Ofsted: Quality of childcare

Leading to Excellence from Ofsted based on evidence from 90,000 inspections of 84,000 early years and childcare settings during the three years to March 2008. The report shows how well the whole sector is doing to promote positive outcomes for children. It focuses on how early years and childcare settings are organised, led and managed so children make good progress.

Key points:
- Almost all settings (97%) provide at least satisfactory childcare, and approaching two thirds are good or outstanding. Of the small minority of settings (3%) judged inadequate most improve quickly although a few have not yet done so. We have set stringent actions for these settings and continue to monitor them closely.
- The quality of childcare varies across the sector. The proportion of good or outstanding provision ranges from 47% in out-of-school schemes to 65% in full day-care settings.
- Well-established provision is generally of a higher quality than recently registered provision. There is also variation across the country with provision in socio-economically deprived areas generally below that elsewhere. There are, though, deprived areas that buck this general trend.
- The proportion of day-care group providers inspected with good or outstanding childcare has risen from 53% in 2005–06 to 64% in 2007–08, though the proportion of childminders judged good or outstanding has fallen from 65% to 59%.
- The quality of organisation, leadership and management is key to ensuring provision supports positive outcomes for children. The best settings place children at the heart of all that happens, and how the best providers are continually working to improve their already excellent practice.
- Almost all registered early years and childcare settings (97%) are satisfactory or better in the way they are organised to promote positive outcomes for children. Over half the settings (54%) are good or outstanding.

Equity within education

This is the third report on the state of equity in the English education system from the Centre for Equity in Education based at The University of Manchester. It argues that efforts to create a more equitable education system are now at a strategic crossroad – trapped between a target-driven ‘effectiveness and improvement’model of service reform, and efforts to develop localised and coordinated responses to inequity.

Key findings:
- The report argues that if equity is to be enhanced, the space must be created for policies to be joined up locally and oriented to meeting community needs.
- Despite repeated policy interventions, the most disadvantaged children and young people continue to be at greatest risk of impoverished educational experiences, low achievements and limited life chances.
- Policy has focused on ‘improving’ schools and other education settings and making them more ‘effective’, yet the source of inequities lies largely beyond the school, in social disadvantage. Efforts at educational improvement have to be linked into a coherent strategy to address wider social and economic issues.
- There is currently more potential than ever before to achieve greater equity within the English education system. In particular, we find that multiple co-ordinating mechanisms exist in the form of Local Strategic Partnerships, neighbourhood management initiatives, integrated children’s service networks, extended services clusters and the like. In practice, however, these deliver little by way of co-ordinated strategies that might address educational inequity.
- Often, these co-ordinating mechanisms have little effective involvement from schools and wider community stakeholders. Even where they do, their ability to generate strategy is hamstrung by the perverse consequences of the government’s target-setting regime. Participants are accountable for separate sets of targets, and have to achieve these within short timescales.
- Despite this, there are examples of more genuine collaboration. These are characterised by a contextual analysis leading to a local strategy. Participants probe beneath the surface of headline performance indicators to understand how local dynamics shape particular outcomes.
- If these approaches are to flourish, action is needed at three levels:
• Head teachers and other education leaders need to:
− be proactive in joining and forming partnerships with other key actors in the areas they serve
− work with their partners to understand ‘how things work round here’ and to formulate a long-term area strategy to tackle inequities
− harmonise work within their schools and settings with this wider strategy.
• Local authorities and other local leaders need to:
− promote the development of partnerships at area level
− offer support to partnerships for contextual analysis and strategy formulation
− develop their own contextual analyses and strategies as a framework within which area partnerships can operate
− bring a democratic voice to bear on the work of area partnerships.
• Central government needs to:
− continue to create spaces in which local partnerships can flourish
− encourage these partnerships to undertake contextual analyses and formulate long-term strategies
− counter the perverse consequences of the target-setting regime by locating accountability at the level of the partnership, entering into dialogue about local goals, and extending the timescale over which achievements are measured and the range of evidence this involves
− develop its own contextual analyses and strategies as a framework within which local authorities and area partnerships can operate.

Training and Development Needs of Leaders of Children's Services

This report follows a study involving six in-depth local area case studies including interviews with the Director of Children’s Services, assistant directors of children’s services, members of the Children’s Trust, the Chief Executive of the local authority (LA) and the Lead Member for Children’s Services (LMCS). A further sixteen interviews were carried out with DCSs over the telephone.

Key findings:
- The study highlighted the importance of strong leadership underpinned by a number of personal qualities and values necessary for effective delivery of the DCS role. The qualities identified were generally similar to those that might be expected for other local authority leadership roles. However, one in particular was considered critical for the DCS role - the passion for the children’s rights and entitlements agenda.
- Stakeholders described a range of professional characteristics (or behaviours) which they
considered to be important. These included:
• displaying a personal and professional demeanour which commands the confidence of
others;
• the ability to anticipate, manage and take risks;
• working collaboratively and recognising and respecting the skills of others;
• a commitment to developing others;
• ability to remain robust under pressure, and inspire others to do the same.
- Other issues which were considered to influence effective delivery of the role were raised by the DCSs consulted. These were:
• the corporate and political demands of the role;
• the mismatch between the statutory responsibilities and decision making powers;
• the expectations associated with the size and breadth of the role;
• the emphasis of responsibilities across all ECM outcomes.
- Given that many DCSs currently come from a specific professional background, gaining
experience of the sectors they were less familiar with was initially important;
- The integration agenda means that DCSs’ attention is predominantly focused on issues
such as: developing robust lines of accountability; outcome based management.
pooling budgets; joint appointments; and commissioning services. These represented
new challenges and have therefore required strong leadership skills.
- Some consultees identified that, for them, leading the partnership required an additional
set of skills and a change in style.

Professional Development of Teachers

This report by the think tank Policy Exchange considers how to recruit, retain and develop a new generation of talented, inspired and effective teachers to tackle educational inequality.

It argues instead that we should embrace methods more attuned to today’s graduates and the modern employment market. This involves allowing new teachers to ‘earn while they learn’, giving all teachers much more say over their ongoing training and freeing schools to develop remuneration schemes which are bespoke to their particular needs. These methods would lead to the creation of a dynamic, well trained and motivated workforce – teachers who are more appropriately qualified before they enter teaching and who become better teachers in the classroom.

Key points:
- Pay, Continuing Professional Development (CPD), recruitment and training should be linked and considered together.
- More on the job training, especially at the start of the career ("earn whilst you learn"), as this would help both new starters as well as experienced teachers.
- More flexibility in employment and pay scales, allowing some to "fast track" current systems.
- Teaching is considered to be similar to social work and nursing (by managers and graduates) but is seen as a noble profession and would be considered if flexibilities exist allowing for fast entry and exit.
- In shortage subjects the standards to accept new teachers are too low and hardly any applicants fail.
- Phasing out the BEd route, as it is the most expensive route and usually attracts the least academically able teachers.
- Far more CPD should take place in schools.

There are also recommendations on teacher pay and linking this to CPD.

Experiences of teachers, 2nd year in post

The Becoming a Teacher study is a six-year longitudinal research project (2003-2009) exploring beginner teachers’ experiences of initial teacher training, Induction and early professional
development in England. This report presents findings relating to beginner teachers’ experiences of their second year in post.

Key points:
- Primary school teachers were less likely to report teaching Year 6 classes (the year group associated with the Key Stage 2 National Tests) than other year groups within the primary phase. In contrast, the percentage teaching Year 11 (i.e. the GCSE year) was the largest across the secondary phase.
- Over two-thirds (68%) of primary school teachers reported being a subject coordinator during their second year of teaching. Those teachers who held this role were, on average, younger than those who did not.
- A quarter of teachers working in secondary schools reported acting as a form tutor during their second year of teaching and nine per cent as head of department.
- Teachers working in schools perceived to be ‘in difficulties’ were more likely to report taking on the roles of form tutor and head of department than those not working in such schools.
- Secondary school teachers were more likely than primary school teachers to report having ‘covered classes’ for other teachers, to have taken part in ‘extra-curricular activities’ and to have ‘taught pupils with challenging behaviour’ during the school year. Primary school teachers were more likely than those working in secondary schools to report ‘taking pupils on school trips as part of the curriculum’.
- Younger teachers were more likely than older teachers to report being involved in ‘discussions about the goals and policies of your school/department’, ‘formal discussions about the allocation of financial resources’ and ‘formal discussions on any whole-school issues with the head teacher’.
- Just under a third of teachers (30%) reported working up to ten hours per week on top of their (timetabled) school day, a third (32%) between 11 and 15 additional hours, and over a third (37%) 16 or more additional hours.
- Teachers working in schools reported as ‘high in the league tables’ were more likely than those not working in such schools to rate themselves as ‘very effective’ teachers (54% and 42% respectively).
- When survey respondents were asked who or what, if anything, had helped them in their development as a teacher during the year, four out of the five most common responses all related to specific individuals/groups of people. These were:
• ‘colleagues at school/college’ (mentioned by 49% of respondents);
• ‘head of department’ (14%);
• ‘contact with other teachers with a similar amount of experience’ (10%); and
• ‘head teacher/principal’ (10%).

Good practice in literacy and numeracy

This paper by PwC for the Northern Irish Education Department to examine good practice in literacy and numeracy by looking at Irish and British cities.

Key points:
Respondents thought that reasons for the ‘long tail’ of underachievement in Northern Ireland included:
- A lack of parental involvement in their children’s education;
- A perceived lack of value placed on education in certain areas, particularly deprived Protestant areas;
- A shortage of positive role models;
- The impact of ‘The Troubles’;
- A decline in the readiness for schooling of pupils entering primary school in recent years (e.g. in terms of behaviour, linguistic development etc);
- A lack of baseline data on young children, hindering early intervention in schools;
- The transition between pre-school and primary and between primary and post-primary schools; and
- A lack of strategic direction and consistency of approach at the system level.

Measures to improve boys’ performance were identified at the individual level, the pedagogical level, the school level and at a system-wide level.
These include:
- Mentoring;
- Target-setting and more personalised learning;
- Introducing greater variety in teaching styles and activities;
- Creating an ethos of high expectations and aspirations throughout the school;
- Using data effectively to identify areas of difficulty;
- Developing appropriate professional development for teachers; and
- Disseminating good practice.

Respondents also raised concerns about:
- The weight given to teaching literacy and numeracy in Initial Teacher Training (ITT), particularly for those planning to teach in post-primary schools;
- The level of support for special educational needs;
- Resources for literacy and numeracy (including the layout of school buildings); and
- The need for strong strategic leadership across the sector.

Effective schools and school systems are characterised by:
- Strong leadership and strategic vision;
- A focus on learning and development for all staff;
- Close linkages with parents and the wider community;
- An emphasis on personalised learning, tailored to the needs of the individual pupil;
- Creativity and making learning fun;
- Collaboration with other schools, particularly at transition stages; and
- The effective use of data.

Improving outcomes for low-achieving students

This report by HM Inspectors (Scotland), visited a number of schools that were making a significant difference for lower-achieving groups of pupils, often in less advantaged communities to find out what these schools had in common and what good practice could be found and shared.

Key points:
- Inspectors found common characteristics of effective practice in raising achievement for the lowest attaining 20% of pupils. The characteristics of effective practice which make a difference to young people’s lives by improving their literacy and numeracy skills are not new or innovative. They are characteristics that should be present in every school, in every class, and in every lesson.

- In particular, they relate to:
• the quality of relationships between staff and pupils
• consistently high expectations
• opportunities to work collaboratively
• well designed opportunities for pupils to be actively involved in learning and to contribute to discussions
• the commitment to a shared vision of how to improve the quality of pupils’ learning
• effective use of self-evaluation for improvement
• valuing and empowering staff, pupils and parents in order that they can work together to improve learning
• creating a climate of ambition and high aspiration for all
• ensuring that the school has a clear framework for teaching literacy and numeracy.

A useful document for leaders and teachers interested in classroom practice.

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)

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.

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.

Talent identification: future leaders

This study explores current practices and potentialities with respect to talent identification in contextually different primary and secondary schools in England. Contextually different schools were chosen as context has been shown to be influential in shaping what leaders prioritize and do to develop their schools in the future.

Key points:
- Little research has been undertaken on the identification of leadership talent within the education sector, nor have the characteristics perceived important in talent identification been articulated or explored within a research context.
- Most research in the UK has been concerned with overcoming barriers to leadership succession and has not included study of the linked parameter of talent identification.
- 20 characteristics indicative of leadership talent were identified:

• Has people skills
• Has good communication skills
• Has vision
• Has the respect of staff
• Has the respect of pupils
• Possesses professional values
• Shows enthusiasm
• Shows initiative
  
• Can deal with stress
• Good self-organization
• Works hard
• Is a very good teacher
• Has energy
• Shows confidence
• Is a competent teacher
• Has good subject knowledge
• Has experience of project leadership
• Has an ‘aura’
• Shows ambition
• Accesses development courses
  

- Agreement and disjuncture were recorded concerning the importance of characteristics among respondent groups.
- School-based changes are recommended so that individual school's longer-term leadership requirements may be better addressed.

Leadership of Academy schools

This NCSL Research Associate study examines and analyses the nature of successful leadership of academies and investigates the leadership styles, qualities, skills and contextual dimensions which enable previously seriously under-performing schools to transform themselves whilst their leadership operates under the microscope of close public scrutiny.

Key points:
- Amongst the twelve Academy Principals interviewed there was a general consensus that they had all received, mostly unwelcome, media attention during their first three years in post.
- Leaders of academies identified a need for political and entrepreneurial leadership skills to cope with the demands of this context. Distributed leadership was also found to be an important and effective strategy.
- Academy leaders need to be aware of political developments at both the macro and micro level. While important in any school, the need for such leadership skills in academies is particularly marked.
- The Principal respondents reported the maturation of bodies such as the Academies Division at the Department for Children Schools and Families, have helped to address broader concerns reported in the media.
- Changes in both local and national political climates during the period of research were felt to have impacted positively on the way in which Academies were viewed by the media and local communities.
- The international interest which the Academies programme seems to have generated has added a different dimension to the way in which Academies are seeing themselves and their work.
- The incorporation and formal recognition of Academies into the Specials Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) has had a significant impact on their national profile amongst secondary schools.
- As a very publicly high profile programme the government has made use of several of the new Academies as centres from which to launch the announcement of major new
national initiatives. This has brought with it extensive national media coverage including television. Respondents talked of the very positive impact such media exposure
has had for their Academy.
- Respondents talked of the importance of involving the local community in the work of the Academy. They also commented on the impact of engaging the community in improving attitudes to learning and generating a culture of aspiration through winning their confidence.

School Business Managers and Distributed Leadership

This NCSL Research Associate report examined the impact of the key drivers on school leadership by evaluating distributed leadership research from an School Business Manager (SBM)/ bursar perspective; and carry out a survey of what is happening across UK state schools.

Key findings:
- 69% of respondents to the survey indicated their school had a SBM/bursar.
- Funding and teacher perceptions were the main barriers to not having a bursar. While headteachers broadly supported the SBM/bursar role, comments indicated that in practice, this support related largely to the SBM/bursar authorising involvement in professional development programmes and less to an understanding of the wider value of the role within the school.
- Completion of the Certificate in SBM/ Diploma in SBM, staff changes and the introduction of the Department for Schools, Families and Children’s Financial Management Standards in Schools were quoted as the main drivers in SBMs/bursars becoming members of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT).
- SBM/bursar roles have existed in primaries on average only for two years, compared with five years for secondaries. This suggests that primaries are still in the process of adapting to SBMs/bursars.
- 59% of bursars were on the SLT. In many cases, their responsibilities were restricted to managing aspects of the office team. Furthermore, the ‘average’ bursar only oversaw around 40% of support staff, indicating that in a number of schools, the SLT and headteacher continue to retain control over many support functions.
- The work of SBMs in primary schools was more likely to be restricted to operational issues relating to finance, personnel and office issues, than was the case in secondary schools.
- SBMs in secondary schools were far more likely to operate at a senior or strategic level than their primary counterparts. Organisational size was likely to be a major factor in this, as larger budgets and staff numbers offer greater flexibility to operate.
- 52% of SBMs/bursars are paid at or below Newly Qualified Teacher rates. Some SBMs felt this reflected poorly on the perceived value of their work and in some instances led to resentment.
- 33% of SBM respondents possessed a degree level or higher qualification. This figure rose to 85% when the CSBM/ DSBM qualifications were taken into account. Respondents indicated that increased take-up of the CSBM/DSBM would help to reduce both perceived and real inequalities in the professional status of teaching and school business staff.
- Around one third of CSBM/DSBM graduates expressed interest in continued professional development.

School governors and Head Teachers

This research associate report from the NCSL explores the strategic role that headteachers and governors carry out in partnership in three case study schools. Although small-scale, it seeks to:
- Identify similarities which may facilitate a higher level of strategic operation.
- Describe some of its benefits and barriers to this.
- Provide practical examples of how this vision of strategic partnership might work in action.

Key points:
- Each of the governing bodies adopted a structure which enabled an inner-circle of experienced, committed governors to work alongside school leaders in review and futures thinking activities. This model was recommended by both the governors and headteachers interviewed.
- However, allied to their adoption of this approach, was an awareness of the need for succession planning and the need to build the capacity for strategic planning amongst governors more broadly. This was critical if a culture of dependency was to be avoided.
- The way in which these governing bodies worked in partnership with the headteacher was aided by a range of practices and specific attitudes, including: a clear understanding regarding each other’s roles and remits; the creation of opportunities for staff and governors to work together; a focus on utilising governors’ skills in order to maximise the contribution of individuals; providing development opportunities for governors’ skills to grow and, linked to this, planning for succession; the promotion of a trust-based relationship that facilitated both honest and open dialogue; governors offering challenge within the remit of critical friend.
- Identified practices employed by governors, which enabled them to function strategically, included; not involving themselves in the day-to-day management of the school unless it was to enable the headteacher to focus more on their core purpose of teaching and learning; working alongside school leaders in review and futures thinking activities and offering support and challenges; enabling innovation and risk-taking; establishing a clear understanding of strategic leadership linked to self-evaluation; viewing change as challenge and not being daunted by it.

The role of school leadership in England

This NCSL research associate report aimed to answer the question: How can the role of headship be made possible, maintaining a headteacher’s energy and enthusiasm?


There were two sub-questions to this:
1. What is the nature of a headteacher’s working week?
2. What approaches and strategies can be adopted to help headteachers deal with the demands of their role?



Key findings:
- During the course of the study, on average the group of headteachers worked 42.5 hours per week. There was relatively little variation between individual members of the group.
- 22% of the head teachers time was spent on administration and a further 20% spent on development of self and working with others. Just 1% of time was spent on shaping the future.

- The study identified a range of factors that inhibited headteachers’ effectiveness and threatened the longer-term sustainability of the role. These ‘inhibitors’ could be broadly classified as being either emotional (guilt and anxiety) or operational (such as "fire-fighting"; administering; controlling or procrastinating).

- Headteachers should be encouraged to undertake a critical reflection of the nature of their work, based on the following principles:
1. Headteachers should be supported to focus on the strategic rather than the operational dimensions of their work.
2.While recognising the emotional difficulties involved, headteachers should endeavour neither to carry guilt nor avoid the critical issues they face.
3. Headteachers should model the importance of professional development, displaying a commitment to their own learning.

Critical Incidence for school leadership

This NCSL research associate report examined "critical incidences" within schools and the response of school leaders.

The main research questions are:
1. What factors/experiences give an individual the capacity and capability to deal effectively with Critical Incidents (CI) and Critical Episodes (CE)?
2. What specific strategies /support mechanisms do colleagues/organisations use to deal effectively with CIs and CEs?
3. What leadership styles and preferences enable individuals and organisations deal with CIs effectively?

Key points:
- The following factors and experiences were highlighted as helping individuals develop the capacity to cope effectively with CIs and CEs.
• Having a significant professional mentor who has shaped ethos, philosophy and modus operandi featured significantly in participant’s responses.
• A positive, happy childhood including positive happy experiences at school.
• A close, stable family, partner or significant other who is supportive.
• Experience of activities that helped to develop their EQ. That is being self aware, aware of others an understanding of ones personality.
• Positive experiences that has helped to develop feelings of self-efficacy.
• Experience of dealing with CIs and CEs.

The following actions are proposed:
- Develop a scheme to identify a professional mentor either within one’s own school or one who stays with an individual throughout their career. This would be problematic to establish but not impossible.
- Take time to carry out a review of CIs each term and identify what was learnt from them. Experiencing and coping with a CI or CE effectively builds up one’s immunity/resilience to their effect and helps to develop one’s capacity to cope initially and afterwards. Therefore protecting individuals from CIs might not always be beneficial to the individual or organisation.
- A sense of self-efficacy can be encouraged through a supportive professional development programme where staff have the skills, knowledge and opportunities to work effectively.

School funding in England

This report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies examined school funding by answering four questions:

• How have overall levels of public spending on education and schools in the UK evolved in recent years?
• How does the English school funding system allocate money to individual schools?
• How redistributive is the school funding system, and to what degree do funding variations reflect educational needs and parental background?
• What incentives do state schools face to attract new pupils and to improve school quality?

Key points:
- Education spending in the UK has seen increases averaging 4.3% a year in real terms over the past ten years. However, this rate of increase will slow to 3.4% a year over the years 2008–09 to 2010–11.
- Schools spending in England has enjoyed larger increases than education spending as a whole over the past ten years (averaging 6.0% per year in real terms), with particularly large increases in schools capital spending.
- School spending per pupil has increased by 6.4% a year in real terms under Labour to date, compared with increases averaging 4.7% in the private sector. State spending per pupil has risen from 50% of the private sector level in 1997–98 to 58% in 2006–07.
- While the provision of schools may be the responsibility of local authorities, the vast
majority of schools’ funding comes from the central government’s education budget.
- Changes to the system over recent years have gradually reduced the discretion local authorities have in distributing these funds. This is the result of increased ‘ring fencing’ (whereby local authorities are forced to spend grants on specific purposes) and increased use of direct payments and grants that must be passed on to schools in full.
- Other changes have also reduced the discretion local authorities have over school
funding in their area, including the Minimum Funding Guarantee, which guarantees minimum increases in funding per pupil for nearly all schools.
- However, powers over funding decisions have not simply been transferred up from local authorities to central government; schools themselves now have an increasing influence on funding decisions via Schools Forums.
- Funding is skewed towards schools with relatively large numbers of pupils from deprived backgrounds. On average, pupils who are eligible for free school meals attract over 70% more funding to their school than those who are not eligible. This holds true for both primary and secondary schools, and the funding ‘premium’ that follows FSM pupils has grown over time.
- Local authorities only allocate around 40–50% of the extra funding they receive for pupils who are eligible for free school meals towards the schools these pupils attend. In other words, local authorities seem to spread the funding targeted at low-income pupils more widely. If local authorities did not flatten extra income in this way, the additional money following a low-income pupil would be roughly 50% higher in secondary schools and more than doubled in primary schools.
- Under the current system, the amount of funding that schools receive does not respond quickly to changes in their numbers of pupils from deprived backgrounds or with additional educational needs.
- Most money ‘follows the pupil’ in the English school funding system, with the majority of funding directly determined by pupil numbers (weighted by age and background).
- The current system does not live up to the ‘school choice’ programme enthusiastically
described in the 2005 White Paper, in which successful schools expand, new entrants compete with existing providers, and weaker schools either improve their performance or else contract and close.
- Rigidities elsewhere in the school system blunt the incentives created by parental choice. Of the three criteria often used to determine whether genuine ‘school choice’ exists (pupil-led funding, supply flexibility and management freedom), the English system probably ‘fails’ on the last two.
- The supply side appears to be largely inflexible, with little threat of entry from new
providers. New school entry is decided by local authorities, which have little incentive to encourage new entry.
- School management is constrained by binding collective agreements covering many aspects of school operations, including pay and conditions. Where schools (such as Academies) have been given freedom from these agreements, they appear to have responded with innovation and experimentation. However, Academies supply only a tiny fraction of school places in England, and the success of these experiments is as yet unproven.

Read BBC news article

The Extra Mile - Raising Aspirations in Deprived Communities

This DCSF paper is the first of a series which will explore in detail the barriers which face the children from deprived communities at school and seek ways to improve their chances of success. It is a project which is focused on children whose families have been poor for generations, in this sense it links to other research on persistent poverty (click here). The project focuses on the cultural attitudes between poverty and aspiration.

Key points:

- Generational poverty adds to material deprivation the weight of historical expectation and ingrained culture.

- Despite a closing gap, there is still significant difference of attainment of those on free school meals (FSM) and those not.

- By visiting 50 secondary schools working in the most deprived wards in England, but with a great track record of success with their pupils, it was seen that they do similar activities to any great school: they have dynamic leaders, who lead from the front, set the tone and establish a ‘can do’ culture; they have strong systems for quality; they are passionate about the quality of the classroom experience; they shape the curriculum to serve the needs of their intake; they track the progress of pupils with ardent regularity and intervene immediately if anyone falls off trajectory; they are unusually creative about recruitment and retention.

- these schools also go the extra mile for the children of their community. They implement some deliberate extra measures specifically targeted at the most disadvantaged. The research found 12 "extra mile" practices:
1: To increase interactive and participatory learning
2: To develop a listening campaign
3: To promote a culture of respect for local values
4: To broaden pupils’ horizons
5: To develop a culture of achievement
6: To offer a more relevant curriculum
7: To build pupils’ repertoire of language
8: To develop pupils’ social, emotional & behavioural skills
9: To cultivate traditional values
10: To track pupils’ progress and intervene promptly
11: To develop effective rewards and incentive schemes
12: To support pupils at transition points

Impact of High Performing Specialist Schools

PricewaterhouseCoopers have published this interim report, on behalf of the DCSF, on High Performing Specialist Schools (HPSS). Specialist schools are those which are recognised as being a centre of excellence in their chosen specialism (such as a curriculum subject or for Special Educational Needs). Since 2004 Specialist Schools have had the chance to apply to become High Performing. This implies that they gain a second specialism (i.e. a second curriculum and/or vocational subject as specialism) or that they take part in the Leading Edge Partnership Programme; become a Training School; take part in the Raising Achievement Transforming Learning Programme; or Youth Support Trust School Leadership Programme.

This report evaluates the success of the HPSS only, as opposed to evaluating the success of the Specialist School Programme in general.

Key points:
- Schools are optimistic that the HPSS option is contributing positively to raising pupils’ aspirations and attainment. A small number of interviewees (mainly those schools with a SEN HPSS option) emphasised the importance of assessing the impact upon achievement as well as attainment, as this was important for pupils with Special Educational Needs;
- Approximately one-half of interviewees believed that recruitment and retention of staff had improved as a result of the school taking on the high performing role;
- Schools were generally positive about the opportunities that the programme has provided to enhance and extend training and development opportunities for staff. Approximately four-fifths of headteachers indicated that training and development opportunities have improved as a direct result of involvement in the programme;
- Staff workload has increased in two-thirds of the schools visited (in particular for the Director of Specialism(s) and class teachers), but this was not generally resented by staff; as interviewees suggested that job satisfaction has simultaneously improved. A large number of interviewees suggested that workload peaked during the planning stage and the early implementation of the specialism and that it would reduce as the programme was being implemented;
- Over 90% of headteachers believed that curricular choice and personalised learning opportunities for pupils have improved as a result of the HPSS option;
- Many HPS schools are collaborating effectively with partner primary schools, but the outreach activities with local secondary schools, the wider community and local businesses are less well developed. Many of the examples of best practice in terms of collaboration with local secondary schools and businesses exist in training schools and schools with a vocational specialism; and
- Over one-half of interviewees believed that HPSS contributed specifically to the achievement of wider Government objectives, including the 14-19 agenda, the workforce remodelling agenda, extended schools and Every Child Matters.