As the 2022/23 academic year comes to a close, we thought it would be useful to share with our community (and extended community), what our plans and strategy are for the 2023/24 academic year.

All of our plans have been gauged through data collected, feedback given, social media reviews and through our network committee discussions at our strategy day in June.

Our key network-wide priorities for the 2023/24 academic year are:

• Execute well organised and run events.
• Build and grow our community.
• Increase the number of Teach First ambassadors engaging with our network.
• Continue to develop our wider content and collaborations.

We have explained what this will look like in the form of our ‘ways of working’. Our ways of working are our ‘how’ – how we achieve our why and our vision.

Networking

At our strategy day we devised our three year plan and how we would implement this. We focused on our events, socials, wider content, collaborations and network as a whole. Our first year is all about growth and establishing ourselves. We will be led by our values of community, empathy, empowerment, inclusivity, integrity and passion.

We will continue to develop and support our volunteers of network leaders, and our specialist volunteers provided by our partner, ECnet. We will have clear lines of communication, ways of working, wellbeing guidelines and induction processes for new volunteers. We also strongly believe in rewarding, recognising and thanking our volunteers including our speakers; we will be arranging celebration events at the end of the year to thank our speakers.

Throughout next year, we are seeking opportunities to represent ourselves through exhibiting and speaking at events hosted by other organisations. If you know of some events and conferences that you think we should be at, then do get in touch.

Connecting

Our events will be our main focus of content for next year. Again, our events are shaped by the feedback from our community. We have planned a mixture of face-to-face and virtual events. Our planned face to face events include the following:

• Lunch and Lead Meet, Birmingham – Saturday 21st October 2023
• Leadership Day, London – Saturday 24th February 2024
• Lunch and Lead Meet, Manchester – Saturday 20th April 2024

Our face-to-face events will also include social networking and smaller socials to follow up these events and to keep the conversation going. Our planned virtual events include the following:

• ‘Get that Leadership Job’ Online Workshop – Thursday 16th November 2023
• Online Unconference – Thursday 18th and Saturday 20th January 2024
• International Women’s Day Event (collaboration with other networks) – Thursday 7th March 2024
• Step Up’s First Birthday – Monday 10th June 2024

We are also planning some celebration events in June and July for our volunteers and speakers. Something we are also considering as a committee is how do we keep the connection going after these events. This is something that will tie into the launch of our regional networks from January 2024.

Supporting

Our leadership directory will continue to be updated, ensuring the very best resources are being shared. We will take the feedback of our community onboard. We will begin to start a weekly shout out for a resource within our directory.

As mentioned below, we will also be developing our coaching and training offer to share best practice and support our community members in developing their leadership career.

Collaborating

We have continued to build strong links with other networks to act as a signposting point for our community. In some cases there might be other networks which you may also wish to engage with, or are better placed to support you rather than ourselves. We are pleased to be collaborating and linking with WomenEd, Diverse Educators, Heads Up 4 HTs, EdConnect and Honeyguide School Leader Support.

Something else we are in the process of developing is our coaching and training collaborations. We already have many coaches and trainers within our community, offering their services. We are planning on working with such people and organisations to bring benefits to our Step Up community. This could include bespoke cohorts, discounts and our own training programmes that we design. Please do watch this space and keep an eye on our e-newsletter.

We continue to partner with Teach First and ECnet to support the development of our network also. We are also seeking out potential sponsors to support our network.

Sharing

We are continuing to call for blogs from our community. We wish to share one blog a week every Wednesday morning. If you wish to share one, then get in touch with Christine, one of our network leaders.

Our E-Newsletter will be sent out on the first Saturday of each month. Our E-Newsletter will be structured in the format of our ways of working.

Adam (one of our network leaders) is also planning the launch of a Step Up Podcast, as another way of people sharing their leadership stories, journeys and tips. We aim to start recording and releasing this in 2024.

We look forward to developing our content for you, and look forward to working with you as to how we can shape this coming year.