EXECUTIVE SUMMARY / In one short paragraph please describe this project and what it has achieved.
We will use this in any future publicity material.
In 2009 a Curriculum for Excellence Festival was delivered by staff in South Ayrshire Council to staff across the authority. This was a first of its kind for the council and it was hailed as a success by all who participated. The event was celebrated at both local and national level. This year building on the strengths of the previous event the festival is now embedded into the continuing professional development programme for staff across all establishments. Practitioners are invited to volunteer to showcase work going on in their schools and nurseries around Curriculum for Excellence. The emphasis is on learning and teaching and the festival provides a powerful continuing professional development opportunity allowing teachers to learn from teachers and engage in rich and thought provoking professional dialogue. With teachers engaging in activities that develop them as leaders of learning it should be possible to achieve the transformational change that a Curriculum for Excellence requires to ensure our young people are inspired to learn, live and work in a 21st century globalised world. The enthusiasm and commitment of staff to ensure this event is a success is astounding with staff across all sectors willing to buy into the vision of learning better from colleagues. The festival has Curriculum for Excellence as its central theme and embraces creativity at all levels. Presenters will deliver two seminars of 45 minutes and participants are invited to attend two seminars which are selected from an overall choice of 80 seminars running at Belmont Academy on 19th October 2010. They then book themselves on via an online booking system which was designed specifically for this event. On the day staff will also view a specially commissioned DVD in which the Minister for Education, our Executive Director, our Head of Service and District Inspector fromHMIe, will provide insight into how Curriculum for Excellence fits in with both the council's vision statement and its aspirations for South Ayrshire citizens and across Scotland.In addition pupils from across all sectors demonstrate Curriculum for Excellence in action. The event demonstrates the strength behind collaborative working and the enthusiasm and dedication of staff to strive for continuous improvement for the young people of South Ayrshire.
PLANNING / · a clear rationale, defined processes and focus on stakeholder needs· contributes to organisation’s goals, community plan and SOA, and national policy context
Scottish Government is fully committed to driving forward their policy on a Curriculum for Excellence across Scotland. Curriculum for Excellence challenges us to review the curriculum for children and young people aged 3-18. It asks us all to take responsibility for developing the capacities, attributes and capabilities necessary for children and young people in the 21st century. In planning a Curriculum for Excellence Festival we wanted staff with the responsibility for young people’s learning to secure better outcomes for all children and young people by taking a fresh look at creative and innovative approaches to transforming the way we enable learning to take place in our schools. We in Children and Community have a responsibility to work within the vision, values, aims and objectives of South Ayrshire Council and to address the strategic objectives flowing from the Council’s Vision and the Community Planning Partnership’s Single Outcome Agreement as set out with the Council Plan. South Ayrshire Council’s Aim 5 is that Our children and young people are inspired, motivated and ambitious and in providing our festival event we are inspiring and motivating our staff responsible for improving educational achievement to be ambitious and aspirational for our young people. One of the Council’s Strategic Objectivesis to Improve educational achievement for all. As a Directorate we have a commitment in our plan which states Through Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) our children and young people are given opportunities to become successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors. Our festival is planned to ensure that the seminars on offer would encourage staff to reflect on creating a stimulating learning environment using different learning approaches and to develop our teacher’s professional skills and abilities to lead learning and develop the four capacities as stated.
In providing staff with strategic policy documents at the previous event in 2009 we are now able to continue to reinforce our local and national priorities for Curriculum for Excellence through the specially commissioned DVD so further strengthening staff knowledge about our expectations on the development of a Curriculum for Excellence within our schools.
At an operational level the main planning phase of the festival was undertaken over a relatively short period of time. In the first instance staff a Quality Improvement Officer was tasked with co-ordinating the festival and worked with a small team. Staff at all levels were fully involved in the planning and implementation of the event.
DELIVERING / · implemented in all relevant areas and across all the required stakeholders· carried out in a structured and logical way , using robust and sustainable methods
In implementing this project we were keen to show that staff across the authority were willing to share their expertise, talents, skills and knowledge to improve outcomes for children. Schools were approached early in the session to nominate staff prepared to deliver a seminar at the festival. The festival was scheduled for one of the in-service days in October and delivered in one of our new PPP schools which gave us the opportunity to showcase this flagship establishment. Presenters were given an opportunity to attend pre-festival support meetings and were provided with additional information relating to festival logistics. All seminars used ICT to some extent. The use of ICT in this way demonstrates our progress towards effective and appropriate embedding of technology within all aspects of learning and teaching. The use of Glow has had a significant presence within the festival – not only in terms of presentations but has been used to host seminar resources and facilitate discussions. Rather than distribute handouts, presenters and participants were encouraged to share resources and continue further discussion using Glow.
In order to effectively allocate seminars, participants used an online booking service and those staff that didn’t make prior seminar selections online weregiven the opportunity to select seminar places from those remaining. An external contractor was appointed to transport participants, by bus, to and from the festival as parking was restricted at the school. Catering was provided by authority staff and many staff were redeployed on that day from a variety of schools to attend. Administrative support was provided in order that participants could be provided with a named badge, school map and programme in advance of the event. A number of guests (e.g. councillors, Heads of Service, Press, etc) were invited to attend the festival. Careful considerations were given to where participants would enter the venue, clarity around room allocations, movement to their first seminar, movement to their second seminar and, finally, exit from the venues. Academy staffwere engaged to help ensure participants moved smoothly from one part of the festival to the next.
In order to set the scene and share the big messages a 15 minute video was created by means of introduction to the festival. The video included introductory speeches from the Minister for Education, Executive Director, Head of Service and HMIE District Inspector providing insight into how Curriculum for Excellence fits in with both the council's vision statement and its aspirations for South Ayrshire citizens and across Scotland. The video also showed sound bites of our schools and pupils participating in various activities making Curriculum for Excellence come alive.
INNOVATION + LEADING PRACTICE / ·Demonstrates leading practice·Achieves genuine innovation or new ways of working
Children and Community Directorate feel that this event is unlike any other staged across Scotland. We have engaged all practitioners and worked with partners across the whole authority. We have offered invites to our two neighbouring authorities to share what we see as excellent practice. This event is now going to be embedded in our Continuing Professional Development calendar for South Ayrshire. We consider it exciting and innovative. Building on its success it will be further developed across the whole Directorate to encompass colleagues other than education.
Staff across all stages and sectors were enthused and excited by the day. They had the opportunity to witness and showcase the excellent practice going on across our schools.
Over 1400 staff will attend the Curriculum for Excellence festival held in Belmont Academy on 19th October 2010. To deliver excellent Continuing Professional Development to such a gathering and develop leadership and collegiality at all levels in this way is clearly a unique example of leading practice.
Throughout the event we were continually monitoring and evaluating the process. We have detailed plans about any issues we experienced and lessons we have learned for next time. We identified key headings to consider in future planning - overall planning/management, timings, selection of seminars, venue, presenter support, transport, catering, registration, guests, catering, ICT , marketing and evaluations. Further events for both pupils and parents are planned in future and we can only continue to build on the strength of this one.
RESULTS + IMPACT / · a convincing mix of customer perception and internal performance measures· clear line of sight to the delivery of the Single Outcome Agreement
· a full range of relevant results showing improvement over time
The festival had a very positive impact across the authority in 2009. The overwhelming feedbackfrom both participants and presenters was that it was a very positive experience. In particular, feedback demonstrated an understanding of how such events can be used to facilitate sharing of good practice and generation of ideas that can be used to enhance learning experiences for young people throughout the authority. The level of participation demonstrated the extent to which staff were willing to engage in sharing with colleagues and, in particular, take a positive leadership role. Pupils were encouraged to engage with participants and, in doing so, commented on the development of their own confidence and leadership skills. Pupils reported their excitement through presenting their own activities to others. Many different groups of staff, some of whom had never worked together previously, were involved in the planning and co-ordination of the festival. Various complex tasks were co-ordinated and completed within a short period of time. Staff at many levels reported a greater understanding and appreciation of the role of others.
The following comments are representative of participants views: “Superb organisation, fantastic venue, a broad choice of seminars-a very worthwhile experience”, “The seminars I attended left me inspired. An excellent and worthwhile festival” “I thought the young people at each of the seminars were fantastic and I enjoyed listening to their thoughts and experiences” “
40 staff responded to the presenter online evaluation with 97% of responses rating their festival experience to be Excellent, Very Good or Good.
Presenters comments included “Thoroughly enjoyed the experience-we have received a great deal of positive feedback from people who attended our seminar. It is good to share – it helps cut down on “reinventing the wheel” which happens far too often in education”, “ Was a really good event and enjoyed working with staff from all schools in South Ayrshire. Would definitely do it again!”
This year there are more staff volunteering to present than in the previous year showing that they are growing in confidence in their ability to lead colleagues in their learning.
The formal evaluation of this event will be available after 19th October 2010 and we fully expect the responses to be even more positive. Staff have embraced this way of learning from each other and further events are planned for the future.
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