Networking

• The National College in your region
  • Networking and collaboration in the North region
  • Your contacts in the North region
  • Networking and collaboration in the Central region
  • Your contacts in the Central region
  • Networking and collaboration in the South region
  • Your contacts in the South region
  • Chairs of Headteacher Groups Network

Chairs of Headteacher Groups Network

The Chairs of Headteacher Groups Network enables you to share, support and influence expertise and best practice with other headteachers in your region. Through the network, the National College facilitates communication across localities, which enables you to help each other find solutions to local issues and to discover how different headteacher groups are organised.

Give your headteacher group a voice

Most headteachers are part of a local area headteacher group. In order to make them more aware, effective and influential in policies and practice at local, regional and national level the network will:

• be the headteachers' voice of practice to the Department for Education
• provide a forum for consultation, communication and collaboration with other organisations, agencies and associations
• support and inform by learning from and sharing knowledge, ideas, information and contacts with other headteacher groups
• nurture a culture of networking and school-to-school support

In addition to our regional gatherings, we have now established a national steering group, which comprises two representatives from each region. The purpose of this group is to bring these representatives together to support each other and gain a national view of what is happening across the regions.

The national board will be established in January 2012 and representatives will be drawn from regional groups who are meeting in the autumn term.

Forthcoming regional meetings

• East Midlands: 22 February 2012, 9.30am–12.30pm
• Yorkshire and the Humber: 8 March 2012, Allerton Bywater, Castleford
• North East: 20 April 2012, Lord Lawson of Beamish School, Birtley

If you would like to attend one of these meetings, email chairs-network@nationalcollege.org.uk with your full name, establishment, email address and local authority.

Online network group

The Chairs of headteacher associations online network group is a professional community that offers you the chance to connect with other heads associations in schools, early years settings and children’s services within and across local authorities.

As part of the nationwide online network, it will help you:

• easily find and connect with other chairs and representatives of heads associations
• ask other chairs for advice on heads association issues or challenges
• participate in online discussions and post questions of your own

To get started, sign in and update your personal profile to show other members your role and interests then visit the chairs group.

Previous events

Spring 2011 regional meetings

23 March, London
Chairs and representatives of headteacher groups from all phases and school types met at the Department for Education to plan the next stage of the development of the chairs network. It was encouraging to see so many chairs volunteering to join the steering group meeting, reflecting the growing belief in the importance of the need for this group.

Issues discussed included how the network can fill the vacuum of influence and communication that currently exists in the region, the increasing diversification of the school landscape, the reduced capacity and impact of local authorities and key issues currently facing schools, such as reducing financial resources and the English Baccalaureate.

• Meeting minutes

18 March, South West
Heads of associations representing over half the local authorities in the South West attended this meeting. National College Strategic Director Maggie Farrar held an open exchange, with contributions on the theme of current challenges to leaders. A key area is maintaining headteacher collaboration in the current climate to benefit all learners.

• Meeting minutes

2 February, Yorkshire and the Humber
This was the largest chairs meeting in the region to date, and represented the majority of local authorities within the region. The meeting focused on updates regarding the White Paper and teaching schools, sharing developing practice from within the region (including chairs of governors training), and exploring the College's programme offering with speakers from Tomorrow’s Heads.

• Meeting minutes

2 February, North East
The theme of this meeting was ‘doing more with less’. Feedback was very positive, particularly concerning visiting speakers from the Midlands and the school business managers group. Attendees included primary headteacher representatives, as well as colleagues from the secondary and independent schools.

Resources from the meeting are available in the Chairs of headteacher associations group in the online network. If you’re not already a member of the group, simply log in using your National College username and password and select ‘Join this group’.

• Primary meeting minutes
• Secondary meeting minutes

Further information

If you would like more information about the chairs' network, please email chairs-network@nationalcollege.org.uk or contact your regional leader.

If you are a chairperson, vice chair, deputy or secretary and would like to be kept informed of events within your region, or if you are no longer a chair, please let us know by emailing us at chairs-network@nationalcollege.org.uk.