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In the late 90s the government introduced the Excellence in Cities programme as part of a strategy to provide a high level of support to city schools serving areas of high levels of deprivation. The focus of the programme was to raise standards, improve attendance and address behaviour, this was to be achieved through additional resources, cross phase partnerships and collaborative working within communities. In 2001 the programme was extended to include other areas of the country under the banner of "Excellence Clusters". Drawing on what was successful in EiC a centrally devised model was rolled out across the country in five phases with the same foci as for EiCs but with the opportunity for selected schools to identify a local “strand” to which part of the resource allocated to the programme could be directed. Lincolnshire was part of the phased roll out (2003), the DfES identified secondary schools in three distinct geographic areas based in the indices of multiple deprivation. Further secondary schools were identified by the LEA along with feeder primaries, in total 46 schools were originally identified for the programme because of standards issues or because they were judged to be high performing in so far as having overcome local barriers to success. While the locations were based around Boston, Grantham and Spalding the actual schools were widely spread, including a majority that served small rural communities or towns. The Behaviour Improvement Programme was introduced in 2002 as part of a national behaviour strategy which included the introduction of the B&A consultancy strand to the KS3 strategy. Lincolnshire joined the final phase of BiP in April 2005. BiP is an extension of Excellence Clusters with schools from within the cluster being identified for inclusion into the programme based on an audit of behaviour and attendance and the capacity of each school to take on a further challenging project. As a key element of BiP funding there is a requirement that each BiP cluster develops a Full Service Extended School; the purpose being to provide/facilitate a range of services, activities and opportunities to the school, the community and the community of schools in partnership with other agencies and service providers.
In 2005 the Education Improvement Partnership Prospectus was launched by the DfES. The concept of the Education Improvement Partnerships (EIPs) is to give some unity and sharper purpose to the idea of collaboration in the education service to stimulate the expansion of high quality collaboration, the rationalisation of partnership activity where appropriate and the devolution of responsibilities and resources from local authorities to groups of schools and other partners. In response to this prospectus the Excellence Clusters and BIP agreed in April 2006 to move to EIP status through a single strategic plan. In total there are 45 schools which form the Education Improvement Partnership.
Meet the Team...
Paul Snook Principal School Improvement Adviser - Strategic Projects 01522 553273 mobile 07919 167641 psnook@cfbt.com