Rob Buck, and Andy Johnson, Hub Manager and Senior Partner of the Thames Valley Hub spoke to us about their experience of leading a hub, alongside how the hubs’ activities benefit the schools within.
Please can you give an introduction to yourselves and your roles in the Thames Valley Hub?
Rob - My name is Rob Buck, I am the Hub Manager for the Thames Valley Hub as well as the Director of Maiden Erlegh Institute (MEI) and trust professional learning. It's quite apt that the Challenge Partners Hub sits within my remit as we do a lot of school improvement work and collaboration amongst the schools in the hub, as well as the local area, which aligns with our trust’s strategic goals.
Andy - My name is Andy Johnson, I am the Executive Director of Education for Maiden Erlegh Trust as well as Senior Partner of the Thames Valley Hub, working alongside Rob. We are extremely proud of the work we do. My day to day responsibilities are the overall development and provision of education in our trust. Our ethos is very outward looking, we not only do a lot of work across the eight schools in our trust (soon to be nine next year), but we do a lot of work with other schools and trusts such as reviews, school improvement work and supporting them through our membership and involvement within Challenge Partners. We think that strong trusts and those who have strength and depth in their organisation ought to be taking responsibility to help and support others and that’s what we do through MEI, which Rob leads excellently,especially through our Challenge Partners hub work.
When did you first hear about Challenge Partners, and why did you join?
Rob - We officially launched as a hub in September 2021 through our previous CEO. In order to stay outward-looking we thought it was the right time for us to set up a hub in the Thames Valley region as there wasn’t currently a hub within the area. We are unique as we started off with thirteen schools and have gradually grown now to twenty two as of this academic year including; Infant, First, Primary, Secondary, Special and AP. We are based in the Thames Valley corridor with most of the schools in Berkshire and one in Oxfordshire. We also work with a MAT in Southampton so we are drawing on that outward looking approach, through collaborative work. I think the highlight for our hub is the hub conference we run as it ran really well last year and we are going to push ahead and run another this year.
What are some of the impactful activities that the hub delivers? How have hub members benefited from these?
Rob - One of our fortes and highlights of the academic year is our hub conference. We trialled the idea last year and put together an inclusion conference including key notes, practical workshops and networking opportunities for schools to come together for a day to share best practice across the network. Two of our hub colleagues are currently serving Ofsted inspectors.We used their expertises to kickstart the academic year in terms of what is the current Ofsted thinking behind pupil premium and SEND, before moving onto the inclusion conference. We wanted to make it a more holistic offer and provide subscriptions for each school to take part in the ‘Evaluate my SEND’ platform, which was a part of the service provided by David Bartram and Marc Rowland. The feedback we received at the end of the academic year was positive, and that the hub schools wanted a similar conference for this academic year. As a result we looked at current national themes, but more importantly where are the areas within education that schools in our hub would like more support - we came to the decision that it would be around behaviour and attendance. I am currently in the process of organising a conference to take place in April 2024 to look specifically at those two themes alongside oracy as this is an area the hub would like more support with.
What was the attendance like at your conference in terms of size, as well as did it bring together schools and leaders outside of the hub?
Rob - Last academic year we ran the conference at one of our trust schools where each school was offered three places. It was the highlight of the year in terms of maximum engagement as every school was represented. As it was focused on pupil premium and SEND we encouraged members of SLT, Pupil Premium champions or SENCO’s to come together as a networking opportunity as well as to reflect on current practice and formulate a plan moving forward. One of our areas we would like to focus on moving forward is tighter collaboration - with other Challenge Partners hubs so we are going to invite colleagues from Aylesbury and Portsmouth to join us.
Andy - We want to maximise the use of the funding we have in a way everyone can benefit and feel it is affecting their setting. Through our hub funding we give opportunities for hub schools to send staff on CPD conferences and courses that our trust runs. In times of tight budgets for schools this seems to be a really great opportunity to give professional development opportunities for lots of colleagues. From leadership development to safeguarding lead training courses, all of these are now open to all of our hub members and they have the opportunity to take advantage of that menu. It feels like an effective, positive and impactful use of the hub funding that we have and the schools within the hub are really appreciative of it.
Rob - Just to build on that, as a MAT we have developed fourteen CPD courses that all of our colleagues would have for free so we thought it was a nice way to give back to the hub. By that merit the twenty two hub schools have unlimited access to the fourteen CPD courses that they might not have the capacity to run themselves. They are really buying into the offer by sending a number of colleagues onto the courses, whether it be the full day training, or twilight sessions, as we are trying to offer a hybrid menu of opportunities to cater to everybody.
What do you think is the value for yourselves as Hub leaders to be leading the Thames Valley Hub?
Rob - It's a fantastic way to collaborate and give back. One of our trust values is looking at outward facing collaboration and opportunities. For us Challenge Partners really ticks that box, helping us to develop robust relationships within the local area as well as the network within Challenge Partners. Working with a number of like minded colleagues supports our ambition of not working in silo that I personally find really helpful. We can also see how other settings are doing things in slightly different ways, thinking whether we fit into that, what lands well, and what other ideas we can use in our internal practice is also helpful.
Andy - It's a privilege leading the hub. From our own perspective, this is great for our trust schools, exposing their headteachers to sharing great practice opportunities we have, such as Challenge Partners’ Quality Assurance Reviews, which has been really important for our schools. As recipients, we had a review at our Pupil Referral Unit last month which was really helpful, but we also benefit from the professional development staff get from going on a Quality Assurance Review at another school or trust. As a trust which is growing and developing, being able to go out and see other trusts through the Trust Peer Review programme has been really beneficial.
What are your goals for the hub going forwards? Are you focusing on hub growth?
Rob - We have grown steadily since we started in 2021, ideally we would like to continue on that trajectory of growing to possibly twenty five to thirty schools in the next couple of years from all settings. We are already quite a diverse hub so it would be nice to continue to be inclusive in that respect. I would personally like to continue networking, particularly with the two local hubs we have in our area. Hopefully from there we will start to develop stronger relationships moving forward to see where we might be able to create some more synergies so three hubs aren’t working in silo and perhaps help each other out more as we are more geographically close. As well as to continue sharing best leading practice across the network as Andy mentioned - we do value, through our Senior Leaders in particular, the opportunity to participate in the Quality Assurance Review whether at school or trust level. We have a number of willing colleagues, so it's providing bespoke opportunities for all so we can continue to develop our own career and professional development journeys.
What value do you find from the wider Challenge Partner’s network?
Andy - I think sharing the wider ethos of Challenge Partners and what the organisation stands for, aligns with what we are doing both within and beyond our trust. There are various conferences, whether they are virtual or face-to-face, such as the Hub Senior Partners and Hub Managers Meeting on the 15th November. It is that chance to step away from what you are doing, taking time to reflect and hear from some experts within the field. You take that opportunity to network and meet new people to find out that there are others that have the same questions as you and perhaps try to answer those questions in different ways. I reflect on some of the wider school-to-school work that we as a trust have done and a lot of those relationships have started through Challenge Partners discussions. Networking is important, especially the exposure to best practice and cutting edge ideas, feeling you are making a contribution to a very positive model of school improvement and development that doesn’t have the same ethos feel of Ofsted inspections, but nonetheless doing some powerful work in bringing supportive challenges to the sector.
Rob - Through the Hub Manager network, very similar to what Andy has just described, is a time to reflect, share ideas, see how others are doing it and how they are doing it. As mentioned I am in the process of putting together a conference and we need an expert on attendance and through attending Challenge Partners’ Hub Senior Partners and Hub Managers Meeting, there is another hub which has worked already with an expert. So it's about capitalising and sharing contacts, finding out what others have done to move our Hub action priorities as well, which I find useful.
We thank Rob and Andy 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!