Leading Edge is an award to schools that show an exemplary record of school improvement, staff development and collaboration and will enable us to offer considerable opportunities to innovate and share best practice with our partner schools.
The Leading Edge model is successful because:
- It is focused on student achievement
- It is grounded in practice
- It is focused on learning
- It is built on effective collaboration
- It takes the risk out of innovation
- It is energising and empowering
- It is led by practitioners, for practitioners
- It commissions schools to support each other
We are delighted that Baxter College in Kidderminster will continue to be our main partner, but we also work closely with Stourport High School and Sunfield School. Together we are constantly developing ideas to enhance the provision for all our students.
The partnerships have been thriving with collaboration in Music, DT, Business Enterprise, Modern Foreign Languages, Continuing Professional Development and Student Voice. Some of our current focuses are:
- Gifted and Talented:This year we were invited by the DCSF/SSAT to become a Lead School for Gifted and Talented students. This is in recognition of the work we have done in this area,in collaboration with our new partner school Baxter College.Together with Baxter College, we have piloted a number of exciting and innovative ideas, including training our Year 12 Gifted and Talented students to support Year 10 students through ‘Learning Conversations’. This will continue next year. Our Maths and English students are currently writing an ebook, collaboratively online, and we hope to see this published later this year.
- Student Voice: This year we intend to appoint a Year 14 student to lead 'Student Voice' in the school and to liase with the other schools.
- New Technologies: We continue to explore and share innovative strategies for teaching and learning. Both schools have been buzzing with the impact of ‘new technologies’, as staff and students get to grips with pod-casting, vodcasting, making wikis, movies etc.
We have recently established links with schools in Madrid and China. In the long term we intend to build on these and share opportunities with our partner schools.