When taking on new schools, trust leaders can often find themselves tasked with rapid school improvement under pressure.

That’s where we found ourselves in 2022, when we took on a primary school that had been on the local authority’s monitoring and intervention caseload owing to serious performance concerns.

Of course, turning around underperforming schools is a key focus for many trusts, but what took place next was perhaps less orthodox - chiefly, the new headteacher Steven Rooney appointed three early career teachers (ECTs) to act as the bedrock for a new focus and direction for the school.

Bold decision

Obviously this was a bold decision and one that we, the trust, and Rooney decided on jointly through discussion of the pros and cons.

It may have seemed like a risky move, but we backed it because while we, of course, place a high value on the expertise of teachers who’ve been in the classroom for many years, there is no doubt that new teachers are incredibly adaptable and when you want to make changes fast, this can be a real plus.

What’s more, because of this adaptability and because these new teachers were part of the early career framework, we knew they would be receiving the necessary training to enable them to quickly become skilled, more expert teachers, helping the school meet its needs by mapping their skills to new requirements.

It certainly helped, too, that the ECTs had been part of our team during their final initial teacher training placements - they knew the journey the school was on and wanted to be part of it.

They were hungry to develop, learn and grow, and took confidence from the fact that although they were joining a small school in a turnaround phase, they were also joining a strong multi-academy trust with a rich approach to teacher development.

Mentoring and learning

Complementing this, Rooney stepped up to mentor the new teachers by undergoing instructional coaching as part of a dedicated support package for new headteachers, offered by our trust improvement team, so he in turn could help them home in on the actions needed to embed new strategies in their practice and solve any issues they were facing.

This work was key to the avoidance of situations where teachers understand new ideas or concepts presented to them during their ECT sessions but struggle to embed them in their teaching - often termed the “knowing-doing gap”.

To ensure they had time to develop these skills, the ECTs had 10 per cent of their time ring-fenced for professional development so that it couldn’t be taken over by other tasks.

On the trust side, we ensured Rooney had support from us, with another headteacher within the trust - Anna Lister of St Paul’s CE Primary (our founding National Support School) - working alongside him to offer guidance. This included helping to develop the school’s new approach to phonics and early reading and writing.

St Paul’s also hosted the whole staff team for a day to show them the model of what we aspire to in the trust. It’s one thing to know about our learning and teaching strategy but ECTs need to see and feel it in order to incorporate it into their own practice.

They visited lessons, and spoke to teachers, teaching assistants and children, and really got under the skin of a strong school.

Through this work and the impact of the ECF helping our teachers to grow, we have seen clear improvements, starting first with behaviour and classroom management, and extending to the curriculum and learning and teaching.

Front-line impact

Results back this up. The year before we took on the school, almost half of children in key stage 1 (45 per cent) didn’t meet the expected standard in phonics, and this was impacting their ability to access the wider curriculum.

Fast-forward to June 2023 and 100 per cent of children passed the key stage 1 phonics screening check.

What’s more, an Ofsted inspection in March noted the high priority given to reading and phonics, as well as “staff training”, which “has ensured that staff have developed the knowledge and confidence to deliver the curriculum effectively”.

Inspectors also noted that staff were positive about working at the school, that ECTs felt “well supported by both the school and trust” and that “leaders take staff workload and wellbeing into account when making decisions”.

We are incredibly proud of what we have achieved - it demonstrates that we as organisations must recognise that while we can’t expect new teachers to be the finished article when they join us, with the right development and support, they can quickly become integral to a school’s success.

Elliot Costas-Walker is director of learning and partnerships at Forward As One CE Multi Academy Trust. He tweets @CWElliot

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