The School Improvement Partnership Programme:
Innovating to tackle educational inequality
Context
Where there is a shared commitment to improving outcomes for all children
and young people well supported partnerships can lead to significant and
sustained improvement and raised attainment– especially where this forms
part of existing improvement planning and a focus on professional learning
and classroom practices i . There is also compelling evidence that suggest
collaborative approaches underpinned by action research and enquiry
frameworks provide a mechanism to challenge current arrangements and
understandings to bring about meaningful changeii. This paper sets out the
principles and processes that underpin the approach of the School
Improvement Partnership Programme.
Core principles
The work of the partnerships is driven by the overarching enquiry question:
What collaborative practices reduce the achievement gap between
learners from more and less advantaged backgrounds?
This overarching question forms the basis for partnerships framing their own
enquiry questions and projects to tackle common priority issues within their
specific contexts. The core principles that underpin this approach are:
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Partnership working across schools and local authorities with a focus
on exploring specific issues relating to educational inequity
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The use of systematic enquiry and evidence gathering to identify key
challenges, experiment with innovative practices and monitor
developments
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The creation of leadership opportunities and professional learning of
staff at all levels.
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A commitment to reciprocity and mutual benefit to all involved.
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The development of arrangements to support long-term collaboration
and new approaches to capacity building.
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Explicit links to strategic improvement planning in schools and local
authorities.
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The involvement of a diverse range of partners including schools, local
authorities, Education Scotland and other agencies.
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These key principles offer an overarching framework providing coherence
across the programme from which systemic lessons can be learned while
retaining the flexibility necessary for localities to develop arrangements
matched to their specific contexts.
Developing an approach
The School Improvement Partnership Programme is an approach
underpinned by action research collaborative enquiry. In the spirit of action
research- learning from each other, experimenting practice, monitoring and
evaluating impacts are central to the work of partnerships. Each partnership
will indicate what success will look like, with a strong focus on impact in
making a difference to young people’s achievement and ultimately their life
chances. The partnerships will target raising the achievement of specific
groups of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
This approach to educational change has been developed from the
knowledge generated from working with schools on projects Scotland and
beyondiii. Research tells us these types of partnerships are more successful
and more likely to be sustainable if the partnerships: (a) owns the agenda for
change and led by a core team (b) are supported by external critical friends
and (c) underpinned by a structured enquiry process:
(a) Owning the agenda and driving action within school partnerships
Within each school a core group of staff, usually in the form of a ‘Partnership
Innovation Team’ (PIT) will be responsible for providing the impetus and coordination of partnership work within the school.
Commonly a school will identify a small team of circa 4-6 staff with a range of
expertise and backgrounds. The evidence suggests these teams are most
powerful when they include a member of the senior team, a relatively
inexperienced teacher and a non-teaching member of staff. It is for schools to
decide how this team is assembled and who is involved. How this team is
assembled sends an important signal through the school. This team will lead
developments in their own school and collaborate with PITs from other
school(s) in the partnership.
Individual PITs will want to meet regularly, perhaps on a weekly basis in the
first instance and are likely to need to come together for whole partnership
meetings on a ½ termly basis in the first instance. As the PITs develop and
the project progresses it will become clear when it is useful and necessary to
meet and which members of the PITs should come together for what
purposes.
One important consideration is how the PITs link with other staff in their
school and across the partnership. The precise nature of these arrangements
will vary depending on the size, focus and context of the partnership. Each
PIT should nominate a co-ordinator who will become the named link with
other PITs in the partnership and external critical friends.
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It is important that the PIT shares the findings of their enquiry across the wider
community and that the intervention impacts outside the immediate
partnership. Therefore, it is important the PIT has a strategy and mechanism
for sharing findings and knowledge across the partnership and beyond.
Membership to the PIT is itself an important professional development
opportunity and should it self not be exclusive. Membership would normally be
for an initial period of 1 year and may be extended by negotiation. It is likely to
change naturally as interests and enquiry foci evolve.
(b) Support from critical friends
There is a range of external support available to the programme. The purpose
of this support is to provide critical friendship, support the partnerships to build
internal capacity for educational improvement and develop sustainable ways
of working beyond the duration of the programme. Named individuals from
Education Scotland, Local Authorities and university researchers will work in
‘trios’ to support partnership activity. Each trio will also undertake their own
enquiry to explore how the partnership project contributes to the overarching
programme enquiry. This will be led by the researcher in the trio.
The trios’ input/ support will vary depending on requirements. It is likely to
evolve over time as the needs of the partnerships develop but will include:
Education Scotland involvement:
 Linking with the other named contacts to support the work of the
partnerships;
 Brokering and facilitate the nature of partnerships;
 Providing assistance in collating statistical information about the
schools and partnerships to inform their decision-making;
 Supporting a database and communication system to support the
sharing of knowledge and resources within and between partnerships;
 Bringing partnerships together to share experiences and practice at
appropriate points within the programme.
Local Authority involvement:
 Linking with the other named contacts to support the work of the
partnerships;
 Brokering and facilitate the nature of partnerships;
 Meeting with head teachers and senior staff occasionally in order
to explore strategic implications of the findings of the research
activities;
 Working with schools in the partnership to support enquiry activity,
where appropriate;
 Providing critical friendship to the partnership;
 Facilitating partnership activity including meetings, events etc.
Researcher involvement:iv
Researchers will provide support to the SIPP schools as they use processes
of enquiry to move thinking and practice forward. Specifically, this will involve:
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Supporting workshops in order to strengthen partnership capacity
for using evidence and sharing each others’ experiences to drive
improvement efforts;
Providing direct support to the schools in designing and carrying
out their enquiries;
Linking the work of the partnerships to relevant development and
research activities, both nationally and internationally;
Meeting with head teachers and senior staff occasionally in order
to explore strategic implications of the findings of the research
activities;
Supporting partnerships in developing accounts of practice that
chart progress and development to inform the future work of
partnerships;
Exploring the possibilities for accrediting partnership activity;
Leading the trio programme-level enquiry into the partnership
project.
(c) An underpinning structured enquiry approach
Each of the partnerships will develop a structured, collaborative enquiry
approach. The nature of some projects might demand general approach
guided by a cyclical framework of three phases and nine action steps:
Phase 1: Preparing the ground
1. Analysis of context (where are we now?)
2. Agreeing enquiry questions (what are our key concerns?)
3. Agreeing purposes (what would success look like?)
Phase 2: Exploring the evidence:
4. Using the available expertise (how do we exploit internal and external
knowledge?)
5. Collecting data (what further evidence do we need?)
6. Making sense of the evidence (what new insights do we have?)
Phase 3: Testing change
7. Deciding on actions to be taken (What changes do we need to make?)
8. Implementing a strategy (How do we lever and embed change?)
9. Monitoring outcomes. (How do we know we have made a difference?)
While others might be adapted to incorporate specific enquiry-based
methodologies (eg. Lesson Study, Learning Walk-throughs etc). The evidence
suggests in developing such approaches there are a number of issues that
need to be considered.
Issues for consideration
In using the nine action steps for the purposes of planning, it is crucial to
recognise that they are likely to overlap. Consequently, the implementation of
the plan that is developed will involve a set of interconnected actions. Many
will occur in parallel and it is likely you will move back and forth between
phases and action steps. You will revisit ideas and refine understanding and
actions. Taking a more detailed look at each specific action step in turn:
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Action Step 1. Analysis of context- This involves generating an overview of
the current situation and defining a focus for the enquiry. The PITs will need
to think about what they already know about the situation- What their
‘hunches’ are and what evidence is readily available. What further evidence
is required to enable them to develop a set of enquiry questions? Many of the
proposals focus on this phase of activity.
Action Step 2. Agreeing enquiry questions- Strategic questions are crucial
in adopting an enquiry-based approach. They determine what information is
needed and how it should be collected. These questions must be generated
by practitioners themselves. This ensures the focus is on ‘real world’ issues
and that the findings of the investigations will be meaningful and relevant.
This is why it is so helpful to have members in the PIT who have different
perspectives on the life of the school (teaching and non-teaching, perhaps
even students). The questions should be refined to ensure they are specific
to a particular cohort/ group of learners and focus on the relationship
between socio-economic disadvantage and low educational achievement.
Action Step 3. Agreeing purposes- At this step it is important to clarify the
Team’s shared understanding of the questions and issues in hand before
checking them out with a broader group. This involves reflecting on what the
initial ‘hunches’ and considering what surveys of the existing evidence
suggests. Discussions include priorities for action and thinking about who
needs to be involved. At this stage the PIT may decide additional evidence is
required. This phase is about generating a wider constituency and ensuring
the issues the PIT is raising resonate more widely across the school and
partnership.
Action Step 4. Making use of available expertise- Here the PIT will need
to identify what expertise exists within the PIT, the school, partnership, the
wider programme and beyond? What are the gaps in the expertise? And from
where/ how can these gaps be filled? It is at this action step that specific
methodologies such as Lesson Study, Learning Walk-Throughs etc. might be
employed to support partnership working.
Action Step 5. Collecting data- There is a wide range of evidence available
to the partnerships. (This may include observations, interviews, focus groups
surveys etc). It is also likely to include statistical material that is readily
available within the schools and across the partnership, such as attendance
and performance data. This gives a general picture of what is happening in
the school in relation to the issues under consideration. What is then needed
is a much more specific analysis of the local situation, using qualitative data,
probably including evidence provided by the students. Previous work has
shown that such evidence can provide a powerful means of moving schools
forward, not least because it may provide ‘surprises’ that challenge the
assumptions of staff as to what happens within their classrooms. In so doing,
it may also draw attention to students who are being overlooked.
Action Step 6. Making sense of the evidence- The PIT will need to analyse
the evidence and orchestrate a widespread discussion within their schools. It
is here that involving representatives from partner schools in these
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discussions, not least because ‘outsiders’ can helpfully ask questions and
spot issues, trends and themes that ‘insiders’ may overlook. Where this is
well led, it is a means of drawing people together around a common sense of
purpose. Other projects note this process is a particularly effective means of
encouraging innovation and experimentation. Clearly, the most important role
of the PIT is to coordinate and stimulate this analytical process.
Action Step 7. Deciding action to be taken- Having established areas for
development, it will be necessary for the team to formulate strategies for
involving the school community to move forward. Here, the overall approach
is based on the assumption that schools know more than they use.
Therefore, the logical starting point for development is with a detailed
analysis of existing ways of working. This allows the best practices to be
identified and shared, whilst, at the same time, drawing attention to ways of
working that may be creating barriers to the learning of some students. One
of the most important aspects of formulating the strategy is moving beyond
the spreading of accepted best practice by innovating new practices. This
requires injecting new ideas, and evidence from other sources. At this point it
is helpful to remember the old adage, educational change is technically
simple but socially complex. In other words, planning the actions that are
needed is likely to be relatively straight forward; the challenge for the team is
to find ways of getting everybody involved to implement them.
Action Step 8. Implementing a strategy- The PIT will need a plan for
implementing the intervention they have developed as a result of their
analysis of the situation. This will involve identify the resources required to
support the change, a plan of action which moves from initiation to
implementation through to embedding the change so it becomes an
established norm or way of working which is sustainable in the longer term.
Action Step 9. Monitoring impact- As the partnership moves forward with
its plans, it is necessary for the changes implemented to be carefully and
frequently monitored. Gathering evidence about what is happening as
developments progress is crucial. This will determine their impact on the
experiences of students and other associated outcomes. Examples include
informal comments made by staff or students, or video recordings of
meetings or activities. Whilst the work of the staff research team is key in
coordinating this, senior and middle managers must also be involved in order
to encourage an ‘inquiring stance’ throughout the school. This phase is
supported by the collection of a diverse range of evidence of impact to offer a
‘fuller picture’ than can be provided by relying on accounts or statistics alone.
As the PIT comes to the end of the process they will be in a position to
analyse the new context they have created (Phase 1: Action Step 1) and
thereby enter the next spiral of the cycle.
We now move on to think about how all this might be put into action.
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A time-frame for action?
This initial phase of the programme will work with the most developed
proposals to launch partnerships and engage with less developed proposals
to put them in a position to launch. Therefore, this phased approach will
involve different partnerships working at different points of the enquiry
process. This is not a problem- just a further complexity to be managed! An
additional complication is that the internal capacity of each partnership and
the complexity and scope of the enquiry will determine what can be achieved
within a fixed time frame. However, it is expected that partnerships will
broadly proceed along the following trajectory:
Term 1 (steps 1- 4), Term 2 (Steps 3-8), Term 3 (Steps 4-8):
There is also an expectation the PITs and other members of staff within
partnerships would come together at regular intervals (at least ½ termly)
within their partnerships and would engage in programme level seminars (at
least termly) as appropriate.
All comments to: chris.chapman@glasgow.ac.uk
i See: Chapman, C (2013) From one school to many: Reflections on federations and academy chains in England, Educational Management
Administration and Leadership (in press) and Chapman, C and Muijs, D (2013) does collaboration promote school improvement? A study of
the impact of school federations on student outcomes, School Effectiveness and School Improvement (in press). Please contact
chris.chapman@glasgow.ac.uk for proofs.
ii Ainscow, M., Dyson, A., Goldrick, S. and West, M. (2011) Developing equitable education systems. London: Routledge and Chapman, C.
(2008) Towards a framework for school-to-school networking in challenging circumstances. Educational Research, 50 (4). pp. 403420.Chapman
iii Projects include: Schools of Ambition, IQEA, Coalition of Research Schools, Network Learning Communities Programme etc.
iv This work has yet to be contracted
© Christopher Chapman 2013
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