Emerging Patterns of school leadership

This paper outlines the key findings from a study examining emerging forms of school leadership, conducted by the University of Manchester on behalf of the National College for School Leadership (NCSL). The findings are drawn from a literature review and accounts of practice based on research conducted in 20 schools and collaborative arrangements. This study set out to map and explore emerging practice and to highlight possible future directions in leadership, management and governance that may support the further development of the education system.

Key findings:
- The research literature currently available provides only a partial account of developments on the ground.
- Changes in local arrangements are helping schools to cope with an increasingly complex education agenda.
- Innovative and traditional approaches appear in combination.
- New leadership arrangements that are seen as liberating by some staff can be seen to increase constraints and pressures felt by others.
- The picture is fluid and the pace of change rapid.
- The local context plays an important role in the adoption and development of new leadership patterns and structures.

The report makes the following conclusions:
- Movement is towards better coordination of education provision (such as through collaboration)
- The role of leaders has expanded to include partnership working with a range of agencies.
- Although the drive behind of this is to improve student outcomes, there is little evidence of this, mostly because it has not been tested.

Horizon Scanning: Innovative Teaching and Learning

This report by the DCSF Innovation Unit examined "Next Practice" in teaching and learning by horizon scanning (examining innovative pedagogy's which are at the leading edge of current practice).

Through a series of case study materials the paper identifies four key domains where actions should be focused in order to improve learner engagement and the integration of learning, the following framework was devised:

The 4 domains are:

• Engagement through relevance (what is relevant to the learner?)
• Engagement through co-construction (enabling and allowing the learner to lead)
• Integration of in/out of school learning (removing the home/school boundary)
• Integration of teacher-learner mix (using a range of relationships)

Safeguarding children report 2008

This report by Ofsted (on behalf of 8 inspectorates) examines arrangements for safeguarding children, is the 3rd such report and assesses arrangements for safeguarding children and young people in four key areas:

1. the effectiveness of the overall safeguarding systems and frameworks that are in place
2. the wider safeguarding role of public services
3. the targeted activity carried out to safeguard vulnerable groups of children. This includes updated evidence on the groups considered in the previous report, including asylum-seeking children, children in secure settings, looked after children and children treated by health services
4. the identification of and response to child protection concerns by relevant agencies.

Some key points:
- Local Safeguarding Children Boards have grown in independence but are still not fully developed.
- Strategic Partnerships are developed in all areas, but still need to improve joint commissioning and the management of high risk offenders.
- CRB checking is standardised, but good practice is not always followed.
- Inspections found evidence of a strong commitment by agencies to focus on the wider safeguarding needs of children and young people in addition to child protection.
- A shared, consistent understanding of safeguarding is still lacking, particularly between social care services and the criminal justice system.
- Some children and young people continue to express significant levels of concern about their personal safety and about being bullied, particularly in institutional and secure settings.
- There is better identification of needs at an early stage and increasingly effective provision of preventive and earlier intervention services.
- Many areas have identified domestic violence as a high priority area for action.
- Most areas are making good progress in developing the Common Assessment Framework.

The report goes onto make a series of recommendations, relevant at national and local level.

Effective School Leadership

An OECD study into improving school leadership found that policy makers from all countries need to enhance the quality of school leadership and make it sustainable.

Key points:
- School leaders need to have the authority and freedom to make decisions, alongwith appropriate support.
- Ensure leadership roles are clearly linked to pupil learning.
- Ensure distributed leadership.
- Treat leadership development as a continnum.
- Make school leadership an attractive profession.

Danish model reduces youth crime in Scotland

In 2005 East Renfrewshire Council (ERC) made a commitment to implement an approach to preventing and addressing youth crime and anti social behaviour, based on Danish principles. The resulting project, School, Social Work, Police and Community (SSPC) is led by Social Work.

This report examines the funding, delivery of outcomes and output of the programme.

Some key points:
- An integrated response is the most effective and beneficial approach to dealing positively with vulnerable, damaged or difficult young people.
- Shared aims, practice, and ethos are at the core of what is making the approach operate successfully.
- It is a key strength of the Group, and exemplary practice that members do not say "this is not my remit". If something needs to be done they are in a position to do it then they do so.
- The approach fits with the relevant standards for the quality of the youth justice process and fits with the standards for the range and availability of programmes.
- We recommend, as a preventative measure, targeting resources on the transition from primary to secondary education, and in the first term of the first year at high school.

Next Practice in Education Programme

The DCSF innovation unit have produced this report which examined their Next Practice in Education Programme.

"Next Practice is ‘practice that is aware of conventional 'good' practice, its strengths and its limitations; and which explicitly sets out to move it to a new level, or even in some cases radically to change it.’

Next Practice significantly changes methods of service delivery, organisation or structure. It is so far in advance of good practice that little hard evidence of its effectiveness currently exists. That does not mean that it lacks rigour. Next Practice is consciously designed with an awareness of the strengths and limitations of conventional ‘best’ practice and draws on ideas generated by informed practitioners who are aware of the existing knowledge base. It is informed by critical scanning of the wider environment. Usually, Next Practice is not (yet) officially sanctioned so it may entail some political risk. It tackles important, contemporary long term educational problems and, above all, is focused on outcomes for children and learners."

The Next Practice in Education Programme has 4 projects.

Key points:
- The Next Practice Innovation Model has three clear phases: Stimulate, Incubate and Accelerate, relevant to all projects.

- The Next Practice System Leadership work has generated six main conclusions:
1. Energy and commitment – School leaders are eager to invest time, energy and commitment in working as system leaders.
2. The challenge of moving from vision to practical delivery.
3. The lack of models of leadership and governance.
4. Local Authority support - without active support from the local authority, new forms of system leadership struggle to survive.
5. Changing leadership requirements - new forms of system leadership for schools and their partners have needed at least one strong leader with the vision and tenacity to drive them forward in order to get off the ground. But
6. The critical role of governance - it is usually these emerging forms of system leadership that precede the development and adoption of new governance structures for the new system.

- The main emerging conclusions from the Community Engagement in Learning project, which also bear directly on ‘achieving an excellent education for every child’, are threefold:
1. Within communities there is a great deal of motivation to contribute to student and community learning, in ways that complement and add to the school curriculum.
2. The learning that results from engagement with the community tends to be practical, relevant and a rich model for learning for life, with learners taking greater ownership of their learning and becoming more confident.
3. This learning has substantial implications for the roles and responsibilities of teachers and support staff, and thus for their recruitment, training and development (plus for support staff their terms and conditions of employment).

- The Next Practice work in parent and carer engagement in learning generated four key findings:
1. Evaluation and measurement is vital to making the case for parental support.
2. Supporting parental engagement is best achieved by projects that involve parents in their design, delivery and evaluation - the most successful projects are parent-led projects such as parents led mentoring programmes, or peer parenting classes.
3. Parental engagement in children’s learning grows outwards from the school and requires a ‘whole school approach’ – the school might become a hub where professionals lead projects to develop family learning, or it might be a site where regeneration programmes and charities run projects which then support family learning.
4. Existing policy already promotes the greater inclusion of parents, for example parents can be involved in supporting children when they take part in progression pilots at KS2.

- The Resourcing Personalised Learning programme has identified the essential characteristics of schools that personalise a student’s education:
1. Provision is designed to suit learners – the school diagnoses pupil learning characteristics and supports or intervenes appropriately because it believes all pupils can be successful learners. It makes flexible use of time, place, pace and space because pupils learn in a variety of ways and at different rates. Assessment is personalised.
2. The school fosters a sense of belonging - pupils actively participate and take increasing responsibility for their learning and school experience. They organise themselves in such a way that pupils have a sense of belonging and can learn both individually and collaboratively.
3. The school draws on a broad range of skills – it has an ethos of support, congeniality and co-operation embracing all who work in the school, parents and carers and the local community. It makes innovative use of staff and pupils by creating new roles and responsibilities.
4. Teaching and learning is grounded in the real world – the School has a flexible curriculum which helps pupils connect their education to their future.