Skein Momentum is a diagnostic and development process which enables schools where progress has stalled to gain or regain momentum. Delivered by a partnership of CUREE and ASCL, it identifies several key building blocks to help school leaders ensure that all the core activities in their schools are working together and heading in the right direction.

Using information provided by the school via documents, pupil performance data, interviews and discussions, focus groups, observations and surveys, the service produces a confidential evaluation report containing detailed, practical and evidence-based recommendations. School leaders are then supported through one or a number of action research processes for implementing their plan, followed by a concise implementation and progress review

On 6 June we launched the report of the latest project CUREE, in collaboration with Teach First, has undertaken on schools accelerating progress for vulnerable pupils. The full report is available for download now, and you can read the first of Philippa Cordingley's blogs about the report's findings here.

CUREE has spent a year exploring characteristics shared by schools which are struggling to establish/sustain momentum in their progress towards reaching high-performing status, and investigating how these schools' individual contexts and circumstances relate to the broader evidence base around what exactly makes schools successful in making progress. The project builds on previous work on characteristics of high-performing schools (the report of which can be read here).

We have been working with the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to plan, consult about and launch the pilot of its new Teacher Development Fund to support CPDL for embedding learning through the arts in the primary curriculum. We will be meeting the first seven providers from the pilot programme which spans all four UK home nations in London in just two weeks time!
This is exciting at lots of levels.

• Prefer to read it on the train/ over breakfast/ in the bath?
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• The Philippa Blog
• Quality Mentoring - Securing and Retaining the Next Generation
• Build your own R&D and Staff Development Programme
• CUREE Welcomes Professor Andy Goodwyn!
• Come Say Hello!

The Philippa Blog

Just when we all thought we knew what frantic was, everything moved up a gear in the few weeks between Christmas and Easter and now we are all facing the run up to SATS and exams. To build on a poster on a meeting room door in a school in Lincolnshire where we're working with one of our three amazing groups of primary school heads on evidence based peer review this week - "Children are the priority, change is the reality, evidence helps us link the two". The gears CUREE has been pedalling through (fast) which I think will interest you came from three main sources:

Teacher Development Fund for learning through the arts

First we were working with the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to consult about and launch the pilot of its new Teacher Development Fund to support CPDL for embedding learning through the arts in the primary curriculum. This is going to take place across the four home nations so we met in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London and Bristol - all in 2.5 weeks!

Note: the lead responsibility for taking the project forward rests with CfBT. The information below is provided for general interest and may not be accurate or up-to-date. For authoritative information on the project in detail contract the National College or CfBT

First Year Results

Five of the seven interventions had a distinct and 'complete' cycle in the first year. The post tests (literacy or numeracy) were carried out in June/July and the National College (assisted by DfE Analytical Services) are analysing the results. A preliminary view of these is expected to be available in September.