The Fellowship
The Department for Children Schools and Families has introduced the Sinnott Fellowship in memory of Steve Sinnott and his contribution to the field of education.
The Fellowship will fund the work of outstanding practitioners who play the increasingly important role in schools of creating innovative external links and relationships to improve pupil aspiration and attainment.
The programme will select 15 talented practitioners who work in secondary schools with a track record in developing out-of-school links, which may be across a number of categories (see below). The Fellowship aims to support these individuals to further their work in this role and allow them to share their experiences. In that way, it will also help anchor schools at the heart of their communities and offer their students opportunities to develop the wider experiences and skills that can set up young people on the path to success.
The framework of the Fellowship:
The goals of the Fellowship are to raise the profile and professionalism of the role of the outward-facing practitioner. The Fellowship will add value by:
- providing a growing body of knowledge and best practice about what makes the role work best in reality for school
- reinforcing the importance of embedding an outward-facing culture into a school
- building greater understanding of how an outward-facing culture can support attainment levels and more young people on the road to success, with a positive impact on their future aspirations and choices
- promoting how important a wide range of external links are to the vision of a school in the 21st century
- disseminating the outcome through direct engagement with local school clusters and through the events and publications of key school/education networks
The main undertaking of the Fellowship will be individuals planning their own programme for two days a week over two terms and then communicating the outcome within their own school, with their local partners and on national platforms. The plan they develop should enable them to respond to the requirements and potential of their own school’s circumstances.
In support of those individual project plans the Fellowship will aim to offer support through a network of contacts and resources to draw on during the programme.