Guidance on applying to SSIF:

for MATs, LAs and Teaching Schools

Acronym buster Slide 2
Top tips for applicants Slide 3
What’s new for round 3 Slide 4
Agreed priorities for round 3 Slide 5
SSID Contact details Slide 6
 Acronym buster
SSIF - Strategic School Improvement Fund
Who administers the fund? The DfE
It’s aim? To address strategic school improvement priorities for groups of schools.
What does it support? A broad range of school improvement activities including, but not limited to,
improving teaching methods and approaches, leadership, governance and financial health and efficiency
Who can apply? Teaching schools, LAs and MATs (to support a group of eligible schools).

SRIBs - Sub-Regional Improvement Boards

What are they? These are sub-regional partnership boards which are made up of the Regional Schools
Commissioner, Local Authorities, the Teaching School Council and Dioceses that work collaboratively
with schools to bring local intelligence to identify SSIF priorities.
What are the regions? In SESL, there are 5 in total which cover the following regions: SW London; SE
London; Surrey, Sussex, and Brighton/Hove; Kent and Medway; and Hampshire and the Solent.

SSID - Strategic School Improvement Delivery Hub

Who are they? This is the lead Teaching School commissioned by the TSC to help co-ordinate the
bidding process in each sub-region.
What’s their role? They engage with all potential applicants to coordinate applications to ensure that they
meet the local priorities, encourage collaboration and avoid duplication.
 Top tips for applicants
1. Demonstrate a deep understanding of the priority your application is addressing.
2. Show the supported schools are most in need of support by comparing school statistics to your LA and
national ones (the SSIDs can provide applicants with lists of eligible schools).
3. Focus your application on improving specific pupil outcomes, not generic approaches to improving
schools or the quality of teaching/learning
4. Set out a specific and structured programme of work that SSIF would fund, underpinned by a clear
rationale and theory of change for what those activities will improve and how they will address the need,
supported by a clear and credible evidence base.
5. For each part of the proposed project, provide clarity on exactly which organisation will deliver the
school improvement activity along with specific and relevant evidence of their track record in delivering
impact from similar interventions.
6. Ensure monitoring systems and processes are robust and clear to show how you will measure impact
throughout the project and that you are monitoring risks involved.
7. Demonstrate how your project is sustainable after the funding ends including plans for embedding
practices and ensuring clear accountabilities.
8. Provide evidence of value for money, this could be shown through numerical costs savings achieved or
though explanation of costs (particularly when high) and design an overall delivery model in which
investment is proportionate to the impact to be achieved.
 What’s new for Round 3?
Eligible Schools
1. Eligibility criteria is now based on both 2015/16 and 2016/17 performance data: the performance data for
KS4 and 16-18 is due to be published on 25 January 2018. Schools are eligible if they meet one or more of the
eligibility criteria based on either year’s data. Applicants should use local intelligence to determine whether
schools meet the newly-introduced early years criterion E15, the data for which is not published at school
level.

2. Post-16 academies are now eligible to receive SSIF funding

3. New eligibility criterion, E15: we are encouraging applications that focus on increasing the proportion of
children achieving a good level of development and/or a good level of literacy and numeracy at the end of the
Early Years Foundation Stage
 What’s new for Round 3?
Applications
1. Stronger steers to potential applicants on the types of applications we are particularly interested in funding:
Applications should focus on those areas identified as local priorities (see map- slide 6) for improvement in their area and
match the needs of the schools involved.
We particularly welcome applications that deliver: (further information can be found on the what we will fund page on
GOV.UK)
• Improvements in curriculum design and teaching
• Improvements in the standard of language, literacy and numeracy in reception
• Supporting improvements in the teaching of English
• Supporting improvements in the teaching of mathematics
• Supporting schools to deliver the English Baccalaureate
• Improvements in the performance of a school in relation to its disadvantaged pupils
• Increased numbers of high quality, experienced teachers working in challenging schools
• Improvements in the attainment of pupils with SEND
• Improvements to how schools use their resources more effectively including to improve social mobility
• Improvements in teacher capacity to focus on better pupil outcomes

2. An increased focus in our assessment criteria on a range of issues including: the track record of providers in
delivering similar improvement programmes to those in their applications; how any impact on teacher workload will be
managed; the capacity and capability of supported schools to benefit from the improvement programmes, particularly where
they run simultaneously.
 What’s new for Round 3?
How to apply
1. To avoid duplication and help with sub-regional co-ordination of applications, we are asking teaching schools,
multi-academy trusts and local authority applicants to make their SSIDs (slide 8) aware of their intention to
submit an application(s) and to discuss schools that are eligible for support.

2. Multi-academy trust applicants should also continue to keep their contacts in their regional schools
commissioner’s office appraised of their intention to submit an application.

3. Further guidance on how to apply can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/strategic-school-improvement-fund

SW London
1. Progress for
Disadvantaged pupils at
KS4 across SW London
2. KS5 across SW
London
3. Increasing capacity to
support pupils with SEND
to reduce mobility and
improve transitions
4. Improving transition for
Hampshire and the Solent
1. Improving progress and
outcomes for KS2 maths
across the sub-region.
2. Improving outcomes in
reading and writing at
KS2 in Portsmouth
3. Improving outcomes at
KS2 in Gosport
4. Improving progress and
attainment at KS4,
specifically in
Basingstoke,
Southampton and the
Isle of Wight
5. Achievement of SEN
pupils in mainstream
settings in Portsmouth
6. Progress of
disadvantaged pupils at
KS4 across the sub-
region
7. Improving rates of
attendance and inclusion
for the most vulnerable
pupils in Hampshire, with 1.
an initial focus on primary
2.
Agreed Priorities for Round 3 SSIF
pupils from KS2 to KS3 in SE London 7. KS5 attainment and progress across
SW London 1. Increasing the number of pupils reaching qualification type but particularly academic for
5. Progress of “greater depth” and narrowing the gap across Greenwich and Lewisham, applied general for
Underperforming black and Early Years Foundation Stage to KS2 Lewisham and Bromley and tech level for
other minority ethnic groups 2. Achievement of black Caribbean pupils Lambeth, Lewisham and Bromley
in SW London. particularly at Key Stage 4 8. Governance, focused on making sure the
3. Achievement of white and mixed race working membership of governing bodies is
class/FSM pupils, particularly at KS4 appropriately refreshed and that governors are
4. Performance of pupils in SEND Support fully able to hold school leadership to account
5. Recruiting and retaining good quality teachers 9. Pupils with English as an additional language,
across South London – NQTs to senior leaders particularly in Bromley
6. Pupil mobility – improvement to induction and
support
Kent and Medway
1. KS4 performance for
disadvantaged pupils
across the sub-region,
particularly in maths.
2. KS4 performance in
Thanet, focusing on the
transition from KS2 to KS3.
3. KS2 in Medway and
Gravesham, especially in
reading.
4. Performance and progress
of disadvantaged pupils at
KS2 maths across the sub-
region.
5. Rates of inclusion in
Medway.
6. Attainment and progress at
KS5 across all areas.
7. Narrowing the gap in early
years literacy, with a
particular focus on
language skills.
Surrey, Sussex and Brighton and Hove 3. Improving outcomes at KS2 in Crawley
Improving progress and outcomes for KS2 maths, particularly 4. Improvements outcomes at KS2 and KS4, in coastal areas,
in Surrey, East Sussex, Brighton and Hove . Absence and specifically Hastings and environs
exclusions of vulnerable groups in primary and secondary 5. Narrowing the gap in early years literacy along the Sussex Italicised font = amended/ newly added
schools, and particularly disadvantaged and SEN pupils coast priority from R2
along the East and West Sussex coast and Brighton and 6. Improving KS5 outcome in STEM subjects in the Gatwick Ones in red are priorities that received
Hove. Diamond a successful bid in round 2. If you’d like
Improving outcomes and narrowing the gap or disadvantaged 7. Improving KS2 writing outcomes across the sub-region
pupils at the end KS2 and KS4.
to further address a priority in red,
please consult with your SSID first.
 SSID Contact Details
Sub Region SSID Lead Contact Name Contact details

m.airey@darrickwood.bromley.sch.uk
South East London Darrick Wood School Martin Airey

Chesterton School
South West London Denys Wallace dwallace@chestnutgrove.wandsworth.sch.uk
(interim basis)

Kent and Medway Highworth School Lesley Donald l.donald@highworth.kent.sch.uk

West Sussex and The Pavilion Teaching

Ellen Mulvihill
Brighton and Hove School Alliance
ellen@pavilionanddowns.co.uk

Surrey and East St John the Baptist

Steve Poole
Sussex School
sp@stevepooleconsultancy.com

Hampshire and the

Thornden School Amanda Parry
Solent
a.parry@thornden.hants.sch.uk