Conference Programme

Chair’s Opening Remarks

MINISTERIAL KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Academy Schools – Working Together with Greater Independence

• Placing more trust in academy professionals
• The new freedoms provided to governing bodies
• Success stories from the best academies in England
• Academies working together to support each other

Questions and Answers with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools and Dominic Herrington

Understanding Academy Conversion

• Models for academy conversions, including stand-alone, in collaboration with another school, or with a sponsor
• Greater control over budgets and freedom from bureaucracy
• Freedom to manage staff, curriculum, staff development and assessment
• What can academies offer underperforming schools?
• How the Department for Education and a converted academy school can assist you in the conversion process

Why convert to an Academy?

This seminar will examine the changing education landscape, the benefits of becoming an Academy and what the reforms mean, Academy chains, and will feature case studies from other Academy converters.

Academy Capital Projects

LBMW will take you through the implications of your lease, funding agreement, articles and other documents in respect of capital projects, covering both academies with trustee-owned land and those without. They will outline the grant position, VAT and insurance and share ideas about the major developments that in some circumstances can be possible. They will help you balance your local aspirations and creativity against the hurdles presented by the various contractual agreements that govern an academy’s use of its site.

Academy Governance

Learn about the role of governing bodies through the academy conversion process and beyond; and hear about others’ experience of how to develop effective Academy governance.

How To Become An Academy Sponsor

In this seminar you will learn more about what an academy sponsor is and gain an understanding of why schools, colleges, universities and other organisations decide to become one. You will also learn how this works in practice.

Making the most of your new found freedom

• Changing responsibility of Risk Management
• The danger of becoming risk adverse
• Risk management and insurance as an enabler
• The importance of robust Business Continuity Planning

BYOD and Mobile Learning – Understanding the Network Implications

Mobile devices, applications, and on line content are transforming the way we teach and learn, but the devices alone are no guarantee of success.

Todays devices have one thing in common, they deliver teaching and learning over wi-fi. The wireless network has become mission critical.

Mark Howell, UK Director for Meru Networks will draw on Meru’s experience in 2500 UK schools and academies to highlight the factors that need to be considered to successfully deliver teaching and learning over Wi-Fi.

Changes to school funding: impact and implementation

This session will explain why the school funding system needs to change, how it is changing and what it all means for academies.

Academy Freedoms – a new landscape, a new culture, new standards

• Recognising  a new national and local landscape – independent of Local Authorities
• Accepting a new culture for school leadership and governance – what does it mean for Governors?
• How best to meet the drive for the higher standards demanded by the new accountability framework
• Is it the same for primary schools?

Providing Funding Directly to Academies

• Providing £10bn a year directly to academies
• Simplifying 2013/14 funding formulae to 12 factors
• Replacing LACSEG with a new Education Services Grant
• Working towards a pupil-focused national funding formula

Questions & Answers

Conference Break & Exhibition Visit

Governance seminar: Academy conversion – the role and responsibilities of governors

• The role of governors in the conversion process
• Different governance models
• Effective governance in an academy
• Potential new responsibilities for governors

Steps to building your own cloud service

Shared, cloud services are the new de facto standard for federations or groups of schools working together. Everyone talks about what they want to achieve but very few practitioners have the knowhow or experience. Drawing on his knowledge and experience in building and running clouds for two large Federation, most recently the Harris Federation, James will be offering practical advice and guidance about making the move to cloud services and how ‘Freedom’ EE’s cloud service has been developed to take advantage of the latest innovations.

How to use standardised assessment for tracking the impact of Pupil Premium spend strategies

Using the latest advice from Ofsted and best practice examples, the session will cover the following:

• An overview of the Pupil Premium and why Ofsted believes it’s important;
• Evidence-based strategies for using the funding;
• How to evidence a clear accounting trail;
• How to evidence the processes of identification of need,  data-tracking and monitoring of interventions;
• Qualitative and quantitative data tracking methods which evidence the impact of the Pupil Premium spend;
• How to measure and demonstrate the impact of the Pupil Premium on the pupil progress journey through the use of effective standardised assessments, such as the Cognitive Abilities Test: 4^thedition and the Pupil Attitudes to Self and School (PASS) attitudinal survey.

Planning for the Unexpected

Major disruptions can happen to any organisation.  How would you cope if the unexpected happened to your Academy?  How would you minimise the impact to your pupils education? Can an Academy plan for the unexpected?

This interactive workshop will provide an insight into the strategy your academy could take to ensure it is capable of planning for, responding to, coping with, and recovering from, major disruptions to “normal” operations.” We will also share with you the latest developments of our web based Risk Curriculum, a risk resource available to our customers that will support you in managing many of the risks that you face.

Tablets, Mobiles and Microsoft Office 365 – A joined up approach to Learning and Teaching

Today’s students and teachers are increasingly likely to have their own mobile technology at home and expect the same access and engagement at school – so how are we responding to this challenge? Schools and Academies are now pursuing strategies to bring more mobile and tablet technologies into the classroom, either through their own provision or ‘Bring your own Device’ (BYOD) policies.

Civica and Microsoft will explore how an investment in Office 365 can maximise the impact of these strategies and enable deeper learning, both within and beyond the school, to take place.

Special Academies

Special schools became eligible to apply for Academy status in November 2010 and the earliest conversion date was 1 September 2011. The first sponsored special Academy opened in April 2012. There is a route for any special school to become an Academy, around 60 Special Academies are open and more are in development. This seminar will consider the conversion process for Special Schools and explore the freedoms, flexibilities and opportunities that Academy status presents for Special Schools.

‘Hear from the Heads’ Panel Discussion

This will be an open discussion with Headteachers and Business Managers from converted academies. They will talk about their experiences and the challenges they faced and you will have the opportunity to ask them questions about this.

Areas to be covered include:

• Obstacles faced and overcome – comparing experiences from both inner-city and rural schools
• Creating a curriculum – fostering innovation in teaching
• New relationships and partnerships with other academies, with sponsors, with service providers and with the local community
• Taking control of the budget, bringing in new staff and investing in the areas most important to raising standards in your area

Discussions chaired by: David Wootton, Chair – Independent Academies Association

Lunch and Exhibition Visit

Building your employee brand

This informative seminar will provide you with the tools to develop your Academy’s brand online, attracting the best staff and showcasing you as the employer of choice.

Harness simple, low cost techniques, utilising online and social media to attract quality teachers, whilst managing Talent Pools for pro-active recruitment.

Going Beyond CPD for outstanding teaching

Andy will explore the theoretical background and practical concerns driving the development of video enabled technologies for professional development. He will argue that however the education system chooses to address its PD challenges, it will have to look beyond transmission based models and atomized notions of Human Capital to achieve enactment and sustainability. You will also hear from Mike Fleetham, Thinking Classroom Consultant and ex teacher, who will share his experience of using IRIS Connect to deliver live remote coaching to teachers and how this has increased teacher confidence and developed a sustainable culture of coaching within schools

Capital Funding

This seminar will provide an understanding of the Academies Capital Maintenance and explain how to put forward a strong bid.

Employer Branding for Academies

This informative seminar will provide you with the tools to develop your Academy’s brand online, attracting the best staff and showcasing you as the employer of choice.

Harness simple, low cost techniques, utilising online and social media to attract quality teachers, whilst managing Talent Pools for pro-active recruitment.

Sponsored Academy Conversion

• How sponsored academy conversion works
• When a school can be converted
• Things to think about if conversion is likely

Cloud based compliance software for Fire, Health & Safety

The first cloud based interactive live system for Fire Risk and Health & Safety for the education sector.

Eteach Compliance is a unique cloud based compliance software for Fire Risk and Health & Safety, designed specifically to allow our clients to implement a powerful management and compliance tool. It enables Academy’s to view and update reports for single and multi-site premises from one interface, whilst creating a legally recognised audit trail demonstrating buildings are up to date, compliant, and a safe environment for all.

Using the FCS-live System and our team of IFE approved and qualified assessors, Eteach Compliance offers you the opportunity to book your Fire Risk Assessment or Health & Safety Audit and see the latest in interactive cloud technology.

The FCS-live system was developed by Managing Director Bob Ward, an ex-fire-fighter and FIA council member who strongly believed compliance needed to be brought into the 21st century.

Finance seminar: Academy conversion from the perspective of the School Business Manager

• The role of the SBM in the conversion process
• The key financial changes once a school has converted to an academy
• The role of the SBM after conversion
• Achieving best value in procurement

Academy budgets and financial assurance

This seminar will provide information on academy budgets and financial assurance and discuss key financial requirements and responsibilities that academies face.

Chair’s Opening Remarks

How to Work Collaboratively with Academies and Sponsors

• Encouraging leaders of good academies to form partnerships
• How do schools work together in chains and clusters? – primary, secondary, special schools and PRUs
• Finding a sponsor and developing a strong relationship

INSPIRATIONAL CASE STUDY: Becoming a Primary Academy Sponsor

• The journey to becoming an academy sponsor
• Working closely with an underperforming school and reopening as an academy
• Improving teaching standards

INSPIRATIONAL CASE STUDY: Dulwich Hamlet Junior School – Primary Associate Academy

“How to survive the Conversion Process and keep smiling”

• Engaging Governors
• Engaging Staff
• Engaging Parents
• Workplace Changes
• PAA Role

Why convert to an Academy?