The GPP provides a clear 3 year development plan based on the 15 criteria used for accreditation as a ‘Thinking School’ and the 5 additional criteria used for accreditation as an ‘Advanced Thinking School’. It then provides a professional development framework using ‘A’, ‘T’, ‘E’ as its structure. Teachers, Leaders and Support Staff will therefore receive support, guidance and instruction in the following 3 areas:

• Assessment – How to integrate all aspects of assessment, recording, reporting, tracking and monitoring. This will be tailored to the context of the specific schools and will be fully embracing of variations is assessment practices. The starting point here is knowing where children are on that journey to where you want them to be. Securing robust judgements will feature strongly here as will the establishment of a common conception of progress across all phases.

• Teaching – Based on robust assessment, this now turns to establishing what teaching strategies are appropriate to this assessment such that children’s learning can be taken forward effectively and sufficiently. Here, teachers will gain access to the wealth of support provided by TSI in the identification and selection of appropriate cognitive tools. Central to this process is showing children up front exactly what success actually looks like in the change from where they are to where they need to be.

• Evaluation – Through the use of a simple, robust internationally acknowledged metric, aligned to Professor Burden’s influential ‘Myself as a Learner Scale’, schools will be shown how to further develop the skills of impact measurement in the wider sense to include academic achievement and personal growth. Again, this will be fully embracing of variations in assessment practice. Teachers will be shown how to develop as researching professionals (rather than professional researchers). The evaluation process is based on all children getting a year’s improvement for a year’s teaching, and knowing exactly what that looks like. In addition, the 3 year evaluation / QA will be provided by the CEDU team (if schools wish to pursue accreditation) from Exeter University, a high ranking Russell Group university. Other potential benefits of accreditation include:

1. High status in the educational community
2. Entry to a select network of centres of excellence
3. Key stakeholder (staff, parents, governors) ownership and commitment
4. Pupil identification with and sharing of success
5. A sense of pride in accomplishment
6. A celebration of leading edge school culture and ethos
7. The enhancement of teachers’ sense of professional achievement
8. An incentive for setting high expectations
9. The communication of good practice to other schools and the wider community
10. The arousal of media interest and general public recognition
11. Heightened emphasis to the importance of cognitive development within the culture of the team of schools
12. A guide to further development as part of a self-improving system
13. Opportunities to be involved with further research.