National Collaborative

The Innovation Unit partnered with NESTA's Learning programme to co-develop the National Collaborative 2005. It was an initiative aimed at influencing pupils considered hardest to teach. NESTA's contribution included expertise from the worlds of science and technology, financial support for individual schools and the promotion of new teaching and learning strategies.

The objectives of the National Collaborative 2005 were:

• to raise the under-performance in the lowest attaining 20% of performers in KS3 (Year 8 moving into Year 9) and so reduce the variation of attainment within and between schools;
• to develop projects that promote sustainable innovation in learning through science and technology;
• to document processes and outcomes in such a way as to enable them to be nationally replicable.

To achieve these objectives, the National Collaborative 2005:

• focussed on projects that develop innovative and creative approaches to teaching and learning in science and technology;
• took up what we have learnt from the approaches and projects undertaken by the National Collaborative 2004 and to build on these ways of working;
• disseminated project findings according to the agreed reporting framework;
• gathered and shared performance data of participating pupils in Maths, English and Science (using the Leading Edge 2005 data model);
• engaged with expertise in the fields of science, technology and the arts made available to schools via contacts with NESTA

19 schools were involved in the National Collaborative 2005. 

National Collaborative 2004

The National Collaborative, first set up in 2004, brought together approximately 20 of the lead schools from the Leading Edge programme. Many of them were among the highest performing in the country. The group aimed to improve the academic achievement of the lowest attaining pupils by carefully tailoring innovative approaches to teaching, evaluating their effectiveness and then sharing what worked. Through a methodology of quick knowledge capture and transfer, the collaborative looked to make measurable gains for those pupils who were the hardest to reach.

A report of the National Collaborative 2004's work to January 2005 can be downloaded here (PDF, 154 Kb).

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