Advanced skills teachers

AST activity

The role of the AST is primarily to improve teaching and learning and to advance specialist pedagogy through coaching teachers in other schools. The majority of their outreach time (30 days per year) must be focused on this area. However, ASTs can be used for a number of other pedagogical development activities including: central and school-based training; presentations; project assignments; and whole-school initiatives. Any work outside their own school-based role must come out of their allocated days.

ASTs commit to a contract to support improvement in pupil achievement and teacher development – contracts are usually for 10 days over 10 weeks
ASTs work to terms and conditions of leadership spine
an outreach day is a full day in another school. Preparation time must be carefully planned by AST with outreach school – usually partly in school with teachers and after school.
all external paper work expected from ASTs is minimal but crucial and must be emailed to Val Roig vroig@ealing.gov.uk. N.B Names of individual staff must not be used in correspondence. Only statements of actions and impact can be reported (not judgements on individual performance)
all outreach coaching relationship are confidential and this must be made explicit at start of work with individual teachers
ASTs should establish regular short meetings with HT/SMT during each visit to report on activities undertaken and any concerns with practical arrangements
any serious placement concerns should be reported to Julie Lewis on (020) 8825 6473

AST professional development

ASTs will be invited to all relevant events relating to the development of subject pedagogy and professional skills. They are expected to be leaders in their field and to offer demonstration lessons outside their allocated outreach time. They are also expected to take an active part in borough projects with lead teachers.

Deployment

i) From September 2006 all ASTs will be deployed to support schools in conjunction with allocated days of consultant support - i.e. in relation to school 'level' of support required. In the first instance, the primary and secondary strategy managers should have oversight of AST allocations to schools. Sips and SIPs will obviously have a key role in steering AST support and evaluating the impact of AST outreach work. (sip = school improvement professional, SIP = School Improvement Partner)

ii) AST outreach is free to schools.

iii) Outreach contracts for a placement should be drawn up by LA lead for each school. Contracts should be drawn up with LA/HT/SMT of outreach school and AST.

Administration

i) Val Roig is the AST administrator responsible for communications, contracts, evaluations, visit forms, profiles, etc. She will always send correspondence to the attached sip for the outreach school so that input and impact can be effectively measured. From September 2006 secondary AST information will be sent first to the secondary strategy manager and then to formally attached SIPs. Contact: vroig@ealing.gov.uk

Outreach schools – AST deployment protocols

ASTs have met national assessment criteria and are high performing practitioners. They will be matched and offered to schools according to needs but schools may also request AST support from the local authority. The ASTs' particular skills should be discussed at the contract stage and used to best effect in accelerating teaching and learning in the school.

A contract should be completed, signed by AST and school at the first meeting and sent to jlewis@ealing.gov.uk
Outreach schools must be able to support the three stage coaching model used by ASTs - i.e. by timetabling appropriate planning and review time with staff involved.
Outreach schools should assign a senior leader to meet with the AST at the end of each outreach day to discuss activities undertaken.
Outreach schools should complete a final evaluation of AST impact at the end of the contract and send this to vroig@ealing.gov.uk
Any concerns with individual ASTs should be raised with Julie Lewis tel: (020) 8825 6473

Future of ASTs

i) The AST role is likely to stay although the funding stream for expansion is not yet clear. The role is distinctive from the new Excellent Teacher in its outreach function and is key to building lateral capacity. In this respect we would be encouraging schools to think about finding creative financial solutions to create cluster-based ASTs by pooling resources to target particular improvement initiatives.

Please email me if you have any queries, further thoughts, proposals about the future of ASTs.

Julie Lewis
School Improvement Adviser – CPD
Schools Service
LB Ealing Perceval House
2nd Floor NE
Ealing
W5 2HL