How the world’s most
improved school systems
keep getting better and
Hackney’s journey
Tricia Okoruwa
Education Director
The 3 Dimensions to crafting and
implementing and improvement journey
1. Assess current performance level
• Measure pupil outcomes – decide if current level
is poor, fair, good, great or excellent
2. Select interventions:
• Decide what the system needs to do in order to
raise student outcomes – guided by its
performance level and specific challenges
3. Adapt to context:
• Tailor leadership style and tactics to the history,
culture, politics, structure of the school system
Sustaining the system’s improvement
journey over the long term
3 ways have been identified:
• By establishing collaborative practices
• By developing the mediating layer
between the schools and the centre
• By architecting tomorrow’s leadership
Each aspect is interconnected and an
integral part of the system pedagogy
Journeys of school improvement: it’s a
system thing not a single thing
Great to excellent improvement journeys
emphasise learning through peers and innovation
Good to great improvement journeys emphasise
shaping the professional
Fair to good improvement journeys emphasise
getting the system foundations in place
Getting to fair: improving literacy and numeracy
[McKinsey and
Broad phases of leadership success: the
journey of one Primary School
[Ten Strong Claims, NCSL]
System
foundations
Ownership and
responsibility
Vision and values
Data and accountability
Non-negotiables
Relentless focus on
monitoring and evaluation
Defining teaching and
learning: leading by
example
Infrastructure
improvement/reconfiguration
Ofsted 2011
Outstanding
Distributing leadership
Persisting with teaching
and learning
Developing
Ofsted 2008
Good
creativity
Everyone a leader
Shaping the professional
Peer-led learning
Raising the calibre of
existing teachers/leaders
Self-evaluation
Self-challenge
Involving the community
Internal collaboration
Ofsted 2007
SM
Getting a handle on the accountability
chain
Governors
Headteacher Senior leadership Middle leadership
Monitoring – McKinsey journeys
Poor to Fair
Fair to Good
Good to Great
Great to Unstoppable
Directional/Central control
Inclusion
Creativity
Innovation
Top led and well-controlled
Detailed calendar of monitoring
activities focused on teaching and
learning – aligned to an
instructional vision
Audit and identify position:
teaching and learning profile,
outcomes, book looks, planning,
environments
Top led, middle implement
Detailed calendar of monitoring
activities focused on teaching and
learning – now embedded
Middle led, top quality assures
Detailed calendar of monitoring
activities focused on teaching and
learning – embedded and customised
Evidence base broadens to include
Pupil voice/school council
Parent surveys
Staff surveys
Evidence base broadens to include
Pupil voice/school council
Parent surveys
Staff surveys
Internally driven and quality assured
Detailed calendar of monitoring
activities focused on teaching and
learning – more engagement with
other schools or external partners
Pupils are part of evaluating their
learning
Establish and impose a monitoring
framework which reflects the core
requirements of acceptable
performance for teaching and
learning, planning, books, pupil
progress meetings
Regular and sharp monitoring of all
aspects of teaching and learning
Wide range of monitoring activities
which are differentiated, carried out
by middle leaders and quality assured
by senior managers, within the
school’s agreed framework
Teachers accurately evaluate their
own performance, quality assured by
senior line managers
Strengths and areas for development
identified and then used to promote
improvement in other subjects …..
Use of other models ….


Strengths and areas for development
identified and then used to promote
improvement in other subjects …..
Literacy
Numeracy
Intervention led/recovery based
teaching
Most children are making progress
with QFT
QFT widespread and established:
more focused/targeted individual work
Impact: there is compliance in
practice across the school and
from this consistency is grown
Impact: standards rise, progress rates
improve,
Impact: gaps narrow, progress rates
improve, personalised learning
experiences are developing
Learning communities
All individuals demonstrate
responsibility for improving teaching –
led at all levels
New teaching approaches; new
pedagogies; new curricular
Impact: gaps narrow, progress rates
improve, personalised learning
experiences for all; staff have
ownership