Lincoln
Specialist
Schools
LSSG was officially launched in July 2007 as a soft federation of 7 schools in the Lincoln Area, including: Branston Community College, Cherry Willingham Community School, Lincoln Christ’s Hospital School, North Kesteven School, Robert Pattinson School, St Peter’s and Paul’s Catholic High School and Yarborough High School. The main objective of the federation was to share educational experiences that would be enhanced by the seven schools working together. This has proved to be very successful.
In July 2008 the schools were awarded the opportunity to advance their notion of a multi school learning environment in real-time on-line. The schools were granted £500,000 with a release profile over two years as part of a three-year agreement (2008 – 11). The funding was provided to purchase research, setup virtual education across the seven schools and, if proved successful, to expand the notion of distance learning across other areas of the county. The funding is being administered at Robert Pattinson School in a separate, transparent, auditable account under the leadership of the project manager.
The academic year 2009/10 will be the first with Video Conferencing (VC) in place and time-tabled courses. In the run-up to the start in September, the schools are working at a number of different issues that are emerging as the pilot progresses.
Key objectives for academic year 2009/10:
Current schools funding is threatening the existence of certain critical courses. Collaborative arrangements within LSSG and the use of multi-site learning HD facilities will create viability for these ‘at risk’ courses and allow our students to continue with a rich and varied diet of future qualifications.
The introduction of Law and Further Maths from September 2009 is based upon Law being a new subject to most of the schools involved, which if delivered in any one particular would not attract any more than 5 students maximum. As delivered through VC the current numbers for such a course is 30 using 1 teacher rather than 6. Further Maths in the same way is being delivered to 16 students using 3 schools working collaboratively to deliver a shared module approach, thus an efficient use of school resources and teacher time.
The successful delivery of the above courses will lead to an expansion of ‘at risk’ courses to begin in 2010/2011. Such courses will include Modern Foreign Languages in French, German, Russian and Spanish. Schools will pair up to develop materials for VC delivering and run pilot lessons during 2009. Apart from an efficient delivery of perennial low uptake courses the students will benefit from live interaction with their fellow language learners across the schools.
Likewise pairings of schools will work to develop materials for VC delivery along with appropriate training and the delivery of pilot lessons in 2009 in Physics, Chemistry and Humanity subjects that are under threat. Critical Thinking will be an addition for 2010 and enrichment sessions will arranged during 2009/10.
Such action at Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 will encourage students to further continue into post 16 learning lines with qualifications and will support the current notion across the city of different examination specifications leading to future rationalisation of such inefficiencies. Finally, the international VC events of 2009 will be expanded and enhanced to specifically feed into Lincoln schools to further enrich MFL activity.
Efficiency of LSSG programmes are based upon the cost of course Pre VC delivery against the average income of £1000 per student per A Level Subject. The difference being the average cost to school. This is compared to the same ave. funding per student per subject being taught by one or even two tutors across the seven schools. The savings are significant, some of which can be used to supplement the sustainability of the VC courses into the future. It will need for the project to run through two full academic years to start feeling the benefit of this system in the future and the commitment from schools to supply excellent teachers to deliver the projected number of courses. Take-up and innovation will guide course selection year on year. The selection of viable courses will be announced by March the preceding year to the exam course starting.
JANET (Joint Academic Network) will be further engaged for the use of Lincolnshire Schools expanding the expert programme started in 2008/9. The project manager will engage with JANET personnel to enlarge opportunities that will widen accessibility for Lincolnshire to experts unwilling to travel for small numbers of students. This will include Gifted and Talented students of all ages and enrichment of examination and non-examination courses. The project manager will also seek for and create a Lincolnshire database of enrichment opportunities for schools which will include County and out of County experts in a range of enrichment activities as part of ECM agenda. See below re costs.
Added value of Interschool interaction is an obvious use of VC equipment and the current interaction of School councils will be continued, alongside new debating opportunities for all ages, interschool quizzes, and one to one engagement for recognised niche interests, otherwise disregarded in a school environment. This has already discovered a rich vein of ideas and innovations passed on from school to school and has provided a firm platform for delivering ECM solutions. This important aspect of VC work will be developed during 2009/10/1. It is not envisaged that this will be a huge cost due to the willingness and goodwill of teachers to be involved.
International links are an important part of this development but particularly for Lincolnshire Schools. The VC Champions group, RATL, and Gifted and Talented Teacher Groups are pursuing ways of extending Student Voice activity, extended schools activity and ECM Essentials.
An essential development will be to ensure that Lincoln Christ Hospital School is fully integrated with the other six schools, not to do so will be a waste of equipment already installed and another year of falling behind the rapid development of the other schools in LSSG.
Unfortunately the development of a multi-screen solution to develop delivery both in the city and beyond into greater Lincolnshire has been shelved at present. Lincolnshire ICT Development is not yet ready to make this move and this adjustment will wait until delivery pilots prove to be successful. The project is ready to put 50% of costs into this development. This is an essential development area for sustainability.
A recording facility to archive learning experiences will be investigated in 2009 and funding put aside for a possible development when all technical aspects have been explored with the help of LA. Cost of this unknown at present and will be part of the investigation. A non-HD Solution may be available via the JANET Network.
Training and support will continue from September 2009 to widen the knowledge and skills of the teaching staff and IT Managers. This is a new media for learning and as such will require substantial investment in to creating a world class teaching force throughout the city.
A part-time project manager will be employed on leadership 15 for 0.4 of a week to ensure that the VC project moves forward, instigate innovation and essential contacts and to develop possible future finding avenues though e.g. SSAT, British Council and Universities to aid sustainability. The project manager will also work with CfBT in developing VC CPD and engage with possibility of Countywide Learning Platform to support future VC work in 201. The contract will run until August 2010.
Warranty and same day support of the equipment requires to be renewed annually. This has been the work of Synetrix in the first year but the cost has been reduced by F1 who have now renewed the warranty for three schools (June 2009) and will warranty the remaining schools in Nov 2009
Enrichment activities at Key Stage 4 will be planned by each of the 7 schools in LSSG to deliver an A/A* topic through the VC and sessions recorded for future use and archiving. Each school will be given £500 to develop a unit and deliver their particular topic to the other schools. The impact will be improved A/A* results across the city and the beginning of shared resources between schools.
It is the intention for the seven schools to develop their workforce by sharing CPD activities via VC. It is also the intention to discuss developments with CfBT when the plans are clearer in the near future. In the first instance the schools would be looking to harness in-house expertise to deliver modules on Leadership Training for Middle Leaders, using teams of recognised leaders, and to investigate and experiment with whole staff training on issues such as Behaviour Management. An Audit will take place to establish common training times for staff on Training days or in dedicated Twilight time.
Links with primary schools and expanding ECM solutions to Primary Schools via VC is an essential development in this project. The seven schools will look to share the equipment with selected primary partners to open up VC opportunities for Primary staff and students. The ultimate development would be to equip primary schools to have a direct link with Secondary Schools to share expertise and resources. This will be a pat of investigation during 2009/10. No cost at present. Staff time and cover may need to be taken into consideration.