Making a difference: How can schools empower every professional to play a part in school improvement
Making a difference:
How can schools empower every professional to play a part in school improvement?
A Bluewave.SWIFT white paper
January 2015
Contents
Contributors
Foreword
Introduction
The discussion
Conclusions
Case studies
Further reading
Contributors
We would like to express our thanks to the following round table participants for their time and their valuable contributions. They were:
Dr Martin Airey Head of School, Darrick Wood School, Kent
Nigel Ashley Headteacher, Meadowside Community Primary School, North Yorkshire
Debbie Barkes Headteacher, St Faith’s Infants School and CPD lead, KYRA Teaching School Alliance, Lincolnshire
Jon Boyes Deputy Headteacher, Sandwich Technology School, Kent
Louis Coiffait Chief Executive, NAHT Edge
Philippa Cordingley Chief Executive, CUREE
Professor Peter Earley Professor of Education Leadership and Management, Institute of Education
Carol Jones Specialist for Leadership and Teacher Professionalism, ASCL
Dame Reena Keeble Consultant and formerly Headteacher of Cannon Lane Primary School, Middlesex
Jonathan Walsh Strand Leader, Manor Academy, Nottinghamshire
David Weston Chief Executive, Teacher Development Trust
Denise Willis Head of Collegiate Management, Queen Ethelburga’s College, North Yorkshire
Foreword
This white paper looks at how every professional can be empowered to make a full contribution to continuous improvement in our schools.
It captures the discussions prompted by this question at the second annual Bluewave.SWIFT round table, held at the Institute of Education in London on 28 November 2014.
The discussion looked at the challenges faced by schools in this area as well as the approaches schools and the wider system could take to move towards this ideal.
It was a wide ranging, provocative and thought provoking discussion and our hope is that this white paper accurately captures that discussion and the ideas that emerged out of it.
Keith Wright
Managing Director
Bluewave.SWIFT
Introduction
Leadership has never mattered more in our schools.
But leadership isn’t just a case of a strong headteacher or senior leadership team. In order for schools to fully realise their ambitions leadership has to run through the core of an organisation and involve professionals at every level.
A school system in which every professional plays a full part in their school’s success should include at least one of the following characteristics:
expert teachers are free to learn from and with each other best about current and developing practices - within schools and across formal and informal collaborations
performance management, including appraisal, is focused firmly on professional growth
structures and systems are in place that will allow every member of staff to make a direct contribution to school improvement
there is a strong culture of distributed leadership, in which those in middle leadership and other roles are allowed to take the leadership initiative and be responsible for developing and driving through change.
Put together, these elements represent the ideal picture, but a number of major challenges are preventing schools doing this. They include:
Fragmentation. The school system is less of a system nowadays and is increasingly fragmented. Schools are encouraged to support and develop each other but in practice this is patchy. Collaboration often sits uneasily with financial priorities and even competition across schools.
Lack of distributed leadership. There is still a strong tradition of top down decision making in our schools. Even where distributed leadership is perceived to exist, full devolvement is often undermined by an unwillingness to ‘let go’. Teacher Development Trust research shows that this is restricting the role of teachers in their own development.[1]
The spectre of Ofsted. Accountability pressures 'shape and distort' professional development of school leaders, according to the Teacher Development Trust.[2] Many school leaders have spoken about how they see league tables and inspections as being the most common motivations for CPD. This view is most common amongst secondary leaders, according to the TDT.
There is too much focus on CPD “done to” teachers and not enough on the professional learning process in the work place according to CUREE’s extensive research.
So how can schools overcome these barriers and truly empower all staff to play a part in school improvement?
[1] http://tdtrust.org/teacher-development-trust-annual-report-2014/
[2] http://tdtrust.org/teacher-development-trust-annual-report-2014/
The discussion: How exactly can schools empower staff to play a full part in school improvement?
Focus on professional learning
Philippa Cordingley, chief executive of CUREE, suggested that the starting point for schools was to ensure that teaching and learning was making a difference to children.
A key way of enabling this was to focus on professional learning – not training and development on its own – for teachers.
“We do systematic teacher reviews of research about teaching and learning that makes a difference to children,” she said. “We do a lot of work and research in schools to help them identify how well they are connecting teacher learning and student learning, taking evidence of pupil learning and using this to feed teacher learning.
“We did a study for Teach First to find out what exceptional schools do to transform challenging communities. We are also doing follow up studies of schools that are not making the progress they want to make.
“CPD is an important ingredient, but what works best is professional learning”
“CPD is an important ingredient, but what works best is professional learning. The way we get power into teachers’ hands is by focusing on teachers’ day to day learning.
“We should be thinking about work based professional leaning, not CPD, and provide this through collaboration between schools. When teachers take risks together that is when they build up trust.
“Schools have rarely shared their understanding of what constitutes professional learning. Pupils are being given increasing responsibility for their own learning so that they can take control of their learning but this hasn’t been pursued in the same way for teachers.
“The point is that if we had all this pedagogy at the heart of what we teach pupils why on earth do we not have it for our teachers? Leaders should be treating their staff as their classes.
Pooling knowledge
“We are doing a series of essays for the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) looking at how we can develop ways of taking collective responsibility. ASTs (advanced skills teachers) were good but we need collective ASTs.”
“Collective discussion amongst teachers is crucial”
David Weston, Chief Executive of the Teacher Development Trust agreed that a collective approach was important. “Collective discussion amongst teachers is crucial. They need this so that they can get a clear understanding of where their students are now, what they know and what they don’t know, where they are going to take them and how they will do this.
“When you get teachers involved in clarification of pupil progress that is when teachers get really engaged. That is when they realise the difference that they can make. It lets them pool their knowledge.
“To empower staff sometimes requires leaders to take a lot of control away. Sometimes in order to empower staff you have to hand over control. But it does depend on where your school is on its journey.”
Leading the culture
David Weston cited the research of education academic Prof Viviane Robinson[1], saying the most important element of school improvement was how leaders led professional learning. “They need to show how as a school leader they are going to learn and improve practice. They literally have to give teachers time and space to do that as well,” he said.
“Leaders have to give teachers time and space to learn and improve practice”
Peter Earley, Professor of Education, Leadership and Management at the Institute of Education, agreed. “I do think that the leader’s role is to create a culture within the organisation where empowerment is an expectation,” he said. “Creating culture is the most difficult thing.
“There is some excellent practice around and we need to make sure that this becomes the norm but it is patchy at the moment.”
He suggested that creating ‘learning enriched’ schools would create that expectation of empowerment. He cited seminal 1980s research by US academic Susan Rosenholtz which characterised schools as being either learning enriched or learning impoverished institutions.[2]
“How do we ensure that all of our schools are learning enriched places? That comes back to leadership,” he asserted. “NCTL (National College of Teaching and Leadership) has been disempowered but the setting up of a Royal College of Teaching has been a positive development. This could play a part in creating a culture of professional learning in our schools.”
Dame Reena Keeble, consultant and former headteacher of Cannon Lane Primary in Middlesex, suggested that if headteachers immersed themselves in learning then this would encourage a climate of learning in the school.
“I have always called myself ‘lead learner’, not the headteacher. When I was doing my doctorate I started to understand what it was really like to be a professional learner.
“There is an issue around leadership creating a culture of professional learning”
“I think there is an issue around leadership creating that culture of professional learning. If the leader starts first then this gives the staff permission. ”
The challenge of time
Debbie Barkes, Headteacher at St Faith’s Infants School in Lincolnshire and CPD lead of the KYRA Teaching School Alliance, highlighted the practical difficulty of achieving a culture of professional learning.
“The day to day pressures that schools are under makes it difficult to make time, even if you know in your heart that it is the right thing to do,” she said. “A lot of schools that we work with at KYRA are very committed to sharing good practice but they are also concerned about their best teachers being out of the school a lot.
“The day to day pressures make it difficult to make time for professional learning, even if you know it’s the right thing to do”
“The key question for me is how practically can we do this? Most school leaders recognise the value of developing collaboration but it’s managing this practically.
“School leaders feel so accountable for everything so it is as much about empowering leaders as empowering staff.”
Need for collaboration
Jon Boyes, Deputy Headteacher at Sandwich Technology School in Kent, said collaboration was crucial. “Talk to any headteacher and they will say that collaboration is something that has got to happen. They are going to struggle going it alone. Everyone will be a part of a federation, trust or alliance in 10 years time.
“I do not think there are enough really strong, outstanding leaders in the country. In order to drive schools you need outstanding leaders. That is why multi-academy trusts will increasingly come into play.
“Leaders have to be on the ground, giving staff the capability to drive improvement. Then there has to be time to ensure that any professional development that is carried out in school translates into impact in the classroom. It takes time for that to happen.”
System failure?
Schools were faced with a fundamental challenge to their efforts to lead what the coalition government characterised as the school led, ‘self improving’ system when it came to power in 2010, Reena Keeble said.
“On a system level I do not think that we can tell schools to lead a self improving system because the structures are simply not in place,” she said. “Schools are fending for themselves. Sometimes it is hit and miss. We could recreate these systems but ministers do not want to appear to be dictating to schools.”
Accountability was a major barrier to this empowerment of leaders and teachers, said Louis Coiffait, CEO of the NAHT’s new union for middle leaders, NAHT Edge.
He said: “We did research with members of Edge. Some said that they did not want to be a head because of the spectre of Ofsted. When we asked them what CPD they needed they said that they wanted to be able to help staff look good for Ofsted. I think that neatly summed up the incentives driving the system at the moment.
“It is good that we have been given the opportunity to become a self improving system, but we needed a transition period and there has been no time for that.
“We do need support for it to be fully realised but no one is likely to think that expectations will be lower on our schools in the immediate future. Resources will be flat. It will be up to leaders, teachers and schools to help themselves.”
Keith Wright suggested that it was up to schools to take some significant risks and try to break the short term cycle referred to by Louis Coiffait.
“It is worrying that expectations could be dashed by this endless desire to scrap things and start again,” he said. “But if it is going to be a school led system then it is surely up to schools to change that cycle.”
The problem with evaluation
Martin Airey, Head of School at Darrick Wood School in Kent, suggested that teaching school status could be a significant driver of a school led system.
“Since becoming a teaching school we are doing a lot more sharing of best practice. But when I talk to staff the biggest difference is going and observing other teachers. This is something that a few years ago was not happening in the school as much as we would have liked. What they really want to do is observe someone in a context and learn from that context.”
The biggest challenges of improvement initiatives within and between schools was measuring its worth, said Martin Airey. “I am constantly thinking about how my middle leaders are going to identify what will be successful and how we will know if it has been a success,” he said.
“We need collective agreement of what success for our students means”
He continued: “We need collective agreement of what success for our students means. That’s a big driving focus for us. It’s about encouraging discussions about what makes good learning and consistency across the school.”
Time for schools to take control?
Keith Wright suggested that instead of the school improvement agenda being imposed from the top through Ofsted inspection criteria it might be time for schools to drive the agenda and define for themselves what school improvement looked like.
“Perhaps we should be saying that school improvement criteria has got to come from the bottom up and that it is up to schools which know their pupils best to define what that means to them,” he said.
Nigel Ashley, headteacher of Meadowside Community Primary School, North Yorkshire, agreed. “We are a teaching school and I am an NLE. Schools that are struggling often have a situation where CPD is not interwoven with performance management. They visit a development topic but then never go back and look at it in detail.”
He added: “We are all focusing on targets so there is no time to really change practice. What I am seeing from our teaching school work is that it now is a case that if we are going to have school led system it has got to understand how to change itself.”
“Ofsted has reached its sell-by date”
Peter Earley highlighted the work of the New Visions Group[3], which he is a member of. “We are saying that Ofsted has reached its sell-by date. It has driven schools to a situation where whatever gets inspected gets done and there is no emphasis within schools on the improvement of pedagogy. The College of Teachers might help here and give schools some strength to be able to say that they are not prepared to be as dominated by Ofsted as they are.”
Peter Earley said that about a fifth of school leaders were enthusiastic about policy changes, such as academies and teaching schools, but a significant proportion - around 45 per cent of schools – were “concerned, constrained or cynical” about such developments.[4]
“Those engaged schools are in a good position to improve. There is a clear link between schools with good results and schools that do lots of other things. Headteachers need to be driving this more instead of letting the Ofsted wagon roll over us.”
Keith Wright questioned whether there was enough space for headteachers to put their heads above the parapet and be prepared to lead school improvement in a way that wasn’t dictated by Ofsted.
“These courageous heads and SLTs are probably in the minority,” he said. “Because the timeframe for impact is so short there is almost no time to be brave. The process might take two years and the headteacher could be out of their post by then.”
Peter Earley agreed that schools in a category had no choice but to focus on standards. “Good or outstanding schools should be driving the agenda about what we understand to be a good school. Raising standards is just too narrow a definition.”
Carol Jones, Specialist for Leadership and Teacher Professionalism at ASCL, said that the impact of current accountability structures should not be underestimated.
“I think back 10 years ago when I was a relatively new head. At that time we had ASTs, the National College and networked learning opportunities which encouraged professional collaboration. This led to fantastic conferences and collaborative processes but that has been systematically destroyed by a fragmented system which has led to increased isolation for some schools and senior leaders.
“The power has been taken away and the autonomy that was spoken about doesn’t really exist, other than amongst schools that are already in a network, for example Teaching Schools and their alliances.
“There is also this assumption that ‘successful’ schools are able to support other ‘failing’ schools without it impacting on their own success. The whole system is based on a fabricated premise which emerges from an Ofsted judgement which is not always accurate. We need to return to a culture of genuine collaboration.”
Collaboration for ‘struggling’ schools is difficult, she added. “Heads and school leaders may move between being graded themselves as a one or a three and, depending on an Ofsted judgement, their own leadership journey will be affected. For example, if a school is judged as ‘requiring improvement’ it has less opportunity to participate in collaborative networks, the staff are no longer invited onto national programmes such as National; Leaders of Education or Specialist Leaders of Education. The schools that require improvement are left to sink or find their own way forward unless they’re already in a partnership.”
A crisis in teacher recruitment is adding to the collaboration challenge, Carol Jones added.
“We (ASCL) recently held a series of nine regional conferences. We asked senior leaders to indicate their experiences of teacher recruitment. In every single conference in the country the majority of headteachers said it was more difficult to recruit this year than last year and, in some cases, at any other time previously. The different training routes and communication of those routes into teaching is adding to that confusion.
“It is difficult to get people to think beyond the ‘O word’ – we should not underestimate the impact of heads and principals losing their jobs because of results. This creates a climate of fear and anxiety for most school leaders. When Ofsted leaves you alone you have freedom to do what you want, including developing good professional learning with and for staff. But when you are in a three or a four category you cannot do that because the fear restricts your actions and planning.
“When schools develop a strong CPD culture, possibly using people who were formerly ASTs or lead coaches, or a training team, then there is hope for the culture of schools but this is not all schools, particularly those awaiting the Ofsted call.”
“Sharing good practice doesn’t work…it’s the sharer who benefits, not the other side”
Philippa Cordingley suggested that the approach of sharing “best practice” between schools didn’t work. “It’s the sharer who benefits, not the other side,” she said. “Part of what rebuilding the system is about is spotting talent wherever it exists and building out from that.
“There are some things that we know about learning that if systematised, would help. It’s about understanding more about learning.”
The importance of networks
Despite structural challenges and the pace of change schools can still reach out and link into effective networks, said Carol Jones. She highlighted the Securing Good programme in London, which is part of the London Leadership Programme.
“Once schools are out of a three and four rating they’re able to enjoy working with each other because they can share experiences and work collaboratively. They can develop together. There is a sense of optimism and hope when working collaboratively and growing together. There are some very good examples of schools leading CPD partnerships together.
“This is one of the reasons why programmes like Pixl[5] are popular. They provide staff with opportunities to meet other subject heads from across the country. Whenever there is an opportunity for professional challenge this is very much appreciated. Schools struggle to find a structure nationally for that.”
“There needs to be a national network to enable schools to collaborate”
She added:” There needs to be a national network to enable schools to collaborate if they are able to.” ASCL is currently developing a blueprint for developing a school-led system in order to achieve this”.
Does expert led collaboration actually work?
Debbie Barkes questioned the effectiveness of the ‘expert led’ model of school collaboration. “A lot of classroom practitioners and leaders have lost confidence if their school has been rated at three or four.
“There is nothing that reduces confidence more than a teacher judged to be inadequate to be shown lots of outstanding practice. That’s not to say that there is not a place for experts but you have to build up staff from where they are rather than continually showing them those who are best.
“Often the best learning takes place if the learning is with someone in same position as you”
“I wonder if peer to peer support in your school is a better approach. We pair our teachers who require improvement together with other teachers in the same position. Often the best learning takes place if the learning is with someone in same position as you.”
This approach resonated with Philippa Cordingley, who said that it was important for peers to take risks together, especially if there was a “reciprocal vulnerability” as well because that helps to speed up the trust building that is essential for taking risks.
Nigel Ashley added: “I agree that it isn’t all about the sharing of best practice. It’s valuable to share all practice. The explorer Ernest Shackleton was a superb leader but he said that he learned the most about leadership from his first two captains who were terrible.”
Make professional development work harder
Schools needed to look creatively at the way they organised their training and professional development, said Peter Earley.
“Recently we looked at INSET days and how they were used by schools. They were a mess. ‘One size fits no one’ is I think a very apt description of how schools use the five days worth of INSET.
“The Liberal Democrats have suggested expanding this from 30 hours a year at the moment to 50. At Harris Federation they asked their teachers to do 20 hours extra a year but they paid them for this. We also need to reconfigure the nature of the teacher’s year. We are still working on this 19th century model where everyone working in or attending schools still needs a long summer holiday in order to get the harvest in. Most professions need only 30 days a year as vacation.
“We need more learning on the job but are leaders giving teachers the opportunity to do this?”
“We need more learning on the job but are leaders giving them the opportunity to do this? We know from professional development that some approaches are more effective than others.
“We also need to drive towards personalised professional development. Instead of five INSET days a year we should emulating what high performing systems do, such as 150 hours (over three years) as they do in Singapore.
“I think we have to grasp the nettle and be prepared to legislate for that.”
Schools might also look to the independent sector for ways of developing new approaches to professional development of staff, said Keith Wright.
Denise Willis, Head of Collegiate Management at the independent Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate, said: “We expect all academic and support staff to do up to 12 days of professional development per year which includes a block of seven training days before the start of the academic year, in addition to opportunities for individual CPD or exam board training.
“As an independent school we do not have access to support co-ordinated by a local authority. In order to avoid becoming isolated it is vital that our programme of CPD is vibrant and addresses topical issues.
“CPD is driven by our teaching staff and although fully supported by SLT it is a bottom up system. Outstanding Teaching is an initiative designed and delivered by staff from a range of disciplines who work within individual departments as well as delivering at whole school events. CPD also includes filmed lessons, whole school literacy and subject specific strategies for teaching EAL students leading to an externally assessed qualification. Ten teachers each year apply to take part in a three unit training programme that is delivered on site in support of moving the quality of their teaching from good to excellent.”
Keeping expertise within schools
Philippa Cordingley said that empowering teachers to be fully involved in the design of curriculum would be an early, positive step towards more empowered schools.
“We need to look at reconfiguring teaching and leadership as curriculum design,” she suggested. “One of the features of the old system was that we pulled teachers out of schools and they joined bodies like QCDA or the local authority. We removed a lot of creative talent from the profession.
“The best professional learning is collaborative learning through, for example, testing of a scheme of work.”
Philippa Cordingley said that in Singapore teachers could choose a specialist role alongside their classroom responsibilities and that this approach ensured that specialist expertise stayed within schools. These roles, which all have equal status and remuneration, included a leader of pedagogy, a specialist in learning content or organisational leadership.
Step by step improvement
David Weston said that schools should avoid trying to improve generic teaching practice and instead focus on improvement subject by subject. He said: “One clear characteristic of exceptional schools is that they don’t do ‘how to be a good teacher’ with their CPD. What I'd like to discourage is everyone focusing on headline data and 'top tip' teaching approaches. Rather than trying to improve generic teaching practice it is often better to focus on subject-specific learning and look at applying the right technique to that area of learning.”
Changes were needed to ensure that professional learning occupied a central role in school improvement, he added. “We have known for two decades what really effective CPD is. The only way we will initiate this is by changing the levers in systems in our schools so that professional learning stays at the top.
“Part of this is looking at Ofsted. Part of it is looking at timetabling in our schools and being clear about the outcomes that we are looking for.
“We need to move away from looking at a school as a one, two, three and so on. When you go to buy a car there are 20 different categories that you might consider before deciding whether to buy it or not. Yet schools are being judged with one category.”
Evaluation for professional development and school improvement
Debbie Barkes said it was important that teachers evaluated their progress and professional development needs to help their professional development.
“When teachers are going through initial teacher training they evaluate every breath they take but when they get to school there is no commitment to reflection,” she said.
“Teachers need to use systems to help them record their practice so that they can go to performance management meetings with a clear idea of what they need to develop and what the school needs to develop too.”
“Teachers need tools to help them record their practice so they know how to develop and what the school needs to develop too”
These systems could also play their part in bringing schools together more closely, said Keith Wright.
“One of the problems with a decentralised system is that communications across issues are becoming almost impossible; the myriad of approaches, tools, systems and strategies creates a real chaos and renders meaningful communication almost impossible,” he said.
“A teacher from one school visiting another has little chance of understanding what good practice is. Schools need a common language to work with. Online school improvement systems have a part to play in this by introducing consistency but allowing for individual context.”
A case for higher level learning?
High level professional learning was one route towards a more empowered profession, suggested Peter Earley. “Only 10 per cent of teachers have a Masters degree,” he said. “This is an opportunity for reflection and upskilling.
“We found that people who do our Masters degrees are on their way up to middle and senior leadership. They speak really positively of opportunities that systematic study over one or two years can bring. Masters do encourage you to look at things in a rigorous, systematic way. And they give you an opportunity to conduct research that links back to your school’s needs.”
Louis Coiffait said that the government had a role to play in ensuring that all school professionals had access to national, recognised qualifications that would help their professional development and enable them to play a full part in school improvement.
“If we have this more fragmented system it is harder as a teacher to know who the good training providers are,” he said.
“We recently responded to consultation on NPQML (National Professional Qualification for Middle Leadership) - 500 people have done this in the past two years but there are 200,000 middle leaders across the country.
“Giving people good quality, accredited development and qualifications and ratcheting up the volume of people going through them is a role for government.”
Delegates criticised the most recent set of teacher standards and suggested that new iterations would have to include new elements so that professional development was central.
Philippa Cordingley said: “We have a very crude set of standards for the profession – theyare so untextured, especially with regard to progression. They’re like a blunderbuss. Australia offers a really good example of how teacher standards should be done.”[6]
Carol Jones suggested that there should be references to leadership behaviours and financial acumen in the headteacher standards while Debbie Barkes said that there needed to be more emphasis on reflection.
Martin Airey questioned the practicality of providing teachers with opportunities for reflection in a time of financial pressure and high accountability. He said: “School budgets are diminishing so providing enrichment for staff at a time when money is going down is real challenge.”
Peter Earley added: “There is a crime in not wanting to develop professionally. Not only is it the responsibility of the teacher, it’s the responsibility of the headteacher or principal as well. If headteachers and other school leaders are not concerned about the growth of their people the children will get a worse deal.”
“There is a crime in not wanting to develop professionally”
Jon Boyes thought the prospect of teachers taking higher level qualifications was remote in the current climate. “It is harder to get good staff now,” he said. “I think the government has wrecked teacher training - it’s a system not fit for purpose. The result will be that we won’t have enough teachers. So having them going on to higher level qualifications is not a prospect at the moment.”
Metrics that matter
Jon Boyes suggested that in order for schools to create a culture that was not driven by the current accountability agenda they needed to create their own metrics.
“You can’t get away from metrics being used to measure people,” he said. “These drive the direction your school goes on. You have to change a school to fit policy or you fail.
“But the metrics have to change. The only schools that are brave enough to do this are outstanding schools. One school did not do a SEF, but they had the license to do that because they were outstanding.”
“The metrics used to measure people and schools have to change”
Keith Wright suggested that schools could develop their own metrics which could be used alongside those used by Ofsted. If hundreds of schools did this a momentum would build for change, he suggested.
Peter Earley added: “Tim Brighouse wanted schools to have a balanced scorecard that measured if schools were preparing people for society. We could change those key performance indicators so that we measure what we value. Some education systems like Singapore do try to measure pupil well-being.
“There are instruments around to measure other metrics such as the self esteem of pupils. It’s for schools to look at where they can add value and measure that. Ofsted would be impressed.”
Queen Ethelburga’s College was judged on a wide range of aspects by the independent schools inspectorate HMC, said Denise Willis. “We are judged on extra curricular activities and our pastoral care. They judge us by speaking to students about these aspects.”
Headteacher performance management was a key area for change for Nigel Ashley. “We’ve been talking about how to change systems so that we get where we want to go but one thing we already do is headteacher performance management,” he said. “At the moment the headteacher is given one objective – to raise standards. But we can do things with this process now. We can see that it includes other measures as well such as pupil voice, enjoyment and resilience.
“We headteachers have in some ways got to make ourselves more accountable, but in the right way.”
[1] http://www.decd.sa.gov.au/northernadelaide/files/links/Leadership_Oration_Robinso.pdf
[2] Rosenholtz, S (1989) Teachers’ Workplace: the social organisation of schools, NY: Teachers College Press
[3] http://www.newvisionsforeducation.org.uk/
[4] Earley, P (2013) Exploring the School Leadership Landscape: Changing demands, changing realities, London: Bloomsbury.
[5] http://www.pixl.org.uk/page/default.asp?title=Home&pid=1
[6] http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-teachers/
Conclusions - key advice from the discussion
1 Schools need to avoid generic school improvement and should instead focus on incremental improvement, subject by subject.
2 Greater commitment to meaningful reflection and development for all leaders and teachers is needed in our schools. School leaders can create the conditions for teachers through leading by example, but there also needs to be change in structures and accountability in the school system to enable this on a big scale. There should also be a greater commitment of time and money to meaningful development and reflection.
3 Schools need to take a risk and develop alternatives to the current metrics demanded by Ofsted and other accountability pressures. Alternatives can be created alongside existing metrics. Courage and confidence is needed from school leaders if they are to press Ofsted to take account of alternative metrics.
4 Structured, systematic approaches to spotting and nurturing future leaders and talent should be embedded in all schools. Teaching Schools, local authorities and national policy makers should work together to ensure this happens.
5 Schools need to facilitate collaboration and communication and learn from each other – beyond the current prescribed mechanisms if necessary. The days of schools as ‘sole traders’ are gone and the new reality will be that every school will be in some form of collaboration, whether it is a formal trust or federation or a less formal alliance.
Case study - Kyra Teaching School Alliance
Debbie Barkes,headteacher at St Faiths Infant School, Lincoln and CPD lead at Kyra Teaching School Alliance, describes how the alliance develops its staff.
The Kyra Teaching School Alliance was formed three years ago.
Our vision remains to close the gap and ensure that every child across our partnership of schools, whatever their background or circumstances, reaches their full potential. High quality CPD sits at the very heart of this commitment and is something we constantly focus on across our schools.
CPD is continually growing and developing to meet the needs of the Kyra alliance. In 2013/14 90% of heads or line managers responding to the alliance’s annual survey said that Kyra’s CPD provision had had a positive impact on the practice of those staff that had engaged with it. 10% said that it had had a ‘somewhat positive’ impact.
We generally have three main approaches:
Cross school networking
Cross school research projects
Expert led training opportunities
1 Cross school networking
Each term, schools in the Kyra network put together an offer from their staff. This offer comes from across the whole staff group, such as teachers, teaching assistants and midday staff who lead sessions in their school. These usually cover a wide range of areas of teaching and learning such as moderation activities. Examples include ‘iPads in phonics’, ‘godly play’ and ‘introduction to counselling’.
Not only does this spread good practice and specialist interests across schools, but develops staff at all levels who lead sessions. Much positive feedback comes out of these sessions, and staff benefit from visiting other schools, meeting colleagues who do similar jobs, and develop ongoing professional relationships with them.
As one headteacher wrote in our annual survey this summer: “(Working with Kyra) has been beneficial for my staff who have had the opportunity to work beyond our school either through shared CPD; through leading CPD or by supporting colleagues in other schools.”
2 Cross school research projects
Research projects are a new feature of our CPD network activities. Staff are invited to attend three sessions over a term, the first to understand the theory behind why research is important for our professional development and what action research might look like in the classroom.
A key research question is also established at this point through professional dialogue between practitioners from a number of schools. The second session focuses on updating the group on how the project is going, what key learning has taken place and how this has impacted on practice. The third session draws together the project and disseminates findings.
We have recently undertaken two projects and have a plan for six more, investigating questions such as how the maths learning environment affects progress in maths, and whether verbal or visual feedback is more powerful in moving children’s learning on.
Some of our research projects, including our research into succession planning and talent management in rural schools, can be found here: http://kyrateachingschool.com/research-and-development/
3 Expert led training opportunities
Our ‘expert led’ training includes statutory training such as positive handling, safeguarding and e-safety and courses such as NPQSL, a middle leadership programme, SLE (Specialist Leaders of Education) designation, the Outstanding Teacher Programme and Improving Teacher Programme.
However, from this year, our SLEs and LLEs (Local Leaders of Education) will have a growing role in delivering expert training based on their specialist areas of work. This will ensure high quality provision is designed and delivered locally – by schools for schools. The approach is based on very successful examples of where our SLEs have delivered high quality conferences (including an SEN conference attended by over 100 delegates in 2013) and research programmes such as our joint practice development research into effective feedback for writing. It is intended that LLEs, in addition to their role supporting schools in challenging circumstances, will provide support and mentoring to new headteachers. A ‘system leadership’ training day for SLEs and LLEs in late 2013 included input and materials on designing and delivering high quality CPD.
This ‘expert-led ’training will be expanded and delivered throughout the year and will benefit colleagues at all levels of Kyra. SLEs and LLEs will be commissioned by clusters of schools within and beyond Kyra to deliver specific, bespoke training to schools. Clusters will be regularly consulted through our heads’ forum and other market research to ensure expert-led CPD is responsive and timely. This we hope to match very closely to the needs of groups of schools who will commission the services to meet their specific development requirements.
The impact of this new approach will be monitored carefully – with feedback from participating schools and professionals being used to refine and improve our offer as it becomes more established. This will closely resemble the current Kyra annual impact and needs survey: http://kyrateachingschool.com/our-impact-2/
Further reading
On 12 September 2014, NAHT and NAHT Edge held a discussion on the future of CPD for the education profession. For details of the discussion go to www.nahtedge.org.uk/Newsandviews/Newslisting/Newsarticles/TabId/565/PID/1325/mcat/1587/acat/2/ev/1/nsw/ta/EDNSearch/roundtable/Default.aspx
Bubb, S and Earley, P (2010) Helping Staff Develop in Schools, London: Sage.
Earley, P & Porritt, V (eds) (2009) Effective Practices in Continuing Professional Development: Lessons from Schools, London: Institute of Education and TDA, Bedford Way series.
Bubb, S and Earley, P (2007) Leading and Managing CPD, (2nd edition), London: Sage.
