On Wednesday of this week, the Lighthouse Schools Partnership held its first joint secondary inset day. Inset is short for “in-service training” and is a day set aside for staff development and learning. Teaching and student-facing support staff from all four LSP secondary schools – Churchill Academy & Sixth Form, Chew Valley School, Backwell School and Gordano School – gathered together at Gordano in Portishead. This was the first time that the 400+ staff from the four schools had been together in the same place in the trust’s history.

The day began with a presentation from Chief Executive Gary Lewis, who outlined the trust’s vision under the heading “flourishing in partnership.” Being together in the same space enabled and allowed the partnership to flourish as connections were made and strengthened, common ground established, and sharing of practice enabled. There was a real buzz in the room as colleagues got together!

The rest of the morning was spent in workshops developing classroom pedagogy, with sessions on questioning, retrieval, scaffolding, checking for understanding, increasing participation ratio and modelling of example answers for colleagues to choose from. These key elements of teaching and learning are common across all our schools, and sharpening and honing our practice in them is essential for the continued success of our students.

Meanwhile, English and Maths leads were taking full advantage of the fact that the Lighthouse Schools Partnership also has 26 primary schools within the family, by spending the morning looking at key stage 2 curriculum and pedagogy in the Whiteoak Academies in Nailsea. This experience enabled leaders to get “under the skin” of the upper primary curriculum, to ensure that the transition into Year 7 is smooth and effective – and that the expectations we have of our youngest students are consistent with the expectations our primary colleagues have of their oldest.

After a lunch in which networks were formed and strengthened, subject-specific teams got together to reflect on the learning from the morning and how to implement the day’s learning back in their home schools. Subject leads were also working together to plan the next joint inset day, in February 2024, when staff will work together on subject-specific priorities at locations across the LSP’s secondary sites.

As relative newcomers to the multi-academy trust, Churchill staff are still getting used to being part of this larger organisation. Wednesday’s inset was a great opportunity to realise the benefits of collaboration across the wider trust. We look forward to continuing to flourish in partnership.