Partnerships

Subject partnerships

The success of specialism owes much to the strength of the partnerships and the Trust works with a wide range of national and regional organisations involved in specialist and vocational education.

Expert panels, comprising representatives from business and industry, national agencies, subject associations and headteachers, have been set up for each specialist subject. Headteacher specialist steering groups, involving over 280 heads, provide leadership and strategic direction for each specialist subject area and the community dimension.

Practitioner Networks have been established in key areas such as equality and inclusion, gifted and talented, workforce reform and across the vocational GCSEs. They share and spread best practice by working with associate schools in their regions, through conferences, case studies and online discussion forums.

The lead practitioners evaluate resources, reflect on current practice and provide practical advice via the Trust’s schools network website.

The Dance Network, developed in collaboration with the National Dance Teachers Association and the Youth Sport Trust, supports the professional development of dance teachers. Together with the Design Museum, the Trust has established a Young Designer of the Future Award to encourage creative design and innovative design among sixth formers.

Supporting languages, the Trust’s schools network website hosts pages for Russian, Chinese and community languages promoting the sharing of ideas and networking amongst colleagues.

International partnerships

The Trust’s international arm, International Networking for Educational Transformation (iNet), represents a growing international network of schools. One of our most developed networks is in Australia and currently has more than 120 members. 

The Khanya Project in South Africa supports partnerships with schools in the UK. Khanya is a Xhosa word meaning ‘enlightenment’. The project is designed to integrate the use of appropriate and affordable technology within the school to help develop the education capacity of a developing society.

Links between French and English schools are flourishing via the Language Colleges-Sections Européennes (LC-SE) partnership. Each year around 50 new schools join the scheme that promotes the joint planning of projects between schools in each country.