School Improvement and Community Renewal

John West-Burnham

School improvement and renewal are inseparable issues from neighbourhood improvement and renewal, particularly in the most disadvantaged areas. While schools are profoundly affected by their neighbourhoods, they equally have a key role in promoting cohesion and building social capital.Audit Commission 2006

Principles of the Children’s Plan

• government does not bring up children – parents do – so government needs to do more to back parents and families;

• all children have the potential to succeed and should go as far as their talents can take them;

• children and young people need to enjoy their childhood as well as grow up prepared for adult life;

• services need to be shaped by and responsive to children, young people and families, not designed around professional boundaries; and

• it is always better to prevent failure than tackle a crisis later. (pp5-6)

The Variables Influencing a Person’s Life Chances

Family Resilience

Social Capital Engagement

Motivation

Poverty

Social Class

Ability

Personal

Social

Gender, disability, ethnicity

School

Leaders at the system level need to engage other levels so that policies and strategies are shaped and reshaped, and the emerging bigger picture is constantly communicated and critiqued. Local leaders for their part must push outward to lead lateral capacity building and vertical exchanges with high levels of the system as a whole. (Fullan 2005 p44)

The hardest part of sustainable leadership is the part that provokes us to think beyond our own schools and ourselves. It is the part that calls us to serve the public good of all people’s children within and beyond our community and not only the private interests of those who subscribe to our own institution. …Sustainable leadership is socially just leadershipAndy Hargreaves and Dean Fink

National Prescription

Schools Leading Reform

High excellence,

high equity

Dependency

Interdependency

David Hopkins

System Leadership:• Advising on the formulation of national

policies and projects;• Working with local authorities;• Collaborating with the leaders of other

public services;• Leading community initiatives• Leading a network, cluster or federation

of schools;• Executive headship• Leading extended schools;

The Implications of Systems Leadership

• Focus on the client.• Integrated policies, strategies and

services.• Collective accountability.• Building social capital.• From ‘Bonding’ to ‘Bridging’.

Leading Beyond the School

High Low

CONFIDENCE

High

COMPELXITY

Low

System leaders will need to be:

• Comfortable with complexity and ambiguity;

• Able to influence, advise and inform;• Skilled in building networks and

coalitions;• Skilled in developing communities of

practice;• Able to facilitate dialogue;• Able to build leadership capacity;• Able to demonstrate impact.

System leaders will need to understand:

The factors influencing policy development;• Strategies that enable system

transformation;• International and national trends;• The nature of complex organizations and

networks;• The social, political and economic

infrastructure;• Educational thinking and research.