Creating a Self Improving System

Creating a Self Improving System

Sarah Heesom – Teaching School DirectorRebecca Meredith – NLE & Executive HeadteacherPeter Brown – Academy PrincipalSteve Cox – Operations Director

The National Context

National College of Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) have developed a vision of a self-improving system, ‘where schools and academies take collective responsibility for leading sustainable school improvement’

In this system, leaders:

• care about and have the skills and capacity to work for the success of other children beyond their own school

• collaborate with other leads to share and develop common solutions

• make effective use of resources to raise standards

• shape thinking, policy and practice

• will be school and academy based by 2016

The National Context• David Hargreaves was commissioned in 2010 by NCTL to

explore the conditions necessary to achieve a sustainable, self-improving school system

• He focused on the development of school clusters and the associated provision of cluster leaders

• He chose a time horizon of 5 years in his thinking• These documents have subsequently informed the evolution

of Teaching Schools

The Journey so far…

• Round 2 TSA – Established in May 2012• Grown from an initial 10 schools to 45 schools• Primary, Secondary, Special, Early Years – City & County• Outward looking – public and private sector partners• Everyone contributes• Values-led• School-led

School-led

• Leadership Committee – schools and partners - provides overall strategy

• Whole Alliance Days – provides themed strategy• Research & Action Learning Groups• Working Groups • NLEs, LLEs, SLEs, OFPs – Building Capacity• Aspiring Leaders - Talent Management underpins growth

Working Groups

• Focused working groups lead Alliance priorities• Needs-led – gaps identified and priorities agreed by schools• Each group operate within core Alliance values• Each group has Headteacher involvement• Each group agrees outcomes• Each group feeds back to the whole Alliance

Working Groups

SEND

School to School Support

Leadership for Learning

Initial Teacher Training

Talent Management

Specialist Leaders of Education

ICT & Computing

The Arts Primary Curriculum

Data

Outstanding Facilitators

School to School Support

Vision for Teaching School Alliances

Play a fundamental role in a self-sustaining system where:• Trainees, teachers and leaders learn from the best, supported by a

culture of coaching and mentoring;

• Professional development is school-led and high quality – with improvement through exposure to excellent practice, through observation, mentoring, coaching, practice, reflection, sharing with peers;

• Talent development and distributed leadership are the norm – staff are encouraged to lead and are given structure and stretching opportunities to grow and develop;

• Leaders have local knowledge and can identify where key resources and expertise lie

School to School Support Mission

“As partners we embrace opportunities within Transform to transfer best practice from our own organisations to support others. Being a partner also requires us to maintain the best as part of our collective endeavour for children”

Values and principles

• Partnership of equals• Trusted relationships between schools• Peer review• Shared and deliberate focus with clear purpose• Shared accountability• Partnership work• A balance between taking from and giving to

Commitment• Every partner will work collaboratively with

another partner over the course of each year• We will open ourselves up to honest, supportive

and challenging conversation across the Alliance about data in our own schools

• We will develop a range of provision so local leaders can identify and access key resources and expertise to support school improvement

• We accept that all school to school support will be quality assured

Tiers of SupportTier 1 (Reactive)

Intervention

Tier 2 (Proactive)Prevention

Tier 3 (Proactive)Entitlement

Tier 4 (Proactive)Sharing Practice

Tier 5 (Proactive)Supportive & informal

Pilots

• Support + impact of support• Process and protocols• Peer led health checks• 2 other pilots in development

Remit of the Working Group

• To continue to develop and oversee the S2S Support programme

• To determine where support is best deployed• To question and challenge the appropriateness of

the support brokered • To receive updates on progress and impact• To oversee quality assurance• To capture evidence of impact & progress

“…it enables us to look outside [our school], otherwise we can all be a bit parochial and

left behind”

“We feel a lot of trust within the Alliance”

“[Transform] brings good people together and provides blue skies

thinking as a way of driving school improvement”

“Headteachers value the peer to peer support….as we value the knowledge

of our own peers”

“…very solid values and foundations”

“No-one is there to point the finger; it’s about support and

doing it together”

“…feel incredibly strong”

“We feel part of something special”

“…easy decision to join [Transform]”







“When this is a truly commercial model, will it

sustain itself?““…because it has worked so

well for us, [Transform] should be around for a long time”

The establishing and sharing of these “very solid values and foundations” engenders trust and reciprocity, and

suggests that the self-sustaining TSA has longevity built in

Where now?

• Continual review of values and commitment of members• Pro-actively growing the system – creating the right

conditions - aspiration• Talent Management & Succession Planning• Constantly looking for opportunities• Pushing ourselves and boundaries• Reflection built in - all stakeholders

Transform will give you wings!

Documents

Creating a Self Improving System