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OUR 2007-08 MENU -  COURSES AND TAILOR MADE PROGRAMMES FOR SCHOOL NETWORKS  AND LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN THESE COMPLEX STRATEGIC AREAS.    

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT FOR TEACHERS AND TEACHING ASSISTANTS...SENIOR LEADERSHIP RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION...SENIOR LEADERSHIP PAY...SUCCESSION PLANNING FOR SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL NETWORKS...PHASED RETIREMENT 

• PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT  

We have developed a range of practical performance management solutions for schools.  Our AESOPP objective setting system - 7th Edition materials now available free to existing subscribers; email aesoppupdate@btconnect.com for your copy - makes it possible to set the required skills-based performance objectives for teachers, support staff and the extended workforce using a simple common framework. It costs £175 plus VAT for a lifetime site licence with free updates, and is already in use in over 3000 schools.  It also provides staff briefing letters, skills audits, classroom observation and evidence schedules, a model Planning and Review Statement...and the suggested changes to the feeble RIG Policy that have been suggested by our specialist HR advisers.  It can be purchased only at the end of one of our training events   We have two  school and school network programmes for 2007-08.  Performance Management 2007 - Write Your Objectives In A Single Day provides a strategic briefing and SEF writing session for up to 25 senior leaders and reviewers, during which, using our special templates, they will produce a personalised Objective Setting Pack for every member of staff - suggesting key professional development objectives based on lesson observations and a pupil progress objective based on the appropriate Improvement Plan priority.  These packs are then distributed at a whole staff briefing followed - if you wish - by individual objective setting meetings with tutorial support available from our trainer.  A day catering for up to 25 reviewers and up to 100 staff costs £1695 plus VAT including accommodation and travel.  Performance Management 2008 - Agreeing Robust UPS 2 and 3 Standards and Setting Skills-Based Leadership & Management Objectives For Middle and Senior Leaders Linked To Feedback on Agreed Performance Criteria  will enable senior leaders and reviewers to move things forward in exactly the way that Ofsted and the SIP (who now has to write a section on the effectiveness of PM in the report to governors on the head's performance) will be looking for

• SENIOR LEADERSHIP RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION STRATEGY
• UNDERSTANDING EXISTING SENIOR LEADERSHIP PAY FLEXIBILITIES
• SUCCESSION PLANNING FOR SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL NETWORKS

Our experience in our work round the country suggests that governors have no idea of the scale of the senior leadership crisis that will develop within the next three years.  As it is, 34% of school leaders can retire tomorrow if they wish.  As they become aware of the new phased retirement provisions - a head aged 55 with 33 years service on a salary of £52k can now request half-time working, access an immediate £8k pension while remaining in post, supplement this with a £26k half-time salary and have 2.5 days a week free to make up the shortfall if required - governors are likely to face more and more requests to reduce hours.  Indeed, with 43% of deputies and 70% of middle leaders saying they do not aspire to headship, agreeing to these requests is likely, for many governing bodies, to represent their best chance of finding anyone to do the job!  Our unique work with schools, LA's and school networks across the country has convinced us of the need for a co-ordinated senior leadership recruitment and retention strategy strategy at school, school network and LA level.  We have pioneered and tested a range of programmes to support its development

• PHASED RETIREMENT OPTIONS

The new phased retirement provisions apply to all members of the Teachers' Pension Scheme and have enoprmous potential when it comes to ensuring that expertise remains available to schools.  Our Phased Retirement Course comes in several formats. As a 24 hour country house hotel residential for senior leaders, it examines the various pension options, sets out the range of work opportunities that are available to supplement a reduced teaching income, explains how best to position yourself in the fast-changing consultancy marketplace and introduces you to the mysteries of business strat-up, VAT, tax and professional indemnity insurance.  The course can, however, be easily adapted for schools and school networks - to an audience of leaders, classroom teachers or a combination of the two.

• Unlike most of the big consultancies, we don't bid for government contracts. Our customers are school leaders and those (like governors and some local authorities) who see their role as helping them to find workable solutions to the challenges they face - and to achieving greater professional satisfaction as a result.
  
  
• Our support programmes have emerged from listening to headteachers tell us what they need. Because we concentrate on the everyday practicalities of government initiatives - rather than the lofty ideals - we meet a lot of headteachers in the course of an average year. More than two thousand - from 32 LEA's - attended our TLR briefings alone in 2005
  
  
• We arrange and facilitate termly meetings of ten to twelve headteachers who trust one another and want both to share ideas and experience and get into discussion of what one of our groups calls "the secret areas of headship". For individual headteachers, we facilitate discussion with governors over the important issues that they are often embarrassed to raise themselves - like pay and work/life balance.
  
  
• For groups of remodelling and extending schools, we provide "big picture" briefings trying to draw out the links between apparently disparate government initiatives and to alert heads to important changes on the horizon. We have a wealth of expertise to share on the new forms of leadership and delivery structures we have seen emerging round the country. We specialise in skills-based performance management - for teachers and teaching assistants - and support this with our integrated AESOPP™ objective setting system, now in use in over 2500 schools. We organise learning and CPD networks to help schools share good practice
  
  
• We use consultants whose programme evaluations are consistently in the range between "good" and "outstanding". Their daily chargeout rates vary between £750 and £1500 (plus travel, accommodation and VAT) according to the type of work theyare doing.