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The Grebot Donnelly Training School offers a wide range of courses to suit your marketing requirements and we regularly develop bespoke sessions for schools across the country.

A legal and PR response to the Prevent duty: implications for schools         

We are being approached on a daily basis by schools, Local Authorities and Multi-Academy Trusts who are going to extreme measures in a bid to fill their teaching positions. Whilst we cannot (and will not!) claim to have the answers to the national shortage, we do support the notion that marketing has a role to play.

We are in a teachers’ marketplace and school leaders need to change their recruitment habits in a bid to stand out from the crowd.

• Have you considered your unique proposition for staff?
• How is this being promoted?
• What is the experience of a candidate who comes for interview?
• Or even when an applicant goes through your application process?

The channels you use are crucial. We recommend a combined approach that includes traditional advertising, social media and creative methods such as utilising your teachers’ personal networks through incentive schemes.

This Thursday the Department for Education (DfE) intend to publish provisional results for secondary schools. For more information on exactly what’s being published you can see one of our previous blogs.

Ofsted has released an eye-opening report – Key Stage 3: the wasted years? – indicating that pupils’ development in KS3 is hindered because the transition from primary to secondary is poorly handled.

The Department for Education has just released its Statement of Intent for the 2015 School and College Performance Tables. Here we address some of the key changes that will affect you.

Boris Johnson has said that every young person in London should have at least 100 hours of careers advice or work experience by the age of 16.

The Mayor of London was commenting following the release of a new report, 'London Ambitions: Shaping a Successful Careers Offer for all Young Londoners'. 

Is your website up to scratch? Have you got scrappy worksheets? Have you communicated key messages to important stakeholders? Come September you’re going to need to know.

These are just a few of the issues highlighted in the latest keynote speeches and School Inspection Handbook. Change has been afoot at Ofsted for some time, and following a review Sir Michael Wilshaw, Her Majesty’s chief inspector, has recently announced three major changes to Ofsted’s approach:

• Inspectors will now have a common inspection framework. This is to unify the lingo and judgements used for reporting across various types of provision.  

• If you’ve been rated ‘good’ then visits will be more frequent – approximately every three years. They are now what is being referred to as a ‘short inspection’. These will be less intrusive, focus on the quality of leadership and aim to see if you continue to provide a good standard of education.

• Each inspection will be led by one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors, who will now all be directly employed. And 70% of the Ofsted inspectors who accompany them will be existing practitioners from ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ schools. There will be no more outsourcing. Nobody without classroom experience will be involved. 

On top of these changes, hidden within the dusty depths of the new handbook, Ofsted outlines increased scrutiny of your public profile and communications. You need to publish the right information on your website. And you will need to prove key stakeholders understand your strategy for raising standards. Getting your communications right has never been more important.

The new inspection documents, including an ‘explaining the changes’ document, can all be found here. 

What do you think about Ofsted’s changes? Is your school ready? Are you effectively engaging with your stakeholders? We want to know. Please do leave a comment – we’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts.