WELCOME FROM CEO Welcome to the Compass Partnership of Schools. We are a charitable trust of 15 schools that work as one to achieve the very best for all children and all communities. We aim to inspire all children to engage confidently with the world and develop the knowledge and skills from across the curriculum that enable them to thrive. By working as one, we maximise the knowledge and skills of all the adults in our schools. We share the very best practice and learning from the research that will make a difference to the progress and achievement of all children. Compass is optimistic for the future, ambitious for all, and focused on building individual and collective resilience. We aim to support children in becoming confident and responsible citizens who contribute positively to society in a manner that maximises their strengths and helps build a better tomorrow. We want children to know that they can be the change makers, both now and in the future. The Compass Partnership of Schools | 2
Our schools are committed to providing a fully inclusive environment for learning that actively promotes social justice and equity, empowering all to achieve. We create cognitively challenging contexts for learning and build deep and rich knowledge, through precise and direct teaching approaches. The Compass Curriculum is ambitious, challenging and creative, carefully sequencing knowledge so that children are supported in building a deep understanding across all subject areas. We believe in the importance of providing a high-quality experience of the arts and physical education as part of a curriculum that builds health and well-being individually and collectively. We value and promote the ethos of each school, ensuring it is firmly at the heart of its community. As a civic trust we understand the important role we play in our local context and seek to build rich connections with local organisations and community groups. Through collaboration, we seek to build on the strengths that exist within our schools so that our collective intellectual capital benefits our broader Compass community. Compass is community-centred and community-engaged. We aim to be the best we can possibly be for every community we serve and to realise the aspirations held for every young person who learns with us. JOHN CAMP OBE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER The Compass Partnership of Schools | 3
OUR MISSION VISION AND ETHOS STATEMENT The Compass Partnership of Schools is an ethical and ambitious learning community that seeks to inspire every child to value their education, know themselves, understand others and work to create a fair, just and sustainable society. We are an innovative group of schools collaborating to transform lives, with social justice at the heart of everything we do. Our shared vision and values guide each child to become curious, enthusiastic, resilient and confident. We value learning as a creative endeavour and boldly map the journey ahead so that our children are able to successfully navigate and discover their limitless opportunities. “Shaping the future, transforming lives” Optimism Ambition Resilience The Compass Partnership of Schools | 4
OUR SCHOOLS The Compass Partnership of Schools | 5 ROWAN WOOD SCHOOL
A SHARED APPROACH Research indicates that the most successful MATs have shared expectations of the achievement of pupils at the end of each key stage, (subject specific exemplars) and this shared understanding is built on a coherently sequenced knowledge-based curriculum. There is a shared understanding on what constitutes great pedagogy and our teaching for learning framework outlines our methodology. The Compass Partnership of Schools | 6
A BROAD AND BALANCED CURRICULUM The Compass Curriculum is inclusive of, and builds upon, the EYFS curriculum and the National Curriculum, and maximises cross curricular opportunities and the fluent use of English and Maths to enhance progress for everyone. Our curriculum complies with our duties in the Equality Act 2010 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 to ensure our curriculum is accessible for those with disabilities or special educational needs. Our curriculum is designed by our Subject Leaders who map progression in both substantive and disciplinary knowledge for Reading, Writing, Maths, Science, Computing and Foundation Subjects across Key Stage One and Key Stage Two. Knowledge is purposefully planned across our Frameworks providing opportunities for knowledge to build on prior learning and to be revisited in subsequent years and in different subjects so that knowledge is deepened and mastered over time. The Compass Partnership of Schools | 7
Our Curriculum is designed to narrow the gap for children who are disadvantaged and sets out purposefully sequenced knowledge, vocabulary and skills for each subject and each year group so that children know more and remember more over time. Key foundational knowledge such as phonics, handwriting and number sense are taught systematically in the Early Years and throughout Year 1. We teach to support children to keep up from the start and close any learning gaps quickly, using targeted keeping up sessions to ensure that all children, especially those disadvantaged, have the key knowledge that they need to access the wider curriculum. At Compass, this is an issue of equity and social justice and is key in our drive to narrow the disadvantaged gap and ensure all children thrive. Our curriculum is ambitious for our children. Each year deep knowledge and memory of key concepts is supported through making meaningful connections both between and across subject domains. Through making connections and applying learnt knowledge to solve problems and answer big questions children learn to respond to increasingly challenging problems and questions confidently as well as knowing more and remembering more over time. The Compass Partnership of Schools | 8
Our Curriculum aims to support children to be confident, independent, and inquisitive learners, who develop an understanding of the world – past, present, and future. The curriculum is designed to support children in the acquisition of desirable learning dispositions through providing contextualised learning experiences and teaching that enables them to understand fully what they need to know and how they need to be to be successful learners. Whole School Projects provide a further inspirational context for learning and provide opportunities to show progression in learning across the school. These are planned yearly and include projects based on music from key composers, paintings from artists across the world, places of interest, current day events from around the world and high-quality texts and picture books. Each year group will develop a scheme of work to develop the learning for each project in the way most relevant and stimulating for their children. The Compass Partnership of Schools | 9
HOWWE TEACH Our pedagogical approaches are at the core of our teaching and learning framework. Our pedagogy enables us to reach all learners through precision teaching, building their schema and committing learning to long-term memory. A clear and research-based pedagogical model across our trust ensures consistency and equity and inspires children to develop reflective, healthy learning habits and make progress across the curriculum. Current educational policy continues to actively promote social learning systems and the progression towards research active schools. Engaging in educational research is vital for our trust. It enables us to develop our understanding and practice of how children learn best, and it allows us to be at the forefront of educational policy and practice. Reduced investment in educational research would result in a void in the development and progression of education. As a profession, we continue to develop our understanding of how children learn best. Schools have a responsibility to collect evidence about what works best now. This allows for a culture where evidence is used as a matter of routine to improve outcomes for all children. At the core of our pedagogy is direct instruction, where concepts are broken down into small steps and precisely modelled by the teacher in different ‘stages’ of instruction and practice. Principles of direct instruction, developed by Barak Rosenshine, underpin our pedagogical approach and enable consistent and effective teaching across our Trust. The Compass Partnership of Schools | 10
Educational theorist Barak Rosenshine explored teacher instruction over many years and identified common approaches and strategies which underpinned most successful teaching and learning. Rosenshine put forward principles drawn from research in cognitive science, research on master teachers, and research on cognitive supports. These principles inform the pedagogy behind direct instruction. Setting achievable goals and ensuring children understand them. Giving clear and concise explanations and illustrations of the subject matter. Taking children through a process of guided practice. Asking questions to check for understanding. Encouraging dialogic feedback. Providing children with regular opportunities to practise independently. Presenting a sequence of well-organised learning. The Compass Partnership of Schools | 11
INCLUSION AND SPECIALIST PROVISION The Compass Partnership principles of inclusion and inclusivity underpin all that we do. These are the non-negotiables that anchor our approach to pedagogy and school development. All schools in the partnership demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to these principles, through which they are held to account. We see our schools as important agents for community exchange and cohesion and are committed to maintaining locally agreed admissions criteria. We also work within locally agreed admissions procedures for children with Special Educational Needs. We are proud to be inclusive schools and are committed to learning for all. Across our schools we have a range of local authority and school-based provisions developed to enhance the education of our most vulnerable children. Willow Dene is a Greenwich special school, with both primary and secondary provision, that meets the needs of children with a wide range of special educational needs. The Compass Partnership of Schools | 12
TRAINING OUTSTANDING TEACHERS AND LEADERS In our Trust we identify, nurture, and actively develop all members, at all levels, ensuring we are building capacity of current leaders. We know this work is critical to developing the quality of the curriculum, the strength and expertise in teaching and, in turn, will bring about the best outcomes for all children. We provide a core professional learning and development offer to all our schools which runs in tandem with our core support offer. Compass is a Leading Practitioner Learning Centre and we have established capacity in our schools with lead practitioners. We have developed cross-trust teaching and planning teams and all head teachers or head of schools have an experienced executive leader. If a school decides to join the trust, they will have access to experienced, knowledgeable and highly skilled leaders who have a track record of success. In our school improvement capacity, we are supporting several schools across different regions and local authorities to not only help develop their teachers and leaders, but to also provide tailor-made improvement and intervention strategies to enhance performance and outcomes. As part of our commitment to growing and developing teachers for Greenwich, and supporting schools beyond our immediate partnership, we are proud to have Halstow offering a School Direct pathway into teaching. We work closely with Goldsmith’s College, University of London, on research-led practice and professional development, to support leaders throughout their career in the teaching profession. The Compass Partnership of Schools | 13
LEARNING BEYOND THE CLASSROOM The Compass Partnership of Schools | 14 The Compass Partnership of Schools intends for our children to have a holistic education that enables them to become aspirational, independent and adventurous learners who value both themselves and each other. Therefore, we are continually striving to ensure that we nurture, challenge and enable each and every child to be the very best they can be in all areas of school life. In particular, we want to give children the opportunities to be creative, adventurous and innovative thinkers and learners. Outdoor learning and adventure, when planned and integrated into the curriculum, is a powerful tool for the development of children. The benefits of adventure are long-lasting, ranging from immediate improvements in social and independent skills which can become established, and transferred and applied in the classroom. Children experience collaborative, metacognitive and self-regulation approaches to their learning which gives them a repertoire of strategies to choose from and the skills to select the most suitable strategies for a given learning task. We believe that outdoor experiences are the most memorable and enable children to have better longer term understanding of curriculum subjects. Outside, children are able to learn though their senses: seeing, touching and experiencing something first hand as well as exploring their own way of learning.
LEARNING THROUGH ADVENTURE HELPS PROMOTE AND DEVELOP: The Compass Partnership of Schools | 15
C/O Alderwood Primary School Rainham Close, Eltham, London, SE9 2JB Company number: 10360957 Phone: 020 8850 6841 Email: contact@compassps.uk
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