© Crown copyright 2006 Leading System-wide Improvement…. At national, regional, local and school level

© Crown copyright 2006

Leading System-wide Improvement….

At national, regional, local and school level


2006/07 and beyond

• Secondary education for 21st century

• National developments at Key Stage 3 & 14 - 19

• Making the difference at national, local, school and classroom level

• Aspirations and expectations, hearts and minds


What is secondary school education for?

• Is the answer different if we ask – what are secondary schools for?

• How might secondary schools and education be different in 5, 10, 20 years?


What does secondary learning look like?

• “It has become clear that these children see school almost entirely in terms of these day-to-day and hour-to-hour tasks that we impose on them…. For children the central business of school is not learning, whatever this vague term means; it is getting these daily tasks done, or at least out of the way, with a minimum of effort and unpleasantness…. If they can get it out of the way by doing it, they will do it; if experience has taught them that this does not work very well, they will turn to other means, that wholly defeat whatever purpose the task-givers have had in mind.” John Holt 1970


What does secondary education look like?

• “so the most effective learners will be those who, as they pass from stage to stage, have acquired some generic capacities to reduce the time they spend in dependence”David Hargreaves 2005


How might the learner be placed at the centre?

• Creating a system where: “the student is the most important unit of organisation”

• “In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists” Eric Hofler

• Rhetoric, scale, manageability and phasing as we move from 19th to 21st century


Hearts and minds – layering our perspective

• What? No blended learning. When is this approach appropriate? Fit for purpose presentation (means)

• “You can only learn if you have something at stake” (commitment)

• Approaching Michelangelo’s David (process)


Moral purpose

“…a system where all young people have opportunities to learn in ways which motivate and stretch them and through hard work qualify themselves for success in life; one where educational opportunity and chances in life do not depend on an accident of birth…”


Starting Points(1)

• Schools and their staff are responsible for school improvement and have increased autonomy

• The government has been driving a major system-wide reform programme in education

• National entitlement is and continues to be an important concept in terms of equity and access

• One size fits all is not a model for the best professional and student learning

• The “hearts and minds” agenda does not go away for the workforce and a national change agenda must convince practitioners of its moral purpose


Starting Points (2)

• We need to recognise the changing national policy context:

• The continuing drive to raise standards• BSF and ICT rich learning environments• Greater school autonomy and changing role

of LAs• Every Child Matters and the Extended

School• New quality standards for the teaching

profession• A 2020 vision for teaching and learning and

secondary education


Starting Points (3)

The changing context for schools:

• New forms of “intelligent accountability”• New forms of collaboration between schools, changing LA

role and greater school autonomy• A new learning environment for workforce development –

the “blended learning” concept• A challenge through the White Paper and BSF to develop

teaching and learning for the 21st Century and to “personalise” the secondary education experience?

• A growing awareness of the need to promote “sustainable leadership” and expert capacity at all levels in the system


The “opportunity” of the next few years

• September 2008• How do we contribute to a

successful transition?


Key Stage 3 – the core messages are aimed at….

• Explicit link between standards and ECM • KS3 Review integral to broader

secondary reform – KS3 to be the platform from which children launch into 14 -19

• Additional space to focus on English and maths

• The principles of personalised learning to be communicated and evident in practice


Core Messages

• Raising standards to secure a strong foundation for every child (especially in English and maths)

• Preparation for work and life• Motivation, engagement & inspiration while

imparting knowledge, skills & attitudes to secure their future

• Happy, healthy, safe, confident, responsible citizens

• Less prescription, more flexibility• A curriculum which evolves and schools

participate in shaping


Key Stage 3 – the next steps

• Sept/Oct 06 – second draft of PoS• Dec 06 – advice to Ministers on

curriculum changes• Jan 07 - NS Annual Plan 07/08 second

draft• Feb – Apr 07 – statutory consultation• June 07 – final advice to Ministers• Sept 07 – PoS available to schools• Summer 07 – new curriculum guidance

and NS CPD programmes• Sept 08 – first teaching of new KS3


Issues and implications

• Curriculum models• Length of Key Stage• What flexibility means• Phasing of introduction• Evolution of teaching and

learning programmes• First new tests in 2011• Functional skills


14 – 19 headlines (1)

• Better routes to success• Greater focus on the basics• Better curriculum choice• More “stretching” options and

activities• New ways to tackle disengagement


14 – 19 headlines (2)

• Introduction of functional skills• Revision to GCSE syllabuses and

coursework requirements• Development of 14 specialised

diplomas• Introduction of new KS3 curriculum• Revision to “A” level including the

move from 6 to 4 units


New national entitlement 14 – 16 (1)

Every young person will study:

English, mathematics, science ICT, citizenship, PEWork-related learning and enterpriseRESex, drug, alcohol and tobacco

education and careers education


New national entitlement 14 – 16 (2)

The choice available to young people must include:

• All 14 specialised diplomasand

• At least one course in each of the following: the arts; D&T; humanities; MFL

(Concept of “September Guarantee”)


14 – 19: the challenges

• The standards agenda and the Every Child Matters agenda

• School structures and curriculum models

• Accreditation pathways and preparation for work and life

• Credibility with employers and HE• Regional variations & falling rolls


Introduction of functional skills

• From Sept 06 trialling phase focused on assessment instruments and draft standards

• From Sept 07, pilot phase in all three subjects

• From Sept 08, specialist diploma pilots begin

• From Sept 09, English and ICT rollout• From Sept 10, maths rollout• An initiative with major implications for

workforce development


Workforce Reform

• If 40% of students are doing different courses what are the implications for teachers?

• Sharing staff across several schools and colleges

• Greater use of expertise from practitioners and businesses linked to the diplomas


What is our contribution?

• The secondary learning experience desperately needs to evolve

• There is much that is positive in this agenda

• It could go badly wrong with the workforce’s current state of mind and emotional well being

• Avoiding the tyranny of the helping hand “striking” repeatedly


Issues for reflection

Personalising the learning experience:

• Erhan

• Arzu

• Diari


Key Messages

• The Secondary National Strategy is still very much about raising standards in the core subjects, now at KS4 as well as KS3

• Our role at secondary level is to ensure that our work is based on:• developing approaches to learning and

teaching which will raise standards and personalise learning more effectively for all

• interventions at LA, school, subject team and classroom level which will raise standards for underachieving groups


Orchestrating positive change

• Understanding the rhythm of transformation

• Means• Commitment• Process

• The “inside out” and “outside in”


Some pointers to the future

• Assessment for learning (APP, MPP)

• Intervention materials and the “waves” model

• Secondary intensifying support

• The breakthrough model of change


What leads to system-wide improvement?

• Targeting at local, school and classroom level

• Why might a teacher want to change his/her practice and why would she look to the Strategies for guidance and support

• What works in terms of hearts and minds as a means of helping practitioners to see that things could be different


What might this look like?What will be distinctive?

• In a world where schools are responsible and accountable for their own improvement, the Strategies are known for:• “our investment in sustainable solutions to current

problems” • adding value to the work of schools and making a

difference• modelling the national/personalised, tight/loose,

push/pull creative tension at the heart of every effective learning setting for adults and young people (in everything we do in our national “offer”)


Form, shape, constraints

Best practice needs form, shape and careful planning….

• “My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit.” Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of MusicRussian composer in US (1882 - 1971)


Power of the learning exchange

Every student deserves the best teaching…..

• “It is not the method that is important but the teacher who teaches – and then it is not the teacher but the pupil who is most important and how the pupil absorbs and transforms information, how the pupil embodies and transforms knowledge”Eugenio Barba – Theatre Director


Going beyond the rhetoric…

• “If you treat people as they are, you will be instrumental in keeping them as they are. If you treat them as they could be, you will help them become what they ought to be” Goethe


Leading System-wide Improvement….

At national, regional, local and school level

Documents

© Crown copyright 2006 Leading System-wide Improvement…. At national, regional, local and school level