There is one common type of education story that I hope never to write*. This is the tale of the formerly “failing” school which has been “transformed” by one determined individual, often complete with a “no excuses” behaviour policy and a supposedly newly minted “culture of high expectations”, and usually accompanied by a new uniform.

The headteacher in question may feature prominently in the article, sometimes helpfully underscoring to the interviewer just how terrible things were before he or she arrived.

What is wrong with such stories? After all, don’t they carry the feelgood factor for readers, suggesting that change can come to formerly struggling institutions, if only we could let good headteachers lead in the right way?

Well, schools are complex organisations and, while leadership is no doubt important, many people will have contributed to success. Also, these stories may contain an underlying insult: that most other schools are somehow failing and could be improved with the few simple changes which the article documents.

But, for a journalist, the problem is also more basic: such stories are unlikely to be true. Or, rather, there is a superficial tale to be told about a school experiencing a dramatic improvement in exam results, and perhaps a freshly outstanding Ofsted record, perhaps under a new head. But the reason for such transformations, I think - based on investigating and writing about school improvement tactics for more than a decade - is unlikely to be only to do with policies such as strictures on behaviour, while uniform changes seem a very indirect means of improving results.

No, in my experience, schools looking to effect dramatic change in the results indicators on which their public success hangs take the logical course: they focus directly on the indicators themselves. Strategies are introduced which target the statistics around which league table rankings and Ofsted verdicts revolve.

Schools ‘gaming the system’

There was a useful update on this last week from Sean Harford, Ofsted’s director of education. He told TES that some schools - by implication, some secondary schools - were entering large numbers of pupils for “inappropriate” qualifications, narrowing the curriculum or taking underperforming pupils off the roll entirely.

Mr Harford’s warning was clear: these tactics might suit the schools, but they are not always in pupils’ best interests.

Mr Harford has written to inspectors urging them to be on the lookout for this “game-playing”. But the underlying issue is that the accountability system - of which Ofsted is, of course, a key part - is always playing catch-up with schools which are being incentivised to look for the next loophole offering an apparent shortcut to better results, since their futures depend on it.

So inspectors need to be on their guard. But so does my profession. The media needs to be more questioning about results statistics. If scores have gone up dramatically in a very short space of time, the question should always be how was that achieved. And any head responding with the non-specific “high expectations”; or “we’ve introduced a uniform” should earn the right to have the article spiked.

Last year, research was published which sought to contrast what it called “surgeon” headteachers, who came into schools, sought to find quick results gains and then left, with “architects”, who laid down longer-term improvement strategies.

The research has provoked scepticism over its methodology. But, having watched the n-shaped career trajectories of various superheads, and having been tipped off by teachers about the methods of many more, the top line rang true. The trouble is, our system continues to reward the surgeons, rather than the architects.

Take two schools. One has improved results by deciding to ease out pupils who are unlikely to help its scores. It has a very strategic approach to qualifications, ensuring that pupils are steered down a route to taking that combination of subjects which has the best chance of boosting league table indicators.

The other has an inclusive approach, sticking by all its charges, however challenging their path to a good set of results might be. While never forgetting the importance of good grades to pupils, it would allow them the scope to take courses with their needs, rather than those of the institution, to the fore.

I suspect that the first school is the one which is more likely to win official plaudits. Its head would have a better chance of getting media coverage as a “hero” for changing an institution’s course. But the real heroes would be within the second school - the individual leading it and its staff for resisting the incentives to act as the first school does.

England’s system of resting so much on superficial measures of institutional success is not taking education to a good place. And the shallow stories we tell about school improvement are not helping.

NB: I hope this article does not provoke some frantic internet searching of any such stories in my past

Warwick Mansell is a freelance education journalist and author of Education by Numbers. You can read his back catalogue here

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