Great Academies Education Trust and The Greater Manchester Learning Partnership has teamed up to provide a much-needed ‘post-lockdown’ boost to school children in Tameside and Rochdale.
Through their collaboration, Primary and Secondary schools within the Trust have been able to increase their involvement in English and Mathematics Network Hubs and benefited from regular sharing of effective practice in the region which can be easily transferred into the classroom.
According to a series of reports from Ofsted some children have fallen behind with their mathematics and are struggling with literacy. The report into the impact of the pandemic is based on more than 900 visits to education and social care providers across England since September 2020.
As a Trust we believe that working in collaboration is a corner stone of our work. Despite the superhuman efforts of school leaders, teachers and families to keep children learning, some students are no longer performing as they should be for their age, this is why it’s so important for us to ensure that we provide the best possible resources to improve engagement and attainment at all levels.
Brendan Loughran, CEO of Great Academies Education Trust
Silver Springs Primary Academy has benefited from the partnership, working with the local English Hub and a range of schools, within the region, to improve literacy matters. The English Hub have been providing support to the Academy to develop the three DfE key priorities of early language, effective teaching of systematic, synthetic phonics and reading for pleasure.
The youngest children at primary schools in England were the worst affected by learning loss after last year’s pandemic lockdown according to new evidence reported by Juniper Education. With those aged six and seven most likely to fall behind in maths and writing.
The Trusts secondary schools of Great Academy Ashton, Middleton Technology School and Copley Academy are now working closely with Mathematics Hubs to help further develop and enhance the quality of their curriculum and teaching to support students in mastering those challenging yet vital aspects of Mathematics.
New research commissioned by the National Numeracy Day’s founding supporter KPMG, revealed maths suffered the widest Covid attainment gap and 59% of parents say Maths was the toughest lesson to teach their children during lockdown.
There is understandably concern about the learning that many students will have missed whilst unable to attend schools face-to-face due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The collaboration with The Greater Manchester Learning Partnership is only part of how we seek to ‘build back better’ with links to high quality professional curriculum network groups, across our schools, for the benefit of our teachers and of course our students.
Phil Smith, Director of Education at Great Academies Education Trust
Great Academies Education Trust has also looked far and wide to get the best people to lead and improve pupil and teacher experiences.
The Trust has added Mark Enser, who has been teaching Geography for the best part of two decades and is a Head of Department and Research Lead at Heathfield Community College and Ian Taylor, National Lead for Mathematics, to their Curriculum Network Groups, where they will be supporting teachers to ensure a relevant and sustainable curriculum. Kate Jones, who was commissioned by the BBC to write content for BBC Bitesize French will also be supporting the Modern Foreign Languages teams within the schools.
We have ensured that we work closely with a growing number of national subject communities to make sure that our teachers are kept up to date with the very latest that is going on in theior subjects. These are to help our teachers deliver the very best teaching and learning experioences to all of our children and young people.
Mr Smith
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