Pastoral and curriculum support squads.
And creating powerful moments with your teams and students.
In light of the devastating news about Headteacher Ruth Perry taking her own life following an Ofsted inspection, please remember you are not alone.
Use this tragic event as a reminder to build a squad of supporters, who will provide unwavering support when you need it.
In comparison, this week’s offerings from inside the We Are In Beta Community, pale into insignificance.
But they do give you the connectivity and collaboration missing from the current inspection regime. I hope you find them useful.
My thoughts and prayers are with Ruth’s family, colleagues, students and community.
We - schools - Are In Beta - always learning (when we support each other).
This week
🛡Pastoral SLT: meetup date + resources.
📚Curriculum SLT: meetup date + resources.
🎧 How to create powerful moments.
🛡Pastoral SLT: meetup + resources.
Once a month, senior leaders in charge of pastoral care meet to ask each other:
What’s going well for you?
What’s difficult?
How can I help?
Topics so far include: transition, discrimination, safeguarding audits, emotional coaching, trauma informed practice and more.
Next meetup’s happening:
📅21/03/23
🕓4.15pm
(Places limited to 8).
Last time, they discussed, amongst other things:
how to bring together discrete functions of attendance, safeguarding, behaviour, and SEND.
how to recruit pastoral support workers from local youth clubs.
Resources shared last time include:
📝 Community safety officer mentoring guidance.
📝 Uniform report card.
📝 Exam stress strategies slides.
📝 Letters to parents leading change.
📚Curriculum SLT: meetup + resources.
Using the same format as above, senior curriculum leaders, meet to ask each other:
What’s going well for you?
What’s difficult?
How can I help?
Topics discussed recently include: options blocking, evidencing RE and Computing across the curriculum, quality assuring curriculum and more.
Next meetup’s happening:
📅23/03/23
🕓4.15pm
(Places limited to 8)
Resources shared by members of this group so far include:
📝 curriculum review frameworks.
📝 website proformas.
📝 curriculum line management agendas.
🎧 How to create powerful moments.
Why is it some moments have a greater impact on you than others?
In their book - The Power of Moments - brothers Chip and Dan Heath argue there are four characteristics you can weave into planning them:
Elevation - increase sensory input, break the script, raise the stakes 🚀
Pride - see how much you've grown, what you've accomplished or overcome ❤️
Insight - help the audience reach insight themselves. Don’t give the answers away 💡
Connection - create synchronicity, share pain, show you’re doing what matters 🤗
Listen to the 1st episode of Series 4 of PiXL’s Leadership Bookclub (produced by We Are In Beta) to find out how you can do that in your school or classroom.
On a personal note.
A question we often ask ourselves at We Are In Beta:
“How can we help our members to access our support in the most time efficient way possible?”
As a teacher you’re among the most time poor people around. So it makes sense for us to deliver everything in a way that costs you as little time as possible.
Or does it?
Yes, we can crunch the data, create directories and curate the resources - all to save you time.
But doing so negates one the most powerful levers you can pull to help you achieve your goals - building relationships with those who do your job.
Added together they have a mind boggling huge amount of experience, skills, and resources.
Those who get the most out of the community attend live events, share advice, send resources, offer phone calls. They use the insight they gain to make change back in their own schools.
Returning to the question above - we’ve settled on offering a combination of different things to help you save time and build relationships
Posts and curations you can use right way without having to attend an event.
Events where you can meet people so you can build your squad of supporters.
Hopefully they’ll make small contribution to avoiding tragedies similar to Ruth Perry’s.
How does that mix of support sound?
I’d love to hear your thoughts. As always feel free to reply to this email to help us get this blend right for you.
Thanks for reading.
@NiallAlcock and the We Are In Beta team.
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