Last week, 69 school leaders met in Sheffield for the Association of School and College Leaders’ council - our policymaking body. Over the 24 hours we spent together, a clear consensus emerged: we disagree with the government’s policy of compulsory academisation. This does not mean we disagree with the academy programme or indeed with the policy of groups of schools working together. We believe that compulsion is out of kilter with a school-led, self-improving system.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the 10 challenges of a fully academised system. I strongly encouraged ministers to allow federated groups of maintained schools alongside multi-academy trusts.

I offered this solution because I believe that groups of schools have the potential to bring about a step-change in the education system. But the government must make participation in groups of schools voluntary.

In the meantime, I’d like to explore here the top 10 opportunities of a networked system built on groups of schools working together.
 

1. What if we built more deep and strong partnerships?
   
   Not because the government is mandating multi-academy trusts, but because the evidence is beginning to suggest that system-wide school collaboration through groups of schools is the key to building the professional expertise of teachers. For example, the School Partnerships and Cooperation report found that “collaboration has great potential to continue driving improvement to the English education system”.
    
2. What if we used these to take collective responsibility for outcomes?
   
   How would it be if we built our partnerships on the assumption that we would share responsibility for outcomes? That schools were fundamentally connected and collectively responsible for children and young people in a local area? This would mean that no school and no child could get left behind.
    
3. What if we built more collaborative learning across schools?
   
   We know that professional development that is carefully designed and has a strong focus on pupil outcomes helps to improve achievement. When teachers collaborate and develop their teaching together, both teaching and learning is improved. We now have the evidence of how to develop great teaching. Let’s use it.
    
4. What if we created talent-spotting and leadership development across groups?
   
   Talent-spotting is absolutely key to building the pipeline of leaders of the future. This is hard (but not impossible) to do in a single school. A group of schools provides the structure within which we can create leadership development opportunities.
    
5. What if we used the power of partnerships to reclaim the curriculum?
   
   It is a long time since we embraced the right to curriculum vision - and curriculum design. This is hard graft and so much more than the list of qualifications which is the sum total of the English Baccalaureate. It’s time we reclaimed the curriculum.
    
6. What if we used partnerships to find local solutions to teacher supply?
   
   A group of schools has the potential to do so much more than a single school in finding the solutions to local problems, including the supply of teachers. I am not letting the government off the hook here - government has an absolute responsibility for recruiting the right number of teachers in the right subjects and the right areas. But schools working together can begin to find solutions for themselves.
    
7. What if we used data to become truly accountable to the people we serve?
   
   The government will always want to determine ways of measuring the success of schools funded by the taxpayer. This is quite right. But what stops us from measuring a broader range of things we value? School leaders and governors can use the vision and ethos of their school or group of schools to set out a wider range of performance measures that matter to young people, parents and communities. For example, if the school or group values student leadership, is there anything that stops us reporting to parents about the number of children and young people involved in student leadership activities?
    
8. What if we developed more ways of engaging with our communities?
   
   We need to find better and more sophisticated ways of engaging with parents and communities. It may be necessary to have parent governors but this is not enough on its own. We need to go further and find ways of acting together to give parents and communities a greater stake in education.
    
9. What if we took collective responsibility for improving schools?
   
   Ofsted inspects schools - but it does not improve schools. School leaders, working together through models like peer review are responsible for improving schools. We need to make sure no school is left behind.
    
10. What if we used these partnerships to reinforce the fact that our schooling system is rooted in collective moral purpose?
    
    The education system in England is good. There is no doubt about that. But it is not yet great. Together we can use this opportunity to rethink how we work and much more importantly, why we do what we do. There is a deep moral purpose at the heart of all teaching - to enable children and young people to know the best that has been thought and said, to learn to put that knowledge to good use, to learn to live together and to learn to be themselves.

Leora Cruddas is director of policy for the Association of School and College Leaders and tweets at @LeoraCruddas

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