Balancing the needs of policy and practice, while remaining authentic: an analysis of leadership and governance in three national school leadership colleges

The contribution that school leadership can make to school and teacher quality - and thereby to pupil learning - is widely recognised. Pressures on school leaders have increased in recent years, as a result of increased accountability and higher expectations from policy as well as wider societal, economic and technological changes. In response, a number of school systems have established national leadership colleges with a remit to improve the supply and quality of leadership. This article analyses how such national colleges are established and operate in the context of wider system governance, with a focus on examples in England, Scotland and Singapore. It is informed by a review of literature and interviews with current and former Chief Executives (CEOs) of the three colleges. Critics argue that these national colleges represent a form of ‘institutionalised governance’ (Gunter and Forrester, 2009), a mechanism for enacting hierarchical policy reforms through the creation of a willing cadre of officially approved front-line leaders. Alternatively, viewed through the lens of complexity theory (Burns and Koster, 2016), these colleges can be seen as a means to align policy and practice and to enhance system and professional learning. This article finds evidence to support both lines of argument, but also highlights differences between the three colleges, for example in their relationship with policy and in their operating models. For example, while Singapore’s settled policy environment means that the Director can focus on working productively with policy makers, the two UK CEOs must navigate more volatile policy landscapes, requiring them to engage more actively with both policy and practice at the same time. Balancing these demands can be difficult, and whilst there is some evidence that the colleges can support system alignment and improvement, they are subject to political demands and changes which can compromise their role and potential impact

Karmel Oration: Leading schools and school systems in times of change: A paradox and a quest

The ‘paradox’ in this title refers to a set of contradictions that sit at the heart of education policy in many school systems. Policymakers in these systems want things that, if not inherently at odds, are nevertheless in tension— such as a tightly defined set of national standards and a broad and balanced curriculum; academic stretch for the most able and a closing of the gap between high and low performers; choice and diversity and equity; and so on. The ‘quest’ is for leaders and leadership to resolve these tensions in practice. School autonomy policies have placed huge power in the hands of, and pressure on the shoulders of, leaders in high-autonomy–high-accountability quasi-market systems. Research has often focused on the values, characteristics and behaviours of effective leaders and leadership teams, but there can also be a darker, toxic side to leadership, and it is clear that leadership agency is constrained by the influence of hierarchy and markets. Meanwhile, policymakers have become increasingly concerned with how to foster innovation as they wrestle with the question of how education might adapt to the needs of an increasingly complex, globalised world. Critics argue that change has been constrained by narrowly defined criteria for success and an instrumental focus on improvement, leading to a crisis of legitimacy. What seems clear is that change will require new approaches that somehow unlock leadership agency while supporting the development of new forms of leadership that can—and consistently do—resolve the paradox. This lecture will focus on England’s efforts to create a ‘self-improving school system’, which can be seen as one response to these issues. It will draw on the findings from a three-year study of the changes in England to draw out the wider implications for research and policy on leadership and school system reform

Evidence-informed innovation in schools : aligning collaborative research and development with high quality professional learning for teachers

Innovation efforts in schools commonly wrestle with two challenges: how to secure ownership of change among teachers and how to ensure that improvements are based on rigorous evidence. This article draws on findings from a two-year collaborative Research and Development (R&D) project in England which involved 66 school clusters (Teaching School Alliances) in implementing and evaluating school innovations. A linked research project by the authors evaluated how a sample of these school clusters structured and supported their R&D projects and the impact of this work. We find that, subject to certain conditions being met, collaborative R&D can enhance the ownership of change among participating teachers and can ensure that innovations are based on evidence. However, none of the schools involved in our study engaged all their staff in their collaborative R&D project and most had limited success in mobilising the learning from their R&D work so that the teachers who had not been involved could benefit. Therefore we draw on a separate umbrella review of evidence on effective Continuous Professional Development and Learning (CPDL) for teachers to argue for a model that integrates R&D and CPDL within and across schools. In this way, we argue that the learning from focussed R&D projects can be scaled up through well-designed CPDL, whilst retaining teacher ownership and evidence-informed improvement. In support of this argument we draw on research and theory from the emerging field of Knowledge Mobilisation, which has tended to focus on the organisational and systemic conditions required for evidence to inform practice, and combine this with Winch, Oancea and Orchard’s (2015) model of teachers’ professional knowledge, which provides a framework for understanding change at the individual level. We evidence the ways in which collaborative R&D can develop teachers’ professional knowledge and the organisational conditions required for this to happen. Where this happens we posit that it will enhance the potential for teaching to be accepted as an ‘evidence-informed professional endeavour’

Educational disadvantage : how does England compare?

This EPI report uses international educational assessment data to explore how England compares with the world leading education nations for the performance of school-age children in reading and mathematics. We investigate the socio-economic gap in secondary school pupils’ academic achievement using the PISA 2015 dataset, which has been linked to the National Pupil Database (NPD). Our goal is to estimate how disadvantaged pupils would achieve in England’s GCSE examinations for mathematics and reading

The role of school leaders in reform

School leaders sit at the fulcrum of educational reform initiatives. This is particularly the case in decentralised school systems in which schools have relatively high levels of autonomy, or decision-making rights, in relation to operational and instructional matters. However, even in less decentralised systems, school-level leaders must work in concert with district supervisors and teachers if desired reforms are to lead to changes in classroom practices and improvements in outcomes for children and young people.This observation raises important questions around how school leaders understand and engage with centrally-defined reforms and how they work with staff and wider stakeholders to achieve change. This paper explores these questions by focusing on two areas:Firstly, it explores system governance and the ways in which reforms are developed and enacted, since this will influence how school leaders respond and the kinds of support and incentives that influence their behaviour. Many systems have sought to strengthen accountability pressures and incentives for school-level leaders, which can potentially secure improvements in test scores but can also lead to unintended consequences, such as increasing stratification between schools and gaming behaviours. In response, policy makers have sought to mix and match a wider range of governance mechanisms and to acknowledge the complexities involved in system change.Secondly, it explores the nature of leadership and the leadership of change within schools.Drawing on these insights, the paper concludes by drawing out implications for policy makers and designers of leadership development programmes as well as front-line leaders

Multi-academy Trusts: do they make a difference to pupil outcomes?

This report is published as a supplement to the main project research report, Hierarchy, Markets and Networks: Analysing the ‘self-improving school-led system’ agenda in England and the implications for schools. The main project report analyses how schools in England have interpreted and begun to respond to the government’s ‘self-improving school-led system’ (SISS) policy agenda, an overarching narrative for schools policy since 2010 that encompasses an ensemble of reforms including academies, multi-academy trusts (MATs) and teaching school alliances (TSAs). The statistical analysis of MAT impact on pupil attainment and progress set out in this supplementary report is the first published analysis to compare schools in MATs over a three-year period with standalone academies and maintained schools with similar characteristics and levels of prior pupil attainment. The analysis set out here uses 2013–15 attainment data and 2016 data on the composition of MATs. Our finding in this paper that there is no positive impact from MAT status overall is largely consistent with other recent studies (Hutchings and Francis, 2017; Andrews, 2019). Where this report provides significant new evidence is in terms of MAT size, as we show that pupils in small and mid-sized MATs tend to perform better, on average, than their peers in comparable maintained schools in both phases and, in the primary phase, than comparable standalone academies. Conversely, secondary school pupils in larger MATs (with 16+ schools) tend to do worse compared to those in both standalone academies and maintained schools. These findings suggest that the economic drive for MAT growth promoted in contemporary policy may well be in tension with an educational argument for smaller groupings of schools

Innovation is possible, it's just not easy: improvement, innovation and legitimacy in England's autonomous and accountable school system

This article reviews the literature and explores the institutional and systemic factors that help and/or hinder change and innovation across school systems, with a focus on evidence from England. A number of authors have argued that schools and school systems need to become more innovative and adaptive if they are to meet the needs of 21st Century societies and economies. Quasi-market models premised on school autonomy, parental choice and vertical accountability have been seen as the best way to secure innovation, but the evidence of success remains thin. The article analyses four examples of change and finds that system-wide change is possible, but requires strong and sustained political support and capacity building within a values-based framework that allows for local agency and adaptation. It concludes by drawing out three implications: the need to prioritise 'professional' as well as 'structural' autonomy; the potential for vertical accountability frameworks to condition the ways in which parents perceive and value innovation; and the need to enhance the legitimacy of innovation in the eyes of education’s key stakeholders

More fragmented, and yet more networked: Analysing the responses of two Local Authorities in England to the Coalition's 'self-improving school-led system' reforms

This paper explores school reform in England under the Conservative-led Coalition government, elected in 2010, through a focus on the changing roles and status of Local Authorities (LAs). The Coalition's stated aim was the development of a 'self-improving, school-led' system in which LAs should become 'champions for children'. The paper draws on two locality case studies and a set of future scenarios and policy narratives to analyse the ways in which LAs and school leaders are responding to reform. The paper concludes that the Coalition focused its attention on structural reform, but that this placed an additional onus on leadership agency within local school systems to shape contextually appropriate solutions. The schools in the two areas studied appear to have become more fragmented and yet – paradoxically – more networked; however, they are not yet working in the 'deep partnerships' envisaged by Hargreaves (2010). This has meant that the LAs have needed to sustain their traditional roles (for example, in providing challenge and support to schools), whilst simultaneously evolving new ways of working (for example, providing 'bridging social capital'). These roles may sometimes be in tension, but are driven by different factors: LA-level accountability in the case of challenge and support, and reduced funding in the case of 'bridging social capital'. This suggests that the Coalition's conflicting policy narratives were in tension and that the notion of LAs as 'champions for children' requires review