The Lantern Learning Trust Vision

Our schools have become trust schools to create long term partnerships to work cooperatively together. In addition to Leeds City Council and Leeds City Academy we aim to have partners from business and higher education. We anticipate welcoming other partners as the trust develops.

Please click here for the revised Lantern Learning Trust Vision, agreed by the Trust in Sept 2018.

Working as a shared trust will:

• clarify our aims and vision
• ensure our existing collaboration is more sustainable
• create a community of high aspirations and achievement
• ensure that good practice is shared
• increase opportunities to work with external partners
• strengthen our commitment to the shared values of respect, social justice, fairness and democracy

Here are some of the ways we have worked together recently:

Teachers Collaborating

Each term groups of teachers from the five schools get together to push an improvement strategy. Over the last year we have worked together to develop consistently good procedures for Oracy following Rosebank’s successful bid to receive training from Voice 21 and Talk Boost. Working together has enabled us to share expertise and good practice to benefit hundreds of children in Leeds. We also moderate work together as a trust to ensure our assessments are accurate. We have continued to meet to look at KAGAN strategies though this has had little impact this year. A teacher from Blenheim will support Rosebank with this next year.

 Science - Primary Science Quality Mark (PSQM)

This year, four of the lantern schools have worked together with a Science specialist to achieve the PSQM. This has involved an intense amount of work from our Science Leader – Lorna McStay developing practice and assessment in Science throughout the school and evidencing this through completing a large portfolio. The Science Leaders from the trust have worked together to support each other on this and received a great deal of training. Science now has a very high profile in school. We will continue work together on Science next year looking at moderating assessments.

Financing an Educational Psychotherapist

As a trust, we have been able to put together funds to employ an Educational Psychotherapist who works a day a week in each of our schools.  This has been a fantastic investment, which we would not have been able to fund individually. The Educational Psychotherapist works with children who have been identified by the school as needing specialist emotional support. She also works with parents and families and supports teachers to ensure all children’s emotional needs are met. We will have a change in Educational Psychotherapist next year but the same service will continue.

Financing a Leeds Rhinos Rugby Coach

 As a trust, we have also put together funds to employ a sports coach. This should have enabled all schools to access high quality sports lessons and clubs every week. The coach arranges inter-school competitions which are enjoyed by many children throughout the year. Next year, we are not continuing with the lessons at Rosebank as the coach changed mid year and was less effective. We will however continue to be invited to take part in tournaments with the Lantern Trust Schools.

Supporting School Improvement

 The leadership teams of the five schools work closely together to help evaluate the quality of teaching and learning in each school and suggest ways in which schools can improve to ensure all children are receiving the best education possible. Having leaders working together as critical friends, ensures that our standards in each school are high and catering for the needs of all our staff and children. This year Richard and Laura attended a training day with other members of the trust on “How Leaders Think” which was extremely inspirational and gave time to reflect on effective leadership practice. This year, Rosebank also benefitted from the support of Mo Duffy from Blenheim while Alice was on maternity leave. Jill Woods from Little London also supported with DHT interviews earlier this year.

Purchasing Two Minibuses

 Together, we have been able to afford two school minibuses which enable us to take children on more trips to allow for valuable first hand experiences supporting their development. The minibuses are shared between all five schools. We do not have many drivers in school though drivers can be purchased from Academic Appointments supply agency for £80 a day. This will enable Rosebank to use the minibuses more frequently next year.  Rosebank have made use of the minibuses every week this year to transport children to swimming lessons. 

Training Day

Trust training day was held in February. This consisted of a key note speaker – Briony – nationally reknowned for her work on Science. There were over 15 workshops for staff to choose from looking at different aspects of the curriculum and child development. Many staff learned about Oracy strategies to enhance group work and pupil voice in lessons. Other popular workshops included: Art, Reading Strategies, BSquared, Numicon, Colourful Semantics. We plan to repeat this day next year. The costs of training are minimal due to the number of staff involved.

Learning Alliance - Rosebank, Quarry Mount and Blenheim

Following the writing of our School Development Plan, we asked the SLT from QM and Blenheim to come to Rosebank with Duncan Grant (School Improvement Officer) to look at how we have developed Reading and writing across school. This was a good day with opportunities for critical reflection on practice, external validation and ideas for where to go next with this line of enquiry. A report is available for all governors who would like to see the impact of what we have done since.   

Flare

This year, we have had funding from Artforms to run a joint music club for all children. They have experienced Singing, keyboards, guitars, Samba drumming, Djembe drumming and many other genres of music. The club has rotated between the schools with each school benefitting from a half term of music provision.

Moderation

As Richard Howitt and Jess Smith are now moderators for the authority, they have led moderation meetings for Key Stage 1 and 2 across the 5 schools to ensure consistency of practice across the schools and to validate results. Schools have reported that this is incredibly useful and would like to have twice as many sessions. One in January/February and one in May.

Next Steps

Each school has carried out a consultation with parents, staff and children about what they would like from working a trust in future. Main comments were around staff development, Parental support with behaviour, housing and homework, working with agencies such as health and the police and more sports tournaments and fun activities. We will be holding a trust meeting in September to look in more detail at these requests and see what can be arranged collaboratively. The meeting in September will also look at the role of governors on the Trust Board.

Next Year, we will have collaboration groups focusing on KAGAN strategies, Oracy and Science. There will also be a leadership group looking at Effective Feedback.