September is always an especially busy time in the school year as teachers welcome new pupils, set routines and create safe, productive learning environments for their pupils.
But with ongoing disruptions, soaring costs and squeezed budgets, it’s never been harder to do this - and that is why many will be looking beyond the school gates for opportunities to partner and collaborate with their peers and share ideas, advice and inspiration.
At the Centre for Education and Youth (CfEY), we have long been interested in the ways that schools work with other schools, local authorities (LAs), charities and other local networks in England to give pupils the best possible support.
As such, starting in April 2022, CfEY began exploring the role of Area-Based Education Partnerships (ABEPs) - local alliances that support school improvement (and often wider goals) across a locality, but do not have any direct control of, or power over, schools or multi-academy trusts (MATs), or direct accountability for school outcomes.
We did this using a combination of websites, reports and other resources to understand the myriad ways schools collaborate to improve youth outcomes at LA level.
Area-Based Education Partnerships
These ABEPs can take various forms. One might be a partnership of local secondary schools looking to improve their maths provision; another could be a cross-phase collaboration with the voluntary and community sector to improve pupils’ wellbeing.
ABEPs sit outside of more formal accountability structures, instead relying on the “soft accountability” of other partnership members, who are all bound by shared goals.
This can give ABEPs the space to think creatively about solutions to local problems and collaborate with partners they may not otherwise work with.
Having drawn all these together, we have now published them in the form of an interactive map so schools can easily find nearby examples of local collaborations that they could partner with, or see what others are doing to inform their own ideas.
It is worth noting the map does not focus on collaboration stemming directly from MATs as we feel the work of less formal partnerships has tended to receive less attention but it is important we recognise the existing local infrastructure schools have helped to develop.
Furthermore, if the government wishes to move towards a system of large trusts, we need a better grasp of existing ties between schools, and between schools and other local networks.
Indeed, as CfEY and IPPR suggested in a recent report, schools are well-placed to act as local “hubs” that improve young people’s access to specialist support, such as mental health services, provided this function is founded on strong partnerships and local investment. ABEPs could offer a model for better-connected schools and a broader youth support landscape.
While LA powers and responsibilities continue to decline, and the growth of MATs progresses slowly, we were also interested in LAs’ roles in supporting area-based collaboration and driving school improvement.
We found that in the face of uncertainty, LAs have adopted various functions, sometimes as funders of third-party organisations, sometimes as partnership conveners, and often as direct deliverers of school improvement.
School collaborations: mapping innovations
LAs, trust leaders, schools and others can apply filters when using the map, to look at the different forms of collaboration that are occurring in LAs with similar characteristics to their own.
Mapping across 152 LAs is ambitious, and the shape and scope of the partnerships we have identified are constantly evolving.
The map offers a snapshot in time, but new developments are happening all the time and we look forward to learning about the emerging changes and benefits of these connections as they progress.
On the map, there is a filter that allows users to see those LAs that have verified our summaries or provided further information.
In the coming weeks, we will engage further with LAs, MAT leaders and others to consider how we can more fully capture the partnerships they initiate and belong to.
We hope the map will help to celebrate the excellent work taking place across the country and spark a much-needed debate about how we use local levers to drive positive outcomes for children and young people.
Finally, we would love for you to help us make the map as accurate and useful as possible. Please look at the summary for your LA and use the contact form to offer corrections or additional information so we can capture any work going on in your area.
Billy Huband-Thompson is an associate at the Centre for Education and Youth
