TLN National SMSC Secondary Leaders Network

The Linking Network and its team of experienced advisory teachers have been successfully supporting Bradford schools to promote and enhance SMSC provision for two decades. In 2024, we decided to go national, and now Secondary colleagues who lead on SMSC  from all across England join us in our termly meetings.

Our FREE SMSC Leaders network helps you to:

• Engage in dialogue about issues that really matter to students
• Keep up to date with the latest developments
• Develop confidence in your leadership area
• Have access to free resources and advice

Our recent meeting in January was an opportunity to address a range of different themes pertinent to SMSC provision.

We kicked off the session by looking at recent Ofsted reports from some of the local areas of people attending – for example, Bradford, Leicester and Bolton. The aim is to see if we spot any trends in Ofsted commentary or focus, and we noted these areas were often addressed :

•  Understanding of others- including other faiths / beliefs and cultures.
• Curriculum responding to the needs of students
• Participation in enrichment / extracurricular activities
• Secure understanding of British Values
• Developing Strength of Character
• Preparing for life after school

We then signposted attendees to a useful blog by former HMI and Ofsted Inspector, Adrian Gray, entitled How Ofsted Assess Personal Development: An Expert Guide

Following this, we spent some time summarising and discussing the main findings of two recent significant reports

1. Runnymede Report – Islamophobia : the intensification of racism against Muslim Communities in the UK
2. British Futures/ Belong/ Together – After The Riots – Building The Foundations For Social Cohesion.

We also signposted attendees to useful resources including our Secondary Schools Linking resources, our Seeing The Bigger Picture assembly and many others. We finished with an opportunity for everyone in attendance to share school speakers or programmes they have found impactful in terms of SMSC development at their own schools. This led to a really useful list of suggestions which was provided to everyone in our follow up email.

If you lead SMSC / Personal Development or have a special interest in these areas, then we would like to invite you to join our SMSC Network. Our next meeting will be in the summer term. 

You have a choice to attend on one of the dates below.

Tuesday July 8th at 4.00pm – 5.00pm

or

Thursday 10th July at 3:30-4:30pm

If you would like to receive an invitation to our next national SMSC Leaders network meeting, or require further information or have any questions, please email smscnetwork@thelinkingnetwork.org.uk