Primary School Improvement Partners

Thank you for your interest in becoming a School Improvement Partner (SIP) in Norfolk. This is a key school improvement and development role, operating alongside the primary team, and one that will offer the successful applicants a real challenge, and plenty of opportunities to demonstrate the quality of their work.

The primary team is a good team and a strong team and, following reorganisation in the summer of 2006, is well positioned to address (with SIPs from April 2008) the main issues facing Norfolk schools at present. At the top of the list is the need to accelerate the upward trend in attainment at key stages one and two, and to close the gap between performance in Norfolk and performance nationally. A second priority is to ensure that we continue to make effective use of school performance data, analysing and evaluate it in the context of each school. Thirdly, we need to ensure that we are getting to the heart of improvement; making sound judgements, accurately identifying strengths and blockages, clarifying actions for improvement and their impact. Finally, we need to ensure that where schools are identified as being ‘of Concern’ (whether in Ofsted categories or not) we maintain and develop our highly effective improvement work with them. Your prior experience, and your accreditation as a School Improvement Partner are two of the ways in which you can demonstrate your capacity to do this, but we will also want to explore with you your track record of leadership; we need outstanding leaders with a proven track record of raising standards and improving progress in school.

The work of the primary team is wide ranging, and I hope you will be able to demonstrate a breadth of vision and qualities of leadership and management that will enable you to operate effectively with the team. The characteristics that I have set out above are fundamental requirements, but there will be many other opportunities to benefit from and contribute to the work of the team that I would encourage you to explore in your application.

It is our aim for School Improvement Partners to be valued and well-supported in their work in Norfolk. The Advisory Services undertake extensive training, consultancy, monitoring and intervention, support and challenge, leadership development and a wide range of other work. This means that we are well placed to provide a wide variety of CPD opportunities for our SIPs. Links with the Area Teams connect us directly to the work of those teams, usually based on clusters or localities. Each SIP will work with the Area Senior Adviser and their locality School Development Adviser to ensure that they benefit from and contribute appropriately to this aspect of our work.

We are allocating our Primary School Improvement Partners a full five days per school, plus the appropriate entitlement to a programme of CPD. We will provide access to systems for accessing school data and a clear visit and reporting framework, and set out clear expectations for their use. To support SIPs, and ensure that our work with schools continues to be of the highest quality, we will operate a robust Quality Assurance and Appraisal framework. In return, we are offering an inclusive payment of £1500 per allotted school on an initial contract of four terms (lasting until July 2009) for suitable applicants.

From what I have said, I hope it is clear that there are many ways in which the successful applicants will be able to contribute to the success of Norfolk schools, and improve outcomes for children and young people across the county. I would encourage you to use your application to highlight your particular strengths, and set out the contribution that you would hope to make as a School Improvement Partner.

If it would be helpful, please don’t hesitate to phone Heather Tyrrell or Chris Snudden, Senior Advisers, for an informal talk about the post. I hope you will be sufficiently interested to make an application; this is a great place to work, and the primary team is a great team to work with. There are certainly many challenges ahead, but also many opportunities for the right people. I look forward to the possibility of working with you.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is anything further I can do to help at this stage.

David Orsborne, Head of Primary School Development