Can you help our RSA Academies to innovate?

A key priority for RSA’s Family of Academies is to support innovation in teaching and learning, through spirit of open-minded enquiry. In doing this, we aim to develop new approaches to education that have potential to influence the practices of many of other schools. In this way, our academies provide fantastic platforms for research and development projects with potential for system-wide replication. RSAA’s innovation strategy is led by our Director of Education Joe Hallgarten.

During the summer we met with a small number of staff, governors and RSA Fellows to agree a set of overarching themes and four priority areas. We are now developing ideas for projects in two of these areas:

• Strengthening family engagement, especially amongst ‘not yet reached’ parents

• Making and designing for life: new approaches to design and technology learning

We are now talking to teachers in all four schools to understand more about their existing practices, values and ambitions relating to each theme. Our next step will be to begin to design projects which will take place during 2014. We would welcome the engagement of Fellows in this process.

If you are keen to offer voluntary support for our family of academies, are passionate about innovation, and have some expertise for one of the two project areas, then please contact joe.hallgarten@rsa.org.uk.  There will be a number of ways to support the design process, from one-off advice to more sustained engagement. So if you have one hour or one hundred days to spare, please get in touch.

To hear ‘what about tomorrow?’ a podcast created by students at the RSA Academies on the theme of uncertainty, visit the website here.