Projects and Initiatives

Each year approximately 1,400 Year 6 pupils in almost all of Leicester's primary schools receive academic coaching support. Academic coaching is a blend of encouragement, motivational guidance and short bursts of teaching activities.

The SDSA works with school leaders and governors to establish the vision and rationale for their potential conversion to academy status or to join or form Multi Academy Trusts (MAT).

Created and co-ordinated by the Directors of Children’s Services (DCSs) in the East Midlands, this programme was designed for existing leaders who may be a head of service or organisation or may work in one of the children’s service ‘sectors’ e.g., schools, health, police, youth, third sector and are now developing their leadership within an integrated children’s service environment.

Assured Safeguarding forms part of the regional joint-work in children’s services to maintain robust procedures for safeguarding children and young people in the East Midlands.

Author Week offers all Leicester primary and secondary schools the opportunity to bring up to 50 pupils of their choice to a central location to work with one of our authors.

We hope this blog makes a small positive contribution to your work in schools.

The SDSA facilitated a child poverty regional support network for Derby, Derbyshire, Leicester, Leicestershire Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire and Rutland.  The network supported the development of high quality Needs Assessments and the subsequent development of effective strategies.

The Children’s Council is led by and made up of young people from around the city providing the opportunity to identify and discuss issues that are important to them.

The Whatever it Takes (WIT) ambition is financially supported through Schools Forum and the City Council and taken forward through strategic and project management groups, to provide a citywide programme of activity to support reading achievement and enjoyments. 

A Complementary School Development Hubs, or cluster, comprises an LCC maintained primary or secondary school which serves as the hub school (venue, host and leader) working over a 12 month period with a group of 5-8 complementary schools within their community.

Support for CPD leaders is made available through a website that contains extensive support and guidance for CPD leaders in schools. 

Members of the partnership include local authority lead officers, university colleagues and the regional managers of the national organisations such as the National College, who have a support and delivery role in the training of the school workforce.

Since 2003 the SDSA has been actively involved in European educational networks and has hosted a number of study visits. 

Everybody’s Reading is a 9 day festival encouraging people from all over Leicester to read, hear spoken word artists, poets, authors and community writes in venues across the city.

The SDSA supports school visits to places of worship in the city of Leicester.

The SDSA co-ordinates a GTTS network in partnership with the Education Improvement Partnership (EIP) which offers a variety of opportunities to Maths Champions across Leicester city schools.

The Healthy Schools Network aims to support schools to improve the health and well-being of pupils across Leicester City. The network supports and enables schools to share good practice and learn from each other on this vital aspect of the wider curriculum.

The aims of the ICE project are to educate pupils aged 7 to 14 (Key Stage 2 and 3) about Islamic tradition, values and their roles and responsibilities in society as good Muslims.

The LCST is committed to a high quality complementary school sector and has ambitious targets for all complementary schools in Leicester to subscribe to the national Code of Practice for Supplementary Schools and to achieve accreditation from the Quality Framework for Supplementary Schools.

LEAP is a regional pathfinder project of Early Arts and had its launch event at the Curve in Leicester in December 2010.

LPP takes collective responsibility for all the primary children of Leicester City and all primary school headteachers are welcomed as members of LPP. It provides a forum for discussion of the views of primary headteachers and a means by which those views can influence decisions relating to the provision of education in Leicester.

The SDSA has many years experience and expertise supporting regional groups of local authorities to develop joint improvement strategies based upon a sector led model.

These seminars are convened and managed by the East Midlands group of DCSs and underpin the identified regional priorities.

The Early Years Network includes the East and West Midlands and exists to share national developments within the early years world, exchange best practice from around the regions and develop collaborative working between local areas.

The Pathways to Education pilot programme is funded by the Community Foundation; a charitable organisation who want to reinvest money back into our community. As a result, the SDSA set up the Pathways to Education programme as a way of giving back to our Leicester city schools and the disadvantaged young people in our community.

PDnet provides support for professionals in education who promote positive outcomes for children and young people with a physical disability. 

The SDSA has years of experience of supporting peer challenge schemes, be they between school leaders, between the local authorities (children's and adult services) or in sector-specific such as SEND or Early Intervention.

Students taking part in the project attend 10 weekly sessions delivered by an experienced English teacher who is supported by a learning mentor.

Raising Achievement Looked After Children (RALAC); A personalised support programme designed to provide vulnerable learners with an element of regular well focussed help that enables them to achieve learning objectives that might not otherwise be met.

This independent social care procurement framework came into effect in 2011 after considerable development activity.  The framework is available to all local authorities in the East Midlands and is currently actively used by most of them.

School Councils are made up of representative young people elected by their peers to raise and discuss issues that are important to them with senior school management and school governors.

Working in close partnership with Leicester and Leicestershire local authorities, the SDSA provides this service to take forward the very best and most useful elements of recent healthy school work.

These projects are being coordinated by the National College for Teaching & Leadership and delivered through Teaching Schools to build leadership capacity within schools. 

Although there is no longer a formal duty for schools to promote community cohesion, evidence suggests that children and young people can benefit from meaningful interaction if they have an opportunity to mix and learn with, from and about other children and young people from different backgrounds.

Based on the Schools Linking Project (SLN) started in Bradford in 2001, backed by the Department for Education (DfE) the project enabled schools to develop their positions as hubs of tolerant and diverse communities and provide safe learning environments for all - whatever ethnic or religious background.

The Whatever it Takes reading initiative is funded in the most part by Schools Forum from the Direct Schools Grant plus some additional Council funding; all to the tune of approximately £1.2m each year.

The SDSA co-ordinated a club night called What’s the Point! at a city centre music venue with live DJs, musicians and rappers who had been commissioned to create new music with lyrics about not smoking.

The programmes have all been developed in partnership with the employers to co-design and deliver a work-based programme that is highly contextualised. Most recent programmes have been arranged to support the policy direction indicated by the work of Professor Munro to move from ‘compliance to learning’ and to emphasise critical reflection.

The Social Work Network supports the improvement of professional development opportunities for social workers within the East Midlands.  Its members include those from local authorities and all the higher education institutions within the East Midlands who lead on social work training.

The SDSA created So Let's Learn (SOL), an education resource pack centred around the Special Olympics.

Supported Summer Read engages the selected pupils over a period of approx 15 weeks in an evidenced based key intervention alongside a light touch Reading Coaching programme which blends a combination of 1-to-1 tuition, effective feedback and self regulation.

The initiatives include Women in Leadership (Where I want to be), Church School Leadership, Aspire to BME Leadership and Disability and School Leadership (DASL).

These scenarios were developed as a commissioned piece of work for Leicester City Council to provide a stimulating resource for the training of the children's workforce.

The SDSA is working in partnership with a variety of organisations to deliver a citywide project to commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War on August 4^th 2014.

The SDSA works with a range of individual schools and groups of schools to co-design and then provide tailored packages of school improvement support to meet identified needs.

The SDSA supports Initial Teacher Training (ITT) partnerships to develop a joint approach within their local area to increase the supply and quality of new entrants to the profession.

The SDSA manages Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) recruitment pools for communities of schools to attract and recruit the very best NQT's. The process includes advertising, booking interviews, the co-ordination of local headteachers and deputies to lead the interviews and the management of an online shortlisting facility for schools to select the best candidates.

The SDSA has a growing portfolio of work to provide business support and extra capacity and co-ordination to Teaching Schools to enable them to fulfil their growing mandate.

The SDSA plays a co-ordinating role with several large communities of schools to create, co-ordinate and deliver programs or school improvement to address their identified priorities.