Teacher-led school improvement

Plans in the education white paper Educational Excellence Everywhere to encourage schools to convert to academies, could see more head teachers taking control of school improvement services.

Local authorities have for a number for years been creating new structures and organisations to deliver school improvement services (see box), but ministers say that head teachers alone or working in multi-academy trusts could do this better.

One area that pre-empted the government’s white paper is Lincolnshire Council, which from September is to hand over responsibility for improvement to local head teachers.

Lincolnshire has an above-average proportion of “good” and “outstanding” Ofsted-rated schools, and a consultation last year confirmed that school leaders felt they were best placed to develop an improvement strategy based around a peer review system.

“The local authority funded training for every school leader in peer reviewing, so they could do meaningful peer reviews with each other, and look at strengths and areas for development,” says Heather Sandy, Lincolnshire Council’s assistant director for children’s services.

Head teachers will go into other schools and work with their peers to highlight strengths and identify areas for improvement. All schools will be peer-reviewed in this way.

“Where they don’t agree [with the reviewer’s findings], there will be a high level of professionally challenged discussion around why, which will result in the whole school changing the focus of their school improvement,” Sandy adds.

She says this way of working will benefit the school being assessed and the head teacher carrying out the review, by enabling both to share ideas and best practice.

A first for head teachers

While other areas have used specialist advisers to carry out school improvement assessments, the Lincolnshire initiative is the first time an area’s head teachers have taken on responsibility for reviews themselves.

The model will also see a group of head teachers appointed as a panel of experts to identify broader trends in the outcomes of peer reviews and how lessons from these can be more widely applied.

They will then advise the council on where it should be focusing its school improvement resources. The initiative is being led by the area’s forum for governors and head teachers, which is council-funded.

“I do think other local authorities are looking at the model now because of the changes proposed by government,” says Sandy, in reference to the academy plans.

In addition, there will be close partnership working with Lincolnshire’s nine teaching schools, which already work with the council through Lincolnshire Teaching Schools Together.

“Now they are in partnership with the local authority and the learning partnership board – which includes head teachers and governors,” Sandy says. “They are the people who can deliver school improvement.”

The council hopes adoption of the model will result in better support for head teachers, and ensure the local authority is guided by experts in its schools rather than what it thinks is a priority.

“Peer reviewing will add rigour and challenge to a school’s self-evaluation process,” says Sandy. “It will bring together system-wide knowledge, so where we’ve had fragmentation where schools have gone off to become academies, they’ll pull that intelligence together and let us very quickly identify successes and strengths and duplicate them across the system.

“It’s about recognising that autonomy is really important, but without connectivity it’s a wasted resource.

“We want to make sure we are constantly sharing best practice so we can see if a school, multi-academy trust or area has an issue that another party in Lincolnshire has already been through and was solved.”

Other improvement models

Dorset Council
A partnership between the council and schools was developed in 2013 and is focused on those most vulnerable to poor educational outcomes. All schools are members. The school improvement system is owned and driven by schools, but the council plays a key statutory role in ensuring quality provision and facilitating improvement. It also ensures improvement is informed by national models of best practice.

Hertfordshire Council
Following a drop in the council’s resources for school improvement and discussions with head teachers in 2013, Herts for Learning was established. It has 520 school shareholders, and is a not-for-profit company that reinvests money to improve its services. It offers teaching, learning, leadership and business support to schools. The council commissions core services from the firm and is its biggest customer.

Wigan Council
Wigan schools work together in eight autonomous consortia to support self-improvement. A school improvement board monitors their work and ensures all schools are receiving effective support. The consortia work together to pool resources and share expertise to improve teaching standards and learning. The council provides funding and works closely with the consortia to identify those underperforming.

Durham Council
Durham’s educational development service, established in 2002, merged with the council’s school improvement service to support schools. It monitors, challenges and intervenes in schools, and provides services including consultancy, training and development, and advisory work. The council works with schools, and the service also works with national and international organisations to deliver programmes.

Source: The council role in school improvement, Local Government Association