School partnerships alliance
FREE Membership
Join our community. We are delighted to offer S.P.A. membership to schools seeking to develop and professionalise cross sector partnerships.
Membership allows all schools in your partnership to benefit – you decide how CPD and development opportunities are used.
What does being an S.P.A member mean for your partnership?
Joining S.P.A.’s Leading Partnerships Network will provide you with:
- Expert-led training to develop the key competencies of partnership staff;
- Bespoke support to establish, improve, evaluate or scale up your partnership;
- Access to an active, supported community of peers, whether through the exchange of ideas or the contribution towards improving partnerships at system level; and
- Recognition for pursuing meaningful partnerships.
What is the full membership offer?
Overview of membership benefit strands:
| Strand 1. Competency development | Expert-led webinar programme | A programme of both live and recorded training to develop partnership staff |
| Strand 2. Bespoke support | Partnerships clinics Consultancy support | Community Q&A mobilising expert advice and peer experience in support of the specific challenges you raise One-to-one or small group sessions to develop specific aspects of your partnership |
| Strand 3. Community | Community meet-ups Innovation Hub Annual conference | Facilitated meetings to showcase partnerships and exchange ideas Contribute towards research and policy priorities and help improve partnerships at the system level A full day dedicated to knowledge exchange on the very best in partnership working |
| Strand 4. Recognition | Public display S.P.A. awards | Your partnership is permitted to use the S.P.A. member logo in its communications and can feature in S.P.A.’s online member showcase (minimum requirements apply) The very best partnerships will be identified and rewarded (from year 2) |
Strand 1. Competency development
| Expert-led webinar programme | A programme of live and recorded training to develop partnership staff in line with the Competency Framework |
Strand 2: Bespoke support
| Partnerships clinics | Community Q&A mobilising expert advice and peer experience in support of the specific challenges you raise. |
A termly opportunity for a quick-fire Q&A. Submit questions in advance and our Researcher in Residence will aim to answer them. Interactive in nature, we also encourage peer-to-peer exchange. A great way to connect with the S.P.A. community, problem share and build ideas.
| Consultancy support | One-to-one or small group sessions to develop specific aspects of your partnership. |
Where bespoke support is required, S.P.A. offers a range of consultancy options.
S.P.A.’s partnership health check
Designed to provide a 360-degree view of your partnership’s set-up, operation, and processes, providing useful insights into partners’ views that can be used to develop an action plan that will ensure the partnership can evolve. The health check can be used at various stages of the partnership journey: at inception to check building blocks and perceptions, annually to check progress or as a one off to underpin a review.
“Ask S.P.A” support call
Offers an opportunity to gain an external perspective and support on a specific area of your partnership work. Whether you are starting out or working to sustain embedded good practice, we can offer advice on a range of topics. During the call our consultant will answer your questions, challenge your thinking and make suggestions for future actions.
A half-day consultancy session
This can be used to support schools in a variety of partnership activities, from developing a theory of change, to putting in place a governance structure, undertaking a stakeholder analysis, developing a budget or more. Following application, we will contact you to learn more about your partnership context and needs and will match you to an S.P.A. consultant with the requisite expertise. The session can be delivered remotely (via phone or video call) or in-school.
Strand 3: Community
| Community meet-ups | Facilitated meetings to showcase partnerships and exchange ideas. |
In-person meetings hosted by established partnerships. You will gain an in-depth understanding of a specific partnership, have the opportunity to meet with partnership leads, hear from team and committee members, and understand more about learner impact. Each meet-up will have a distinctive focus, with sessions run around the country. In our first year, one meet-up will be held in the Spring term.
| Innovation Hub | Contribute towards research and policy priorities and help improve partnerships at the system level. |
The Innovation Hub is a space where we test and refine ideas, build solutions for sustainable practice, and elevate pockets of local good practice to national status. It acts as an incubator so that strong impactful projects can be replicated in schools in other areas, ensuring successful models have wider benefit. Over time, the Hub will help to match schools to each other.
Members can take part in projects that are of interest to them. You will work alongside sector and industry leaders and peers to gain valuable professional development that will benefit not only you and your school but partnerships across England and Wales.
In 2023 the Innovation Hub is running two projects:
Partnership toolkit creation
Building on from our school partnerships for impact guide members will have the opportunity to work with one of our key expert partners, on creating a set of high-quality tools and resources. You will have the opportunity to trial resources in school and help to curate and contextualise the offer for schools across our community.
Monitoring and evaluation
Voted recently as the number one area of interest by school partnership leads, this project will be an ongoing focus for the Innovation Hub. During 2023 we will share with you some of the latest thinking in education research, working with members of our advisory board and beyond to harness the thinking of key organisations. We will co-design monitoring and evaluation approaches with you to trial in school, instilling the confidence and skills to develop a proportional approach that provides useful information to inform decision making and guide partnerships to adapt or change.
Both projects will culminate in a published report and the sharing of research findings and ideas at an event for S.P.A. member schools.
Work of the Innovation Hub is kindly supported by our Champions – organisations that share S.P.A.’s passion and commitment to sustainable social change and the transformative effect it can have on the lives of young people.
| Annual conference | A full day dedicated to knowledge exchange on the very best in partnership working. |
Date to be announced shortly.
Strand 4: Recognition
| Public display | Your partnership is permitted to use the S.P.A. member logo in its communications and can feature in S.P.A.’s online member showcase (minimum requirements apply) |
| S.P.A. Awards | The very best partnerships will be identified and rewarded. |