As the calendar year draws to an end I want to take moment to look back on what you've found most useful, what we're most proud of and to say a massive thank you for being a part of the We Are In Beta Community this year.
We Are In Beta started as a podcast that aimed to share how school leaders were tackling big problems so others can learn from them.
While the vehicle has evolved, the mission remains the same - help your schools learn from each other so your students can achieve their best.
We do that by using data to find great work, celebrating it by producing useful content and events and helping you learn from them by building communities around it.
Like last year, this post is divided into 3 parts:
We Are In Beta community - the main network (available for free to all school leaders and teachers). 🌐
Curriculum Thinkers Community 📚 (the premium members only section that makes our work possible)
What to expect in 2023 🔮
Below I’ve included only sections 1 and 3.
To get the full story and links everything mentioned below…
Have a wonderful break! We’ll be out of the office until Jan.
None of what follows would be possible without you showing up, asking questions, sharing answers, attaching documents, contributing sessions and investing in your development. Thank you.
I am very proud of what we have achieved together. Let’s keep going.
So how did we do?
🌐 We Are In Beta Community in Numbers - the main network 📈
The TLDR of this section is that:
we've grown a lot - meaning even more shared expertise from 15k+ school leaders and teachers at your finger tips
we've got to know 10k+ of you really well
we've answered a bunch of questions and made loads of introductions - hundreds in fact.
we've begun to work with teams of you more closely to help you get as much out of the community as possible - in total there are 50+ of you.
we can have an even grater impact on your students together - you serve 1.8million students, 327k of whom are from disadvantaged backgrounds.
If you'd like a bit more nuance and some numbers and links to back it up,
📍Click here to find out who and where these schools are on this interactive map.
🌐 What were the most popular pieces of content in the main network?💡
🔬Top 3 research pieces
(By the way, this is better read with the Top of the Pops theme tune playing the background ;)
Coming in at...
#3️⃣. Curriculum polices: what do they look like across 45 high performing schools?
ICYMI: Fozia Iqbal spent several days researching 45 high performing schools, downloading their policies and analysing how they were written.
👉 Here's what Fozia Iqbal found - it's incredible.
Falling just short of the #1 spot...at...
#2️⃣. Which subjects are most likely to be deep dived by Oftsed?
In truth this post was actually outside top 10 most read. But it didn't make sense to signpost you to its predecessor, when this one is more up date.
ICYMI: We spent a few months reading 1200 Ofsted reports and logged every single subject deep dive so you can discover subject level practice.
👉 Here's what we found.
Topping the charts at...
#1️⃣. Top-performing schools with high P8 for disadvantaged students in 2022
The much anticipated return exams once again allowed us to discover and celebrate great people doing great things.
ICYMI: We went out to find the schools with the highest progress for disadvantaged students in 2022.
👉 Here's the list of 88 schools complete with links to sessions we've done with them and resources they've shared. (Premium membership required to access every bit of goodness).
What's the impact here?
🎯 We estimate our research has saved our member schools 187,000 hours* and £5.4 million* in 2022.
Calculations based the number of days each piece takes to make, the number of pieces we've produced, the number of you who've read our research so far, the time you would have spent doing this research in siloes and the cost of it.
🧵Top 3 community threads
This year we set out to help you form deeper relationships with each other. Why? To maximise the support you give each other.
To achieve this we've been offering to set up calls to save you the admin and running more regular open forum meet ups so you can have better conversation than you would typing in the feed.
Two of the top 3 most read community threads in 2022 came from calls we help set up.
So what were the top 3?
(Put your Top Of The Pops backing track back on, please;)
Coming in at...
#3️⃣ Pastoral leaders meeting group notes (November) by Thomas Killigrew
ICYMI: a whopping 50 comments, yielding 15+ resources, each of which probably took hours, if not days, even weeks of work to produce.
👉 Access the resources here.
Be sure to say thank you in the comments.
If you're a pastoral leader, join our steering group to get a front row seat at upcoming meetings.
Not quite making it to # 1... we have at...
#2️⃣ How can we improve the profile of languages at KS3, to make sure that it's a popular choice at KS4 and KS5? by Clare Fletcher
The report Clare Fletcher's colleagues produced attracted a lot of interest.
👉 Access it here (in Jan - we’ll be out of the office until then).
For a second year in a row, he's the winner of the most read thread of the year. At the top of the tree at...
#1️⃣ Looking for examples or recommendations of line management agendas by Richard Uffendell
My guess is the engagement in the post wasn't the result of a call we set up. It was the fact that Richard Uffendell is one of the regular visitors, contributors and supporters in the community. People recognise that and want to help in return.
💼🔎 3 biggest jobs threads
This year we've helped you promote 335 jobs.
Jan (57), May (46) and October (72) hold the records for the most roles posted in a month.
We've helped these roles get seen 41,800 times in the We Are In Beta newsletter. All for free.
This additional exposure would cost north of £130,000+ on other jobs boards.
Sadly, due to demand and the shear amount of time it takes do each week, we won't able to offer it for free forever. Watch this space.
✍️ Most read article
Live marking by Thahmina Begum
👉 This is brilliant. Read why and how they do it at Forest Gate Community School here.
Sent this by a friend?
What to expect in 2022. 👀
In 2023 we’ll continue working towards our vision by doing what we do best:
Researching successful schools so you can discover who they are.
Sharing their work and success so you can learn how they do it.
Building communities so you can grow together, alongside them
Here are 6 other objectives, we'll be working towards.
1. ❤️ We want to help you develop more supportive and collaborative relationships.
They say "the value of your net worth is the value of your network". Easy to say, difficult to build.
Too often this year we have seen members ask with without giving and take without thanking and read without replying.
We'll be sharing tips and advice about how members who always get offers of support develop such productive relationships.
We'll also be sharing how to stay up to date by having the right notification settings turned on.
2. 📽 We want to diversify the content we make with you.
We've been doing a lot of curriculum stuff over the past two years. This hasn't served all of you. We want as many members of your team as possible to be able to get support here.
Keep an eye out for a new pastoral leaders community launching soon. Waiting list here.
3. 📝 We want to make it easier for you to find resources.
There are now thousands of resources inside the community. Unless you visit often it can be be tricky to find them.
We'll tracking and filing them all in one place. Coming soon.
4. 🤝 We want to continue to work even more closely with you.
You know what conversations you want to have with the people who do your role in other schools. We can put you in touch with them.
Specific groups we've been approached about so far include:
Senior leaders in charge of all things curriculum
Senior leaders in charge of all things pastoral
Subject experts
SENCOs / SEND leaders
Heads of Sixth form
T&L leads
Headteachers
We'll only have capacity for a small number of these, so if you'd like to see them happen, get in touch.
5. 🔬We want to build on our growing team of research associates.
To help you find data driven answers to your questions, we'll be giving you access to our databases and tools.
So far we've been approached about
attendance
behaviour
equality, diversity and inclusion
bullying
If there's a piece of desk based research you're planning to do, and you're not sure where to start or have a big network, don't do it on your own. Let us help you. Get in touch here.
6. ✅❌ We want to understand how we're doing better.
We get to hear about your successes in threads in the community and on calls. But to keep serving you as best we can, we need to better understand what difference we're making.
To achieve that, we'll be gathering more feedback in 2023. Thanks in advance for your help.
Thanks for reading.
We’ll be out of office until Jan. Have a lovely break.
Here's to a great 2023!
@NiallAlcock and the We Are In Beta team.
📱 Get 15,395 school leaders and teachers in your pocket - download We Are In Beta app
🆕 New here? Catch up with previous editions, podcasts and webinars via the archive.