Leadership

When Strategic Met Operational

The concept of strategic planning often gets confused with long term planning.  Remember just because someone writes strategic in the heading or says it in a sentence doesn’t mean that their thinking or planning is strategic.  The key difference is whether you take account of what is happening all around you, in the environment, in which you are working.  The National Professional Qualification for Headship had two modules which put together made the compulsory core – SLAM (Strategic Leadership & Accountability Modules).  The Strategic Leadership Module emphasised five factors to consider in strategic leadership and I’ve given an example for each one below:

• P – Political: increasing zero tolerance of educational failure linked to accountability measures
• E – Environmental: a new housing estate being built near the school
• S – Social: changes in family structures, reducing or increasing birth rates
• T – Technical: increased use of mobile technology by young people
• E – Economic: impact of increased austerity on school budgets, in particular, capital budgets

I was never sure why education was never included as a factor but maybe it was considered a “given”.

The Boiled Frog

Before I share this bit of wisdom I need to stress you must not try this at home!  The story goes that if you put a frog in a pan of water and then put the pan on the stove the frog will sit there and slowly boil to death – it simply does not detect the gradual change in the environment around it.  Schools, leaders and teachers can all sometimes suffer from a bit of the boiled frog syndrome if they are not continually alert.

Shift Happens

When I first pulled the school’s data on ability profile, for this year, I wasn’t expecting this:

The percentage of students we have in current Year 7, in the upper ability band, looks like a bit of a trend but also possibly a blip.  I think by next year it may definitely be a trend.  Staff had noticed that our new Year 7 was “different” and the data supports it.  Over twelve months ago we started looking at our Key Stage 3 curriculum, targeted levels of progress and collectively agreed they were just not challenging enough – we were faffing about in Key Stage 3 and then going like the clappers in Key Stage 4.  Please note this is not an approach I am recommending!

Our challenge now is to develop a curriculum, taking into account the new National Curriculum and content of qualifications, at Key Stage 3.  I’ve set the expectation of three differentiated schemes of work.  This will then need further differentiation by teachers within the classroom.  The strategic and the operational are beginning to merge as part of a continuum from assessing external changes and their potential impact to responding to them.

Scheme of Work to Challenge the Most Able

Put simply don’t reteach the Year 7 students what they already know, get a move on in Year 7 and take their learning on at pace and in depth.  I think it is with the most able that we waste the greatest time in Key Stage 3.  Our school’s new ability profile data will really challenge our mindset and expectations.  In Year 7 we now have two classes, about sixty students, outside our top ability band, that would have previously been in it.

Scheme of Work for the Middle Ability Students

Here there is a need to balance consolidation and challenge but to be honest we are better at consolidating than challenging these students.  We need more challenge particularly in Year 9 where students can opt to follow a reduced number of foundation subjects with each occupying ten percent of curriculum time instead of the usual five percent.  At the very least, students need to achieve a 6B (in what is now old money) by the end of Year – my new “Key Stage 4 Ready”.

Scheme of work for Lower Ability

What interventions can we put in place to help accelerate the learning of our least able students particularly at the beginning of Year 7?  We need to passport these students towards greater success and not reinforce their educational disadvantage that they already have.  The challenge is to accelerate these students learning so that they too will be “Key Stage 4 ready” by the end of Year 9.  Literacy is often a key issue.

As part of my work for the SSAT (Schools Network) I came across a piece of work by Fiona Hope from Pleckgate in Blackburn.  She produced this work as part of a whole school drive to improve literacy.  The five objectives seemed great to me.

There is clearly a massive amount of work for teachers to do here at a very operational level and it is likely to be a task that takes a number of years to fully complete and embed particularly with the new Key Stage 3 National Curriculum and the release of new GCSE specifications with only GCSE English and GCSE Mathematics currently available.

Full Circle Back to the Strategic

In some very interesting conversations with staff we discussed how we might sequence the expected learning for the different schemes of work.  If this makes sense (and I realise levels are old money now) imagine sequencing all the learning expected to take a student from level 3 to level 7/8 in one single continuum.  If you take that continuum of learning you now have a learning sequence that the different ability groups may enter in different places.  For example, the most able students enter at level 5 and move towards level 8.  Whereas, the least able would enter at level 3 and be looking to move towards level 6.  The level 5 work would be the same for both groups of students; it is just that some students would complete it at the start of Year 7 and others at the end of Year 8 or start of Year 9.

Once the continuum of learning has been created, teachers can then start to use it to differentiate work in the classroom as no amount of banding or setting ever produces a homogeneous class of students.  The first role of the teacher will be to assess where students are on the continuum and where they should be taken over a certain timescale.  The scheme of work devised in a school will be more critical than ever in embodying the curriculum and first level of clarity and differentiation, to assist teachers, in matching and meeting the needs of all students.  What schools now believe a curriculum should contain will be of paramount importance to the education it provides.  For nearly twenty five years this has been largely dictated from outside schools.

Increasingly the main curriculum developers will be found in schools not Whitehall as the role of informed prescription has come and possibly gone for some time.  The initial challenge will be to weave the Key Stage 3 National Curriculum & programmes of study at Key Stage 4 into a seamless whole with links into what has gone before and will come after.  In essence Key Stages 3 & 4 will become non-events as there is just a continuum and continuity of learning.  The more strategic challenge will be to work across phase – imagine producing a continuum of learning, for schools, teachers and students to use, with children and young people from 3 to 19 years old.

I’ve read some very good blogs recently on the curriculum and would recommend having a look at Alex Quigley’s (@HuntingEnglish)  “A New English Curriculum”  to see how some people are beginning to think about and use the new curriculum flexibilities, which are appearing in school .  The strategic issue is how to link beyond the particular phase of schooling we work in to look across all key stages.  Children experience the phases and key stages across schools in a sequential manner.  However, the learning across, and often within, them is anything but sequential in nature at the moment.

Devising a continuum of learning from Key Stage 1 to 5, across primary schools, secondary schools and Sixth Forms, is possibly another “When Harry Met Sally” (explained in an earlier post) moment.  Different Worlds and philosophies colliding to create something much stronger together than we can apart.  The implications for re-imagining education are immense – the whole examination system and professional structure for teachers would need to be re-thought.  These thoughts are more Vision 2040 than “Harry Met Sally” and so I’ll blog these out as part of the follow up to this year’s SSAT Conference at the beginning of December.

If you’re interested in other “When Harry Met Sally” Moments, why not try:

When #SOLO Met Bloom

When Didactic Met Co-operative

When Feedback Met Bloom

If you are interested in the Flight Path graphic the posts are here:

Targets, Learning Gaps & Flight Paths

Changing Flight Paths & Intervention

Posts Move, Goals Don’t

 

Many of us within the teaching profession would dearly love to see a period of stability and calm.  I think we may need to learn to thrive in chaotic times (to misquote Tom Peters) as the pace of change is becoming exponential.  To do this we need to be clear and consistent on the pursuit of our goals, posts may keep changing but our goals don’t (with thanks to Vivienne Porritt for coining this great phrase).

The alternative is to desperately try to cling to the posts and keep them from moving.  In reality, we have to accept the positioning of certain posts is not within our determination as the final authority and decision-making lies with others.

Another great #SLT session, on the Great Education Debate, asked, “What is the purpose of education?”  Not easy in 140 characters but lots of people made an attempt to answer and this was my offering:

The posts may be changing all around us but I don’t think our goals are.

I’ve not really changed my views much on the purpose of education or the core offering to young people.  I’m not a “knowledge versus skills” debater.   You need both.  The current ascendency of the drive for a more knowledge based curriculum is seen by some as an antidote to the previous overemphasis on skills.  I see it more as a reaction, as for every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.  What we need is to reach a point of equilibrium where, knowledge skills and the development of the learner are all interdependent and mutually supportive.  Whenever an extreme position is taken that sees one of the trinity of the “knowledge dimensions” in education – knowledge & understanding, procedural skills and the development of the learner – as more important, to the exclusion or belittlement of the other elements, we end up down a cul-de-sac.  At some point in the future we have to turn around, as we can’t go any further with one or other element on its own, and so the pendulum swings again.

 “The World is Not Flat”

When Dylan Wiliam used “The World is not flat” phrase in a recent presentation it struck a chord.  He went on to make the point that scientists have stopped investigating this particular issue.  The World is not flat, scientists and people in general have agreed on this and moved on to other areas of research.

Whilst research doesn’t reveal absolute, universal truths the increasing amount of research data behind some ideas should make it difficult for us to ignore.  John Hattie’s Visible Learning (2009) and Visible Learning for Teachers (2012) books are fascinating, encouraging and challenging all in equal measure.

If you are not familiar with Hattie’s work he took a whole series of educational activities and interventions and put their impact on achievement on to a single scale (d) for comparison purposes.  A d=0.40 was average and then he ranked about one hundred and fifty of them in order.  

The wider point Dylan Wiliam was making is that in education we are still discussing and debating issues which researchers have long since proven one way or the other.  They have now moved on to other more contentious educational issues even if we haven’t.  This doesn’t in anyway ignore the massive experience and expertise that teachers bring to what works but it does challenge the assumption that “What I do works otherwise I wouldn’t do it”  kind of approach.  Our role and challenge is to use research and theories to support us as practitioners, to close the research loop, by evaluating the impact of what works in our classroom – in essence we become the researchers in the classroom.

When Harry Met Sally

The 1989 film “When Harry Met Sally” is a romantic comedy that looks at what happens when two different ideas about friendship clashed.  A number of encounters and meetings over time, with some very funny moments thrown in, all ended in disaster.  Harry and Sally keep going their different ways until one fateful New Year’s Eve.

Sometimes when two ideas meet, which may at first sight appear very different, you can create some wonderful things.

It got me thinking, what would happen:

When #SOLO Met Bloom Taxonomy?

When Strategic Met Operational?

When Didactic Met Co-operative?

When Feedback met Bloom?

#OfstedSEFPlanner – Leadership and Management

This is one of a series of posts on producing an Ofsted Self Evaluation Form.  First of all my disclaimer:

“I have no special insight beyond that gleaned from reading the School Inspection Handbook and Subsidiary Guidance.  This is not by way of a disclaimer, although maybe it should be, but it is also to invite others to add comments and suggestions to this work and help improve it for others.”

In evaluating Leadership & Management there are a number of different elements that need consideration:

• Governance
• Performance Management
• Curriculum & Partnerships
• Use of Pupil Premium and Year 7 Catch-Up or Primary School Sport Funding
• Whether Pupils are Safe

Calling to Account – “So What Have You Done About It?”

This section seems to be a “calling to account” and whilst there are new elements in it, it clearly builds upon: Achievement of Student, Quality of Teaching and Behaviour & Safety.  The Subsidiary Guidance and section in the School Inspection Handbook do little to raise a leader’s morale as there seems so many different elements to the judgement that you feel almost certain one will apply to the school.

In short the inspection team are testing how robust the school’s self-review and evaluation processes are and whether having identified an issue the school has done something about it.  Impact not effort is the focus.  It is important to cross reference this section to the other ones within the SEF and provide the most up to date impact information, as much of the data the inspection team has, prior to visiting the school, is historical.

Governance

Governance has, for the past decade or more, been seen as one of the key levers of school improvement.  Sat underneath a whole array of structural changes within education in their various forms, around academies, free schools and Interim Executive Boards, is the fundamental belief that for schools to improve good governance is required.  It is important to note that even if a school is deemed to “Require Improvement”, for Leadership & Management, the subsidiary guidance states that inspectors include an external review of governance as one of their recommendations.

Different inspection teams seem to take very diverse viewpoints on the role of governors, so here is what the Subsidiary Guidance states:

Three things are important to note here:

• Firstly, “governors both challenge and support the school and hold …. to account for the achievement of pupils.”  It is quite clear that the other sections within the Ofsted framework are increasingly subservient to pupils’ achievement.
• Secondly, governors are not expected to be routinely involved in the day-to-day activity of the school.  Operational matters are for headteachers and senior staff to lead and manage.
• Thirdly, governors need to be well informed about key aspects of the school’s work.

“How Do You Know”

This is a very simple question that any inspection team would ask a Governing Body or their representatives.  There is always a place to produce a last minute panic/briefing sheet for governors.  Whilst this is useful it cannot replace a secure Quality Assurance dimension within governors’ work.  It is difficult for all governors to balance their own demanding work schedules with their responsibilities as governors but here are some ways that leadership teams can help governors:

Write your “Report to Governors”, often presented at termly full Governing Body Meetings, in the style of a SEF with key information about the school under the headings: Achievement, Quality of Teaching, Behaviour & Safety and Leadership & Management.

Ensure you have external moderation, possibly from a trained Ofsted Inspector, of your lesson judgements and involve governors in the process.  Whilst our school adviser has moderated my lesson judgements for a number of years, then I’ve moderated the judgements of senior leaders, this year we took a slightly different approach.  We invited in the school adviser to help moderate the senior leaders’ judgements as a team activity and also invited in a number of governors to quality assure the process.  The governors weren’t asked to judge the quality of the lessons, they were asked whether they were satisfied with our process.

Invite governors to quality assure the school’s self-review and evaluation processes.  For a number of years, our governors have received the self-review and evaluation reports from departments.  This year we will invite them in to observe the key meetings in the process of generating these reports.  Again the question of whether they are satisfied with our processes will be crucial in fulfilling their role.  They will also have the opportunity to hear first-hand about “strengths & weaknesses”.

Performance Management

Inspectors will expect anonymised evidence of how performance management has been used to differentially reward staff.  With the new Pay Policies currently being implemented in schools this is likely to become an area of greater scrutiny.  I might as well say it, if results are not up to scratch the expectation will be that staff won’t receive pay increases.

The data for inspectors that you could present would include, for the past three years:

• Proportion of staff who pass through threshold
• Proportion of staff who pass along the upper pay spine
• Proportion of staff who progress along the leadership spine
• And in future years the proportion of staff who progress along the main pay spine

A few notes linking the proportion of staff who have not progressed along the various spines linked to achievement or quality of teaching and learning, as long as individuals are not identified, will help inspectors.  This information should not be sent to inspectors but retained on site.  If you have completed the #OfstedSEFPlanner – Quality of Teaching you will have noticed there is a section that relates a school’s Quality of Teaching grades with Achievement.  Anomalies need to be explained and actions linked to salary determinations and professional development for staff.

Curriculum & Partnerships

Inspectors will look for evidence that the curriculum is meeting the needs of students.  Part of this will be found in achievement and progress data but part will also be found in progression rates onto further education or into employment with training against local and possibly national data.  Any curriculum partnerships and their impact on students’ achievements need noting.

Where the curriculum does not match with key performance indicators, for example a school’s position on the E-Baccalaureate may be to insist students opt for it or not (Inspectors should note the E-Bacc is not compulsory, Subsidiary Guidance) should be agreed with the Governing Body.

Evidence of Spiritual, Moral, Social & Cultural Development will also be factored into this judgement.  This is a thread that runs throughout the inspection.  Evidence of this across the school should be collated for inspectors.

Use of Pupil Premium and Year 7 Catch-Up or Primary School Sport Funding

A lot of this information, particularly around progress of students entitled to Pupil Premium funding, will have been captured in the #OfstedSEFPlanner – Achievement of Students.  Key additional information should be provided about the progress of students entitled to Pupil Premium funding still at the school and the progress of students who attracted Year 7 Catch-up Funding.  Catch-up funding applies to students who did not achieve level 4 in either reading or mathematics at the end of Key Stage 2.  These students attract additional funding and the impact of the curriculum, teaching and intervention programmes needs to be assessed via the progress they are making.  This can be linked to the overall development of literacy at the school and across the curriculum.

The Primary School Sport Funding should be used to impact on pupil’s lifestyle and physical well-being through increased participation rates and access to various forms of sport and physical activity including competitive sports.

Remember that a lot of this information must be available on the school’s website and inspectors will expect it to be there.  The #5MinOfstedPlan has more details about the information schools are required to publish on websites.

Whether Pupils are Safe

A lot of this section simply links back to the #OfstedSEFPlanner – Behaviour & Safety, in particular, the school’s work on addressing bullying particularly cyber-bullying.  The views of students and parents through questionnaires and discussions with students during the inspection will help inform the judgement.

Inspectors will also check the Single Central Record and this must be up to date and accurate.  The #5MinOfstedPlan identifies key groups inspectors usually target and a process of checking if you want a bit more detail.

Bringing It All Together

The tables below are taken from the School Inspection Handbook and will hopefully help you make your overall judgement for “Leadership & Management”.

 

 

 

 

 

In coming to a decision it is helpful to justify to yourself, senior leaders, governors and staff, as objectively as possible:

• Why you have graded the school at a certain level?
• What would you need to do to secure this grading?
• Why is it not the grade above or below?

It is worth noting “demonstrating the capacity to improve” in the Requires Improvement judgement and to note that this will differentiate between serious weakness and special measures in the Inadequate judgement.

You Can Download Versions of the #OfstedSEFPlanner – Leadership & Management Here:

#OfstedSEFPlanner – Leadership & Management (Word Version)

#OfstedSEFPlanner – Leadership & Management (PDF Version)

Other posts in the #OfstedSEFPlanner series include:

#OfstedSEFPlanner – Achievement of Students

#OfstedSEFPlanner – Quality of Teaching

#OfstedSEFPlanner – Behaviour & Safety

If you are looking for more assistance on preparing for Ofsted the following might be useful:

#5MinOfstedPlan by @LeadingLearner and @TeacherToolkit (getting organised for Ofsted)

#5MinCallPlan by @LeadingLearner and @TeacherToolkit (getting organised once you have the call)

Pupil Premium Analyser and Tracker