Let’s clear away the confusion
It would be rare to find a school
today that didn’t have systems of some kind in place that helped them
accurately track and measure the attainment of pupils.
Management information and
pupil assessment systems are now commonplace in schools and academies because
they make it easy for leaders to analyse a student’s progress so that teachers
can target support where it is most needed.
Ensuring that no pupil falls
through the net and that every student meets or exceeds their potential is a
number one priority for every school leader.
If school leaders
have a clear view of what’s happening in these areas they can make sure
everybody plays a part in reaching school development targets. It also means that leaders can identify which staff
members need more professional support and everyone gets recognition for the
contribution their work makes. The result is a better run school in which
pupils prosper.
We know
these processes have a big impact on pupil performance. The Teacher Development
Trust for example highlights a New Zealand study showing that classes whose teachers
had taken part in high-quality professional development improved twice as fast
as those in other classes. It also
showed that the 20 per cent of pupils deemed ‘least able’ made improvements up to
six times faster than their peers in other classes.
Strange, then, that the vast
majority of schools in England
and Wales
today – around 85 per cent – simply don’t have the means to track and manage
these improvement processes in ways that make it easy for them to use the
information and act on it. The fact is many leaders think they have that ‘clear
view’ but when compared with schools that use modern day tools, the gap is
quite staggering.
Most schools still follow the standard information gathering approach,
usually involving hyperlinked Word documents, over-complicated computer
spreadsheets or lever arch files destined to sit on an office shelf.
Money, time and complexity
are the main reasons why this approach still persists. It’s
too tricky to get that intelligent view with a PC spreadsheet because it takes
too much time to mine the data, interpret it in various ways and link it to
evidence. I’ve seen for myself some
wonderfully creative, DIY documents
which at first appear to be a massive step forward for schools. But after a few
months, it becomes quite apparent that maintaining these tools is a full time
job which can’t be sustained because there aren’t the resources. Another
downside of this approach is that these ‘homebrew’ tools often become unstable
and this frustrates school leaders when they need to access accurate
information.
As well as clouding a
school’s view of what it needs to do to keep on improving, this traditional
approach could also create problems with Ofsted. The body now wants schools and academies to give full account of
the improvement processes that ultimately have a huge impact upon
pupil attainment. It wants evidence
that the SLT knows the school’s strengths and weaknesses, that leaders are
immersed in self-evaluation and that development plans are focused on
improving teaching and raising achievement.
These are compelling reasons
for schools to change, yet most still have a bit of a blind spot in this
area. I
worry that this reluctance might be a sign of a deeper, age old, issue– a fear
of change.
All school leaders and their
staff are open to change if it means tangible improvements. But human nature is
what it is and some schools think it better to avoid the discomfort and
continue as they have always done.
I believe the intelligent
management of these processes will help leaders and their staff overcome these
fears. School improvement planning and the monitoring of impact
shouldn’t be about cold data crunching. We need to use technology to support
people in their development and let them make a real contribution to school
objectives. This applies equally to individuals following their own career path
and large organisations trying to make sense of the bigger picture.
Essentially, it’s time to adopt modern day business practice for the business
side of things so that the number one priority, education, is informed,
evidence lead and free from the burden of bureaucracy .
For example, if a school’s performance management systems show that staff need some
professional development in a particular area it would help if they were given
the means to evaluate that CPD themselves and back this up with evidence that
it is making a difference – or not. Many leaders will claim they already do
this, but are the methods they use sustainable, accessible and above all, do
they solve the old problem of how to produce evidence of the impact of CPD
on pupil achievement?
This is easier said than done
with traditional tracking and management methods but it is achievable using the
online school improvement planning systems that are now
available. These systems can unify staff rather than alienate them, giving them
a voice in the change management process that otherwise might not be heard.
This is about staff having ownership and control and it helps dissipate their
fears about change.
The issues around school
improvement planning that I pointed
out earlier are likely to become even more pronounced for leaders of groups of
schools, such as academy chains, federations and trusts.
Recently
I’ve been spending more time working
with groups of schools, helping them to address these issues. They are all
faced with some common challenges. The chief one is how to reduce the time
spent on school improvement planning across their schools while ensuring that
there is consistency in tracking, management, reporting and ultimately quality
assurance so that it makes it easier to manage and deliver support where it is
needed.
In these situations the quality
assurance of member schools becomes a pressure point because of geographical
distance. A teaching school will, for example, need to monitor the progress of
teacher training students and the quality of its ITT
provision.
With
online systems the miles don’t matter as much. This gives school leaders the
means of reviewing the schools from where they work and target support where it
is needed.
As the UK
education system becomes more diverse, with academies at the forefront of this
transformation, there is now an even greater need for schools to manage
themselves as effectively as possible. Paper and spreadsheets might give
schools data about their school improvement processes, but it won’t be easy to
interpret or act upon because it will be so difficult to manipulate.
It really is time for schools to
get a clear, intelligent view of improvement processes like CPD, performance management and development planning so that they can meet the demands of
accountability – and help staff help pupils achieve.
