How do you embed excellence into schools’ everyday practices, not as an incidental or an accident, but as an actual ethic?

Whilst most educators are familiar with Austin’s Butterfly and the principles of improvement through critique towards excellence, fewer are aware of the foundations of that approach are Ron Berger’s Ethic of Excellence.  The concept of children being enabled to do their very best, to achieve more than they can possibly imagine is one which we would all like as an ethic in our schools.  Through her work, Sonia Thompson has created a toolkit which will enable your school to embed an Ethic of Excellence throughout all of its practice.  She is committed to using evidence-informed practice to improve outcomes particularly for disadvantaged pupils.

Sonia is Director of the Research School and also Headteacher at St Matthew’s CE Teaching School.  She is an SLE for English and School Improvement and an accredited Talk for Writing Training Centre lead.  She is a member of the steering group for the National tutoring Programme and an Advisory Board Member for OU/UKLA Reading for Pleasure website.  She was a judge of the UKLA book awards 2020 and the Empathy Lab Books 2020.  She is a frequent speaker at conferences on literacy, curriculum and reading for pleasure.  

This two-part course will explore what Sonia summarises as ‘a moral imperative to strive towards greatness’.  She will unpick how to use Berger’s three toolboxes to deliberately craft:

• A School Culture of Excellence
• Work of Excellence
• Teaching of Excellence

Delegates will learn how to use active ingredients to move the Berger’s ‘Ethic of Excellence’ strategies forward.