Justin Smith, MD at Chameleon Consultancy and Training Ltd, shares his top five tips for developing successful – and sustainable – partnerships for your school
Read the full article below or on page 20 in our April magazine
The way we view our schools and their relationship with the outside world has evolved enormously over the last 20 years. In their book Leadership for Tomorrow authors Groves and West-Burnham highlight the accumulation of evidence that points to external factors outside the school’s direct control that also influence educational outcomes. As such, the attention school communities pay to their wider stakeholder groups is more important now than ever before. An outward-facing school that comfortably interacts with, and develops, partnerships with outside agencies can leverage all sorts of support to benefit their pupils.
There are some inspirational examples of schools and multi-academy trusts doing just that and I’m delighted to share this article with David Churchill, director of opportunity at The Kemnal Academies Trust, a large MAT of 45 schools across the south and east of England. I had the great pleasure of supporting David with training and with developing their income-generation priorities. David and I have pulled together our top five tips for developing successful – and sustainable – partnerships for your school.
Clarity and purpose Be clear on your school priorities and long-term plan. You will have a much better chance of developing partnerships when you have a clear strategy in place that you can communicate easily to potential partners.
A win-win approach Embrace the fact that partners will often be looking at how they can benefit from a strategic relationship with you. It may be as simple as something like a ‘thank you’ to a company’s employees, or the chance to speak to your students about future career opportunities with their company. Think about how the relationship can benefit all partners.
Define expectations This can be done informally or formally, using a verbal or a written agreement. The key thing is to set out clearly what your school expects from the partnership, and what the partner can expect in return. If you can get this right then there is a far greater chance of this partnership becoming a long term relationship, benefiting all parties. If you take a local supplier sponsoring the school art exhibition, for example, ask yourself what does this company expect in return? Thanking a supporter is really important and can be done via your website, newsletter, invitation to a launch event or a physical ‘Donors’ thankyou board’.
Select the right partner (due diligence) Educators have a strong moral compass. Our values are evident every day, such as respect and care for our students and our colleagues. It’s vital to be comfortable with the values and mission of any partner. Carefully selecting and inviting supporters to partner with you is more likely to reap long-term benefits and save any unnecessary, and potentially damaging, reputational issues.
Acknowledge support It’s so important to say thank you and recognise support. It could be a private or a public thank you, such as in a newsletter or via social media. It’s the right thing to do and it is a crucial part of sustaining and developing new relationships.
Case study – TKAT and the Ogden Trust
“One of our widest partnerships currently is with the Ogden Trust, whose aim is to make sure physics matters in all schools (www.ogdentrust.com). We are the largest network they have ever worked with, and their school partnership programme will be supporting and working with all 45 of our special, primary, secondary and all-through academies.
We were in dialogue with their trust for almost a year. Hosting a visit to one of our primaries, and introducing them to some of our primary directors, helped develop the relationship. The range and the quality of the support they offer is fantastic. All our primary science leads get free training on a physics topic every year, and they go back to their schools with a wonderful box of teaching resources. There is also free CPD for our secondary staff, with a particular focus on non-specialists teaching physics.
They fund release time for one of our team to be the partnerships manager, and they also provide financial support to facilitate enrichment activities. For example, we’ve just run a Diversity in Science competition across all our schools, and we’ve got a wealth of other activities planned, such as stargazing for families and physics workshops for high ability students. I would recommend the Ogden Trust to any partnerships of schools, which could be a MAT or a less formal network.”
To learn more about the work of The Kemnal Academies Trust click here – https://www.tkat.org/
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