The Royal Grammar School (RGS), in Newcastle, has an extensive programme of Partnership Activities with schools across the region. In the school year 2021-22, their work reached over 7,000 students and 300 teachers from more than 75 schools in the North-East.
Sustainable Model
While cross-sector activities between Independent and State-funded Schools have traditionally relied on some goodwill of staff and spare capacity, RGS has aimed for a more sustainable and scalable model by accessing external funding to supplement in-house resource allocation. The model is proving successful, and Proof of Impact has been strong – over 10,000 students from 100 schools are projected to benefit from projects across all aspects of school life this year.
Recruitment
With a worsening crisis in the recruitment of specialist teachers in STEM, RGS has accessed external funding from a range of sources including local and national foundations, charities and businesses to recruit specialist partnership teachers, starting with maths and physics. The Reece Foundation’s funding has allowed the creation of these innovative roles, recruited through RGS to benefit all schools in the partnership, with 60 to 80 per cent of their capacity allocated for partner schools. The teachers were recruited specifically into these roles and are able to offer daytime classes as well as after-school clubs, webinars and professional development. Based on the success of the first two years, the partnership then recruited a Robotics teacher for the current academic year, through generous funding from British Engines. The next stage will be to recruit in Computer Science.
The partnership of schools has secured funding that individual schools could not have secured alone, and this innovative form of recruitment means that schools across the partnership can access specialist teaching they would not have otherwise been able to afford and might have had difficulties recruiting for on their own. This addressed issues with recruiting specialist teachers and benefitted pupils in schools across the region through an expanded curriculum and increased GCSE choices.
As John Smith, Director of Partnerships at RGS, notes:
“The best projects are truly joint-planned and built on the foundation of positive relationships between schools and colleagues. When schools work together on a shared mission to raise attainment and aspirations of our young people, amazing things can happen.”
Chris Zarraga added:
“It’s fantastic to see schools like RGS finding new ways to address issues that impact upon the schools of our region. This partnership case study proves that schools can collaborate beyond geographical or sector barriers and help each other for the benefit of the North East’s young people.”
To learn more about the programme or to get involved, contact John at j.smith@rgs.newcastle.sch.uk
Royal Grammar School is a Schools North East Partner School. If you’d like to find out more about our Partner School Programme click here.
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