What makes a great school in the twenty-first century?
David Woods and Rachel Macfarlane
Aims
This chapter aims to:
• define and illustrate what being a 'great' school means in the twenty-first century
• explore the characteristics and features of great schooling through a model developed by the London Leadership Strategy's 'Going for Great' programme - The Nine Pillars of Greatness
• reflect on the different dimensions of great schooling identified.
Introduction
You can mandate awful to great but you cannot mandate greatness — that has to be unleashed,
Joel Klein
The purpose of this chapter is to consider the range of characteristics that define great
schooling in the early twenty-first century Dictionaries offer various definitions of great and
greatness but the ones that could best apply to schools relate to 'remarkable achieve-
ments', 'exceptionality' , 'excellence' , 'superior character and quality' and 'impressive and
striking effects'. The research literature is very extensive on good schools but there is
much less written about great schools. This may be a question of terminology. In the
descriptions of great schools, the terms 'world class', 'outstanding' and 'excellent' are
often used interchangeably For the purpose of this chapter we will assume that these
terms can be used to describe various areas of great practice.
But there is another dimension to great schools, connected to the broader purposes
of education: a deeper sense of what is worth learning in the twenty-first century 'Schools
with soul' prioritize spiritual, moral, social and cultural education along with character
development; for them, compassion is the key organizing principle promoting the highest
collective values.
Great schools ask the question: 'By the time children finish school, what do we hope
they will have become?' The answer to this might vary in different stages of schooling,
but most of us would agree that they would be fluent, decent, self-driven achievers who
live up to altruistic ideals and values; and that they would be compassionate individu-
als who care for each other and for the planet. Great schools should be places where
everyone tastes the confidence that comes with success and where all children are
aware of their potential to achieve almost anything if they invest the required effort and
hardwork.
Of course, great schools vary in age range, size, context, locality, tradition and many
other characteristics. Each school will have its own DNA, with unique and distinctive
features, However, we would argue from the literature and the practical experience of
working closely with great schools that they do share a number of key ingredients, A
caveat is that we are writing at a particular time and future developments, particularly in
learning technologies and the organization of schooling, may transform our concept of
great schooling later in the coming decades.
What does the literature say?
An influential publication in the debate about great organizations and schools is Jim
Collins' 2001 study of companies in the United States that were said to have progressed
from 'good to great'. His contention was that 'good is the enemy of great — and that is
one of the key reasons why we don't have great schools, (is) principally because we
have good schools' (Collins, 2001: 1). He refers to organizations needing to 'transcend
the curse of competence and complacency' and describes a range of characteristics of
these great companies, including:
- 'level 5 leadership' (building enduring greatness through a blend of personal humility
and intense professional will)
- confronting the brutal facts
- getting the right people in the right places
- being driven by core purpose
- having a culture of discipline to sustain great results
- the harnessing of technological accelerators,
His final concept of the flywheel reminds us that good-to-great transformation never
happens in one fell swoop — there is no miracle moment but rather a predictable pattern
of build-up, increased momentum and breakthrough. Some of Collins' concepts have
been applied to studies of schools both in the United States and England, although with
the recognition that the business and education sectors have different purposes and
different success criteria (Gray and Streshly, 2008).
Michael Fullan was an early critic of Collins' model, pointing out that the concept of
moral purpose, which was absentfrom the study, is a vital characteristic of great schooling.
This is something that Fullan has reiterated in several books, while stressing the complex
and ever-changing environment of schooling and the need for schools to constantly learn
from each other to meet new challenges and to sustain high performance (Fullan, 2008).
In 2009, Andy Buck published What Makes a Great School? (updated in 2013), apply-
ing some aspects of the Collins model, along with the work of Fullan and others, He
argues that great schools:
• are those that consistently perform at an outstanding level for a sustained period of
time across a wide range of indicators
• have a deeply embedded set of strongly held values and traditions understood and
lived by all staff, children and parents
• are outward looking both in terms of system leadership and the way that they are keen
to learn from others.
Other commentators have referred to specific characteristics of great schools. Stephen
Covey, in 'The Speed of Trust' (2008), reflects on successful organizations, saying that
an essential element of a great school is that it has a high level of trust between staff
members and between staff and students, where energy is released in a productive and
efficient way, allowing for great progress towards goals (Covey, 2006). George Berwick,
in 'Engaging in Excellence' (2011), sets out the building blocks of great schooling,
exploring a theory of action based on effective knowledge management, encompassing
moral, social and organizational capital (Bennick, 2011). Alistair Smith, in his study of
high-performing schools in 2011, uses the analogy of performers in the circus arena to
introduce a three-tiered model of school improvement: senior leaders (high-wire walkers),
middle leaders (human pyramid) and classroom teachers (trapeze artists) (Smith, 2011).
Tim Brighouse and David Woods in several publications have stressed the importance of
a sustained culture of improvement — 'The very successful school has to juggle the past,
present and future; it's juggling all these three components that marks out the continually
outstanding school. For the outstanding school, "if it ain't broke" is just the very time
to start fixing it. The outstanding schools anticipate' (2008: 135). For them the route to
greatness lies in moral purpose: 'The determination, brought to reality, that all members
of the school community should behave in a way that is mindful of each other' (Brighouse
and Woods, 2008: 151).
There are many other publications that concentrate on particular aspects of great
schooling, particularly with regard to students' learning and progress. Guy Claxton and
Bill Lucas have written extensively about building learning power and how the science of
learnable intelligences is changing education (Claxton, et al. 2011). David Hargreaves
has reflected on the Four Deeps: deep learning, deep experience, deep support and
deep leadership' (Hargreaves, 2008). The literature stresses the importance of schools
developing a 'growth mindset' mentality (for example, Dweck, 2006). For students, teach-
ers and school leaders, the central message is that success is possible for all, but it
comes from a long-term developmental process. with improved performance resulting
from rich, instrumental experiences and extensive practice.
Most recently there have been a number of publications from data derived from
serving and recently retired headteachers describing how schools can become 'great'
(Little, 2015: Coates, 2015, West-Burnham and Harris, 2015), Of particular interest is
Roy Blatchford's 'The Restless School' (2014) with its emphasis on 'Excellence as
Standard' for schools with an embedded culture of thinking and doing and a passion
to be the best they can be. The quest for excellence becomes their habit and their
purposeful practice.
In this brief and selective review of the literature, much of it practitioner-based, it is
important, at least for English schools, to consider what the national inspection frame-
work regards as outstanding schooling, although the term 'great' is never used. Over
many years, Ofsted have published examples of outstanding practice in schools, but
also stressed that great schools are more than the sum of their parts. Ofsted surveys and
reports reflect key characteristics such as:
- strong values and high expectations that are consistently applied
- outstanding and well-distributed leadership
- sustained excellence
- highly inclusive culture
- having particular regard for the educational progress, personal development and
- wellbeing of every student
- constantly looking for ways to improve further (Ofsted, 2009, 2010).
The Framework for Inspection (2015) has grade descriptors for outstanding leadership
and management including: governance; outstanding teaching, learning and assess-
ment; outstanding personal development, behaviour and welfare; and outcomes for
pupils (Ofsted, 2015).
International studies by McKinsey stress the key characteristics of great schooling
as world-class teaching and learning underpinning excellent performance. This involves
recruiting and retaining the right people, developing effective teachers who teach
consistently well and establishing systems and support to ensure that every learner is
able to benefit from excellent teaching (Barber and Mourshed, 2007; Barber, Chijoke and
Mourshed, 2010),
Studies by Fenton Whelan (2009) and Andy Hargreaves and Denis Shirley (2009),
as well as the work of Michael Fullan (2014) in The Principal, reflect on great schooling
and systems in Canada, the United States, Finland and the Far East in particular. John
Hattie, in his meta-studies of educational research throughout the world, Visible Learning
2008) and Visible Learning for Teachers (2011), sets out the major school influences on
Educational outcomes as well as those interventions that do not appear to work. In The
Politics of Collaborative Expertise he argues that in the best schools it is the excellence of
teachers, the support of such excellence and an open debate about the nature of growth
towards excellence that matters and that 'the possibility of attaining excellence is avail-
able to any student regardless of their background or prior achievement' (Hattie, 2015).
In 2009 the London Leadership Strategy, as part of the London Challenge, estab-
ished a 'Going for Great (G4G)' programme for outstanding (in Ofsted terms) secondary
schools. One of the major aims was to encapsulate the key features and qualities of
schools which are consistently outstanding in order to better understand how outstand-
ing schools become great schools. This programme, involving leaders from each of
the G4G schools attending four seminars each year, focused on exploring the nature of
greatness in schools by sharing and discussing experiences and research, setting up
peer excellence visits, listening to and debating with keynote speakers and writing a case
study showcasing great practice in each school. Over the six years that the programme
has run, six practitioner case study publications have been written, encompassing some
130 studies (Macfarlane and Woods, 2010, 2011 , 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015).
The programme directors, in response to and influenced by the research literature,
G4G discussions, school-to-school visits and the case studies written by delegates,
produced a model of great schooling, published as The 9 Pillars of Greatness. The rest of
this chapter will focus on these nine pillars, to support our description of a great school
in the twenty-first century.
The nine pillars of greatness
Pillar 1: A shared vision, values, culture and ethos, based on the highest expectations of all members of the school community
We could argue that a school cannot be great without a clear vision, understood and
shared by all and underpinned by the school's values, philosophy and ethos. In the best
schools, everyone is able to articulate their collective values and beliefs and their attention
is focused on working to a common ideal and shared goals. The vision and aspirations of
the school are optimistic and based on a 'growth mindset' philosophy. There is no ceiling
on the expectations of the performance of any member of the school community.
The school's culture and ethos result from the application of its vision and values
and manifest themselves in customs, rituals, symbols, stories and language. They are
successfully expressed through the ways that members of the school community relate
to each other and work together, through the organization of the school's structures,
systems and physical environment and through the quality of learning for both pupils and
adults.
The culture and ethos are embedded in the basic assumptions and beliefs that are
shared by all members of the school community and are the 'glue' that holds everyone
together. There is a commitment to excellence, to remaining open to new ideas and to
thinking in new ways. Leaders at all levels act in a way that is consistent with the vision
and values of the school. The collective vision permeates the whole institution and is fee
by everyone who visits (Hargreaves and Shirley, 2009).
Pillar 2: Inspirational leadership at all levels throughout the school
A characteristic of great schools is that they grow and develop great leaders as
as great teachers, through coaching, mentoring, role modelling and providing a range
of leadership opportunities. Great schools practice 'invitational' and distributed' leader-
ship based on the belief that all have potential for growth and development (including
students) and that everyone has a different profile of leadership qualities. Some of the
G4G studies focused on strategies to build leadership capacity and manage talent within
schools.
Other studies refer to transformational leadership, particularly from heads and senoir
leaders seeking to transform attitudes and beliefs and unleash the motivation to drive
success. This is leadership that is visionary, inspiring and value based, where leaders
are able to develop and share a compelling view of what a great school should be and
communicate this effectively to the entire school community. Here leaders are enthusi-
asts, forecasters and cheerleaders. There is, however, a recognition that in great schools
transformational leadership goes alongside excellent operational leadership, where lead-
ers are planners, organizers, resourcers, technicians and deliverers, paying attention to
detail and getting results through being resilient and determined (Leithwood et al., 2006
Fullan, 2014).
Leadership characteristics widely observed in the leaders of great schools include a
sense of moral purpose, optimistic personal behaviour, clear communication, role model-
ling, transparency and trust, conviction and consistency. In every context, leaders need to
lead through example with high expectations, enthusiasm and encouragement, to gener-
ate maximum effort and energy (Brighouse, 2007).
Pillar 3: Exceptional teaching, learning, assessment and feedback to support the highest levels of attainment and achievement
In great schools the promotion of high-quality learning is at the heart of the school's
endeavours. There is an agreed school policy about the practice of teaching and learn-
ing which is subject to continuous review. This will be founded upon values and beliefs
about the complexities of learning and the craft of teaching, underpinned by the highest
of expectations, with a shared philosophy and a shared language transmitted effectively
into every area of the curriculum (Smith, 2011; Robinson, 2011).
The leadership team will prioritize the careful selection, induction training and reten-
tion of a consistently high calibre of teaching staff, with excellent subject knowledge and
a passion for their curriculum area. Staff will routinely provide stretch and challenge to
all students they teach and employ excellent classroom management and organizational
skills.
Staff members will consider collectively what constitutes great learning and put in
place effective processes and practices to maximize achievement and attainment. A vari-
ety of learning technologies and resources, which encourage independent thinking and
learning, are used highly effectively and imaginatively across the curriculum (Claxton and
Lucas, 2010).
Students are taught to learn independently so that homework becomes an effective
opportunity for learning through practice, preparation, elaboration and exploration, paving
the way for future learning and seamlessly linking one lesson's learning to the next.
In the classrooms of great teachers, assessment for learning is very well developed
and consistently utilized, with regular opportunities for learning dialogues, self and peer
assessment and diagnostic and developmental feedback based on accurate and robust
pupil performance data. Great schools have carefully thought through the purpose and
place of assessment, be it formative or summative, and testing is designed to inform
and refine future teaching (Black, 2003). In great schools, curriculum enrichment is every
pupil's entitlement: opportunities to learn beyond the classroom inspire and motivate
pupils and lead to outstanding achievement.
Pillar 4: A relentless focus on engaging and involving students
In great schools, the students are involved in leading, managing and planning their educa-
tional experience at all levels. Everyone is considered a learner and it is emphasized that
all members of the school community have a responsibility to support and motivate each
other in their learning. This includes encouraging risk-taking, pushing oneself beyond
one's comfort zone and embracing mistakes as an important part of the learning journey.
In great schools, student voice is strong throughout the school: through the student
council and student leadership teams but also through day-to-day opportunities in every