Mary Collins, Senior Partner for South East London Hub and Executive Headteacher at Holy Cross Primary School and St Augustine’s, has been an Executive Headteacher for six years and Headteacher for thirteen.
Mary spoke to us about her experience as a Senior Partner for a Challenge Partners local hub of collaboration and her role as a Growing the Top (GtT) Facilitator.
When did you hear about Challenge Partners, and why have you chosen to partner with us?
I joined Challenge Partners when I had not long been headteacher as I was very interested in the national picture. I joined an alive and buzzing hub and never once thought about dropping out, I couldn’t not be a part of Challenge Partners. In Lewisham, we have a really close network of schools but I think this has the potential to become insular so the opportunity to come together with schools and headteachers across the country enables me to bring back a far broader picture to our schools which helps in a million ways.
I became Hub Manager for South East London Hub before moving into the role of Senior Partner. The training we receive each term is fascinating and is exactly what I like about Challenge Partners, the opportunity to hear from a wide variety of people and then bring this back into school. I’ve always said you get out of Challenge Partners what you put in. It is so important to cascade this information down, there isn’t a member of staff in either of my schools who don’t know about Challenge Partners.
When did you become a GtT facilitator, and why?
I was really interested when I first heard about the GtT programme. My original school, Holy Cross, had just received an Outstanding in Ofsted which at the time qualified us to be part of the programme. It was fabulous. The GtT programme meant that over the course of the year myself and other senior leaders could visit other schools and not only celebrate their successes but also be open and transparent about issues and solutions to them. Each time a member of staff returned from a visit they were buzzing and full of suggestions of what we could implement within our school. I loved both of these aspects of it and I’m still in touch with one of the schools.
I loved the GtT process for my school so when the opportunity to become a Facilitator was presented I was excited about the idea to facilitate a group. Since stepping into the Executive Headteacher role I really appreciate watching other people grow and become leaders and seeing them learn and link ideas together. I feel that after the GtT programme everyone who has participated, including the facilitator, has learnt and grown. It’s important for the Head to be in the mindset of growth and progression when they sign up.
The brilliance of trio schools being in different locations is that each school faces different issues which broadens your understanding of the wider education landscape.
What is your perspective on how a GtT practitioner facilitator supports knowledge exchange and challenge during a school visit day?
The facilitator's role is to make sure all ideas are heard and discussed and that there is no sense of competition, there has to be an equality about it. My view of the best facilitation is someone who doesn’t say a lot but instead nudges along the conversation. You want the general messages to come from the group, the facilitators job is to make sure you don’t go off track and that everyone is heard. Sometimes, it is important to leave a pause for people to think and just ask a couple of questions that take the discussions on further. Also, it's important to be a lead and take on responsibility for the practicalities. Sometimes it's a job not talking too much!
Has GtT had an impact on you/your team/how you work? Have you taken anything back to school with you?
One of the schools in our group had done a lot of work on ‘Reading for Pleasure’, we always thought we were a reading school too but then realised they had mastered it and we had more work to do, which was an eye opener. It's the idea of getting out and seeing - our results were on a par but they were doing little things that we weren’t. We came away saying that they really had the ethos down to a T. You really pick up ideas to bring home by visiting other schools. It's not just the things you see but also the people you speak to, sometimes you see relationships between leads and their deputies, it's a really interesting opportunity to see how people work together and then you can reflect on your own practice.
How did the knowledge exchange facilitation training support your work as a facilitator/challenge your thinking?
I had training pre-Covid which was really useful and focused on the idea of coaching. It clarified in my mind the role of the facilitator. This year I went on the training again and it was a really great way to understand how to lead people to come up with ideas instead of just giving answers, and showed how to guide people to consider different options. I took this practice back into my schools.
How did taking part in the programme support you in moving forward with your systemic challenge? Are there actions you took as a result of the conversations visit days?
We looked at greater depth writing - there were huge discussions about the fact we were a successful school but we weren’t reaching where we wanted to with it. The discussions were really useful and helped us understand that we weren’t the only school going through this issue and gave us ideas of what we could do to improve. Being in that room you hear so many different ideas from different people and you generally end up coming away with the magic answer! The magic answer isn’t usually just one thing, it's usually that we need to try this and combine it with more of that. That year we used a lot of dramas to base our longer writings on and it really did help.
Can you comment on the whole cohort events? Do they challenge your thinking as a leader? If so, how?
The last one was at the Museum of London which was a really useful day. I love that you get to hear from a range of speakers - some from Challenge Partners and others from non-educational walks of life. I like that you get the non-educational side because their whole philosophy is a world apart from ours so it's great to hear how it applies to the education world.
I’m always really glad to have been involved and I do like being part of the bigger view and the opportunity to listen and learn.
Talk to us about your experience leading a local hub of schools - what do you enjoy most about your SP role?
I love my role - the South East London Hub is really active and vibrant. My schools are located in Lewisham but I love the fact the hub is spread across South East London and there is a great deal of buying into the hub, everybody is really a part of it. We have one leaders’ group which meets once a term but we also have lots of smaller groups - an English group, Maths group, a Mental Health group, SEND group and Early Years group. We always meet at different schools and any meeting finishes with a walk around the school so all the time your eyes are being opened to different ideas. I like that we get out and do this.
I look at our EYFS group for example, there is a huge deal of EYFS work done around the authority but our Challenge Partners EYFS group has become very close and goes to visit each other's schools to look at the provision offered which is excellent. They now have a whole team of people who they can turn to and ask questions of, to have this goodwill is so valuable. These groups are for the individual subject leads but when we bring headteachers together it again feels like everyone is there to give support.
We also love the freedom regarding hub funding to decide what we want to focus on, we’ve brought in excellent speakers across the years. This year we have someone coming in to facilitate a year long project on anti-racism. She has done whole staff training for all staff in each of the schools (about 250) and is also working with each school individually to develop their curriculum to be more ethnically and racially diverse. Before we had a brain surgeon come and do a 3 hour session - his whole talk was on the links in the brain and neurotypical and neurodiverse brains. His conclusion was you just have to love the children and they will be able to learn - about making the children feel safe and secure to learn. We’ve had some really good speakers and there is comfort in working with schools who have chosen to work together.
Is there anything else that you would like to add?
I’ve always found the personal touch of Challenge Partners to be excellent - you turn up to events and meetings and know people. It has always felt very positive. The whole ethos of Challenge Partners programmes and reviews being done with us and not to us has really stood the test of time. I love the community minded aspect.
We thank Mary for taking the time to talk to us. If you are a partner with Challenge Partners and would like to share your story, contact partnershipsteam@challengepartners.org and we would love to talk to you!