Health Checks
Teaching and learning health checks
Through a learning and teaching health check, I’ll help you look at your school from a completely objective perspective and provide you with an external view report. Contact Spiral Impact for details on the services offered internationally and across the UK (Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, North West London and the surrounding areas).
Teaching and learning health check specialist
I’m a highly trained consultant and can support you in stepping outside the daily routine and identifying areas of best practice and areas that need improvement. My support can then help you write your school improvement plan and identify key areas of focus.
If you have an area you would like me to focus the review upon, I can help identify ways to improve practice and spend time with the subject leader in creating and/or developing improvement plans and other materials. A fresh perspective is always useful and can be a more diplomatic and less confrontational way to assist your staff member in improving their practice.
On the day of the review, I will, to some extent, be guided by you. If you would like me to meet with your leadership team or a specific subject lead, I would be happy to do that. I will, of course, want to spend some time in conference with you as the head or deputy head teacher, to discuss your views and look at the children’s data. I will also conduct book looks, detailed learning walks and speak to your team.
Website audit
Does your school website comply with statutory regulations?
Every maintained school must publish specific information on its website to comply with the School Information (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2012. Your school website is also Ofsted’s first check before they start a school inspection.
This thorough website audit not only provides your school with all the information you need to ensure regulatory compliance, but will also provide you with recommendations for desirable elements that you should include, as well as ideas to consider.
Following a website audit, I will provide a comprehensive report detailing all statutory elements both required and currently published. My audit reports include requirements for school contact details, admission arrangements, curriculum, behaviour policy, SEN, pupil premium funding and sports premium funding. Within the report, I will also provide my recommendations for desirable content including things like copies of newsletters, your school’s complaints policy, events calendar and information about disabled access.
This report will ensure that your website will not only stand up to Ofsted scrutiny but also provide desirable information to ensure good practice.
I will contact you prior to the review to find out what outcome you are looking for, so that the review can be tailored to your requirements.
A thorough report and recommendations
Following the health check, you will receive a thorough report detailing areas of good practice, areas which could be improved, and my suggestions for further steps you could take to kick-start this improvement.
Data analysis
I have made a positive contribution to outcomes for pupils across the country, through the provision of effective learning and teaching health checks. If you would like to find out more, please do not hesitate to get in touch with Spiral Impact.
Multi-academy trust health check
A key feature of any successful MAT is its capacity to set and drive its own improvement agenda to secure high outcomes for all pupils.
A key factor when evaluating a MAT’s capacity to improve is the rigour of its school improvement systems, processes and practices so that they provide an appropriate balance of challenge, support and, where required, intervention. While all school improvement models have similar features, it is essential that the model meets the unique needs and circumstances of your MAT. I will review performance over a range of indicators and identify common strengths and areas for improvement which will help support the construction of the MAT Development Plan.
Senior leaders find the support and guidance I provide invaluable and praise the rigour and insight gained from the experience. The process confirms what they believe to be good practice and identifies areas of the school’s work which were not as well-established as initially thought.
Other health check ideas:
- Baseline moderation – to have some external validation
- Subject/area specific health checks relating to priorities to be on the SDP – literacy, maths, science, disadvantaged pupils, phonics, behaviour, safety and welfare, attendance, challenge, the learning environment inside and out, the effective use of TAs and AfL techniques.
- Rigorous and robust monitoring – learning walks, book and planning scrutiny with middle and senior leaders to check judgements.
- SEF and SDP health check – are they both fit for purpose and do they accurately reflect the school?
- Middle and senior leadership – impact of their work, pupil progress meetings.
"If you need professional advice or an external perspective on school improvement, I highly recommend Spiral Impact. In September, she completed a health check focusing on Teaching and Learning across the school where I was a newly appointed Headteacher. Laura was thorough and robust. She has an excellent understanding of what high quality learning should look like and nothing escapes her scrutiny. The advice, challenge and professional support she offers is astute and intuitive. I found her report of the visit invaluable when finalising school improvement priorities with Governors. I will definitely use Laura for subsequent leadership consultancy work and highly recommend her to other school leaders."
- Jo Robertson, Headteacher, Brushwood Junior School, Buckinghamshire
Call me on
07966 425 021
for any health checks provided internationally and across the UK (Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, North West London and the surrounding areas).
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