ASCL partnerships
ASCL has for many years worked with a range of companies as commercial partners and it’s been a great pleasure to have been involved in this aspect of ASCL’s work. We’ve always taken these partnerships very seriously.
We need to ensure that our members trust our view about the efficacy of the products and services being offered and that we have undertaken due diligence to ensure what is provided is of a high quality and represents good value for money.
The process of becoming an ASCL partner involves careful negotiation and discussion to establish the provider’s approach and so that we can understand what is on offer. We try to choose the group of partners so that they cover a broad range of areas school leaders would find useful in running their schools.
Once we have reached agreement we work hard to make sure the partnership becomes a genuine relationship. We want to make sure the partner gets the most benefit from working with ASCL and we help them to understand what our members need now and in the future. Our partners bring specialist expertise in their field to ASCL too, so it is very much a two-way process.
It’s particularly pleasing when partners renew and extend their relationship with ASCL. This means we can continue to work with them over the longer term. One such partner is GCSEPod. Extended partnership allows us to build on that relationship and work more strategically. With everything that has unfolded this year, having that secure relationship meant we could confidently recommend GCSEPod as a provider to support schools with blended learning for pupils working at home, and as a way to ensure they were able to catch up work they had missed.
We try to engage with colleagues at our partners as widely as possible. I’ve had the privilege of meeting key staff at GCSEPod and seen how they go about the production of their ‘pods’. I’ve sat in on production sessions and was incredibly impressed with the care being taken over the details and focus of the content. GCSEPod uses highly skilled and experienced teachers to develop the materials across its content.
ASCL has been delighted to work with GCSEPod over several years now and we look forward to a continued successful partnership.
Duncan Baldwin
Deputy Director of Policy, ASCL