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Posted on: 20/10/2021Launch of DET Learner Voice Council
On Wednesday 13th October Danes Educational Trust held our first DET Learner Voice Council Induction Day at Onslow St Audrey’s, Hatfield
The event bought together over 60 students from our secondary schools including Onslow St Audrey’s, Croxley Danes School, St Clement Danes School, Chancellor’s School and Elstree Screen Arts for the launch of the DET Learner Voice Council.
The LVC will provide learners the opportunity to take part discussion and decision making at all levels. They will work with students and staff alike, conducting cutting edge research exploring what teaching and learning has the biggest impact in helping them learn. The induction day featured workshops on teambuilding, teaching and learning, growth mindset and constructive conversations. We were lucky enough to have exceptional practitioners Charley Clarke, Nicola Spencer, Joelle Casotti, Callum Finn and Dr. Martijn Van der Spoel joining us on the day along with our brilliant team of LVC facilitators.
If you would like further details about the work we are doing in schools, please do get in touch with Nikki Railton, DET Leader of Purpose.
Posted on: 13/08/2021Adaptability, Creativity, Courage... and a smattering of Hope.
This year, following the cancellation of exams, Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 qualification grades were awarded through a robust and rigorous process, overseen by Trust and School Senior Leaders, against a national standard and approved and awarded by the exam boards.
At the end of what has been an extraordinary week, we are delighted to congratulate all our students on the resilience and character they have shown throughout a difficult and disrupted academic year. Notable achievements have been seen as students from our Danes Educational Trust secondary schools received their GCSE, A Level and Vocational qualification results and we very much trust that they may look forward to exciting opportunities in the future to come. We are immensely proud of them all.
Fantastic results include 13 A Level students who each achieved a minimum of 3 A*s. At St Clement Danes School, Oleg Tretieu attained 5 A* grades, Louis Ertl 4 A*s and an A* in his EPQ and Francesca Dann and James Moran 4 A*s each. Meanwhile at Chancellor’s School, Max Lee attained 4 A* grades and Harvey Buhagiar and Sophie Lucas 3 A* grades and an A grade each. Louise Newman from OSA attained Distinction*, Distinction* and A* and will now go on to read Physiotherapy at Leeds Beckett. From Elstree Screen Arts, Iona Godfrey attained Distinction* in Specialist Production Make up, Distinction* in Forensic Science and an A grade in Mathematics A Level, while Sophie Sanderson and Sadie Smith both attained a Distinction* in Music Performance and Distinction* in Music Technology and a Distinction in Level 3 Art and Media UAL respectively.
Exceptional progress was also seen including, from Chancellor’s School, Ellie Richards who will read Mathematics at Exeter and from OSA, Luke Hobbs who will read Biology at Nottingham.
Students from across our secondary schools will, as ever, be reading the full range of subjects at some of the country’s most prestigious universities including Bristol, Durham, Imperial College, UCL, LSE, Manchester and Edinburgh. From St Clement Danes School, Louis Ertl will study medicine at Sheffield, Katie Bugler will read Law at Cambridge and Ellie Moriuchi English Literature at Oxford. We are equally delighted that at Elstree Screen Arts, a specialist educator in the Creative Arts, Communication and Technology, 100% of Key Stage 5 students are progressing to meaningful destinations as diverse as the Centre of Screen Excellence, Elstree; Eden Project, Cornwall; The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance; Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and Escape Studios to study a range of subjects including Marine and Natural History Photography, Game Design and Development and Costume Construction.
Our GCSE and Level 2 students are no less to be congratulated. For their achievement, underpinned by sustained endeavour, the following students should be recognised. Eight Grade 9s and one Grade 8 were attained by Ahmed Hamid at OSA while the results of Janelle Obcena, Ethan Pledge, Georgie Elmer-Roads and Luke Brockwell displayed exceptional Value-Added as a result of their 5 years of education at our Hatfield school. At Chancellor’s School, Joseph Kleiner-Mann attained 11 Grade 9s while 5 students achieved, on average, two and a half grades higher than their target grades: Daniel Wootton, Raina Ramadhin, Liam Hummell, Stanley Young and Keira Hearn. Also deserving of special congratulations are Loren Sloan and Lucca Ndefo from Elstree Screen Arts who each surpassed their target grades, attaining, between them, 18 Grades at 7 to 9. At St Clement Danes School, four students - Isla Smith, Magarishi Chandra, Rishi Patel and Maya Chudasama - each achieved a clean sweep of Grade 9s and Lucy Fairhurst and Cora Pearce each achieved eight Grade 9s and one Grade 8.
The grades our students have achieved are a tribute to their own hard work, sustained energy and conscientious approach throughout two years of academic study and the exceptional, intelligent and compassionate support provided by their schools and teachers throughout the pandemic.
No less laudable is what our students have shown themselves to be: adaptable, creative and courageous. May their futures be bright always.
Posted on: 5/07/2021Today, Danes Educational Trust launch 'The Partnership' to provide exceptional teacher training for graduates and career changers who have chosen to become teachers.
Having been a Teaching School for 9 years under the expert leadership of Josephine Valentine, today is the day we say a fond farewell to our Alliance and welcome our new strategy through Danes Educational Trust: ‘The Partnership’.
As the first Monday in July, this is traditionally our Joint INSET day when over 500 of our Alliance colleagues have joined together to share best practice; to listen to key note speakers such as Andy Buck, Alison Peacock and Martin Robinson, and to remind ourselves of the power of collaboration and system leadership. This is a day we have had to forego for two years now in light of COVID and, as such, it is a remote goodbye to our Alliance’s strategic partners Dr Challoner’s High School, The Chalfonts Community College, St Michael’s Catholic High School, Beaconsfield High School, Croxley Danes School, Queens’ School, Parmiter’s School, Chessbrook ESC, University of Hertfordshire, Herts for Learning and, of course, our Lead School, St Clement Danes.
Enormous thanks go, in particular, to Ed Conway and Nick Daymond, both National Leaders of Education, who, along with Josie, had the vision and will to forge a partnership that has had such significant impact. An impact most apparent in colleagues’ professional development; the recruitment of fabulous teachers to schools across Hertfordshire and beyond, and, most importantly, the life chances of those children beyond our Alliance schools who have benefitted from school to school support programmes and the expertise of our Specialist Leaders of Education, senior leaders and expert colleagues over time.
Despite an obvious sadness at the end of our Alliance, we are however mindful that the strength of our partnerships remains and, as such, we are delighted to announce that, having been granted Lead School status for the delivery of Initial Teacher Training, Danes Educational Trust will continue to work in partnership with University of Hertfordshire and our Bucks Hub, Dr Challoner’s High School for Girls, to recruit our next generation of teachers across both secondary and primary phase from September 2021. Information relating to our programmes, key contacts and recruitment process may be found here.
We look forward to welcoming applications to TRAIN TO TEACH at our schools.
We are equally delighted that we will continue to work with Best Practice Network (partners since 2017 in the delivery of legacy NPQs) through roll-out of the Early Career Framework across our Danes Educational Trust: ‘The Partnership’ schools. Forty-five Early Career Teachers are due to join our schools from September 2021 and we look forward to providing them with high quality, bespoke support through our twelve trained facilitators drawn from senior leaders and lead practitioners across our schools; our suite of mentors and coaches and, of course, our colleagues at Best Practice Network itself.
If you would like to continue to follow us, we are now on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook @DanesEdTrust. We look forward to you joining us in the next phase of our work and ongoing development together.
Posted on: 16/06/2021Chancellor's School address equality, equity and diversity across school community
As schools went into the first COVID lockdown and before the events surrounding the death of George Floyd, very few members of Chancellor's School would have been able to articulate an accurate definition of such words as micro-aggression, unconscious bias and cisgender.
What a difference a year makes! Over the course of the last year, Chancellor’s has undertaken something of a mini-revolution in how it addresses equality, equity and diversity (EED) across our entire school community.
They have taken a forthright and forensic approach to promoting equality, ensuring equity and celebrating diversity. Crucially much of the work has been led by students. Firstly, Sixth Formers who initially challenged the school to explore micro-aggressions within the local community and more recently, the whole-school staff and student working parties, who are collaborating to raise awareness across a number of different platforms, such as race, gender, sexuality and disability.
Already this year they have successfully promoted a ‘cultural calendar’, celebrating different aspects of school diversity through form period activities, weekly lock screens, library reading recommendations and presentations, newsletter and bulletin articles and physical displays. Black History Month in October and LGBT+ History month in February served as an opportunity to improve the community’s race and gender literacy, while whole school surveys helped them to understand the day-to-day challenges that different members of the school community face in relation to race. A highlight of the programme was a thought-provoking whole staff INSET on micro-aggressions and diversity awareness.
Their next phase of work is building on these strong foundations to establish a robust and resilient EED legacy across the school. The students have created an ‘EED Charter’, thier expectations of a rights respecting community to be observed by anyone belonging to or joining the school. Furthermore, they are challenging subject leads, as they reflect on their curriculum planning, to identify where they can fully embed Creators, Perspectives, Content and Visuals in their schemes of learning. On a pastoral level, Chancellor's School are looking into further tackling period poverty and providing extra channels of communication to capture the school experience of all students and as they welcome the construction of a new Maths and PE block, they are requisitioning a vacated space for a reflection and wellbeing room for all students. They continue, wherever possible, to engage with local diversity organisations and are creating a monthly vlog to record the ongoing work they are doing. They are very excited that this work has caught the attention of a local MP, and look forward to welcoming him into school when the opportunity arises to share the substantial work.
This is a never-ending programme, that can and should always be enriched and enhanced, but, with a fantastically committed team of students and staff on board, CHancellor's School community can be confident they are already beginning to make a tangible and sustainable difference.
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Posted on: 22/10/2021
