All schools - even the best - can get better. The big difference between schools is the urgency and extent of change that’s needed, as well as the school’s capacity to drive that improvement.
The problem is that recent policy has focused far more on challenging schools to get better than supporting and empowering them to improve.
That’s not necessarily a problem for schools in strong trusts and local authorities, which can often count on well-organised additional capacity and expertise.
But, at present, a lot of schools are still having to muddle their way through a fragmented landscape, under huge pressure but without the necessary back-up.
Move away from punishing schools
That’s why, in a 2023 report for the Institute for Public Policy Research, I called for the dial to be shifted; I wanted the focus to move from punishing schools for not being good enough, towards helping them be the best they can be.
That’s why I’m optimistic that the DfE’s announcement of new Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams will introduce a far more support-focused, improvement system, based on the model I described in that report.
The details of the government’s plan are still unclear, but some of the ingredients that have been hinted at are encouraging.
Firstly, the proposed three-tier model of school improvement strikes a balance between hard intervention and additional support.
Where pupils are not getting the quality of education they deserve and the school doesn’t have the right leadership in place, the government has renewed its commitment to taking robust action. That’s right and appropriate.
But, in the vast majority of cases, the focus will be on backing professionals within schools to keep raising standards.
Spreading good practice
For schools that are already doing well, this might simply involve linking up the system, so that good practice can spread from bright spots - and so that quality can be ratcheted up through mutual support, hubs and networks. Meanwhile, schools with further to go on their improvement journey will get something akin to what I termed ‘enhanced support’.
This would likely involve skilled advisors talking through a school’s improvement plan to make sure the school has the help it needs. Where necessary, additional expertise could then be brokered in, or extra resources provided to fund specific activities.
The DfE now needs to make clear that so long as hard intervention isn’t judged unnecessary, schools and their ‘responsible bodies’ will remain in the driving seat. The newly formed RISE teams should feed into and sign off schools’ improvement plans, but muddying accountability lines would be problematic.
The risk with earlier versions of the plan for regional improvement teams was that they might replicate existing capacity and suck expertise out of schools in the process.
It’s therefore encouraging that this week’s announcement suggests the DfE is no longer expecting regional teams to swoop in and do the hard work of school improvement themselves. Instead, the new iteration will see regional teams concentrating on knitting together an otherwise fragmented system.
The challenge ahead
There is no doubt that it will be challenging to make a success of the new model.
The DfE only intends to recruit the full-time equivalent (FTE) of three school leaders per region. With nine regions, this only equates to 27 FTEs for nearly 25,000 schools.
Although leaders on RISE teams will be working alongside civil servants, most DfE officials lack the school experience needed to engage in detailed improvement planning.
So I see three things that all involved should bear in mind:
- RISE teams should mobilise a wider network of repurposed, boosted and upskilled National Leaders of Excellence, and over time, the Treasury may need to release additional resources to boost capacity as part of a move to more manageable sub-regions.
- Additionally, any improvement partner will need to embrace the fact that there are different ways of running a school. If RISE teams come in and impose their own approach to school improvement on experienced leaders, they will be resented as adversaries, rather than welcomed as supporters.
- Finally, the DfE should recognise that schools that are already part of strong families often already have access to the support they need. Explicitly acknowledging this would allow RISE teams to target their exceedingly scarce resources where they’re most needed.
A robust system
The end of one-word Ofsted judgements was a first step in releasing the pressure valve in our school system. However, there’s a risk standards might slip if that shift isn’t combined with a new, robust but supportive school improvement system.
Bridget Phillipson’s announcement this week has provided an initial glimpse of what a reformed system might look like. Delivering ‘improvement through empowerment’ now depends on getting the detail right.
Loic Menzies is a visiting fellow at Sheffield Institute of Education and senior research associate at Jesus College Intellectual Forum
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