School Partnership Conference Friday 10 th May 2019 Colchester Football Club
Essex School-led Improvement System A partnership document between Essex County Council, Essex Primary Heads Association, Association of Secondary Heads in Essex, Essex Special Schools Education Trust and Essex School Governors Association . Vision To establish a new system in which schools, maintained or academy, improve themselves by working in partnership with each other in a school-led improvement system which supports children and young people 0 – 25 to achieve their highest aspirations in education and employment .
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Essex Partnership Conference Friday, 10 May 2019 Local area partnerships: the national picture Christine Gilbert Visiting Professor, UCL Institute of Education
The origins of local partnerships ❖ The national context ❖ Local contexts ❖ The Essex story ❖ The future? 5
The opportunities ❖ The glue in a diverse and potentially fragmented system ❖ A force to drive improvement by energising teachers, leaders and schools to build expertise ❖ A focus for involving the local community and business in education ❖ An opportunity for efficiencies of scale ❖ A space to build children’s social, emotional and cultural capital 6
Essex and ‘mutual gain’ ❖ Vision, outcomes and moral purpose ❖ Commitment and contribution ❖ Networks and clusters ❖ Challenge welcomed as part of support ❖ Peer review
MO MODEL 1 DEL 1 MO MODEL 2 DEL 2 Statutory school improvement Statutory school improvement Traded school improvement Traded school improvement Traded business and support e.g. Birmingham Education services Partnership; Camden Learning; Learn Sheffield e .g. Herts for Learning; Octavo (Croydon ) The he ran ange ge of of pa partne tnership ships MODEL 3 MO DEL 3 MO MODEL 4 DEL 4 Collaborative partnership and Collaborative partnerships traded school improvement e.g. Essex; Wigan; Schools e.g. Brent Schools Partnership; NorthEast, a school- led regional Ealing Learning Partnership network 8
Practice on the ground: common features Intelligence gathering Brokerage Development and improvement work Evaluation: evidencing progress and impact 9
The key challenges ❖ Danger of distraction from core purpose ❖ Developing new skills ❖ Finding capacity ❖ Going beyond the ‘land of nice’ ❖ Shifting the accountability mindset ❖ Securing recognition 10
Successful area partnerships ❖ Collective moral purpose and vision linked to place and community ❖ A clear model of change, using professional power and skills, and aligned with evidence ❖ An inclusive culture of openness, trust and mutual accountability ❖ Attention paid to developing networks ❖ Good planning, quality assurance and business development ❖ Capacity building to develop a self-improving system 11
And Essex…. ❖ A success story ❖ Distinguishing features ❖ Breadth, depth and maturity ❖ A learning partnership, so next steps?
The role of the LA ‘… there is a clear role for the local authority to not only support the formation of partnerships but to use its current powers and influence to ensure sustainability for the future….to act as the midwife and to prevent schools being left as isolated islands.’ Clare Kershaw, 2016 13
The Essex system – a closer look Take a look at the diagram of the Essex system Do you recognise it? How does your partnership / school currently fit into it? If we were to collectively work to strengthen one element of the system that would make the biggest difference to outcomes across Essex which aspect would you focus on? 14
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A closer look at two areas to support system maturity Effective partnerships Effective peer review 17
A view of the self improving system – what’s needed? • Systems and processes : To engage in peer review, monitor, review, improve and assess impact • Architecture: Groups of schools working to secure outcomes and impact focused collaboration Harder • People: Partnership leads, NLEs. LLEs, SLEs, NLGs • Mind set and culture: Trust, transparency and honesty, More and a responsibility to work for the improvement of all Essential schools Taken from David Hargreaves: Self Improving Systems - toward maturity NCSL 18
An exploration of system architecture: partnerships Above all the purpose of partnerships is to improve outcomes Every partnership must be founded on a clearly articulated shared ‘ moral purpose in action’ Transparency, trust and honesty are a professional obligation A commitment to and a capacity for effective peer review is the engine that drives improvement The partnership must have a clear plan to move from collaboration to co responsibility to shared professional accountability The partnership should go beyond relationships between school leaders to engage with student, teachers, families and communities Partnerships should not be isolated but should welcome scrutiny and support from other partnerships as part of their contribution to creating a connected and improving wider system Fullan and Munby Inside out and upside down How leading from the middle has the power to transform education systems 19
A healthier system? ‘Far from being a thin veneer plastered over a fundamentally individualistic nature, the impulse to collaboration and altruism is our greatest asset in just about everything we do. There is very solid evidence now showing that lack of collaborative interaction and lack of the opportunity for giving can make us both mentally and physically ill. Given the opportunity and the sense that it is safe to do so people would much rather cooperate and collaborate because it is more rewarding in every way. It goes right down to our basic brain chemistry’ Matthew Liebermann ‘Social; why we are wired to connect’ 2015 20
Partnership in a complex system- safe to do so? ‘ The best MATS ensure there are strong partnerships beyond the MAT so that system leaders collaborate to make their part of the region stronger’ 10 things the best MATs do David Carter 2017 21
Hard wired for collaboration? What would this mean in relation to (for example) : • Hiring of staff? • Use of resources? • Meeting the needs of specific groups of children? • Engaging in research? • School improvement processes and priorities ? • Staff development? • Health and wellbeing? • Monitoring of improvement and managing risk of failure? 22
An activity Take one of the hard wired for collaboration areas Ask yourself: ‘What issue are we currently facing in this specific area as a group of schools, or as a system?’ How might a collaborative response address this more effectively? Plenary; What next for Essex as a ‘partnership based system?’ 23
A closer look at a culture change process; peer review Insights from Essex Impact on pupils Impact on people Impact on schools Impact on the partnership 24
‘ The Rosie Question’ … .. By adopting the model, schools say they gain the ‘legitimacy’ to have conversations about what needs to improve in each other’s schools as well as celebrate effective practice. Effective peer review is not a cosy chat, it is a professionally demanding process and, to be effective, requires a planned and managed approach. ‘Peer review provides the legitimacy to have the conversations that have needed to be had, between peers for some time’ The power and potential of peer review Ed Dev Trust 2016 25
What makes the difference? NAHT, Challenge Partners and Ed Dev Trust have been working together on the features of great peer review, whatever model you use. Take a look at these features Which of them are currently ‘designed in’ to your 1. partnership, and how do you know? 2. Which feature, if strengthened would have the greatest positive impact on your partnership and its ability to achieve its ambition? 26
Finally … ‘Finally it is revealing how accountability plays itself out in improving and connected systems. It turns out that accountability focusing on tests and standards is not the best way to get results, Rather successful systems combine vertical and lateral accountability. The public is assured by the vertical accountability system and the system itself generates greater lateral accountability as peers working with peers in a deliberate way provide both the support and challenge needed to improve. Once this work is underway there is no greater motivator than internal accountability within groups of schools, to oneself and ones peers, – what we call ‘ the moral imperative realised ’ Fullan: Learning is the work 2016 27
Claire Goodchild – Headteacher of Chelmer Valley High School Steven Turnbull – Headteacher of Hazelmere Infant School and Nursery Insight sessions Beci McCaughran – Director School Improvement Saffron Academy Trust Julie Puxley – Headteacher Katherine Semar Infant and Junior school Emma Vincent – Headteacher RA Butler
Triads Alec Hunter Academy The Ramsey Academy Chelmer Valley High School 2015-19
Challenges and Concerns Anxious External Staff By working together Facilitator as Heads, agreeing Is it protocols and Heads OFSTED? building TRUST , concerned to Issues are overcome. do the scheme Fear of justice Exposure failure Can the Where does outcome Perception the outcome trigger …. go?
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