Hub Spotlight: Chrysalis Hub

Chrysalis hub was established in March 2018 with Claremont High School Academy (CHSA) as the lead school. Since then we have continued to grow and develop. We now have six large schools within our hub and a number of other schools who have expressed an interest in joining in the next academic year.

The size of our hub currently allows us to offer personalised support for our schools, using our hub funding strategically to offer training and CPD opportunities to grow and develop all schools within the hub. We have a fully developed action plan detailing our hub priorities for the upcoming year and planned training and intervention to address these priorities. At our first hub meeting of the academic year, delegates had presentations from The Brilliant Club Conference, The Outstanding Teacher Programme, and OFSTED updates from the Pupil Premium Conference earlier in the year. These presentations were enabled through the hub funding and members of CHSA attending the conferences to then feedback information to the hub partner schools. Our agenda items at future planned meetings throughout the year will offer similar opportunities for training and development, as well as providing an excellent forum for sharing of best practice and continuing to grow and build upon outstanding practice within our schools.

Current and planned training and opportunities include: Outstanding Teacher Programme delivered by award-winning members of staff; Improving Teacher Programme; SEND training by Natalie Packer, a national expert in the field; use of assessment training from NfER; Pupil Premium Training; Developing Greater Depth Thinking; Behavioural Insights Team, delivered by external; Achievement for All; Quality Assessment training. In addition to the above training we have also recently been successful in our bid to host two Network of Excellence events in spring 2019. The topics for these events are: Outstanding staff development at all levels, including through CPD and NQT training; and Achievement and Progress at KS4 in English and Maths.

We have a proven track record of outstanding delivery of both areas of the school and are delighted that we are able to offer training to schools within our own hub as well as opening up the opportunity to other schools within the Challenge Partners network. From September 2018 we now have two members of staff who are fully qualified to deliver the Outstanding Teacher Programme through OLEVI. At Claremont we pride ourselves on our outstanding teaching and learning and have selected our Teaching and Learning lead, Ms Patel, along with our NQT programme coordinator, Ms Stavrou, to deliver the programme. Ms Patel was herself recognised for her excellence in the classroom when she was awarded the Silver Pearson Teacher Award earlier this year and we are very excited that she will be able to deliver the course to staff from a range of schools within our Challenge Partners hub.

As an Outstanding school, we were pleased to be able to join the Growing the Top – Stand-Out Schools programme offered by Challenge Partners, an invitation-only programme for schools that were awarded Outstanding in their most recent Quality Assurance Review / Ofsted inspection, has Progress 8 and Attainment 8 data above the national average. The intention of this programme is to provide exceptional schools that meet these criteria with support and challenge to continue to build upon their already excellent offering and we are looking forward to using the course to support us in continuing to grow, both as a school and as a hub within the Network of Excellence.

Alice Toft, Hub Manager and Assistant Headteacher at Claremont High School.