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Emma Price replied to the topic "Balancing Trust Consistency with School Autonomy" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 21:01:18 +0000

I agree with both points, although there is a practical issue. Every exception creates another conversation about whether it really is an exception. We’ve sometimes spent more time explaining why a school is doing something differently than we would have… Read more»

Helen Foster replied to the topic "Balancing Trust Consistency with School Autonomy" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:59:51 +0000

SEND is probably a good example of where I’d favour flexibility. We need a consistent expectation around quality of provision, but the actual way that provision is organised will inevitably depend on the school’s cohort, staffing and existing expertise. I’d… Read more»

Simon Wells replied to the topic "Balancing Trust Consistency with School Autonomy" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:58:50 +0000

I’d distinguish between consistency of outcome and consistency of process. For example, I don’t think every school necessarily needs to use exactly the same intervention model for attendance. But we should be able to look at the same headline measures… Read more»

David Harrington posted a new topic "Balancing Trust Consistency with School Autonomy" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:57:21 +0000

Colleagues, One question that keeps coming up as we work through the Development Plan is where we draw the line between Trust-wide consistency and individual school autonomy. There are some areas where I think consistency is clearly beneficial — safeguarding… Read more»

Chris Wood replied to the topic "Trust Reporting – Can We Reduce Duplicate Data Collection?" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:54:23 +0000

That’s exactly the concern I’m trying to avoid.
I’ll map the current definitions alongside the reporting requirements before we look at automation. If we can agree those first, the technical side should be much more straightforward.

Chris Wood liked forum post "Trust Reporting – Can We Reduce Duplicate Data Collection?" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:54:04 +0000

Chris Wood liked forum post "Trust Reporting – Can We Reduce Duplicate Data Collection?" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:54:00 +0000

Chris Wood liked forum post "Trust Reporting – Can We Reduce Duplicate Data Collection?" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:53:54 +0000

Emma Price replied to the topic "Trust Reporting – Can We Reduce Duplicate Data Collection?" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:53:08 +0000

I think the definitions point is the important one. We’ve had situations where two schools have both reported “persistent absence”, but they’ve been using different calculation dates. The dashboard would make the collection easier, but it could also make inconsistent… Read more»

Emma Price liked forum post "Trust Reporting – Can We Reduce Duplicate Data Collection?" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:52:55 +0000

Natalie Brooks liked forum post "Trust Reporting – Can We Reduce Duplicate Data Collection?" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:51:55 +0000

Natalie Brooks replied to the topic "Trust Reporting – Can We Reduce Duplicate Data Collection?" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:51:43 +0000

For attendance and behaviour, could we look at a simple automated dashboard pulling directly from the MIS? Even if we only started with three or four headline measures, it would remove quite a bit of monthly copying. The challenge will… Read more»

Simon Wells replied to the topic "Trust Reporting – Can We Reduce Duplicate Data Collection?" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:50:46 +0000

We’ve had a similar issue with financial reporting. The biggest improvement came when we agreed exactly what the Trust actually needed to see before looking at how each school supplied it. We had previously been collecting considerably more detail than… Read more»

Simon Wells liked forum post "Trust Reporting – Can We Reduce Duplicate Data Collection?" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:50:34 +0000

Chris Wood posted a new topic "Trust Reporting – Can We Reduce Duplicate Data Collection?" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:48:42 +0000

Colleagues, I’ve been looking at the information we currently collect for Trust reporting, and there are a few areas where we’re asking schools for essentially the same information in slightly different formats. The biggest examples at the moment are: Attendance… Read more»

Tom Bennett replied to the topic "Getting Students to Think Before They Ask for Help" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:43:59 +0000

We’ve started using a three-step prompt in a few departments: 1. Read it again.2. Check an example/resource.3. Try something. Only after that do pupils ask for help. It’s deliberately boring! That seems to be part of why it works. It’s… Read more»

Tom Bennett liked forum post "Getting Students to Think Before They Ask for Help" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:43:34 +0000

Helen Foster replied to the topic "Getting Students to Think Before They Ask for Help" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:42:03 +0000

We’ve found that “ask three before me” can be problematic for some of our pupils. For a confident pupil it’s a useful prompt to become more independent, but for some SEND learners it can simply mean sitting stuck for longer… Read more»

Helen Foster liked forum post "Getting Students to Think Before They Ask for Help" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:41:41 +0000

Mark Thompson replied to the topic "Getting Students to Think Before They Ask for Help" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:39:54 +0000

We’ve had reasonable success with a very simple rule: “Show me what you’ve tried.” If a pupil comes over without anything on the page, the first response is usually just that question. It took a while to establish, but pupils… Read more»

Mark Thompson liked forum post "Getting Students to Think Before They Ask for Help" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:38:45 +0000

Sarah Lin posted a new topic "Getting Students to Think Before They Ask for Help" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:36:30 +0000

Colleagues, A question from a recent lesson that I’m sure others will recognise. We have some pupils who put their hands up almost immediately when they encounter something they find difficult. Sometimes they haven’t actually tried anything yet. We’re looking… Read more»

Tom Bennett replied to the topic "Making Research Evidence Useful for Busy Teachers" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:28:04 +0000

We’ve started building a very small “try / review / keep or drop” element into some of our CPD. Teachers choose one change to trial for a few weeks and then discuss whether they actually noticed a difference. It has… Read more»

Helen Foster replied to the topic "Making Research Evidence Useful for Busy Teachers" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:25:58 +0000

I’d add a slight note of caution around the phrase “evidence-informed”. Some approaches have good evidence behind them generally, but that doesn’t automatically mean they’ll work in exactly the same way for every learner. I’d like to see more discussion… Read more»

Helen Foster liked forum post "Making Research Evidence Useful for Busy Teachers" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:25:40 +0000

Helen Foster liked forum post "Making Research Evidence Useful for Busy Teachers" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:25:37 +0000

Helen Foster liked forum post "Making Research Evidence Useful for Busy Teachers" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:25:33 +0000

Mark Thompson replied to the topic "Making Research Evidence Useful for Busy Teachers" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:23:53 +0000

I agree with Emily. We’ve also found that staff are much more interested when there’s a fairly immediate opportunity to try something. One of our recent CPD sessions looked at retrieval practice. Rather than spending most of the session explaining… Read more»

Mark Thompson liked forum post "Making Research Evidence Useful for Busy Teachers" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:23:29 +0000

Mark Thompson liked forum post "Making Research Evidence Useful for Busy Teachers" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:23:25 +0000

Emily Clarke replied to the topic "Making Research Evidence Useful for Busy Teachers" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:21:52 +0000

We’ve had some success with starting from the classroom problem rather than the research. For example, instead of giving staff something on vocabulary acquisition and asking them to read it, we’ve started with the question: “Why are pupils still using… Read more»

Emily Clarke liked forum post "Making Research Evidence Useful for Busy Teachers" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:21:27 +0000

Sarah Lin posted a new topic "Making Research Evidence Useful for Busy Teachers" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:18:41 +0000

Colleagues, One thing we’ve been discussing in the Teaching & Learning team is how we make better use of research evidence without creating another layer of professional reading for staff. There is certainly no shortage of material available, but I’m… Read more»

Sarah Lin replied to the topic "Feedback That Improves Learning Without Increasing Workload" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:17:13 +0000

I completely agree. I’d like us to move towards asking: “What changed in the pupil’s work as a result of this feedback?” rather than: “How much feedback did the teacher provide?” That feels much closer to the purpose of feedback…. Read more»

Sarah Lin liked forum post "Feedback That Improves Learning Without Increasing Workload" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:16:58 +0000

Sarah Lin liked forum post "Feedback That Improves Learning Without Increasing Workload" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:16:56 +0000

Sarah Lin liked forum post "Feedback That Improves Learning Without Increasing Workload" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:16:52 +0000

Sarah Lin liked forum post "Feedback That Improves Learning Without Increasing Workload" -

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:16:48 +0000

Tom Bennett liked forum post "Feedback That Improves Learning Without Increasing Workload" -

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:15:34 +0000

Tom Bennett replied to the topic "Feedback That Improves Learning Without Increasing Workload" -

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:15:18 +0000

The workload point is particularly relevant for ECTs. There’s still a perception that a teacher who has written more comments has necessarily provided better feedback. Having a Trust-wide discussion about what effective feedback actually looks like could help challenge that… Read more»

Helen Foster replied to the topic "Feedback That Improves Learning Without Increasing Workload" -

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:13:55 +0000

I’d be interested in how we’re making sure this remains accessible for pupils who need additional support. Whole-class feedback works well when pupils can identify the issue being discussed. For some learners, we may still need a more explicit next… Read more»

Helen Foster liked forum post "Feedback That Improves Learning Without Increasing Workload" -

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:13:43 +0000

Emily Clarke replied to the topic "Feedback That Improves Learning Without Increasing Workload" -

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:12:07 +0000

We’ve been experimenting with something similar in English. One unexpected benefit is that discussing common weaknesses publicly can make pupils realise that other people are making the same mistakes. It seems to reduce the sense that feedback is a private… Read more»

Emily Clarke liked forum post "Feedback That Improves Learning Without Increasing Workload" -

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:11:54 +0000

Mark Thompson replied to the topic "Feedback That Improves Learning Without Increasing Workload" -

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:10:20 +0000

We’ve moved quite heavily towards whole-class feedback in Maths. After an assessment, we identify the three or four most significant misconceptions rather than writing individual comments on every question. We then build a short retrieval or correction activity around those… Read more»

Mark Thompson liked forum post "Feedback That Improves Learning Without Increasing Workload" -

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:09:59 +0000

Sarah Lin posted a new topic "Feedback That Improves Learning Without Increasing Workload" -

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:01:03 +0000

Colleagues, I’d like to compare approaches to feedback across the Trust, particularly where we’re trying to improve its impact without increasing marking workload. One thing emerging from our recent discussions is that the amount of written feedback pupils receive doesn’t… Read more»

Tom Bennett replied to the topic "Reducing Cognitive Load" -

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 10:13:50 +0000

One practical issue we’ve found is that different teachers can interpret “reduce cognitive load” very differently. A short shared checklist might be useful, particularly for ECTs, so that the principle doesn’t become another piece of educational jargon.

Tom Bennett liked forum post "Reducing Cognitive Load" -

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 10:13:09 +0000

Tom Bennett liked forum post "Reducing Cognitive Load" -

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 10:13:02 +0000