Working together to improve urban secondary schools: a study of practice in one city
Mel Ainscow and Andy Howes
June 2006
Paper prepared for ‘School Leadership and Management’
Working together to improve urban secondary schools: a study of practice in one city
Abstract
Bringing about school improvement in economically poor urban contexts remains a major challenge. InEngland the emphasis on competition between schools has further complicated this agenda. At the same time, there is evidence of the emergence of a new policy emphasis that involves support and challenge to school-led improvement efforts through collaboration with other schools. This paper provides an evaluative account of an attempt to use such processes of networking across all secondary schools in one city. The study suggests that schools working together can contribute to the raising of aspirations and attainment in schools that have previously had a record of low achievement, but that this is never a straightforward process – schools are complex organisations, and collaboration between them involves the orchestration of action and purpose at many levels. The paper concludes that the successful use of such approaches involves dealing with a number of challenging dilemmas, and draws out the implications for policy development.
The issue of school improvement in economically poor urban contexts remains a challenge. Whilst existingresearch literature provides accounts of individual schools that have brought about improvements in their work despite facing challenging circumstances, there are fewer examples of progress that has been maintained beyond a relatively short period of years (Maden, 2001; Harris et al., 2003; West, Ainscow &Stanford, 2005). It is also the case that many of the examples that are described involve schools that have chosen to participate in particular improvement initiatives (Ainscow & Chapman, 2005). By their nature such schools tend to be exceptional and it is, therefore, dangerous to build policies on the basis of such experiences.
During recent years schools in England have had to respond to a plethora of innovations aimed at ‘raising standards’. This is one of the reasons why a close scrutiny of what happened in the local authority we focus on in this paper is so fascinating. It shows how collaboration leading to improvement was given impetus by such external pressures. It also suggests patterns of collaboration between schools that offer promising possibilities for achieving more sustainable improvement.
The paper draws onthe evidence of our evaluation of networking across secondary schools in the city of ‘Bradcastle’. We start by describing the context and the strategy adopted; we then provide a summary of findings, using extracts from case studies; and we suggest an explanation for these findings in terms of the notion of coping with organisational dilemmas. Finally, this leads us to draw out the implications for policy development.
Changing relationships
In recent years, structures and relationships within the education service in England have been fundamentally reformed. These changes have been reflected most significantly in the evolving relationships between schools and their local education authorities (LEAs). This movement, from dependency towards greater independence, has been consistently orchestrated through legislation and associated Department for Education and Skills (DfES) guidance. It was summarised in the Government’s 1997 consultation document, ‘Excellence in Schools’, which stated: ‘The role of LEAs is not to control schools, but to challenge all schools to improve and support those which need help to raise standards’.
Relationships between schools have also been influenced by national policy changes, in two main ways. On the one hand, competition between schools has come to be seen as one of the keys to driving up standards. This was encouraged by the introduction of grant-maintained status for schools (now known as foundation schools) and by open enrolment, supported by the publication of league tables of school text and examination results. Greater autonomy was intended to ‘liberate’ schools from the bureaucracy of local government and establish what has been described as ‘school quasi-markets’ (Thrupp, 2001), in which effective schools would have an ‘arms-length’ relationship with the LEA and, indeed, with each other. At the same time, various national initiatives, such as Excellence in Cities and the Educational Action Zonesbuilt on and developed traditions of networking and sharing between schools, focused on areas of relative social and economic disadvantage, and aimed to improve the provision of education for children and young people in those areas.
Overall, the move away from a dependent relationship between LEAs and schools, to ways of working that emphasise school independence has so far failed to provide the system-wide improvement in achievement of the sort required by the community (Ainscow, Howes & Tweddle, 2006; Ainscow, Booth & Dyson, 2006). At the same time it is generally recognised that leadership for improvement efforts does need to come from within individual schools. This suggests that attempts to move schools in a more equitable direction are likely to be very demanding. They will, we suggest, require an engagement with questions of principles and purposes within the education system, and a greater emphasis on the sharing of expertise and resources.
Such an approach would be consistent with what Stoker (2003) calls ‘public value management’, with its emphasis on network governance. Stoker argues that the origins of this approach can be traced to criticisms of the current emphasis on strategies drawn from private sector experience. He goes on to suggest that ‘the formulation of what constitutes public value can only be achieved through deliberation involving the key stakeholders and actions that depend on mixing in a reflexive manner a range of intervention options’. Consequently, ‘networks of deliberation and delivery’ are seen as key strategies. In the education service, this would imply the negotiation of new, inter-dependent relationships between schools, local authorities and their wider communities (Hargreaves, 2003).
We are now seeing the emergence of what as been described as a new school improvement paradigm, one that places the emphasis on inter-dependence(Ainscow & West, 2006). Within such an orientation attempts are made to support and challenge school-led improvement efforts through collaboration with other schools.
The strategy
Such arrangements require massive shifts in thinking and attitude if the potential benefits are to be achieved. In this sense, the Bradcastle strategy was particularly interesting in that itinvolved an attempt to create a whole-LEA approach, albeit focused only on the secondary sector. In addition, the involvement of a private partner and another LEA offered other resources that could be used to support successful implementation, whilst at the same time bringing additional complexity and, perhaps, other unknown risks.
This paper draws on the findings of the project evaluation that we carried out over a period of two years on behalf of the DfES. The study involved both a formative and a summative dimension. In this way,data about the processes were used to strengthen the strategy, whilst, at the same time, constituting evidence that would help to make overall judgements as to the success of the initiative.The evidence for the study was collected through approximately thirty interviews, observations of some twenty-five meetings and collaborative events, analysis of documents and statistics relating to each school group and to the LEA. This amounted to approximately 25 days fieldwork in the city over two years. In addition a repeated survey of staff attitudes towards the project was carried out, with a total of 234 responses. Process and outcome data were then analysed and compared in order to determine conclusions as to the effectiveness of the initiative. As far as possible, findings were validated with stakeholder groups in a final round of interviews.
It is important to understand something of the context of the LEA and its schools prior to the start of the project. Its introduction reflected major concerns atthe DfES about levels of attainment at the secondary level in 2002. At that time there were nineteen secondary schools in the city, with three in ‘special measures’ and four seen as having‘serious weaknesses’ following inspections, and almost half causing concern through relatively low level of GCSE results (the national examination taken by 16 year old students). Some figures suggested that as many as 25% of students were migrating out of the city at the transition to secondary school, and it was generally agreed that children of parents more motivated towards education were over-represented in this group. In addition, there were difficulties in attracting and retaining suitably qualified teachers to the city.
It is impossible to be certain about exactly what relationships between LEA and schools were like at this time. However, it seemsthat LEA resources to support and challenge schools in raising standards were stretched. Some of those involved described a ‘culture of dependency’ on the LEA, associated with a lack of ownership of the school improvement agenda at the school level. They explained that whilst some headteachers and staff were driving their schools forward, this was against a background of widespread, relatively low expectations of city students. Others thought that the LEA could have acted more strategically in relation to the issue of admissions. Falling rolls, coupled with the increasing intake of some schools, were generating the prospect of school closures, and planning for admissions was becoming increasingly difficult.
The improvement strategy was described as a ‘twin-track approach’. The first track involved short term initiatives aiming to assist schools in raising standards for all students, particularly to meet the Government’s ‘floor target’ requirements within two years, in which 25% five or more A* to Cs grades in the GCSE examination was to be achieved by all schools. These responses included the production of revision guides in some subjects, booster classes for students just under the attainment targets, and rapid introduction of alternative courses taught with additional staffing in key areas. Some of these initiatives were put in place through coordination between schools.
The second track was a longer-term strategy based on strengthening collaboration amongst the city’s schools. As a relatively small LEA, Bradcastle’s education department was seen to have insufficient resources to meet all the development needs of schools, without input from expertise already located in the schools. Collaboration was intended to facilitate more sharing of resources than had proved possible under earlier schemes. The implication too was that changing relationships between schools would gradually be mirrored by changing relationships with officers of the education department. With this in mind, a school improvement adviser was allocated to work with each school group.
The project involved the setting up of partnership arrangements within four groups of secondary schools. These were unusual in that they were not based on geographical proximity. Rather, they were created in order to achieve groupings that would each include schools at different stages of development and with varied levels of achievement, as measured by examinations. This also meant that schools within a group were less likely to be in direct competition with one another. In addition, staff members from the partner LEA were attached to each group.
Initially, those directly involved were headteachers and representative teams of staff. However, variations developed almost immediately. In one case, school leaders contributed monetary resources to a central fund, and then determined their priorities for meaningful collaboration, given the particular circumstances of the group.By contrast, another group held back, whilst in the smallest group, two headteachers effectively determined the pace of what became a developing ‘federation’ (i.e. a more formally constituted arrangement). But in all cases, it was mainly the school leaders, supported by the framework of the project, who determined what collaboration might mean in their group, and in their individual schools.
Processes and outcomes
Theevidencewe collected demonstrates how the strategy of collaboration between schools was stimulated by the projectin Bradcastle,and how it led to some serious efforts and creative ways of using educational resources in order to improve effectiveness across the education system. These efforts led to significant changes in attitude and expectations amongst staff in many of the schools. In particular there were changes in their views of other schools and their staff, the nature of the challenges they faced, and in some cases, the potential for change through various practical partnerships. There was also some evidence that these processes of change were associated with improvements in studentattainment in examinations.
However, there was considerable variation between the school groups in terms of both processes and outcomes, and it is this variation that provides much of the grist for the arguments developed in this article. Taking outcomes first, causes are hard to trace, so that there are numerous possible ways of explaining changes in student outcomes in the LEA over the period concerned. Table 1 provides an indication of attainment of successive pupil cohorts for each year from 2001 to 2004, across each of the school groups. It shows that attainment in relation to national targets increased between 2002 and 2004 in all four groups. Needless to say, these data arequite limited as a representation of change in schools, not least because no value-added data were available for the period concerned, so that no allowance for changing cohorts is made in this analysis.
Nevertheless, crude as the measure is, this was the key indicator of success as far as DfES, and consequently many in the LEA and in schools, were concerned. The intention to raise raw examination results was one of the central purposes of the collaborative strategy, and as such was central to many of the activities put in place in schools across the city. The fact that the raw results rose was widely considered to be significant.
Year / 2001 / 2002 / 2003 / 2004Group A / 32% / 28% / 37% / 39%
Group B / 43% / 31% / 41% / 38%
Group C / 33% / 33% / 34% / 36%
Group D / 37% / 39% / 36% / 41%
Table 1: Percentage of pupils in each school group gaining 5 or more A*-C grade GCSE
Explanations for the variation between outcomes in groups of schools are beyond the scope of our study, even in the more detailed case studies available elsewhere (Howes & Ainscow, 2006). However, it is possible to distinguish activities in terms of the intentions as to the impact on student attainments.The accountsillustrate the ‘twin-track’ approach mentioned earlier. Some activities aimed directly at attainment statistics, whilst others focused on the development of capacity in the longer term. What is even more evident is that patterns of activity varied considerably across the four groups, and the nature of the impact appeared also to be uneven. And in terms of relationships and connections, the four accounts also show how the groups developed in very different ways, and give some indication of what changed in the groups. Space precludes the inclusion of these accounts here; instead, examples of the variation in activity and relationship are presented in cameo form.
Cameo 1: A focus emerges
In Group A, which included several schools facing challenging circumstances and one high-performing faith school, almost a year passed before there was any significant collaborative action involving teachers. But gradually, the headteachers moved from a generalised exploration of possibilities, to a specific focus on the sharing of resources between schools. In one instance this made it possible to retain a teacher who subsequently became instrumental in facilitating school improvements activities. The presence of a LEA adviser with an eye for collaborative opportunities was significant:
We realised in a group meeting that we were all in dire straights in English. None of us had a head of English, with the exception of one school. The headteacher there said I’ve got an excellent teacher. The link adviser knew the teacher, and she managed and facilitated the process. It is a middle leader post, and the four schools interested share a quarter of the cost (headteacher).
The additional English teacher explained that the different circumstances in the schools demanded flexible responses:
I go to each school, and meet with the head of department; sometimes it gets very busy. I’m like a member of department, training newly qualified teachers, planning, doing demonstration lessons. It can be powerful, but you need to know the group. Mostly I work with groups of teachers, supporting department planning days… You get to see what is going on elsewhere, and I keep asking different people, “have you tried this?”. All five English departments have strengths, but I’m the link between them, the buffer…. My own teaching has improved so much… Typically, I’ll do a video of someone, and show it across the schools. That’s easier to arrange than mutual observation, and becomes less of a show’.
Headteachers considered that such activities made a difference to staff thinking. For example:
‘My staff feel more confident, even if it’s just through the opportunity to get out and talk with colleagues in other schools, to see that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence, that other people share similar problems, and so the possibility is to come up with some solutions together’ (headteacher)
Cameo 2: Afederation based on trust
Given strong encouragement from the project to work together, two heads in Group B,with very different experience and focus but with largely shared values, opted to manage the process so that all activities fitted into their existing development priorities. Their schools were very different. The headteacher of the voluntary aided school, set up in the eighteenth century to serve the poor, considered that collaboration with ‘a freshstart school’(i.e. a reopened school with a new headteacher and staff) serving a less advantaged area as falling within that tradition. Both schools took some responsibility for students affected by the forthcoming closure of a third school. Gradually, joint arrangements developed around staffing, 16 to 19 curriculum options, and site supervision. In this way the schools became constituted as ‘a federation’ (i.e. a more formally designated partnership).