Table of Contents
What is the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education Beacon School Programme? 2
Aims 2
Why would a school apply? 3
Mandatory key programme phases 4
I: Preparation, May - July 2016 4
II: Induction, mapping, orientation, September-October 2016 4
III: London Residential Seminar, 22-25 October 2016 4
IV: Create & teach improved Schemes of Work, October 2016 – July 2017 5
V: Four day study visit to Poland, 5-8 May 2017 5
VI: Dissemination, June – July 2017 5
VII: Teaching the Scheme of Work & Impact Evaluation, September 2017 6
How to apply 8
What qualifies a school for Beacon School status? 8
Commitment, creativity and innovation 8
Lead Teacher 8
Senior Leadership Team 9
Roles and responsibilities 9
Lead Teacher 9
Senior Leadership Team 11
UCL Centre for Holocaust Education 12
What is the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education? 14
What is the UCL Centre for Holocaust EducationBeacon School Programme?
Each year, 20 secondary schools embark on one of the most ambitious school development programmes in England.
· Expenses-paid four day residential seminar in London
· Expenses-paid teacher study visit to sites of the Holocaust in Poland
· Free CPD for school staff
· Exceptional teaching and learning materials
· Ongoing support from the world’s leading university for education.
Free of charge
All aspects of the programme are provided to schools free of charge, including hotels, flights, excursions, meals, CPD, venues, and university expertise and consultancy.
Aims
The UCL Centre for Holocaust Education works with schools to enable young people to deepen their understanding of the significance of the Holocaust and to explore its relevance for their own lives and the contemporary world.
Developing this area of the school curriculum has also been shown to have significant benefits for broader educational goals, for pupil engagement and achievement, and for teaching and learning across a range of subject disciplines. The programme seeks:
• To raise the status of Holocaust education in schools, embedding it within schools’ ethos and ensuring it becomes a priority area in the curriculum.
• To support schools in the development of more powerful Schemes of Work, linking aims, outstanding educational resources and advanced pedagogical approaches to clearer understandings about pupil progress and robust forms of assessment.
• To demonstrate the value of teaching and learning about the Holocaust to broader educational values such as SMSC; Global Learning; active, democratic citizenship; and pupils’ development of independent and critical thinking. The focus on teaching and learning about the Holocaust can provide a lens through which generic teaching and learning improve.
• To establish Beacon Schools as dynamic hubs within school networks, models of how teaching and learning about the Holocaust can make a major contribution to young people’s education.
Why would a school apply?
This is an opportunity for your school to partner with the world’s top-rated university for education[1], to raise the quality of learning and expectations in your school, and to help your students to become more engaged in their own learning and more independent, critical thinkers.
• Enhance your school’s identity by being at the forefront of a bold, national initiative.
• Benefit from the Centre’s national research on student understandings, gaining insights into issues of progression and assessment for learning.
• Transfer expertise developed on the programme to other school areas, subjects, and disciplines.
• Enable your school’s Lead Teacher to develop their leadership potential.
• Develop school expertise in teaching about the Holocaust, with strong benefits to broader educational goals, helping to make your SMSC and Global Learning provision outstanding.
• Deepen understanding about the importance of relating educational aims, pupil progress and assessment in coherent and effective Schemes of Work.
• Strengthen your school’s internal quality assurance mechanisms and benefit from external verification of existing best practice.
The 2015 report of the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission found examples of excellent practice, including:
“World-class research, teacher education… and ‘Beacon Schools’ programmes pioneered by the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education”[2]
• Inspire, invigorate and motivate school staff. Your wider staff body will benefit from free CPD at a local venue on a date convenient for you.
• The four day London residential seminar and the study visit to Poland will deepen the Lead Teacher’s substantive knowledge, relate learning about the Holocaust to wider curriculum issues, and immerse her/him in advanced pedagogical approaches, with clear benefits to wider teaching.
• Enhance relationships with local schools through collaboration and sharing of good practice with your local network.
• Engage in cutting edge pedagogy/learning theory, and develop research informed innovative practice.
• Share and gain from the expertise and experience of other school colleagues across the country as the programme builds a critical mass of school resources and expertise through the Beacon Schools network.
Mandatory key programme phases:
I: Preparation: May – July 2016
Following acceptance onto the programme, Lead Teachers map the school’s existing provision of teaching and learning about the Holocaust, speaking to colleagues to find out where and when the Holocaust is covered, with what aims, content and resources, and how young people’s progression is monitored and assessed. New Beacon Schools also work with colleagues from local schools and UCL Centre for Holocaust Education staff to schedule a date for the teacher CPD that will run in the coming academic year.
II: Induction, mapping, orientation: September-October 2016 Lead teachers and SLT participate in an online welcome session, 16:00-17:30 on Tuesday 13 September 2016.
SLT communicate the importance of Holocaust education in their School Improvement Plan, to governors, staff, pupils and parents.
Beacon Schools begin to develop a network of schools who will participate in a local CPD day later in the academic year, paid for and run by the Centre for Holocaust Education.
Friday 21 October 2016: Half-day orientation for SLT and Lead Teachers at IWM London.
III: London Residential Seminar: 22-25 October 2016
Lead Teachers from our 20 Beacon Schools participate in an intensive four day professional development seminar in Holocaust education at the world’s leading university for education, UCL Institute of Education. This seminar will deepen substantive knowledge about the Holocaust and explore in depth crucial issues relating to curriculum design, including:
Aims: Why is it important for young people to know about the Holocaust?
Content: Given limited curriculum time, what is essential for young people’s understanding of the Holocaust?
Research: What does the Centre’s national study of young people’s thinking, knowledge and understanding tell us about how they make sense of the Holocaust? What are the implications for teaching?
Pedagogy: What classroom approaches are effective – what do we know from research into learning theory about how students make progress in their understanding?
Assessment: What does it mean to ‘get better’ at knowing the Holocaust? What do we want students to learn from this new knowledge? How can we measure students’ attainment in these areas?
IV: Create draft Schemes of Work (SoW), October 2016 – March 2017
A range of curriculum models will be developed across the Beacon Schools, specific to the particular contexts of schools and learners. Lead teachers will be supported by a mentor from the staff at the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education. Draft schemes of work to be submitted to the Centre by 31 March 2017, ahead of the Poland study visit. This is not expected to be a final version –, but should include substantial evidence of thinking and reflection on aims, content, progression and assessment in light of the London residential, UCL Centre for Holocaust Education resources and pedagogy, and CPD input.
V: Four day study visit to Poland, 5-8 May 2017This visit will inform and enrich the development of the Schemes of Work that form the core of Phase III. During the visit, your Lead Teacher will explore the diversity of pre-war Jewish life; the struggle for survival in the Warsaw ghetto; the dilemmas and responses of the victims; the death camp of Treblinka; the legacy and significance of the Holocaust; what do we choose to remember and what to forget; the pedagogy of site visits and the methodologies of learning at authentic sites.
VI: Dissemination and Schemes of Work edited/refined and planning for next steps, June – July 2017
Lead Teachers edit and refine their Schemes of Work in response to feedback from UCL mentors and taking account of themes and issues explored on the Poland study visit. These refined Schemes of Work need to be submitted to UCL mentors by Friday 14 July 2017.
Each of the 20 Beacon Schools also share their Schemes of Work, approaches and materials with five partner schools in their locality, ensuring that a further 100 schools across the country directly benefit from their work.
It is appreciated that the first year of the Beacon School programme may involve teaching or trialling of the Scheme of Work, or individual lessons, and that the final, revised Scheme of Work may only be taught in full during the following year.
We hope your experience of the UCL Beacon School programme in the first year will be such that you elect to develop it further. UCL Centre for Holocaust Education offers schools the opportunity to retain their Beacon School status for a further three year designation, linked to an Impact Evaluation visit during the second year. Senior leaders will be approached to consider extending their status, thus further embedding their Holocaust education and partnership with UCL and the Centre for Holocaust Education by participating in the re-designation process (see Phase VI, below).
VII: Teaching the Scheme of Work and Impact Evaluation (optional)
(Year 2, from Sept 2017)
Each of the UCL Beacon Schools will ensure their final Scheme of Work is consistently taught in relevant departments, faculty, or across their school in the 2017-18 academic year, and that this will be reviewed and, where appropriate, further refined.
In addition, those schools who wish to maintain their UCL Beacon School status will arrange with the university for an Impact Evaluation visit during the second year (to take place while the new Holocaust Scheme of Work is being taught). Completion of this Impact Evaluation will confer a further three year designation as a UCL Beacon School.
The impact evaluation visit will involve meetings with all key stakeholders, an analysis of any available data and an observation of a lesson from the Scheme of Work, if possible. It is intended that this will be based in part upon the successful Challenge Partners model of peer review and that Lead Teachers from other Beacon Schools will form part of the reviewing team.
The review team will produce an Impact Evaluation Report which will be shared with the school providing valuable external verification evidence for senior leaders, governors, Ofsted inspections and parents, but also a useful internal quality assurance and ongoing CPD opportunity. The visit is designed to externally validate good practice; to identify and celebrate areas of excellence; acknowledge/ suggest areas for further development; and to offer strategies, opportunities and guidance where appropriate for continued improvement through coaching, CPD opportunities etc. The report will include an outline of ‘What went well… Even better if…’ and opportunities for ongoing development and support from the university.
The impact evaluation has been carefully designed to be rigorous and robust, but light touch visit; to offer credible evidence of impact; cast a critical friend’s eye over the last year; and champion and support Lead Teachers and colleagues in furthering their practice, innovation and opportunities.
From the outset UCL Beacon School status was conceived as a partnership between university, Lead teacher and SLT – and this remains central to the impact evaluation visits. We want to see and recognise the impact of this partnership on the young people in classrooms across the country, acknowledge and celebrate bold leadership and innovative Lead Teachers tackling such a complex history in their classroom, and continue our relationships with UCL Beacon Schools to further enhance teaching and learning, CPD, and leadership opportunities.
How to apply
Please carefully read the information below, then complete the accompanying application form, and return to Ashleigh Thomson at by Friday 22 April 2016.
Schools will be informed whether their application is successful by the end of the day Friday 27 May 2016.
What qualifies a school for UCL Beacon School status?
Commitment, creativity and innovation
A UCL Beacon School is committed to the view that the Holocaust is a critically important part of young peoples’ education while appreciating the complex challenges that the Holocaust raises as a school subject. It should demonstrate an existing commitment to the importance of Holocaust education as well as a keenness to embrace creativity and innovation in the curriculum.
Schools chosen for the programme are not expected already to have exemplary Holocaust education embedded into their school teaching and learning programme. Being part of the UCL Beacon School programme is a process rather than an end point. What is required is a commitment to increasing expertise and teaching standards to advanced levels.
Lead Teacher
It is important that each UCL Beacon School identifies an experienced and dynamic Lead Teacher who will take the project forward and coordinate Holocaust education at your school. The key aim for this teacher is to embed UCL pedagogical approaches, teaching and learning materials into their schools, developing a Scheme of Work to evidence how this has been achieved. As such, the Lead Teacher should already have completed the Centre’s full day CPD Unpacking the Holocaust and, ideally, some of the Centre’s twilight CPD sessions.
The Lead Teacher should work closely with colleagues across the school to consider how different departments may contribute to young people’s understanding about the Holocaust, their Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development and Global Learning.
We would like UCL Beacon Schools to be working at Master’s level, so preference may be given to those who have already completed or are working on the UCL Masters Module: The Holocaust in the Curriculum, a 10 week online course that is fully funded and incurs no cost to the teacher or the school. If this module, which is designed to work around a busy teaching job, has not yet been completed then we anticipate that the Lead Teacher and/or another school colleague will embark upon it by the summer term 2017.