East Kent Schools Together

East Kent presents a diversity of economic, social and educational backgrounds for schoolchildren. When pupils and staff collaborate across schools, by sharing resources and exchanging experiences, there can be huge mutual benefits, especially for disadvantaged children. 

The King's School provides a range of ongoing pro bono support (HR, finance etc) to the EKST organisation (charitably incorporated), and takes a lead a number of outreach events with EKST schools and CCCU (Canterbury Christchurch University)

"EKST is very grateful to the (King's School) Partnerships Office for continued support to allow our students to access some amazing opportunities and broaden horizons- thank you." - Claire Bridger, EKST lead

Aims

1. Raising aspirations: Pupils' achievements and prospects are improved when schools collaborate. We are looking to enrich teaching and learning by forging strong relationships and sharing professional practice amongst colleagues.                                      
2. Widening horizons: Pupils have a broader experience by collaborating with children from different backgrounds and experiencing an enriched education beyond the curriculum. The partnership aims to help children become resilient learners, feeling confident relating to a wide spectrum of people in a variety of situations.

Background

The partnership has been established since 2017.

There is a busy programme of events with two main objectives:

1. Enriching teacher professional development in order to strengthen teaching and learning in all our schools.
   Examples include: TeachMeets and cluster group meetings to share good practice and widen networks, two-way placement swaps for trainee teachers, shared professional development
   
   
2. Developing, pupil confidence and well-being by bringing children together for shared experiences; cultural, sporting, academic and volunteering.
   Examples include: training for leadership together to work in the community, older pupils leading younger pupils in debating, running partnership magazines, collaborating for sporting events, raising money for charity

Many of these initiatives are supported by our partner, Canterbury Christchurch University.

Resources

Each school contributes to a shared programme of partnership events: enrichment activities for pupils, joint professional development for teachers, academic courses, shared sports or meeting facilities. Some projects are open to the wider community.

Impact

All partnership activities are being evaluated so that the benefit to pupils and teachers and the value for money can be assessed. Impact factors in education can be hard to measure, especially when long-term outcomes include increased confidence and changes in attitude.However, with the support of our university partner and other experts a meaningful programme has been devised.

Pupil Involvement

All pupils from each of the schools are encouraged to become involved in the activities of the partnership.

Frequency

An ongoing partnership.

A whole programme of events and activities hosted by each of the schools over the school year.