Today was another full and rewarding day in my role as a School Improvement Lead (Primary) at the Corinium Education Trust. No two days are ever quite the same, but the aim is always clear: to work alongside our staff and children to strengthen teaching and learning, whilst guided by the values we hold at the heart of our Trust: collaboration, kindness, courage and innovation.
This morning started with a visit to one of our Primary schools. I spent time with leaders observing lessons, talking with pupils about their learning and supporting subject leaders to evaluate the impact of their curriculum. These visits are always valuable, as they are where you see the strengths and needs of a school in action, and they help shape the way we support moving forward. I always ensure leaders are left with written feedback to help inform next steps and monitoring moving forward.
The remainder of my day was spent working alongside staff teams. We looked at curriculum plans, dug into some data and held a productive planning session around next steps in subject leadership. One of the best parts of working across the Trust is being able to connect colleagues, often the expertise we need is already within our schools. It’s so powerful to see teachers learning from one another. After school, I spent time with our subject leaders at our termly network meeting. Supporting them is a big part of my role, helping them develop confidence to lead their subject. This term, we’ve been focusing on assessment models. At this network session, it was brilliant to see the range of approaches being used and to have open conversations about what’s working best. Tomorrow, I have a meeting with a colleague at our Secondary school, Cirencester Deer Park. Together, we create a network for our ECTs across the trust. During our meeting, we will be planning out the schedule for the academic year ahead and discussing how we can best support our early career teachers. Across the Trust, we’re constantly exploring new ideas, whether it’s trialling different assessment approaches, embedding research-based strategies, or sharing successful methods between schools. That spirit of innovation, underpinned by collaboration, is what makes the trust a great place to work.
However, we don’t just collaborate across our trust schools. Throughout the past two years, we have reached out and welcomed other local schools to join our Writing Moderation sessions: a chance for teachers to ensure consistent, fair judgements across pupils’ work. It’s a busy job, and there’s always more to do, but every day feels purposeful. Supporting improvement across our schools isn’t just about results; it’s about growing people, building connections and doing the best we can for our children: enabling them to be the best they can be every day. I feel fortunate to be part of it.
Rachael Scott, School Improvement Lead (Primary)
