This page provides details about previous seminars, including thinkpieces, post-seminar reports, slide presentations and project updates.
FutureSight is part of an international project undertaken with the OECD, the DfES Innovation Unit and Demos, developing the OECD Schooling for Tomorrow initiative. This initiative explores the nature of schools and their response to the challenges of the 21st century.
FutureSight: Schooling for tomorrow (overview) 
(2.4mb, 31 slides) Warning: large file
Trends and scenarios (1.1mb, 18 slides) Warning: large file
Speech by Valerie Hannon, DfES Innovation Unit (1.5mb, 16 slides) Warning: large file
The FutureSight Toolkit helps you consider how children of 2020 will want to learn, and how schools will need to change to meet those needs.
For more information and to order a toolkit please visit our FutureSight page.
Creativity for learning is much more than an allocation of more time for humanities and the arts. It is about developing pupils’ creative thinking and behaviour through a broad, rich curriculum involving cross-curricular projects.
Developing creativity for learning in the primary curriculum 
(397kb, 56 pages)
This is a practical guide on how to encourage creative learning through curriculum change so that schools can gain the confidence to review and develop their own practice.
View more details of our work on creativity, including information about previous seminars.
Whilst the concept of assessment for learning seems one of common sense, it demands significant shifts in practice for schools and teachers. This event is the first of two seminars (November 2004 and March 2005) that will explore what research tells us about how leaders have embedded formative assessment practices and changed the culture of teaching and learning. Both seminars will be based around the experience of schools involved in the major ESRC project, which emerged from the work of Black and Williams’s King’s College Project, Inside the Black Box.
Action planning questionnaire (49kb, 2 pages)
Presentation: Introduction to Assessment for Learning (Colin Conner, NCSL) (112kb, 9 slides)
Presentation: Leading assessment for learning: practical strategies, challenges and ongoing research (Mary James, University of Cambridge) (130kb, 21 slides)
Please note that some graphs have been removed from this presentation to minimise the file size. If you would like the full version, please email research@ncsl.org.uk with your request.
Presentations from individual schools are also available from this address.
This was the second of two linked seminars that explored what research tells us about how leaders have embedded formative assessment practices and changed the culture of teaching and learning. Participants brought back their learning from in-school work to develop their thinking and guidance for others on what leading assessment for learning means.
In a rare visit to the UK, Richard Boyatzis, renowned researcher in the field of emotional intelligence, worked with school leaders to explore the significance of emotions in the workplace. He led a powerful day, in partnership with Professor John West-Burnham, also a leading figure in the field of interpersonal and emotionally intelligent leadership.
Pre-seminar thinkpiece:Leadership development and personal effectiveness, John West-Burnham (130kb, 8 pages)
Pre-seminar thinkpiece: Coaching can work but doesn't always, Richard Boyatzis (134kb, 9 pages)
Following an initial seminar in November 2003, NCSL has been working with school leaders, agencies and community groups to develop understanding of what community leadership means and what it involves. This seminar was part of our ongoing work and gave school leaders the opportunity to share practice and learn from others about how wider community involvement has resulted in better outcomes for children, young people and families.
Pre-seminar thinkpiece:Education leadership and social capital, George Otero and John West-Burnham (144 kb, 12 pages)
Seminar handout: Better together, John West-Burnham (70kb, 9 pages)
Revisions to the Ofsted framework have made specific links to school self-evaluation and a heightened professional relationship between schools' systems of review and accountability. With contributions from John Dunford, General Secretary of the Secondary Heads’ Association, this seminar was an opportunity to relate practical experience to policy thinking. It covered the following issues:
Presentation: Creative self-review and accountability, John Dunford (129kb, 12 slides)
Presentation: Creative self-review, John MacBeath (184kb, 26 slides)
An increasing number of schools are finding imaginative and creative pathways for students post-14. These pathways overcome organisational barriers to flexibility and have the potential to enhance motivation and achievement for all pupils.
This seminar offered an opportunity to look at innovative practice and explore how schools are making the changes, by working together or with other organisations, or by re-organising internally. Schools presented examples of their innovative practice, for criticism and discussion.
A discussion about schools in challenging circumstances will often focus on the difficulties. Yet leaders who work in such schools have some of the richest stories to tell. We wanted to discover what makes the work so rewarding and challenging. The event aimed to explore further the positive aspects of leading a school in challenging circumstances. A key part of this was for us to capture some of the unique stories from such schools, which may serve as an inspiration to others in similar schools.
This seminar enabled participants to begin developing an understanding of stories and narratives in organisational life; their importance as vehicles of communication, learning and leadership; and their uses as windows into organisational politics and culture. The keynote speaker was Yiannis Gabriel, Chair of Organisational Theory at Imperial College, London.
(100kb, 7 pages)The significance of a school's context is now widely acknowledged and much research has been undertaken in a range of environments, particularly in urban and challenged schools. Although coastal communities differ enormously, this seminar sought to identify common challenges facing school leaders in these locations.
For further information, visit the coastal schools page.
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