Achievement for All

Achievement for All

Leadership

Conferences

Autumn 2009

Agenda• Achievement for All – local context• DCSF National overview• Achievement for All DVD• Characteristics of effective inclusive

leadership• Helping you achieve the project aims• National evaluation• Local authority-led session• Prioritising of next steps for schools/LA

Over to you….

• How does Achievement for All support your vision for your school?

• What opportunities does it offer?

Achievement for All

Chris WheatleyHeadteacher

Cotgrave Candleby Lane SchoolParaska Throup

Former HeadteacherWest Lodge Middle School

Characteristics of effective inclusive leadership

Aims

• Share thinking about leadership of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)

• Reflect on current practice

• Inform personal leadership development

Pressures of School life for Leaders! supply cover project manager governor

Ofsted pupil’s annual reports breakfast clubs

policy maker crowd controller

new diplomas governors reports appointments of staff

monitoring & evaluation

health & safety officer SIP/ meetings

caretaker/site manager bursar/finance data performance management appraiser

assemblies boys toilets questionnaires

Leading Learning and Teaching

The focus on leadership

• Personal reflection

• Discussion with colleagues

• Issues for consideration back in school

• Learning about leadership through the project

• Informing other leaders

Characteristics of effective leadership

• Building vision and setting directions

• Understanding and developing people

• Redesigning the organisation

• Managing the teaching and learning programme NCSL, 2007

Four elements of effective inclusive leadership

• A shared vision and ethos for inclusion

• A strong commitment for making the vision a reality

• A commitment to collaboration

• Effective communication throughout

Elements of effective inclusive leadership

Vision/core belief

• every child succeeds – a moral core purpose

• consistent messages of core belief

• reflect and question vision – how effective is it?

Time to reflect

• To what extent is there a shared vision and high expectations for the outcomes for all pupils in your school?

How do you know?

• To what extent is there a shared vision for the engagement of parents and carers in supporting the learning and development of their children?

How do you know?


Commitment

• systems supporting a vision

• collective responsibility

• strategic view

Time to reflect

• What strategies are in place to track children’s progress?

Is progress good enough?

What evidence do you have to support this?

• Is there a collective responsibility for the progress of children and young people identified with SEND in your school? How do you know?


Collaboration

• school has a collaborative environment

• parents fully included

• strong links with other schools

• multi–agency collaboration

Time to reflect

• How proactive is your school at developing effective cross agency partnerships for children with SEND? What is the impact of this?

• How do you enable parents to collaborate in their children’s learning?


Communication

• early intervention

• constant dialogue

• the listening headteacher

Time to reflect• How do your communications with parents and

carers show that you value the contribution that they can make to support their children’s learning?

How do you know that the communications are good and work for parents?

• How do you know there is effective communication between leaders (and between leaders and other staff) in your school? What evidence do you have to support this?

How effective are we……..?

• Our vision

• Our systems

• How effectively do we collaborate?

• Do we lead a listening school?

Next Steps

• Continue with personal reflection

• Discussions with school leaders

• Diamond 9 activity

1 To what extent is there a shared vision and high expectations for the outcomes for all pupils in your school? How do you know?

2 What strategies are in place to track children’s progress and is progress good enough? What evidence do you have to support this?

3 How do you enable parents to collaborate in their children’s learning?

4 How do you know there is effective communication between leaders (and between leaders and other staff) in your school? What evidence do you have to support this?

Discussion questions

Diamond 9 ActivityDiscuss and prioritise the tasks/actions using the statement cards and the Diamond 9 grid. 1 is the highest priority. Use blanks to record additional tasks/actions. Discuss which elements of effective leadership might be most significant in supporting these tasks.

Achievement for All

National Strategies

AfA Team

Helping you achieve the project aims

The 3 strands of AfA

‘Must-dos’ for schools

• Secure leadership and coordination• Conduct a gap analysis• Develop an AfA implementation plan to

include use of funding• Engage in appropriate CPD opportunities• Provide required evidence to support

project evaluation• Consider how outcomes can be sustained

• Implement the cycle of assessing, tracking and intervention (strand 1)

• Hold structured conversations with parents and support ongoing communication with parents (strand 2)

• Prioritise 2 areas from the wider outcomes (strand 3)

‘Must-dos’ for schools: strand specific

Monitoring and Evaluating AfA

National Evaluation

Of AfADCSF / Evaluation

Team

Schools

Local Authorities

National Strategies

Internal self-evaluation e.g. data analysis, feedback from

stakeholders

Visits to schools Meetings with School Project Leaders

Monitoring of LA Project Leader Joint visits to schools

Qualitative and quantitative data collection, case studies

Other staffOther staff

SENCO/ SENCO/ INCOINCO

Class/Class/subject subject teachersteachers

Key TeachersKey Teachers

AfA AfA SchoolSchool

Leader(s)Leader(s)

SLTSLT

Whole Whole School School

ApproachApproach

Support through a whole school approach

Training Training for strand 2for strand 2

National National StrategiesStrategies

Leading Leading Teachers for Teachers for

AfAAfA

Collaboration Collaboration with other with other

schoolsschools

LA Project LA Project LeaderLeader

Local AuthorityLocal Authority

Support Support for for

schoolsschools

Support for schools

Support in Support in brokering brokering

further CPDfurther CPD

Training for Training for strand 2strand 2

Online Online discussion discussion

forum/websiteforum/website

Joint visits to Joint visits to schoolsschools

Regular visits to Regular visits to LALA

Project Leader Project Leader meetingsmeetings

LA / Schools LA / Schools GuidanceGuidance

Support from Support from National National

StrategiesStrategies

Support from the National Strategies

Discussion

• What are the benefits for your school?• What are the logistical challenges?• What support do you need?• What expertise or skills might you have to

share?

Achievement for AllNational Evaluation

Dr. Neil Humphrey, Dr. Garry Squires & Professor Peter Farrell

School of Education, University of Manchester

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/index.php

Research Questions1. What is the impact of AFA on outcomes for pupils

with SEND?– In relation to attainment in English and

mathematics?– In relation to wider outcomes such as

behaviour, attendance, and positive relationships?

– In relation to parental engagement and confidence?

– To what extent is any impact mediated by variation in regional, LA, school and pupil level factors?

Research Questions (Contd.)

2 What processes and practices are most effective in improving the above outcomes?

– In relation to activity at regional, LA, school and classroom levels?

– What contextual and pupil factors influence the relative success of these processes and practices?

– How sustainable and transferable are these processes and practices?

Research Design – Quantitative Strand

• Online surveys of regions, LAs, schools and parents that will seek to link variation in how AFA is implemented at various levels to changes in key pupil-level outcome variables

• Approximately 450 AFA schools and 10,000 pupils/families will be sampled, alongside a comparable number of comparison schools (and pupils/families) that are not part of the initiative

Research Design – Quantitative Strand (Contd.)

• Our regional, LA and school level surveys will examine how AFA is being implemented. This data can then be linked to pupil-level outcome measures including attainment, behaviour, bullying, positive relationships, attendance, and parental engagement and confidence

• Surveys will be conducted at three time-points - in January 2010 (Time 1), autumn 2010 (Time 2) and summer 2011 (Time 3) – so that we can examine the impact of AFA over time

Research Design – Qualitative Strand

• We will sample a range of stakeholders/institutions in order to develop a rich and detailed picture of AFA implementation

• In-depth interviews with all regional advisors and LA project leaders will be conducted, followed by

interviews with 2-3 advisory teachers in each LA

Research Design – Qualitative Strand (Contd.)

• We will then sample 2 schools in each of the 10 AFA LAs for longitudinal case studies, which will involve around 5 visits over the two year period and comprise interviews with senior managers, SENCOs, classroom teachers, support staff and pupils, focus groups with parents, observations, and document analysis

• Within each school we will sample approximately 5 pupils/parents for ‘mini-case-studies’

“What’s in it for us?/Why bother?”• We need to know if AFA has succeeded in its

overall aims – so this national evaluation is vital• Opportunity to participate in what we think will be

the biggest study of its kind• Minimal data collection burden

– Everything will be set up on the survey website for each school (underpinned by PLASC/NPD data) – teachers/parents just log in and complete surveys

– Surveys designed to be as brief as possible, and only required on an annual basis

– Flexible survey window – around 1 month to complete surveys at each time point

“What’s in it for us?/Why bother?” (contd.)

– User friendly design – including translated versions for parent surveys

– For case study schools, our team will work flexibly around your needs to arrange mutually agreeable dates/times for visits

• Every school will receive bespoke aggregated feedback following each survey that allows them to compare their data to other schools in the LA and the national sample as a whole (this can be used for SEF etc.)

• All data will be treated in the strictest confidence and will be completely anonymised prior to analysis and reporting

Key Contacts

• Dr. Neil Humphrey– [email protected]

• Dr. Garry Squires– [email protected]

• Lucy Ryan– [email protected]

Achievement for All

Local Authority

Role of LA-Project Leader

• Embedding of strands • Briefings to schools• Supporting/challenging schools • CPD opportunities• Allocate resources• Links to National Strategies/DCSF• Monitoring and Evaluation• Regional Hubs

Role of School – Project Leader

• Raise profile - Communication• Engagement of hard to reach parents• Involving pupils in decision making• Adjustments to curriculum to strengthen inclusion• Link to SIP• Support classroom teachers in APP and structured

conversations• Links to wider community

Actions for schools this term

• GAP analysis• Implementation Plan• Baseline data collection• Identify School Project Leader• Disseminate project to stakeholders• Attend strand 2 training and begin

structured conversations

Next Steps……

What 3 key actions will you need

to focus on this term?

Evaluation…Very thorough and thought provoking. Lots to think about

but all very exciting.

Assistant Headteacher,

Coventry

Headteacher,

Sheffield

Assistant Headteacher,

Gloucestershire

A lovely day. Thank you.

Inspiring and exciting.

The day has convinced me how much potential

AfA has. It will really help to raise aspirations.

Have drafted action plan, feel inspired, eager to move on

this

Deputy Headteacher,

Camden

Documents

Achievement for All