New statistics reveal school-to-school support “cold spots” in Hastings, West Somerset, Norwich and Oldham.

A statistical report, which looks at the work of Teaching School Alliances in 2015-16, says: “There is scope to focus more on these areas and boost support being received there”.

These areas are included in the government’s 12 opportunity areas, which were announced after the data was collected.

But while the statistical report states that “any specific activity resulting from the creation of opportunity areas will not be captured”, it adds that given the importance of the policy, it was publishing the activity in these areas.

It revealed that school-to-school support varied from West Somerset receiving support for two schools, while Bradford received support for 74.

Source: DfE

The statistics also revealed that 38 per cent of schools which were rated as requires improvement or inadequate in the country as a whole received support from a Teaching School Alliance.

Teaching School Alliances provide initial teacher training, continuing professional and leadership development (CPLD) and school0-to-school support.

Teaching school deliveries

The first 100 teaching schools were designated in September 2011 and a Teaching School Alliance is made up of one or more teaching schools along with a network of “delivery” schools which deliver aspects of the alliance’s world.

The statistics cover the work done by the then 528 Teaching School Alliances in the academic year 2015-16.

The statistics also show:

1. Teaching school alliances vary in size, with the number of schools involved varying from just one to 205 schools.
2. The majority (91 per cent) of alliances contain 40 or fewer schools.
3. In 2015-16 there were 3,652 schools which received school-to-school support from 1,371 delivery schools.
4. The type of school-to-school support most often provided was senior leadership team support.
5. There were 8,421 delivery schools in 2015-16, with most (81 per cent) delivering initial teacher training, 52 per cent delivering CPLD and 48 per cent delivering school-to-school support.
6. The delivery schools can work with more than one alliance but the majority (83 per cent) work with only one.

There are now  817 teaching schools and 646 Teaching School Alliances.

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