Senior Leadership have asked Faculty Leaders in my school to direct and monitor the use of gained time now that Year 11 have left. Gained time has been a subject of some contention in previous schools for me and as a consequence I really wanted expectations to be clear for everyone.

I gave it considerable thought and wanted to find a good way to get all of my team engaged and involved in the resource review and development process; whilst allowing them choice about which projects would most appeal. Tyring to be empathic about it, I felt that in their position I would be happier if I had a choice about what I could work on, and also would prefer not to be subjected to arbitrary deadlines. I would also have wanted to create something meaningful that I could put my name on and have ownership of - the sort of thing that gets talked about glowingly in job interviews!

Each teacher has gained 1100 minutes between now and the end of term. We have 100 minute lessons currently and are moving to 60 minute lessons, and homework is at the top of the school agenda at the moment, hence the top two sections. I created a table of the tasks that need doing which have come out of previous Faculty meetings and the current school change agenda, and have allocated a time value to each task in order to contain it within gained time and prevent it becoming a burden. There is scope for developing and elaborating these.

I sent out an email to my team explaining the system and they are now signing up. They will set their own deadlines and we will agree together what the success criteria are for each project.

I hope that this system will help develop a sense of ownership for Faculty improvement across the whole team. I will keep you posted on how it goes.

Gained time MFL Faculty Summer sign up sheet