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Godalming Learning Partnership

Home About Us Our Schools Contact GLP AGM

Registered office:

Hallam Road, Godalming,

Surrey, GU7 3HW

Reg no: 11717912

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About Us

We are a large group of working together for the past decade to improve children’s educational outcomes in the Godalming area. We focus on improving our schools through:

professional development of staff and governors
peer review and challenge
sharing best practice
enhancing curriculum opportunities

The Learning Partnership works to keep improving teaching quality and drive up standards in all our schools by:

giving staff and governors access to a wider group of individuals, facing the same or similar challenges, in order to more quickly arrive at solutions
enabling staff and governors to undertake professional development together so that we are more economically efficient
enabling good practice to be shared across schools so that we make best use of our own expertise
providing opportunities for our expert staff and governors to lead groups across the Learning Partnership.

We run one joint INSET day a year with training on our agreed priority and time for schools to plan how to modify their practice as a result of the input. Follow-up twilight sessions sees staff meeting again to share the impact their changes have made to children's learning. In addition, we agree 3 further common INSET dates each year which can also be used for collaborative work.

Professional development

We help to drive up standards with our Improvement through Peer Review (IPR) programme. Schools are grouped into 3s to undertake an investigation of an aspect of teaching and learning in each of their schools. It follows a simple pattern:

Meet to identify and agree the area for scrutiny.
Return for a morning of investigation: learning walks, book scrutiny, lesson observations, data analysis.
Discuss findings and initial observations with the host school’s senior leaders.
Sum up the findings in a report which can be shared with staff and governors.
Evaluate the usefulness of the IPR process and make recommendations for improvement.
Evaluate the impact of the IPR and report to governors.

Peer review and challenge

Of fundamental importance to our worth as a partnership, the sharing of best practice is achieved in a variety of ways.

Networks of key groups meet throughout the year to work on common problems, identify the best solutions, save each other time and money. Our longest running networks are those of the Headteachers and School Business Managers (also known as Bursars); they are particularly effective at those key activities of challenge and support.
Staff meetings across schools each term focus on sharing and developing best practice. We have been focusing on moderation - providing an important external validation of teacher assessment at a time when levels and grades are constantly changing.
Curriculum groups comprising the subject leaders from all schools meet each term to identify areas of common interest or difficulty and agree an appropriate research project to investigate how improvements can be made. Well established in English and maths, this year we are also focusing on Art, History and PE. Leading these groups provides teaching staff with a useful professional development opportunity.

Sharing best practice

The longest running initiative we have is that of our sports curriculum enhancement programme. We have progressed from encouraging schools to compete in competitive or friendly matches of the usual primary phase sports to funding our very own Sports Coordinators from our Secondary schools (SSCOs).

Our SSCOs plan an annual calendar of varied sporting events including opportunities to try out completely new sports. Each event is open to all schools and the Secondaries can often help with transportation to the venues. Their students help run the events and gain invaluable experience as part of the Sports Leaders programme.

We aim for a balance of Competitions and non-competitive Festivals, using the skills of our SSCos to encourage those children not normally keen to take part in sports events. Our primary phase children benefit in so many ways from these sporting enhancements, not least because they become accustomed to the larger schools that they will almost all be moving on to at the end of Key Stage 2.

In addition to sports and dance, we collaborate in providing opportunities to extend learning for our higher level learners across all schools in maths, writing and reading.

Enhanced curriculum

Governance

The Trust Board is the overarching body responsible for the governance of the GLP, with ultimate accountability for its strategic direction and ensuring we meet our aims; schools’ own local Governing Bodies retain their autonomy. The Board meets at least three times each year to review the Partnership’s activities and achievement of objectives and take necessary decisions. Minutes are posted here once they have been agreed at the next meeting.

The Board delegates areas of day-to-day management to the Steering Group which is made up of:

• Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Board

• Chairman Headteacher Committee

• Finance Officer

• Clerk

with input as required from our consultant Associate Director.

You can find out more about just how we operate by looking through our Key Documents.

Our Annual General Meetings are held in the summer and are open to all members of the local learning community. To find out more, visit our dedicated AGM page.