Inaugural Conference of the Teacher Professional Network, EireSchool Improvement planningSaturday April 21 2007

A presentation from Hilary Street, Senior Associate,London Centre for Leadership in Learning,Institute of Education, University of LondonEditor, NAHT Leadership Paper seriesE-mail: hilarystreet@btinternet.com

Aims To consider:• The context for school improvement planning• Why school improvement planning is an essential

process for effective leadership and management• The importance of ‘joining up’ the processes in

school• The content of an effective school improvement

plan• A fresh look at supporting action plans and in

particular the process of identifying meaningful success criteria

• How to ensure impact at the level of individual classrooms and individual pupils

Some aspects of the wider policy context (England)

• The increased emphasis on School Self-evaluation

• Lessening of ‘top-down’ initiatives

• The Every Child Matters agenda and multi-agency leadership

• Continued focus on attainment

• Emphasis on networks and co-operation

• Changes to CPD and an emphasis on professional learning communities with schools as ‘research sites’

• Workforce remodelling and schools/education and learning for the future

• The need for ‘Futures literate’ leaders

• Different models of school and system leadership

• The imperative of succession planning

• Evidence informed education and practice

• Learning centred leadership = a need to ensure schools are ‘self-sustaining institutions’ in a context of relentless

change

‘Moving schools are not only effective in ‘value-added’ terms but people within them are also actively working together to respond to their changing context and to keep developing. They know where they are going; they have the systems and the will and the skill to get there.’

(Changing our schools Stoll and Fink)

School Improvement Plans: essential leadership andmanagement tools

Schools who are engaging effectively in school improvement planning findthat the process in an effective leadership and management tool because it is a mechanism :

• for displaying succinctly how the school will achieve its stated aims

• to ensure clarity about expectations

• to ensure that data is analysed and used effectively to inform decision making at all levels in the school

• to manage the process of change and development

and it offers a structure which ensures that monitoring and evaluation processes are integral to the normal work of the school andprovides a framework for longer term strategic thinking.

Ensuring an impact on the classroom

Planning to achieve a classroom focus requires the integration of:

• pupil progress and achievement • the quality of the learning and teaching

• (leadership and) management arrangements to support the previous two

B McGilchrist and D Hopkins Development Planning for pupil achievement

School Improvement planning and plans: some propositions

• Some school improvement plans are too detailed to be strategic and not sufficiently detailed to be operational;

• It is essential to understand why School Improvement Plans are the ‘lynch-pin’ for all the leadership and management systems and processes in the school and essential for effective improvement;

• Unless a school has all the necessary management systems and processes in place and ‘joined up’ the school improvement planning process and the SIP will not be as effective as they should be.

Joining up the processes

National contextECM

LEA EDP School’s monitoring& evaluation data

School Improvement Plan – taken forward by post-holders and staff

Individual post-holders (and other individual staff )

Supporting action plansPost-holders individual action plans to support the achievement of each priority in the plan.

Whole school and individual CPD programme in place. Supporting action plans contain details of the CPD required by the post-holder and any CPD required by the school staff or sub-groups of staff in order to achieve the priority.

The PMR process also identifies the CPD needed in order for the objectives to be achieved The Performance Management Review process draws on the school monitoring information, individual member of staff’s job description, their supporting action plan and the priority they have to achieve. This informs the choice of individual PMR objectives. .Some of these CPD needs will already have been identified in the action plan.

Individual Jobdescriptions

School policy and practice on Effective Learning and Teaching which informs detail in the action plans, job descriptions, PMR objectives and CPD

Subject and other team action

plans

Thinking through management systems and processes:what needs to be in place?

• Mission statement and clear aims for the school

• A clear and effective staffing structure that supportsthe achievement of the school improvement plan

• Clear and upto date job descriptions that reflect thenational standards for post-holders and the SIP priorities

• Clear line management systems with transparentand consistent expectations of their purpose, including monitoring of progress with the action plans

• Clear lines of accountability and clear understandingof what being accountable means

• An effective MIS (Management Information System)in place to ensure regular and up to date information about pupil progress; budget etc. to support effective decisionmaking and identification of priorities.

• An effective Performance management Review (PMR) process in place

• Clear policy statements on key aspects of theschool’s work to support effective learning andteaching ( teaching and learning policy; monitoring and evaluation policy; assessment, record keeping and marking policy)

• Transparent and clear financial systems with clear criteriafor spending decisions and the monitoring of those decisions

• A planned programme of professional development whichsupports the achievement of the priorities in the SchoolImprovement plan

• A composite calendar for the whole year to ensure that allsystems and processes dovetail in order to avoid duplicationof effort and where possible to ‘use time twice’

• Effective communications systems with and between staff,pupils, governors and parents as well as the LA/Board/District

• An effective school improvement plan

What should an effective School Improvement Plan contain?

1. Mission statement

2. Aims of the school

3. The background to the plan• current stage of development of the school

(Strengths, areas needing development, opportunities, concerns – in the English case now cross- referenced to the SEF)

• the school’s published pupil attainment targets

• the link between the priorities in the SIP and the five outcomes for Every Child Matters ECM) and the Children and Young People’s Plan for the LA/District

4. Summary of priorities for the next three (?) years

5. An overview of the priorities in each focus area and the pupil and teacher ( and other stakeholder) outcomes ( the success criteria)

6. Supporting action plans for each priority (the operational detail of implementation)

7. Summary of the monitoring and evaluation strategies to be used

8. A professional development summary

9. A ‘maintenance section’

10. Financial summary of the costings of the priorities

Focus Area OnePupil

Acheivement

Focus Area TwoLearning and

Teaching

Focus Area ThreeCurriculum

FocusArea Four

Ethos

FocusArea Five

Leadership and Management

Priority One

Priority Two

Priority Three

Priority One

Priority Two

Priority Three

Priority One

Priority Two

Priority Three

Priority One

Priority Two

Priority Three

Priority One

Priority Two

Priority Three

And strategic vision ‘A strategically focused school is one that iseducationally effective in the short term buthas a clear framework and processes totranslate core moral purpose and vision intoexcellent educational provision that ischallenging and sustainable in the medium to long term.’ Brent Davies success and sustainability: developing

the strategically focused school NCSL

Three year summary for each focus area

Focus Area Year One Year Two Year Three

Pupil Attainment Prioirty One

xxx

Priority Two

xxx

Priority Three

xxx

Learning and Teaching

Curriculum

Ethos

Leadership and management

Displaying the priorities and outcomes Improvement Area: Pupil attainment

Priority Outcomes pupils Outcomes Staff

One

To ensure that all ‘Looked after children’ (LAC) achieve or exceed their predicted grades.

All ‘looked after children achieve or exceed this predicted attainment grades.

Looked after children are using the additional homework support available for them and their homework is completed on time and is of good quality.

All staff are clear which of the students they teacher are ‘LAC’

All staff put in place appropriate intervention strategies as necessary to ensure that all LAC achieve or exceed their predicted grades.

Two

All targeted students predicted Grade D in GCSE Maths, English and Science achieve at least a grade C

All targetted studenst achieve a Grade C or above in Maths, English and Science.

Students follow and implement the suggested learning stratgies they have been given.

All Year 11 staff in Maths, English and Science know who the targetted students are and have in place specific and individual intervention strategies to ensure they achieve at least a Grade C.

Three

Ensure there is no learning loss at transition from primary to secondary school for Year Seven pupils

All students are achieving at or beyond their expected levels by December of Year Seven.

All Staff teaching Year Seven know the attainment levels of their Year Seven pupils on transfer.

Year Seven teachers monitor pupil progress regularly and put in place appropriate strategies to address any perceived underperformance.

More propositions

• The format of many action plans means that they are often not helpful as a tool to plan, manage and review progress towards the outcomes;

• Completing action plans well so that they are an effective management tool is a skilled activity for which staff need training;

• Action plans should never be written by one colleague on their own, there should be access to a ‘critical friend’;

• Action plans should be publicly displayed in staff rooms and progress discussed with the whole staff.

• There is still a lack of understanding about what ‘good’ success criteria look like;

• Action plan holders need detailed help and guidance with the costing of an action plan;

• CPD needs and the CPD strategies to meet them are often confused as one and the same thing;

• Action plan holders sometimes find it hard to plan for ‘real time’.

Thinking through success criteria• The words ‘success criteria’ can sometimes be a block to clarity

• Success criteria often describe what teachers will be doing or what will be in place. These are ‘interim outcomes’ and often do not ‘get to the pupils’

• It is useful to think in terms of concrete outcomes for pupils and teachers ( and other stakeholders, depending on the

priority)

• In order to have success criteria that are specific, concrete and verifiable it is important to answer the following question in a detailed and specific way:

‘What will be different for pupils and teachers if this priorityis achieved? Or

What specifically will teachers and pupils be doingdifferently if this priority is achieved? Or

In what specific ways will the pupils’ experience in theclassroom be improved if this priority is achieved.

‘A learning community emerges a individuals reflect on, assess, critique an reconstruct their personal professional capacity and their capacity for collegial relations and collective practice.’

“a learning community consists of a group of people who take an active, reflective, collaborative, learning-oriented and growth promoting approach towards the mysteries, problems and perplexities of teaching and learning. It is when a school becomes a ‘learning community’ that transformation becomes possible.

Mitchell and Sackney 2000 Profound Improvement: building capacity for a learning community