Primary School Improvement Partners (Primary SIPs)

There will be an advertisement in the TES on 19th and 26th January for primary and special school School Improvement Partners (SIPs). The advertisement will be aimed particularly at potential SIPs who plan to work in Wave 1, 2 and 3 authorities, but NCSL will also recruit a small number of SIPs for the Wave 4 authorities (such as Norfolk and Suffolk) who will be introducing SIPs for their primary schools in April 2008. There will be a further advertisement in May specifically for the Wave 4 authorities.

Over the next few years, it is planned that every mainstream school will have a school improvement partner (SIP) who will provide the school with professional support and challenge, and NCSL will soon be inviting applications from current and former primary headteachers, as well as from local authority primary school advisers and independent consultants to take on the SIP role.

The SIP role offers a significant professional development opportunity for serving headteachers, as well as demanding a high level of personal and professional commitment to work with a range of other schools within and beyond Norfolk. There are good examples of this happening already in Norfolk (through the Primary Leadership Programme and the Primary Learning Networks, for example) and we hope that many Norfolk headteachers will feel that they have something to contribute to the development, implementation and operation of the SIP programme.

David Orsborne, and colleagues from Children’s Services, will be working with Headteacher representatives from this term to plan the introduction of SIPs for Primary schools in Norfolk from April 2008, and we would also like to encourage any headteacher who has an interest in the SIP role to review the criteria and, if appropriate, to make an application.

Applicants will need to give the name of two referees, one from the Local Authority (LA), who will be asked by NCSL to complete an online reference. Applicants are, of course, free to name any person as a referee (subject to their agreement) but David Orsborne, Head of Primary School Development, is willing to act as LA referee for all Norfolk headteachers. This will help make the process more manageable and help the LA to ensure that applications are not held up by delays in completing online references.

Please visit the NCSL website for further information. If, after visiting the website, you still have questions about SIPs, their role and recruitment, then please contact David Orsborne who will be pleased to try to help. He can be contacted at the Norwich Professional Development Centre on 01603 433276.