Challenge Partners

As a school, we believe that self-reflecting is an effective way to ensure that we continue to improve and secure the best outcomes for our children. Challenge Partners is a teacher-led national network of schools focused on improving school performance through peer-to- peer challenge and knowledge sharing. Each school involved with Challenge Partners receives an annual Quality Assurance Review. This review is a peer review involving senior leaders from other schools in the partnership. The review focuses on School Improvement Strategies, Quality of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and Outcomes for Pupils.

During the review, the senior leaders and the visiting review team visit each class, followed by an in-depth discussion on the practice observed. Outcomes from the review are agreed between the school and the review team. Review reports are best viewed as a summary of conversations between teaching professionals during three days spent at a school.

A Challenge Partner review is different from other external inspections such as Ofsted and Local Authority reports. Additionally, due to the review’s focus on teaching and learning, it does not consider areas such as safeguarding or governance and its outcomes cannot be directly comparable to an Ofsted inspection.

Lincolnshire Hub

Westgate Academy leads the Challenge Partners Lincolnshire Hub whereby a collaboration of local schools, working together, secure improvements and personal development on shared priorities.  Currently our growing alliance is made up of 6 schools;

• Westgate Academy https://www.westgateacademy.co.uk/
• Manor Leas Junior Academy, https://www.manor-leas-junior.lincs.sch.uk
• Sir Francis Hill Community Primary, https://www.sir-francis-hill.lincs.sch.uk
• North Kesteven Academy, https://nkacademy.co.uk/
• Harrowby Church of England Infant School, https://www.harrowbyinfant.co.uk/
• The Pilgrim School, https://www.pilgrim.lincs.sch.uk/

One of our priorities is to create a sense of community. We achieve this through establishing effective channels of communication. Each school has allocated a member of staff to our steering group, whose role is to encourage greater collaboration and to establish a “personal approach”. 

As a hub, we are committed to collaborating with each other in order to raise outcomes for our pupils.  Our meetings are structured so that they address our common priorities, and the meetings give members the opportunity to share practice and work together. 

Schools have found taking part in QA Reviews at their own and other settings to be of immense value. Through receiving and giving positive dialogue about what is going well and areas for development and identifying support needs, senior leaders have been able to implement improvement strategies into their own schools

For details about membership please contact Reece Breakell, Lincolnshire Hub Manager or James Kelwick, Senior Partner for Challenge Partners Lincolnshire, in the first instance via enquiries@westgate.lincs.sch.uk