Sharing Good Practice
THE 5 Ts FOR EFFECTIVE PARTNERSHIPS
BY: MEGEL BARKER
A
partnership can be legally
defined as an agreement
between two or more
people to form an alliance
for mutual benefit. Law firms are
the most common examples of
partnerships in a business sense. In
this way, partnerships are legalistic
and have clear protections afforded to
each partner.
The
concept
partnership
may
be defined as a relationship that
produces a benefit to each of the
parties involved. The Latin phrase, est
major summa partium eius, provides
a way to consider a partnership; the
sum is greater than its parts.
In education, partnerships range from
a micro level to a macro level, as well
as take many forms. This complexity
manifests itself as an alliance, a
union or a mutual partnership.
Teachers planning with other grade
level teachers, teachers meeting
with parents to address an issue
with a child, connecting with the
psychologist to identify and support
students, heads of school meeting
to develop emergency evacuation
plans, aligning with a sponsor, are all
examples of different partnerships
in school environments. The reasons
are varied and numerous, but with
mutually beneficial outcomes.
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18
Term 1 Sep - Dec 2019
Class Time
With so many competing priorities for
time, capacity and resources, schools
have to be cautious about who they
strike partnerships with, as well as the
immediate or long term benefits of
forming partnerships. Huxham (2009)
introduced the phrase collaborative
advantage to mean an outcome that is
only possible due to the collaborative
effort of the parties involved. Exploiting
the collaborative advantage present in
partnerships is considered to be the
goal of these relationships.
Armstrong
(2015)
found
that
partnerships have no direct impact on
student outcomes in Multi-Academy
Trusts (MATs). This research highlights