Please see below for some examples of the further LA support and services that are available to those in Senior Leadership roles:
Hounslow also offers a range of Support Services – please go to our Schools and Support section for information on the wide-ranging Teacher Support Service.
Further information can also be found within our CPD section.
School Improvement Service
School Improvement is about raising standards, and promoting and disseminating best practice. It includes the processes of school self-review, evaluation and development, together with external Ofsted inspections, involvement in national accreditation schemes and locally negotiated processes such as the Hounslow Joint School Review system. Continuing Professional Development activities support these processes. The national Best Value initiative provides some general, over-arching principles underpinning all of these.
The School Improvement Service is made up of a range of specialists who between them cover all phases of education and most curriculum areas. General Advisers and some advisory teachers are based at the Civic Centre. Other colleagues including the National Strategy team are based at Hounslow Education Centre. The service incorporates the Hounslow Education Business Partnership and the ICT curriculum support team.
A School Improvement Partner (SIP) acts as a critical professional friend to the school, helping its leadership to evaluate its performance, identify priorities for improvement, and plan effective change. The role is to support the school in building its capacity to raise levels of achievement for all its learners. SIPs go through a national accreditation process. In Hounslow they are recruited from current general advisers, external consultants, and serving and retired headteachers. The role of a SIP involves link advisory work, provision of advice and support and monitoring of overall school performance to contribute to the Advice and Support Service Plan.
For more information please call the School Improvement Service on: 020 8583 2868
Advisory Support
Hounslow has a Named Adviser to support Induction - Valerie Blackwell is the Senior Adviser for Leadership and Management. She has had over 14 years experience as a Headteacher in a variety of schools and has taught in all phases. Working alongside Val is a Consultant Headteacher, Jeanette Davies. Jeanette is currently a primary Headteacher in Hounslow and has had experience of headship in two other schools.
Hounslow Virtual Education Centre (HVEC)
www.hvec.org.uk is a web resource that enables school and CS&LL staff to interact and inform one another of the latest news, best practice, events and developments. A HVEC Newsletter is electronically sent to all subscribed members of staff on a weekly basis with the latest updates and information.
Hounslow Education Centre (HEC) provides professional support and in-service training for teachers, support staff and other users. It is run by Hounslow Council's Children's Services & Lifelong Learning Department and is the principal venue for Hounslow's extensive range of courses. A number of Teaching Support Services are also located at the Centre.
Address: Martindale Road, Hounslow, TW4 7HE
Telephone: 020 8583 4190 Fax: 020 8572 8450
Local Authority HR and Finance Teams
“NCSL research shows that on appointment Headteachers have considerable concerns about Finance and HR issues. Hounslow believes it gives excellent support in both these key areas. Hounslow offers a range of business support services to schools, some centrally or grant financed and others provided on a traded basis. This includes specialised support in Finance, Human Resources, Premises Management, ICT and Legal Services.
A number of our services including Teacher Recruitment and School Professional Development consistently achieve amongst the best scores in the Audit Commission’s national survey of services provided to schools.”
John Reece, Head of HR (CS&LL), London Borough of Hounslow.
Governing Bodies and Support
Governing Bodies Support offers a wide-ranging advice and support service to Headteachers and Governors. Some aspects of this support are through a service level agreement.
Staff have many years experience of governing body work and are able to advise on law and good practice in connection with governance including constitution, membership, recruitment and appointment issues. The team also conducts and monitors the appointments of LEA governors to all schools and develops recruitment materials which can assist schools to recruit governors. It has responsibility for compiling and distributing the Director’s Report and Newsletter once a term, which highlights to Headteachers and Governors current local and national initiatives and the actions and decisions required. There is a clerking service, which the majority of Hounslow Schools buy into and support is also provided to clerks appointed directly by schools.
Hounslow offers comprehensive induction materials, access to a wide range of training on local and national issues and access to a libary on governance matters. The section is now also offering and developing training on Succession Planning and is more formal support to new Chairs of Governors.
The service is available all year round to offer advice, guidance and trainingon any governance issues including guidance on Headteacher's Reports to Governing Bodies. For more information please contact the team on 020 8583 2643.
Thinking of becoming a School Governor? please click here for more information about how you can get involved.
City Learning Centres
City Learning Centres were developed as one of the six key strands of the Excellence in Cities programme 2000, the aim of which was to help address educational problems faced in major cities. There are 105 City Learning Centres (CLCs) across the UK offering ICT, multi-media resources and support. The London Borough of Hounslow has 2 City Learning Centres at either ends of the borough of Brentford and Feltham. Further information can be found at www.brentfordclc.com and www.clcfeltham.co.uk
Contact Us:
The Teacher Recruitment Team
As part of the Human Resources function, the Teacher Recruitment Team are responsible for implementing a wide variety of recruitment and retention strategies on behalf of Hounslow's schools. The Team deals with a wide variety of R & R issues including senior leadership and appointments, NQT recruitment, the Graduate Trainee Programme and various routes to QTS for Overseas Trained teachers.
If you have any questions concerning Senior Leadership in Hounslow then please do not hesitate to contact a member of the team. :
Richard Beddell
Recruitment Strategy Manager
020 8583 2686
richard.beddell@hounslow.gov.uk
Louise Butt
Senior Recruitment Officer
020 8583 3915
louise.butt@hounslow.gov.uk
Lesley Hunt
Recruitment Officer
020 8583 2682
lesley.hunt@hounslow.gov.uk
Fax: 020 8583 2677
Postal Address: Teacher Recruitment Team, Children's Services and Lifelong Learning, London Borough of Hounslow, Civic Centre, Lampton Road, Hounslow, Middlesex. TW3 4DN
NCSL – Tomorrows Leaders Today
Hounslow works with the National College of School Leadership (NCSL) to address the issues of Succession Planning at Senior Leadership level in the borough’s schools. NCSL have devised a National Strategy on Succession Planning and the Tomorrow’s Leaders Today campaign and Hounslow works with closely with its consultants. The aim of the campaign and the strategies employed by Hounslow is to address some of the issues surrounding Headship and Deputy Headship and to recognise the changing role in our schools. For more information please go to http://www.ncsl.org.uk/tlt-home
For more information about how to get involved in working with the Local Authority in Senior Leadership, please go to our Join Us page.