Collaborative working

I work across three different learning communities each one has a secondary and associated primaries and early years establishments, SEN Schools/Bases etc. They are all very different from each other. which is great to see. At the moment we’re in the middle of the learning community development plan reviews and planning for the new improvement plans. What is very evident is the amount of collaborative working going on, which can continue to be built on. Over the past couple of weeks some of the innovative and exciting collaborative activites I’ve heard about at our meetings include the following –

Primary schools working together to develop approaches at the early stages of primary including storyline working, development of active learning in numeracy and reading with fantastic ideas for assessment built in. Primary schools working together to develop personal logs and visiting not just schools within their learning community but going on good practice visits outside the authority. Secondary schools working alongside primaries developing AiFL approaches using science lessons at transition stages involving NQTs in developing active learning, use of award schemes such as ASDAN in the secondary, use of assessment to look a variety of skills at transition stages e.g verbal reasoning etc and target support. Primary schools working on interdisciplinary topics across several stages within the school. Schools developing “enriched tasks”. The list goes on and on. It’s quite mind blowing when all of this is added up together. The head of a secondary today summed it up when he said that in these times of tightened belts and efficiency savings, this collaborative working has to be the way forward. I think Michael Fullan said something along the lines of us becoming dangerous ( in a good way) when we really start to share and work together. The exciting thing about this is seeing the enthusiasm that is there at all levels when people start to talk about the real job of learning and teaching. It’s like the ongoing strains of the tension caused by work that is not to do with learning and teaching falls away when people can talk about what they really love doing.

After one of these LC meetings today I then met the early years group of establishments we work with in our area – where again our theme was about how to share and collaborate more.

So if this is how my  my time can be spent usefully in engaging in meaningful facilitation of dialogue whether its via these groups/meetings, out visiting schools, promoting Glow as a tool etc, I really need to keep a hold on that focus as time goes on and not become too caught up in working on paperwork etc.I don’t think this is rocket science but the hard thing for me has always been no matter what role I’m in , keeping that focus at the forefront at times when it’s easy to become sidelined with bits of paper.