Oxford Diocesan Board of Education
Our organisation is the Oxford Diocesan Board of Education and then ODBE acronym for short.
Who is the best first point of contact?
That would be me, Toby Long.
What was the highlight of your summer?
I went to Salzburg, Austria with my family. It is a beautiful city. We went to see all the sites for the Sound of Music, where it was all filmed. It's a city, but it's small and it is easy to get to on foot. It's a short bus ride from the airport. It was amazing and I recommend it highly. So yes, that was my highlight from the summer.
Which method of contact you most prefer people to use
when getting in touch?
npqs@oxford.anglican.org is the best email contact because myself and Penny, our administration support, both have access to it.
Tell us a little bit about you as an organisation
Oxford Diocesan Board of Education (ODBE), serves 285 Church schools in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Milton Keynes, and Oxfordshire. We are the largest Church of England Diocese in terms of the number of schools and our organisation is there to support the Christian character and development of our Church of England schools. We aim to serve the communities in a Christ-like way so all can flourish.
Why did you choose to be a partner with Church of England
and Catholic Education Office?
We aim to develop leaders within our schools and other schools with a particular focus on succession planning for schools. We were keen to choose CEFEL because of the coaching in addition to the content. We believe that is a really important part of the offer to participants.
We love working with colleagues from across the country, not just in our Diocese but widening that out within others, the family of schools, multi-academy trusts, and Boards of Education that work with CEFEL.
Which NPQs do you offer?
We offer all of the Standard NPQs.
Which Cohort are you running?
We are running Cohort 5 for NPQLT and Cohort 6 for NPQSL, NPQLBC, NPQLTD and NPQH
Where will your learning take place?
So most of the NPQ the face-to-face elements will be taking place at Church House Oxford, which is in Kidlington, just north of Oxford City.
Church House Oxford has good links with the M40 that runs all the way through the middle of the Diocese and many people who have completed courses with the ODBE will be familiar with Church House. It is also very close to Oxford Parkway train station if anybody needs to use public transport to access Church House.
Is there anything you would like to say to somebody
who's considering an NPQ?
I would say from personal experience of having completed an NPQ in my career, it's that opportunity to learn with other people, to network and to upskill yourself, but also to support you in your current role and in future roles. I think that the coaching element of the NPQ Standard courses we are offering is that opportunity to take your learning to a deeper level and have that chance to explore and develop yourself, as well as the pupils and colleagues you work with.
