Education is a social enterprise - schools do not stand alone but as part of a local community.
This is why independent and state school partnerships are so important. By pooling resources, sharing ideas and working together we can make sure that children get the best opportunities and outcomes possible across communities, rather than in isolation.
At Oundle School, we are part of the Oundle, Peterborough and East Northants (OPEN) Learning Partnership, which provided academic opportunities to over 12,000 students last year.
The creation of this partnership did not happen overnight; it required some key milestones along the way. Here’s are some of the key lessons learned that may help others if they seek to do something similar.
Creating private and state school partnerships
1. Use your networks
It may sound simple but if you have a relationship with a nearby school in the “other” sector, use that to get the ball rolling and go from there.
For example, I was a governor at one school and I had a friend who was deputy head at another large local secondary. Both schools were supportive of the idea of working together, and we used that to influence others nearby, again drawing on connections to open doors.
2. Set intentions early
Once you get together to consider how the partnership could work, you need to start with a blank slate and an open mind.
We held a meeting where we sat down together and wrote down ideas of what we thought would be useful and of benefit to all of our schools, both pupils and staff. It wasn’t one school driving the agenda.
From this we were able to discuss what worked for us and what wasn’t quite right, and then we decided where to focus our energies, knowing we were all on the same page.
3. Value the contributions of all
As part this it is key that you ensure any plans put together are truly cross-sector: it should not be an independent school offering something to a state-funded school out of goodwill.
For example, teachers from our maintained sector partners regularly deliver content at Oundle School including maths extension, teacher training and science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) presentations, while our staff reciprocate through supporting academic lessons, running Stem clubs or providing rocket car engineering opportunities.
A significant number of our events are now jointly staffed by the OPEN partners, something that has grown easier to do as relationships have become established and mutual trust has been built.
4. Value quality, not quantity
You don’t need to start with a bang. Instead start small and grow.
The OPEN Learning Partnership started with the aim of providing a small number of high-quality opportunities to ensure that they were valuable for students and sustainable. This way, we organically built up a calendar of events, with everybody involved knowing what was coming up.
One such example is our summer Stem festival. It began as a residential for 40 children from Kettering and Northampton, and has grown each year. Now over 3,500 children across 22 schools in the area are involved in events linked to the festival.
Oundle hosts the festival because our Stem labs are clear in that week of July, but the sessions themselves are run by staff from across the OPEN partnership. We now also have several “roving” events delivered in other schools, helping to spread access as far as possible.
5. Evaluate your impact
We have meetings once a term where we look at what we’ve done, what has worked well and what hasn’t, and we adapt our approach for future events.
This feedback should also include input from those who attended. For example, we provide a QR code at events attended by parents and other teachers for them to provide feedback, enabling us to see what they liked and where we could improve.
Reflections from pupils about what they have learned and how experiences have inspired them are particularly powerful.
6. Make the partnership part of your school’s culture
Finding capacity within schools for “extras” can be challenging, so you have to make any new initiative part of your school culture.
This goes back to making sure that the partnership work you are doing is based on quality, rather than quantity: a few things repeated year to year so you have a structure and consistency and it does not feel overwhelming.
Furthermore, this work should be distributed across different departments rather than relying on one key individual. That way the work becomes common practice and a part of the fabric of the school. Engaging the support of school governors is also important, so that the work becomes a feature of school strategy as well as practice.
Ultimately, every partnership journey will be different but for those thinking about doing this work, hopefully the above proves useful in understanding how you can reach out to one another and start sharing ideas, skills and talents to benefit as wide a range of pupils as possible.
Gordon Montgomery is deputy head partnerships and outreach at Oundle School. This week is Partnerships Week, run by the Independent Schools Council
