New partners in the North West

Focus Education are a highly regarded provider of educational training and publications. They are based out of an excellent professional development centre near Oldham and serve many Primary schools around the country but with particularly strong relationships in the North-West. CUREE has just started a partnership with Focus and they will be hosting a session entitled “COACHING FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT” run by Lisa Bradbury on the 24th June and 15th Sept. This might be an opportunity for you to recommend a way for a friend in a school in that area to engage with the coaching materials; or even get a top-up session yourself.

A new programme "Emerging to good, good to outstanding: building coaching capacity as a cost effective school improvement tool" will be lead by Philippa Cordingley on the 24th November 2010 in the NW at Focus Education. This course is designed for head teachers, CPD leaders and ASTS. It aims to help participants develop and embed coaching as a high quality, cost effective and sustainable way of developing the performance of every member of staff so that it fulfils its potential for every pupil. In particular the programme offers opportunities for identifying and building on the strengths of colleagues and complementing these with evidence based tools such as learning agreements and questioning and thinking frames that help to ensure effective and purposeful coaching relationships at every level and to focus coaching conversations on tackling teaching and learning challenges progressively and in manageable chunks. Contact CUREE for more information about the programme if you think it sounds helpful for any of your staff. Alison Halford Assistant Director - CUREE