School Improvement
Partnership Programme:
From principles
to practice
Chris Chapman
A rationale for
collaborative working
• The system has untapped capacity to improve itself
• There is a need to strengthen collaboration both within
and between institutions
• Evidence can be used to bring a critical edge to new
arrangements
• Action has to be focused on specific issues, adapted to
and owned by local context
• Some co-ordination of effort is needed to optimise
improvement efforts
• This approach can close the achievement gap and
support the development of a more equitable education
system.
The SIPP:
Core Principles
• Collaborative working across boundaries
• Focus on closing the achievement gap
• The commitment to mutual benefit and the creation of
leadership opportunities and professional learning of staff
• Commitment to long-term sustainability and capacity building
• Explicit links to strategic improvement planning in schools and
local authorities.
• The use of systematic enquiry to develop innovative practices
and monitor developments
TheSIPP:
Enquiry process
Phase 1: Preparing the ground
Where are we now?
What are our key concerns?
What would success look like?
Phase 2: Exploring the evidence
How do we exploit internal and external knowledge?
What further evidence do we need?
What new insights do we have?
Phase 3: Testing change
What changes do we need to make?
How do we lever and embed change?
How do we know we have made a difference?
The SIPP:
Developing an approach
• Identify a shared focused concern
• Based on collecting evidence, making changes to practice
and monitoring and evaluating their impact
• Led and coordinated by a ‘Partnership Innovation Team’
or existing appropriate structure
• Supported by an “external trio” of critical friends
The SIPP:
Reflections
• Locally owned and led
• Generating and sharing new ways of working
• Using evidence to inform practice
• Tailored context specific programme
• Technically simple but socially context
• Frameworks not prescription