How do local authorities support school improvement? Paul Hammond, Education Consultant and school improvement advisor spoke to us in a personal capacity about his work.
What is the role of a Local Authority School Improvement Advisor?
The role of School Improvement Advisor within a local authority education team is now quite a rare beast – they tend to commission external agencies to perform this role.
A growing number of advisory services are therefore separate entities that are commissioned by the Local Authority education service to help support schools that need improvement. Their role is to identify areas for improvement, support the development of a strategic plan and provide consultation on their journey to improving the quality of education in the school.
These advisors are not there to make judgements of the school’s performance – they can offer advice and support but schools are not accountable to them for the outcomes. This means that they can have open, honest conversations with school leaders about what is happening and whether there are issues that need to be addressed.
How does the school improvement advisor address improvement?
The School Improvement Advisor is there to provide a dual service – we provide both challenge and support. We might be reviewing standards, and identifying the development needs in schools that need improvement, while at the same time we are able to facilitate support by identifying other schools in the local area that are showing best practice in those areas the improving school needs to address. We point schools with identified needs towards schools that have strengths in that area, and we broker that support between schools.
Increasingly, Local Authorities are in a commissioning role, whether they may ask school alliances, teaching school hubs or MATs to provide support for schools that need development.
What are the challenges of delivering school improvement?
Of course, being good in a particular area of education doesn’t necessarily mean that you have the skills to train, coach or impart that knowledge to others in an effective way, so the school improvement advisor will sometimes help facilitate that delivery to the recipient school.
Sharing good practice is actually hard to pull off. The recipient school needs to recognise their own need to improve, then they need to be willing to accept the advice, and then they need to be in a position to implement the changes that will affect improvement.
At the same time, the ‘best practice’ school needs to have the capacity to provide that support to other schools – for example, if an executive head teacher is working with other schools, you don’t want that to have an impact on their original school.
“Sharing good practice is actually hard to pull off. The recipient school needs to recognise their own need to improve, then they need to be willing to accept the advice, and then they need to be in a position to implement the changes that will affect improvement.”
How do local authorities identify schools that need improvement?
Naturally Ofsted outcomes are key to flagging schools that need support – this is usually the main thing local authorities are looking at when they assess performance – but of course using these statistics can be somewhat reductive. As we know, some schools may have been awarded an Outstanding rating several years ago, and others may have improved since their last inspection.
There are other indicators that a school needs support, for example, high turnover of staff can be a cause for concern. There is an optimum turnover of staff that allows people to progress in their career, but it is often a sign of problems when senior leaders and highly trained staff are leaving a school.
The rate of Primary transfer can also indicate where there are issues at a school that have affected its reputation in the community. A drop in pupil numbers obviously impacts on school funding, which can in turn lead to a reduction in budget which impacts on staff retention and so on. So, a LEA may want to intervene before the school goes into a downward spiral.
How important is career development to improving a school?
It is crucial that schools are always developing staff at every stage in their career. You might have some excellent middle leaders who have really driven improvement, but it is important to ensure that there is a succession plan so that as they move up in seniority or move on to a new school, there are highly talented staff who can step into these roles.
There is often a lot of emphasis on recruiting talent, and not enough on retention. Career progression can have a big impact on that. The saying goes “people don’t leave jobs, they leave bosses” – often in schools this is because they don’t get the support from their managers or opportunities to develop and progress. So, leadership training can be key to ensuring managers are able to identify and nurture talent and ensure there are opportunities for staff to develop and progress.
“It is crucial that schools are always developing staff at every stage in their career. You might have some excellent middle leaders who have really driven improvement, but it is important to ensure that there is a succession plan so that as they move up in seniority or move on to a new school, there are highly talented staff who can step into these roles.”
How can professional development have the greatest impact on school improvement?
There have been some great leaps forward in the recognition of the importance of professional development and ongoing training. For example, the provision of mentorship under the Early Career Framework is a significant improvement on the past, and it is good to see that the role of mentor is becoming more formalised – rather than an additional task they have to squeeze into their day.
Additionally, the training of middle leaders, as I mentioned before, has a significant impact, so it has been good to see the expansion of the NPQ programmes, such as the NPQ Middle Leadership, Leading Behaviour and Culture, Leading Teacher Development which help people to develop their leadership competencies. There are two important elements in these programmes: having day to day access to a mentor through online channels, and having an in-school performance coach who ensures you are putting your learning into practice.
How does the School Improvement Advisor support development?
A key role of the school improvement advisor is providing coaching and advising school leaders. Often, school leaders need to overcome challenges by building trust, so we might provide coaching to develop these skills in senior leaders and heads of department so they are able to build relationships and trust within their teams. Having these kinds of conversations can help school leaders gain perspective and better understand what they need to focus on so they can make progress with implementing effective changes that will drive improvement in their school.
Author: Tamsin Denley,
Head of Marketing and Partnerships
