David Hopkins
HSBC iNet Chair of International Leadership
Every school a
great school
Meeting the challenge of large scale, long term
educational reform
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Every school a great school
Meeting the challenge of large scale, long term educational reform A lecture in the iNet series published to celebrate the launch of the London Centre for Leadership in Learning, Institute of Education. Minister for London Schools Lord Adonis formally launched the centre on 30 June 2005. The centre is supported by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, London Challenge and HSBC Education Trust.
The London Centre for Leadership in Learning, a school of the Institute of Education, is an important new professional development facility for everyone working with children, young people and adult learners in London. It is a
significant source of research and expertise on London education, and a hub for professional partnerships of all kinds with a strong focus on international
networks. The centre will be a key provider of learning, professional development and best practice in delivering education improvement in an urban context.
Author
Professor David Hopkins, HSBC iNet Chair of International Leadership, London Centre for Leadership in Learning at the Institute of Education, University of London
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Rob Higham and Tony Mackay for invaluable assistance.
Mission
1
Contents
Chapter 1
Meeting the challenge of large scale, long term educational reform
Chapter 2
The English experiment in large scale reform
Chapter 3
Prescription or professionalism – the crucial policy conundrum
Chapter 4
Four drivers for system reform
Driver one: personalising learning
Metacognition / learning how to learn Assessment for learning
Driver two: professionalised teaching
Enhanced repertoire of learning and teaching strategies to engage and stretch students. Continuing professional development
Driver three: networks and collaboration
Best practice captured, highly specified and transferred
Partnerships beyond the school
Driver four: intelligent accountability
A better balance between internal and external assessment
A better balance between formative and summative assessment
Chapter 5
Segmentation as the key to every school a great school
Chapter 6
System leadership as the catalyst for systemic change
Chapter 7
2
Every school a great school
By background and temperament I am a school
improvement activist. Over the past 30 years or so I have self consciously located myself at the intersection of practice, research and policy. It is here that I felt I could best contribute to the process of educational reform. Reflecting back over this time, one of the initiatives I am most proud of is the work I did with the school
improvement project, Improving the Quality of Education for All (IQEA), in which we collaborated with hundreds of schools in England and elsewhere in developing a model of school improvement and a programme of support. The IQEA approach aims to enhance student outcomes through focusing on the teaching - learning process as well as strengthening the school's capacity for managing change. More recently however I have found myself as a national policymaker concerned not just with regional networks of schools but with a part responsibility for transforming a whole system. These two sets of experiences have convinced me that not only should every school be a great school, but that this is now a reasonable, realisable and socially just goal for any mature educational system. This is the argument I pursue in this pamphlet.
Alan Bennett, in the introduction to his play The history boys, reflects somewhat pessimistically on what both he and I would most probably regard as being the true purpose of state education.
‘I’m old fashioned enough to believe that private education should long since have been abolished and that Britain has paid too high a price in social inequality for its public schools. At the same time, I can’t see that public schools could be abolished
Meeting the challenge of
large scale, long term
3 (even if there was the will) without an enormous amount of
social disruption. The proper way forward would be for state education to reach such a standard that private schools would be under-subscribed, but there’s a fat chance of that,
particularly under the present administration.’
I agree wholeheartedly with the aspiration, that every school should be good, but disagree profoundly with the prognosis, that there is a fat chance of this happening. Ask any parent about the goal of educational reform and the answer is simple – why can’t every school be a great school? It’s a no-brainer.
The reason for my optimism is the recent success of large scale reform efforts in a number of countries, most notably England. As we shall see later there is still much to be done before one could claim that the English educational system is transformed. Progress however has been such, and the learning from the experience sufficient, that there is now a high degree of clarity over what needs to be done to reach this goal. Whether the goal is achieved is, as Ron Edmonds1asked in a different context, more about professional and political will rather than strategic knowledge. It is now 25 years since he asked his felicitous question: ‘How many effective schools would you have to see to be persuaded of the educability of all children?’ He continued: ‘We already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it, must depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.’
This aspiration, although easy to articulate, has implications that challenge the resolve of many national and local governments.
• First, this is an avidly social justice agenda redolent with moral purpose, and needs to be communicated as such. Sadly many of our leaders feel uncomfortable talking about values that have concrete outcomes, yet without this one cannot build a consensus for social change.
• Second, it places the focus of reform directly on enhancing teaching quality and classroom practice rather than
4
classroom is key in raising achievement and (b) the range of variation within any school dwarfs the difference between schools in the UK by a factor of three or four times.
• And third, it requires a commitment to sustained, systemic change because a focus on individual school improvement always distorts social equity. The evidence from the charter school movement in the United States and grant maintained schools in England suggests that although such initiatives may raise standards for those involved, they depress standards in surrounding schools. This is not at all to argue against school autonomy, but to caution that it should be done within inclusive and collaborative settings.
Despite the political boldness required for an explicit focus on large scale reform, the determination of the British government to pursue education reform and bring about a marked change in performance of the education service is not in doubt. Since it was elected in May 1997, the present government has sought to achieve high standards across an entire system of 24,000
schools and over 7 million school students. Landmark policies such as the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) in primary schools and Excellence in Cities (EiC) for inner city secondary schools have had a significant impact both on raising standards and narrowing the achievement gap. In retrospect however there were two weaknesses in the approach to educational reform adopted by New Labour in 1997.
Secondly, it is surprising that despite New Labour’s commitment to the ‘third way’ there was no overarching strategy for large scale educational reform. Of course there were the flagship policies such as the NLS, EiC and academies, but these were essentially responses to presenting problems rather than a vision for the future of education. It was not until
David Miliband2gave his speech on a social democratic
education settlement in March 2003 that New Labour could claim to have had a guiding philosophy for its educational reforms. As Miliband noted, Labour had always been better at knowing what it was against rather than what it was for, and his signal contribution as minister of state was to fill that lacuna. In brief the main contours of the settlement were:
• A vision of educational purpose and practice based on the ambition of full and democratic citizenship for all
• A commitment to teaching as a thinking and developing profession, with power devolved and accountability accepted
• A strategy to equalise life chances by tilting against inequality, with innovation and collaboration to improve standards
• Sufficient funding, devolved to school level and allocated to need
• An understanding that culture matters as well as structure, and the dominant culture needs to support educational advance.
He concluded the lecture by saying: ‘Equal worth. Active learning. Informed professionalism. High expectations. These are the foundations of a new education settlement. The ultimate test is not that they hold firm for a few months, or even a Parliamentary term, but that they endure.’ It will be interesting to see whether the commitment to this settlement will hold firm following his leaving the Department and endure into the third term.
Keeping this background and these two concerns in mind, the purpose of this pamphlet is to outline an approach to large scale, long term reform that has the potential of realising high standards for all students in all schools. In elaborating the
Every school a great school
• The background to the success of the initial phase of educational reform in England
• The crucial policy conundrum involved in achieving sustained improvement
• The four key drivers that can build system capacity to deliver on standards
• The approach to segmentation necessary to ensure every school succeeds
• The concept of system leadership necessary to sustain such an approach.
7 Although the reform effort in England has involved both
primary schools (elementary education for 5–11 year olds) and secondary schools (ages 11–16, or 11–18 for those schools with sixth forms) the initial data cited in this section will reflect the performance of students in the 5–11 year age range. The reason is simply because it is here where the link between reform strategy and student performance is most clearly seen.
In order to move from the evidently underperforming system of the mid-1990s the government put in place a policy approach best described as ‘high challenge, high support’. The way in which these principles are turned into practical policies to drive
school improvement is summarised in the following diagram3.
The policies for each segment (starting at 12 o’clock) are set out in the chart below. The important point is that the policy
elements were complementary and mutually supportive4.
The English experiment in
large scale reform
Intervention in inverse proportion to success
Ambitious standards
Devolved responsibility
Good data and clear targets Access to
best practice and quality professional development
Accountability
High challenge
8
Every school a great school
Within the context of this large scale long term national reform effort, the early focus on literacy and numeracy in primary schools was an important and necessary first step. Performance at age 11, at the end of key stage 2, is a key indicator.
Competence in literacy and numeracy are absolutely vital to the life chances of children in our schools. They are the strongest predictors of success at age 16 and beyond.
The positive influence of the national literacy and numeracy strategies on student performance attracted worldwide
attention. A graphic illustration of the impact that the strategies have had on the system as a whole is seen in the following
Ambitious standards Access to best practice and quality professional
development
• High standards set out • Universal professional
in the national curriculum development in national
priorities (literacy, numeracy, ICT)
• National tests at age 7, 11, • Leadership development as
14, 16 an entitlement
Accountability Devolved responsibility
• National inspection system • School as unit of
for schools and LEAs accountability
• Publication annually of • Devolution of resources
school/district level and employment
performance data powers to schools
and targets
Good data/clear targets Intervention in inverse proportion to success
• Individual pupil level data • School improvement grant
collected nationally to assist implementation of
post-inspection action plan
• Statutory target-setting at • Monitoring of performance
9 series of maps. The first map reproduced below gives an
indication of the number of local education authorities in England in 1998 where 75%+ of 11 year old students were reading at their chronological age (the map for numeracy was similar). This by itself provides enough justification for
10
Every school a great school
introducing the strategies. The situation in 2002 is illustrated in the second map and in 2004 in the third map. The picture for numeracy in 2002 and 2004 was also similar. Although there is still progress to be made, the transformation of the national picture in six years is very striking.
The analysis of this success is however not entirely straightforward. The percentage increase in student
performance in literacy and numeracy between 1997 and 2004 is illustrated in the following table.
What is significant about this data profile is that following a significant increase over the first three years, performance levelled off for the next three years, and only recently has further progress been made. This trend has been noted in virtually every large scale reform initiative. What usually
Summary of key stage 2 results – percentage of pupils achieving level 4+
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
English 63 65 71 75 75 75 75 77 79
Mathematics 62 59 69 72 71 73 73 74 75
4
LEAs achieving 75%+
11 happens is that early success is followed by this levelling off
along with a lack of commitment to the programme of reform. I suggest that the recent progress in England is because in 2003 the national literacy and numeracy strategies merged into a national primary strategy, the design of which was underpinned by many of the principles advocated in this pamphlet. The argument here is that, to ensure that every school becomes a great school, the plateau has to be turned into a platform for further achievement.
Before explaining how this can be done, it is important to recognise that there are further serious challenges to be met before the goal of every school a great school becomes a realistic expectation. In summary they are:
• Underperformance at all levels
• Slow progress in secondary education
• A focus on management rather than leadership
• Restricted nature of teaching quality
• Excellence and equity, with deprivation being the root cause of low attainment.
It is important to take these challenges seriously as they contain the key to building capacity for sustained improvement. Space precludes a detailed treatment, but data is presented on each of the challenges in order to illustrate the nature of the issue and possible resolutions.
Underperformance at all levels:this is a persistent problem for English schools. New Labour has been successful in
12
Every school a great school
even schools that perform well in terms of published results can be systematically disadvantaging their students. The
phenomenon of the coasting school is still a real drag on the performance of the system overall, as well as preventing students from reaching their potential. For example, if every school in the bottom quartile of value added were to perform at the current median, it is estimated that:
• their pupils would make, on average, an extra year’s progress during their school careers
• about 13,000 additional pupils would gain 5+A*-C grades each year
• the school’s average 5+A*-C percentage would rise by 10%
• their average KS3 point score would rise by 3 points.
Slow progress in secondary education:although there has been consistent progress in standards at KS3 and GCSE since 1997, there has not been the breakthrough at either age level of the type seen at KS2. The recent year on year increase of
between 1% and 2% at GCSE, although welcome, still leaves 40% of 16 year olds not meeting the levels required to continue their education. The graph below illustrates the slow but
Underperforming schools
Estimated 5 A*-C (from Pupil KS3 Data, Gender and School FSM)
13 sustained progress at KS3. This is particularly concerning given
that performance at KS3 is the best predictor of GCSE results. Too many 14 year olds are not effectively accessing the
secondary curriculum.
Leadership capacity:Ofsted evidence clearly illustrates that the quality of leadership and management has improved year on year since the mid nineties in both primary and secondary schools. This too is welcome, and is testimony to the
effectiveness national leadership training programmes. The problem for sustainability however is well illustrated in the slide for secondary schools on the following page (the data for primary schools show a similar pattern). Although management scores well, the leadership qualities and capacities required for schools to lead the reform process, such as overall effectiveness and the quality of teaching, lag worryingly behind.
Teaching quality:there is a similar problem with the quality of teaching, and although the slide overleaf illustrates data at KS4 the situation is similar at other key stages. Teaching quality is high in traditional areas such as classroom management and curriculum knowledge. The more adaptive behaviours required for personalising learning however are obviously still not part of the repertoires of most of the nation’s teachers.
National performance at key stage 3
1995 - 2004
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Every school a great school
Excellence and equity:unfortunately deprivation still
remains the most reliable predictor of academic success. Recent analyses suggest that, as expected, higher performing schools have a larger proportion of more affluent students; also, that students of average socio-economic background do better in these school environments. What is more disturbing is that low SES students do equally badly in both high and low performing schools. This long tail of underperformance has characterised
Leadership capacity
The leadership and management of the Headteacher and key staff Behaviour, including the incidence of exclusions Overall effectiveness of the school How well the pupils achieve
(OFSTED Annual Report 2003)
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
44 36 15 5
Ofsted overview of secondary schools
34 40 19 8
25 43 24 8
15 49 29 7
15 63 18 5
Quality of teaching at key stage 4
% of schools with full inspections
Management of pupils Use of time, support staff and resources Quality and use of ongoing assessment Use of homework Teaching of basic skills
Excellent/Very good Good Satisfactory Unsatisfactory/Poor N.B These figures have been rounded and may not add up to 100%
OFSTED Annual Report 2002
15 the English educational system for too long. It is this that
underlies England’s performance in PISA 2001: the OECD characterised the English system as being one of high excellence and low equity as demonstrated in the diagram below.
So the plateau effect characteristic of centrally driven change, coupled with these five system wide problems, constitute the challenge for making every school in England great. This challenge presents us with a crucial policy dilemma that provides the focus of the following section.
The challenge of excellence and equity
High excellence
200 – Variance (variance OECD as a whole = 100)
Source: OECD (2001) Knowledge and Skills for Life
