills is a pre-requisite for success in secondary school, and beyond. However, just as important are the other skills – the ability to ‘self-manage’, to communicate clearly with others, to know who you are and to have ambition. We define this as ‘personal excellence’ and actively teach our pupils these skills, sing the core values as a framework.’

Nicola will be sharing how she, Liz and their team:
• Ensured both personal and academic excellence are achieved
• Securec values and character development through systems
• How they are using secondary data to track pupils’ progress and develop their primary provision

Taking 4 schools to Outstanding: Our principles for becoming outstanding

Christopher Toye is the Executive Head of the Wyvern federation, a group of 4 schools in Lambeth all of which have moved to Outstanding under his leadership. Most recently Ashmole Primary School and Herbert Morrison moved from RI to Outstanding in 2016, in 22 and 9 months respectively. All the schools in the federation have a higher than usual number of pupils eligible for pupil premium, a range of ethnic backgrounds and consequentially English as an additional language, several of the schools also have a higher than average number of pupils with special needs.

Chris will be sharing how he and all his teams moved their schools to outstanding by:
• Embracing differences across their schools because one size would not fit all
• Having a deep understanding of the needs of their children
• Matching teaching to their pupils’ needs
• Built capacity in the strength and depth of leadership

From Special Measures to Outstanding: Changing hearts and minds through our environment and on a tight budget

Riverley Primary is a large school serving an East London community. In 2012 they were put into Special Measures and in November 2016 they were judged as Outstanding.

They secured impressive progress for their children, well above national average in writing and maths, above average in reading and attainment at 75% the expected standard and 10% exceeding this. They achieved all of this with a demographic of high pupil premium, a very high number of pupils with English as an additional language and higher than usual proportion of pupils with disability and special educational needs.

Anne will be sharing how she and her team:
* Made small environmental changes that changed hearts and minds and started the improvement journey
* Looked and felt like an outstanding school by developing a sense of place
* Actually built on the proud traditions of the special measures school they were, instead of removing them

Creating an ambitious culture which goes beyond outstanding

Ray Lodge Primary School is a large school, with high mobility, high pupil premium, a higher than usual number of pupils with EAL, high special needs and high disability. Despite this challenging context they were judged to be providing Outstanding education in their recent inspection.

Core to their success is their ambitious culture enabling them to move from Good to Outstanding and their Head Teacher, Amanda, will be sharing how she and her team:
* Created such an ambitious culture
* How their vision has become the DNA of their school culture
* How they have a culture of accountability which their staff embrace and welcome

A leader's journey from Special Measures to Outstanding - building a distributive leadership culture and taking control of your inspection

Since becoming head in November 2013 Head Teacher Trudi Bartle has developed Craven Primary Academy from a school in special measures to being judged as outstanding in just under 3 years.

Craven Primary Academy in Hull is an innovative and ambitious school in a highly deprived estate just outside of the centre of Hull, a significantly high proportion of children are entitled to pupil premium funding and a high proportion have special educational needs. The school was judged to be providing an Outstanding provision in all areas in September 2016. In the new 2016 assessments they secured progress well above national average in writing and maths (progress measures of R 3.1, W 4.8 and M 5.9) and 79% combined attainment against a local authority backdrop of 53% achieving the expected standard.

Trudi will be sharing how she:
* Built a leadership culture which in turn secured rapid school improvement
* Developed system leadership throughout each of the phase of improvement
* Fine-tuned the most challenging part of the journey - the journey from Good to Outstanding
* Managed the Ofsted inspection and actually enjoyed it!

Turning around a legacy and reputation of low expectations to achieve an Outstanding provision

Montem Academy has nearly 1000 pupils and spans 3 buildings on one site. They have a higher than usual number of children eligible for pupil premium, with English as an additional language, special needs, and disability, yet despite this they were judged Outstanding in November 2016.

Montem has schooled children in Slough for over 100 years and in that time it has never been judged Good, always Satisfactory, Requires Improvement or given a notice to improve.

In 2013 Ann Probert joined the school, taking on her first headship, and within 3 years she led the team to Outstanding. Crucial to this achievement was changing the mind sets and expectations of children, teachers and the community – no small feat with a reputation that spanned decades and a large school housed in several separate buildings.

Ann will be sharing how she and her team:
* Changed mindsets so quickly
* Raised expectations
* Changed an embedded reputation in the community

Breaking the glass ceiling of Good

It’s hard to move a school from Requires Improvement to Good, but even harder to move a school from Good to Outstanding. In fact there’s a high chance that a Good school will remain Good or slip down. Why is this?

From working with many schools for the last 6 years and knowing more outstanding heads than probably anyone else Sonia will be sharing what she believes needed to move from Good to an authentic Outstanding.
* What holds schools back
* Why it's so hard to break out of Good
* Small changes that make a difference
* Bigger changes that set the scene for outstanding

Outdoor Play and Learning CIC supports primary schools to dramatically improve the quality of play times. OPAL runs the only programme that has been independently proven to improve the quality of play in British primary schools. For further information on how OPAL can help your school, please visit- http://www.outdoorplayandlearning.org.uk/

We are proud to announce OPAL are the main sponsors for Moving to Outstanding 2017.

"We were honoured to be asked to sponsor the 2016 Heads Up conference. At OPAL our ambition is for every school in the country to provide Outstanding playtimes for every pupil, and because our organisations share the same core values it seemed only natural for us to help in making the event the great success that it was. We hope there will be more opportunities to work with Heads Up in the future."
Neil Coleman, Mentor, Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL) CIC