Module III
Building capacity for school improvement
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Building capacity for school improvement
In this module we identify 6 areas for building capacity for school improvement. These
are:
1. The role of the school improvement group
2. Staff development
3. Knowledge utilisation
4. Enquiry and data use
5. Planning and Prioritisation
6. Networking
The role of the school improvement group1
The role of dispersed leadership is crucial to the development of a sustained capacity for
school improvement. For reasons that are now well established school improvement needs
to affect all 'levels' of the school. Specifically, the focus needs to be on the three levels in
the school and the ways in which these levels interrelate. The school level is to do with
overall management and the establishment of policies, particularly with respect to how
resources and strategies for staff development can be mobilised to support school
improvement efforts. At the level of working groups the concern is with the details of and
arrangements for supporting improvement activities. Finally, at the individual teacher level
the focus is on developing classroom practice.
In schools with high levels of internal capacity, these three levels of activity are mutually
supportive. Consequently a specific aim of authentic school improvement is to devise and
establish positive conditions at each level and to co-ordinate support across these levels. It
is in this connection that a team of co-ordinators is established in each school, whose task
includes the integration of activities across the various levels. These co-ordinators are
referred to as the school improvement group. They are responsible for the day-to-day
running of the project in their own schools, and for creating links between the principles and
ideas of school improvement and practical action. In many schools members of they
establish an extended school improvement group that serves to extend involvement in the
project in a more formal way within the school.
Typically, the school improvement group is a cross-hierarchical team which could be as
small as three or four to six in comparatively small schools, to between six and ten in large
schools. Though one of these is likely to be the headteacher, it is important to establish
groups that are genuinely representative of the range of perspectives and ideas available in
the school – it should, ideally, then, be cross-hierarchical, cross-institutional, have a mix of
ages, experience, gender, length of time at the school, and so on. School improvement
group members should also not come together in any already existing group within the
school, such as the senior management team or a heads of department group, so that the
1
A Background Paper prepared for the Northern Metropolitan Region Action Zones Initiative by David Hopkins
and based on Chapter 7 of his book School Improvement for Real published by Routledge /Famer in 2001.
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problem of pooled rationalisations is minimised. The school improvement group is
responsible for identifying the project focus (through a consensus- building process
involving the rest of the staff), and for managing efforts on a day-to-day basis within the
school. They are supported through a core training programme, through networking with
cadre groups from other schools, and by external consultancy support and facilitation.
In organisational terms the reason a school improvement group is required is because of the
tensions in schools caused by the conflicting demands of maintenance and development.
One of the underpinning characteristics of authentic school improvement is the separation
of maintenance activities from development work. Structurally, the formal roles and
responsibilities, the committee structures and the decision-making processes of schools
have evolved in relation to structural hierarchies designed to support efficiency, stability
and functional effectiveness. Put another way, staff are appointed to roles which involve
the management of structural units that tend to incorporate a standard set of functions,
which often provide perpetual membership of committee structures, all of which relate
predominantly to management and maintenance aspects of the school. Schools then tend
to overburden this system by asking it also to take on development roles for which it was
never designed. As an aside, the same structures create vertical communication systems,
but virtually prevent lateral communication or lateral learning.
Sadly, different
organisational units within a school rarely exchange practices or learn from one another: in
some schools they rarely even talk to one another!
The school improvement group is essentially a temporary membership system focused
specifically upon enquiry and development. This temporary membership system brings
together teachers (and support staff) from a variety of departments within the school, with
a range of ages or experience and from a cross-section of roles to work together in a statusfree collaborative learning context. One teacher has described it as the educational
equivalent of a research and development group, and the traditional school as analogous to
a company in which everyone works on the production line, without any research and
development function. The result is stagnation, and that is how schools have been. The
establishment of a school improvement group creates the research and development
capacity, whilst retaining the existing structures required also for organisational stability and
efficiency. It also unlocks staff potential often stifled within formal structures, and opens up
new collaborations.
It goes without saying that staff at all levels of the school are involved, including newly
qualified teachers, support staff and, in an increasing number of schools, students. Each
partnership is entirely free of status positions within the more formal organisational
structure of the school and offers leadership opportunities to a variety of staff. Some
partnerships might be involved with significant whole-school issues (for example,
assessment strategies to improve student achievement) whilst others may be engaged in
focused classroom research activity (questioning technique, or co-operative groupwork).
The scale of the intended impact is less significant than the quality of the knowledge
deriving from the enquiry. A piece of classroom research, for example, can have equally
powerful whole-school impact if the knowledge (about seating arrangements, starts and
finishes of lessons – or whatever) is sufficiently significant and widely owned.
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Finally, in the same way that the school improvement group is mutually supportive of one
another, the school community (the wider staff and the institutional support of senior
management and governing body) makes a number of tacit commitments, too:
 To support each partnership in whatever way possible – time, resources, visits to
centres of good practice, the adoption of recommendations etc.
 To agree to remain informed about the progress of each area of enquiry in order
to maintain collective ownership of the directions being travelled.
 To support the implementation of new practices, new structures, or new ways of
working.
 To be open to the research process by contributing ideas, responding to research
instruments, opening up our classrooms for observation, offering our
professional support in whatever way required.
 To engage in workshop activity within full staff meetings, staff days or other
school meetings in order to contribute to the on-going knowledge creation and
learning process.
This description of school improvement group functioning, although based both on our
original conceptualisation of the role and the experience in a number of schools, is in many
ways ideotypical. Despite best efforts, in many schools, group members seem unsure about
how they were selected for this role, and, initially at least, unclear about what will be
expected of them. Consequently, there is hesitancy in the beginning that may last weeks or
even months. With hindsight, many of those involved report that during this period it is
difficult to develop a sense of ‘ownership’ for the project, difficult to establish relationships
with colleagues at the different levels in the school, difficult to resist the ‘suggestions’ of the
headteacher - difficult, in fact, to develop the understandings and the skills to perform their
leadership role.
However, they appear to grow in confidence quite quickly, particularly as the school’s
efforts and resources become focused around priorities they are addressing. Progress is not
uniform – even within cadre groups – and some schools seem able to ‘move’ to effective
operational arrangements much more quickly than others do. It also appears that the
stages of development through which cadre groups move can be associated not only with
‘typical’ behaviours for each stage, but also with the way they view the ‘task’ (What is
school improvement about? What is our role in it?), and the way they conceive ‘solutions’
(What do we need to improve? How should we go about improving it?). The three phases of
this cycle of development are as follows (taken from West 2000):
Phase 1 - Uncertainty about focus
 Cadre feeling its way (What is a cadre?)
 What is School Improvement?
 What is the role of the cadre group?
 How can the cadre work best together as a group?
 Initial reliance on established ways of working
 Initial reliance on existing structures
 Initial reliance on key personnel/leaders within the cadre
 Start to collect data and share it
 Uncertainty about the theory
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
Where is it all going? It’s hard to make things happen.
Phase 2 - Clearer about focus
 Using existing structures in new ways, e.g. department meetings with single item
research agendas.
 New ways of working.
 Greater openness within the cadre group, e.g. voice of main scale teacher
 Better at making meaning from data.
 Beginning to shift from staff development mode to school improvement mode.
 The theory makes sense.
 Seeing the connections. Learning how to implement.
Phase 3 - Change/renewal of the cadre group
 R & D establishing its own rhythm – SDP becomes more organic
 New Structures emerge – R & D.
 New roles emerge
 HOD as facilitator of research (* R & D research post).
 Establishment of research culture within the school
 Evidence-based
 Risk taking
 Involvement of students (pupils) as researchers
 From data-source to partners in dialogue
 Collection of data, making meaning, and supporting research outcomes
 The school generates its own theory
 The implementation becomes growth
This ‘summary’ of how the cadre group evolves is provisional, but it does give a clear
indication of how a structure for dispersed leadership that relates both to instructional
leadership and authentic school improvement is established. It also illustrates how it
evolves over time, gradually expanding its leadership capacity and increasing its
understanding about learning – organisational learning, the learning of cadre group
members and other teachers and the learning of students. In the following section a brief
illustration of this way of working in one IQEA school is provided.
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Case example
The Sharnbrook School Improvement Journey
Sharnbrook Upper School and Community College was established as a 13-19 upper school
in 1975 to provide comprehensive education for thirty-two villages situation in rural midEngland. Sharnbrook’s school improvement model is now a continuous, whole-school
initiative. At its heart is a fluid group (cadre) of staff committed to working in partnerships
and together around areas of mutually agreed enquiry. During the ten year involvement
with IQEA there were many different modes of operation for the school improvement
group, but certain characteristics remained consistent. Some of these are:
 Two staff operating in a co-leadership model lead the school improvement group.
 The school improvement group breaks down into trios of staff, each engaged in a
separate enquiry designed to generate knowledge and understanding about the school’s
work and to indicate directions for improvement.
 Each of these partnerships undertakes a sustained process of enquiry within the school,
drawing also from the knowledge-base within the field and from good practice
elsewhere, and, as an outcome of this data-gathering, suggests improvement to the
school’s practice, supports the implementation of improvements and then enquiries
further into their effect upon student learning or the wider school community.
 Each partnership tries to ensure that all those who contribute towards their research are
involved, too, in the process of making meaning from the data and, where feasible, in
the implementation of outcomes.
 Each partnership also commits to connect with the wider constituency of staff, students,
parents and governors in order that all who need to do so can share the emergent
journey.
 The school facilitates opportunities for each partnership to lock into consultation and
decision-making structures, as appropriate, so that findings from the enquiry will be
implemented.
 The entire school improvement group commits to monitoring the value of their own
work and to critique each other’s practice.
The 1999/2000 model involved the cadre group working for much of their time as trios, and
as usual has a focus specifically upon teaching and learning (see Figure 7:3). Following a
workshop with the whole staff, six areas of classroom practice were identified, and each of
the trios adopted one of the areas mandated by the whole staff. The first “enquiry” task for
each of the partnerships was to develop a powerful theoretical understanding of their
particular teaching and learning focus – by researching the knowledge-base, observing
classrooms, visiting other schools, or whatever. The trio then practised and developed their
skills in the classroom, providing in-house coaching for one another. The next phase was to
engage in action research with students to seek to validate the impact of this approach
upon learning. Throughout this process the remainder of the staff (all staff not involved in
one of the partnerships) choose one of the areas, creating associate groups of about 15 staff
for each partnership, who followed the course of events, engaged in workshops and
generally became immersed and prepared. When the action research process validated the
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impact of the model, the associate staff adopted the approach in their own classrooms and
were coached by the trio engaged in the original work.
This is a huge over-simplification of the approach, but even described at this level it gives
indications of the changes in infrastructure and culture that have evolved as a consequence
of this approach to school improvement. These include:
 The opening up of classrooms and classroom practice and the legitimisation of in-class
coaching.
 The creation of a language to talk about teaching and school improvement.
 The integration of enquiry and professional development approaches.
 The value and authenticity of the student voice and the significance given to their
perceptions as learners.
 The willingness of all staff to embrace the value of the development work emanating
from the school improvement group.
 The ownership by the whole staff of the school improvement approach.
 The power of a sustained school improvement journey to win over those initially
sceptical or even cynical.
 The expansion of leadership capacity.
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THREE PHASES
Figure 7:3 SHARNBROOK IQEA 1999 - 2000
PHASE ONE

Theoretical Understanding

Powerful Professional Development

In-class coaching

Involvement of Associate Group
PHASE TWO

Generation of action research design.

Involvement of students.

Generation of empirical data

Experimentation amongst Associate
Group

Coaching by Partnership members.
PHASE THREE

Peer Tutoring
Classroom Management
Learning Styles
Differentiation
Peer Coaching
Tool Kits
Partnership Members as
- Consultants
- Professional Development.
- Providers.
- Coaches in classroom.
ACROSS ALL PARTNERSHIPS
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Activities
1. Using the Sharnbrook School Improvement Journey example, could you write up your
case study?
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Staff Development
As is seen in the previous example, the experience of working with cadre groups suggests
that simply belonging to the group can be seen as a major staff development opportunity;
the group’s work becomes a significant part of the members’ overall role in the school.
Most cadre group members are busier and spend more time at school than they did. The
motivation for the increase in commitment seems to spring from two sources. On one
hand, there is often a very real sense of ‘making an impact’ – actually influencing the quality
of learning opportunities in the school, seeing changes, feeling that the school is serving the
needs and aspirations of its pupils better. On the other, there is a heightened sense of
professionalism. Different kinds of dialogue and discussion take place, more emphasis is
placed on pedagogy, more sharing of practice evolves, and a clearer sense of the
professional challenges and achievements that teachers address daily develops. In this
section, the explicit link between dispersed leadership and staff development, and their
contribution to creating a professional learning community in the school is briefly explored.
The range of staff development activities involved in such authentic school improvement
approaches is considerable and is likely to include:
 Whole staff inservice days on teaching and learning and school improvement planning as
well as ‘curriculum tours’ to share the work done in departments or working groups;
 Inter-departmental meetings to discuss teaching strategies;
 Workshops run inside the school on teaching strategies by Cadre group members and
external support;
 Partnership teaching and peer coaching;
 The design and execution of collaborative enquiry activities, which are, by their nature,
knowledge-generating.
In addition, cadre group members are involved in:
 Out of school training sessions on capacity building and teaching and learning;
 The pursuit of their own knowledge in support of their role – about leadership, the
management and implementation of change, the design of professional development
activities etc.;
 Planning meetings in school;
 Consultancy to school working groups;
 Observation and in-classroom support;
 Study visits to other schools within the network.
This is a wide range of staff development activity and represents a fairly sophisticated
infrastructure for sustained professional development. It is based on the established ideas
of Joyce and Showers (1980, 1995) that were discussed in the previous chapter. A key
element in all of this is the provision of in classroom support or in Joyce and Showers’ term
‘peer coaching’. It is the facilitation of peer coaching that enables teachers to extend their
repertoire of teaching skills and to transfer them from different classroom settings to
others.
During the implementation of this approach during our IQEA school improvement projects
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refinements have been made in the use of peer coaching to support student learning.
When the refinements noted below are incorporated into a school improvement design,
peer coaching can virtually assure ‘transfer of training’ for everyone:
 Peer coaching teams of two or three are much more effective than larger groups.
 These groups are more effective when the entire staff is engaged in school
improvement.
 Peer coaching works better when Heads and Deputies participate in training and
practice.
 The effects are greater when formative study of student learning is embedded in the
process.
The argument being made here is that for effective school improvement, forms of dispersed
leadership are essential. The school improvement group is one way of facilitating this. The
links between school improvement group working and the constellation of staff
development activities just described makes the structural link between their work and
enhanced levels of student achievement clear and achievable. The staff development focus
has the potential to unite both the focus on teaching and learning and capacity building.
Coaching in particular is so powerful because it integrates transformational and instructional
leadership and professional development. In highly effective schools it is this that provides
the essential infrastructure for school improvement.
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Case example
School development plan from Gloucester school (to be scanned)
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Activity
1. Please, fill in your School Development Plan – Amanda has sent handout
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Knowledge utilization
To better support progress towards 'every school a great school' and to provide the
diagnostics to support personalised learning, a more intelligent accountability framework
needs to achieve a more even balance between external and internal accountability as seen
in the diagram below.
Figure 1 - Getting the assessment balance right
Most forms of accountability are externally dominated - the clarification of expected
standards at various ages, the setting of targets to be met, the publication of results at
school and local level and the use of inspection schemes to ensure quality. Once in place
these pillars of the external accountability framework are often difficult to dismantle.
Because of the resilience of external forms of accountability, it is often necessary to
compensate by increasing the emphasis on internal forms of accountability. The most
common approaches would be the use of teacher assessment, bottom up target setting,
value added measures of school performance and the school itself holding itself publicly
accountable through publishing its own profile of strengths and weaknesses and benchmark
comparisons giving a more rounded picture of the schools performance. It is these forms of
accountability that a) allow a sharper fix on the focus of personalisation; and b) develop the
professional skill of the teaching staff involved. As a consequence, when the balance
between external and internal accountability become more even, it also becomes more
'intelligent'. The assumption also is that over time, as schools increasingly lead reform,
internal forms of accountability will become the more important.
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The accountability framework in England was established on the four pillars of tests, targets,
tables and inspection and dominated by their external forms. A summary of this position is
seen in the left hand column of the table below. For reasons that should by now be clear we
moved towards a situation in 2004 where a better balance has achieved as seen in the
middle column of Figure 2 below.
Pre-1997
2004
Future
Tests
External/summative
tests at KS1-3, GCSE
and A-level
External (with pilots in
teacher
assessment)/summative
(with drive on AfL)
Synergy between
formative and
summative; internal
and external
Targets
Top-down/school level, Top down at KS3 and GCSE. Bottom-up, school
but no targets required Bottom up at KS1owned/Student level
at KS1 and 2
2/improved pupil-level data) to drive individual
performance
Tables
Raw data at KS2, GCSE Raw and value added from
and A-level
KS2 and GCSE
Inspection External/detailed, long External/focused, shorter
notice, massive
notice, significant
preparation
preparation
Contextual value
added
External/focused,
combined with selfevaluation
Table 1 - Summary of the accountability framework in England pre-1997, in 2004 and in the
future
The direction of travel is, as in the right hand column, clear:

Tests - a mixed economy with a presumption of external testing in core subjects at
key stages, but with a gradual move to teacher assessment in other cases
 Target setting - with a move to bottom-up school-owned targets, informed by
individual student-level data, to drive performance
 Tables - with a move to contextual value-added tables combined with the school
profile to give a clear pixture of progress
 Inspection - with a move to short duration inspections with minimal observation,
informed by self-evalaution; small teams; and a short, sharp report with clearer
recommendations for improvement.
The way in which the accountability system has evolved to better balance internal and
external accountability is seen in the diagram below. It represents a reasonable if not ideal
balance between internal and external assessment and provides a platform for building
capacity and professional accountability towards the next phase of reform.
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Figure 2 - A framework for building intelligent accountability
Assessment for Learning
For every school to be a great school we need to move from standardised provision with
uncontrolled variation in quality, to personalised provision based on consistently high
quality, where variation is controlled and actively tailored to individual pupils' needs and
aspirations. This is to ensure that the achievement of full potential that becomes universal.
The most powerful lever we can pull at the moment to achieve personalised learning is
assessment for learning.
Personalised learning depends on teachers (and students) knowing in a deep way the
strengths and weaknesses of individual students. Assessment for learning has been defined
as (Assessment Reform Group, 2002):
‘the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their
teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go
and how best to get there’.
This may be organised differently in different schools, but the rationale must always be the
same:
 clear evidence about how to drive up individual attainment
 clear feedback for and from pupils so there is clarity on what they need to improve
and how best they can do so,
 clarity for students on what grades / levels they are working at, with transparent
criteria to enable peer coaching, and
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
a clear link between student learning and lesson planning.
Since assessment for learning is a key component of personalised learning, a large part of
the success of personalised learning, and the fulfilment of the radical agenda for change it
presents, will depend on whether high quality assessment for learning can be developed
powerfully and consistently through the education system. Assessment for learning
therefore:



provides a framework to help structure and focus the whole school development of
teaching and learning;
gives teachers a shared language and context within which they can develop their
teaching skills, such as questioning, modelling, explaining and providing informative
oral and written feedback;
helps establish a learning environment in which the respective roles and
responsibilities of pupils and teachers are better understood, pupils increasingly
take responsibility for their progress, and becoming more actively engaged.
Central to assessment for learning is the focus on helping pupils become increasingly
effective independent learners. Teachers need to develop a good understanding of subject
progression so that they can help pupils:
 understand precisely what they are trying to learn and why, and what their next
steps are;
 assess their own progress (and similarly help their peers); and,
 recognise the standards they are aiming for and strive for personal excellence.
Teachers also need to continue to develop their understanding of how pupils learn so that
they can help them to:



reflect on how they learn;
develop learning strategies and apply them in different circumstances;
engage in high quality classroom dialogue with the teacher, other adults and their
peers in order to develop as effective independent learners.
There are few schools where we could say that assessment for learning is presently well
established across all classes and teachers to reach all pupils. Nevertheless, although
significant gains have been made and there are examples of outstanding practice. For
example, Ofsted (2004) identify assessment and its application to teaching and learning as
comparatively weak areas in English schools. Too many schools lack adequate systems for
tracking the progress of individual pupils.
We need to develop the strategies and techniques, but more than this we need to construct
a shared understanding nationally and internationally of what assessment for learning
entails and of how it sits within teaching and learning. We need to be secure in the
rationale of how and why it works. In this regard we have been well served of late. The
OECD project on Formative Assessment (CERI, 2005:43-51) provided us with such data through case studies research and an examination of international literature- in eight
education systems. The research concluded that formative assessment is one of the most
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useful strategies in improving student performance and identified the following practices as
ones that consistently emerged during the project:
 Establishment of classroom cultures that encourage interaction and the use of
assessment tools.
 Establishment of learning goals and tracking individual student progress toward
goals.
 Use of varied instruction methods to meet diverse student needs.
 Use of varied approaches to assess student understanding.
 Feedback on student performance and adaptation of instruction to meet identified
needs.
 Active involvement of students in the learning process.
In England there have been exciting developments in recent years particularly the work of
academics and practitioners based at King's College, London, led by Paul Black and Dylan
Wiliam, and the members of the Assessment Reform Group with their seminal Black Box
series of research findings2 The recent work of Mary James (in press) and her colleagues on
practices likely to promote learning how to learn, is an important contribution. In England
also the Primary and Secondary National Strategies are the key delivery platforms for the
teaching and learning strand. They are undertaking the largest ever initiative (both
nationally and internationally) to support the development of assessment for learning in
schools.
Although assessment for learning is about raising standards of learning and achievement, it
is also more than this. On the one hand it forms a major part of a movement towards
ensuring ‘intelligent accountability’ pervades our education system. On the other it offers
the opportunity for a radical redefinition of the culture of classroom practice, through
building ownership of the teaching and learning process among learners and teachers. This
is a point that is also made in a recent book by Michael Fullan, Peter Hill and Carmen Creola
(2006) ambitiously entitled Breakthrough. In this book Fullan and his colleagues examine
the pedagogic implications underpinning much of Fullan’s recent work some of which we
have already reviewed. They come to similar conclusions about the curriculum as was done
here in Chapter Three. Simply put, they claim that there are numerous examples of good
curriculum that provide the necessary degree of specification and well-designed teaching
approaches that work effectively in classroom settings when used at the right time with the
right students.
What is missing they argue is the focus on assessment for learning and then identify the four
features of classroom practice that are virtually non-existent at the current time. They are:
1) A set of formative assessment tools tied to the learning objectives of each lesson
that give the teacher access to accurate information on the progress of each student
1 See Black, P. and William, D. (1998) Inside the Black Box: raising standards Through Classroom Assessment,
London: King’s College London; Assessment Reform Group (1999) Assessment for Learning: Beyond the Black
Box, University of Cambridge: School of Education; and Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B. and Wiliam,
D. (2002) Working inside the Black Box: Assessment for Learning in the Classroom, London: nferNelson
Available from http://www.assessment-reform-group.org.uk/publications.html Accessed 22 May 2006
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on a daily basis, and that can be administered without undue disruption to normal
classroom routines.
2) A method to allow the formative assessment data to be captured in a way that is
not time-consuming; of analyzing the data automatically, and; a means of converting
it into information that is powerful enough to drive instructional decisions not
sometime in the future, but tomorrow.
3) A means of using the assessment information on each student to design and
implement lessons that deliver differentiated instruction that optimize the
effectiveness of classroom teaching.
4) A built-in means of monitoring and managing learning, of testing what works, and
of systematically improving the effectiveness of classroom instruction so that it more
precisely responds to the learning needs of each student in the class.
They conclude:
One can think of instances where current practice comes close to achieving one or
more of the above, but we are aware of none that integrates all four. If classroom
instruction could be organized this would lead to quantum, ongoing improvements in
the rate of student learning, but more significantly to a transformational change in
thinking about teaching. This is because, for the first time, classroom instruction
would be organized so that teaching followed the student … .
The last paragraph is particularly exhilarating and evocative. That possibility however will
only be realised when two conditions are met. First, is the necessity to blend curriculum,
pedagogy and assessment for learning in transforming the culture of teaching and learning.
Second, is the imperative to integrate the levels of classroom, school and system in the
movement towards personalisation and every school becoming a great school. This is the
argument underpinning the three level model introduced in Chapter One.
So, it is
appropriate that we turn now to a discussion of the implications of ‘intelligent
accountability’ at the school level.
Models of self evaluation
Although school self-evaluation lost popularity during the late 1980s and early 1990s, it is
now enjoying a renaissance. This seems to be due to explicit links being made to student
learning through the enhancing of teachers professional judgement, whole school
improvement and as is seen below, new forms of inspection.
The contribution of this enhanced, more holistic and contemporary approach to school self
evaluation to intelligent accountability is well illustrated in England through the 'new
relationship with schools.' As David Miliband6 the then Minister of State said, the approach
to personalised learning:
... will require a new relationship with schools which will give schools the time,
support and information they need to focus on what really matters. By strengthening
our school improvement process, improving our data flows and working with schools
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to tackle problems we will ensure there is a real focus on the central priorities of
teaching and learning.
This more aligned school improvement process is captured in the diagram below.
Figure 4 - The new relationship with schools school improvement process
One can generalise from the English experience by indentifying four key aspects of the new
relationship with local educational authorities and schools. These are:



An intelligent accountability framework which puts a premium on assessment for
learning, bottom up target setting, and ensuring effective and ongoing self
evaluation in every school, combined with a sharper edged, lighter touch external
inspection and an annual school profile to complement performance table data
A simplified school improvement process in which every school uses robust self
evaluation to drive improvement, and produces a single school improvement plan
based on a smaller number of output measures. Every secondary school will have
access to a dedicated school improvement partner with whom they conduct a single
conversation on targets, priorities and support, within the context of three year
budgeting
Improved data and information systems which give schools the chance to take
control of the flow of information and to ensure that data is 'collected once, used
many times'
Page | 20

The self evaluation process that requires schools to provide evidence on their
performance, on their strengths and weakness, identify precise issues as their key
priorities for improvement, and plan on how they intend to improve them. These
feed into the School Improvement Plan where schools set specific targets for each of
these areas.
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Case example
The knowledge utilization section needs to be redrafted and the English exemplification to
be come the case example.
Page | 22
Activity
To be added
Page | 23
Enquiry and data use
Please, print the document
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/ts/docs/RPRA.pdf
Page | 24
Case example
The document above will be re-shaped and its examples will be placed here. There is no
advice currently for Primary Schools but we are still searching so this section will become
generic.
Page | 25
Activity
1. Please, assess your school’s management of data. What do you do? What don’t you do?
What should be your next steps?
Page | 26
Development planning for pupil progress and achievement3
Development planning has firmly established itself as a key strategy for school improvement
since the 1990s. In England in 1989 when the then DES issued its first advice, development
planning was regarded as a means of helping schools manage the extensive national and
centrally driven change agenda, and to enable the school ‘to organise what it is already
doing and what it needs to do in a more purposeful and coherent way’ (DES 1989: 4). Given
the amount of change schools and teachers were expected to cope with in the late 1980s
and early 1990s, such a strategy was welcomed by many (Hargreaves and Hopkins 1991).
In its simplest form a school development plans (SDP) brings together, in an overall plan,
national and LEA policies and initiatives, the school’s aims and values, its existing
achievements and needs for development, and enables it to organize what it is already
doing and what it needs to do in a more purposeful and coherent way. By coordinating
aspects that are otherwise separate, the school acquires a shared sense of direction and is
able to control and manage the tasks of development and change. Priorities for
development are planned in detail for one year and are supported by action plans that are
the working documents for teachers. The priorities for subsequent years are sketched in
outline to provide the longer term programme (Hargreaves et al. 1989: 4). An overview of
the planning process is seen in Figure 1.
Figure 1
The planning process.
Research into school improvement during the 1990s indicated that during this decade
3
A Background Paper prepared for the Northern Metropolitan Region Action Zones Initiative by David Hopkins
and based on Chapter 11 of his book A Teachers Guide to Classroom Research (Third Edition) published by the
Open University Press in 2002.
Page | 27
the use of development planning itself changed in many schools (Hopkins et al. 1996;
MacGilchrist et al. 1997). One research study in particular (MacGilchrist et al. 1995), showed
that schools that exhibited best practice in development planning used it as a strategy to
enhance directly the progress and achievement of students. The crucial difference between
this and previous approaches to development planning was that it was rooted in
classrooms. The focus was on students’ learning, their progress and achievement; what was
needed to improve it and how this was best supported.
The plan begins with learning goals for students. A teaching strategy for achieving them is
then produced. This strategy is supported by any necessary adjustments to the school’s
management arrangements: for example, modifications to curriculum policies and schemes
of work, changes to the staff development programme and the timetable and any reallocation of budgets, roles and responsibilities needed to achieve the goals set. This is
radically different from the type of plan that simply focuses on the implementation of
external change, however important that is, or on the development of school-wide policies
and practices, which in themselves may not have a direct impact on classroom practice.
Evidence of good practice and the lessons of research suggest that development planning
needs to focus both on how to accelerate the progress and enhance the achievement of
students as well as establishing effective management practices within the school. This
approach to planning is neither top-down – focused in the main on management
arrangements – nor bottom-up – committed to specific changes in individual classrooms –
but a combination of the two. It is this that has led to a reconceptualization of how
development planning can be used to enhance pupil progress and achievement.
This ‘new’ approach to development planning concerns the integration of three key foci
(Hopkins and MacGilchrist 1998):



Pupil progress and achievement;
The quality of teaching and learning;
Management arrangements to support the first two.
Those schools that have identified clear learning targets for pupils use development
planning to achieve these by concentrating simultaneously on related improvements inside
and outside the classroom (Hopkins 2000). In particular:


Teaching – they place particular emphasis on the content of teachers’ planning and on
the type of teaching strategies that will enable the learning goals for students to be
achieved.
Management arrangements – they identify any modifications that are needed to the
school’s current arrangements, for example, the timetable, the budget, staffing and staff
development. They plan for any changes that may be needed in the school’s curriculum
policies and schemes of work and assessment arrangements.
Research emphasizes the importance of planning for these two kinds of improvement, and
experience suggests that the stronger the relationship between them the more successful
the school is in raising standards (MacGilchrist et al. 1995). In the past, for very
Page | 28
understandable reasons, plans have tended to concentrate on management arrangements
with the result that, for many schools, the plan had little significant impact on pupils’
learning. The planning focused on staff activities rather than student outcomes. The key
lesson is that when schools plan for both of these aspects of development in a strategic way
it does make a difference where it matters most, namely in the classroom for pupils.
Figure 2 illustrates the interface between whole school development and classroom practice
and the integration of these three foci (Hopkins and MacGilchrist 1998). At the heart is the
pupils’ progress and achievement supported by the quality of teaching and learning in the
classroom. This is the core business of schools. Outside the classroom are the key
management arrangements and practices that support and provide the context for quality
learning experiences in the classroom.
Figure 2
The interface between whole school development and classroom practice
(from Hopkins and MacGilchrist 1998).
It is evident from OFSTED inspections and DfEE surveys of good practice that successful
schools have established a rolling programme of policy review and revision spanning a
number of years related to the particular priority for student learning and achievement
being worked on at that point in time. This has given these schools the space to use the
development plan to achieve an explicit classroom focus. They are able to choose priorities
that:
Page | 29




Focus on pupil progress and achievement;
Are manageable and few in number;
Relate to the school’s vision;
Are sequenced over time.
By using these and other similar criteria a school is able to establish a set of targets directly
focused on pupils’ learning and their achievement. It can then pay close attention to any
improvements needed in the quality of teaching in the classroom and the implications of
these for the management arrangements across the school as a whole. In this way the
school’s development plan has a central focus on specific aspects of teaching and learning
and the conditions necessary to support these. This will inevitably have a ‘knock on’ effect
for the timetable, the budget, staffing arrangements, INSET and possibly the premises. The
schedules for these basic aspects of the work of the school will, therefore, need to take
account of current and future priorities in the development plan.
In any action plan for student achievement the classroom should therefore be the main
focus for improvement. The priorities for development must also be rooted in evidence
about pupils’ progress and achievement. Targeted action can then concern:



Specific improvements in pupil outcomes;
Changes in teaching practices;
Any modifications needed to school-wide provision and management arrangements to
support developments in the classroom.
An action plan for student achievement will therefore need to include the following
(Hopkins and MacGilchrist 1998):









Specific targets related to pupils’ learning, progress and achievement that are clear and
unambiguous;
Teaching and learning strategies designed to meet the targets;
Evidence to be gathered to judge the success in achieving the targets set;
Modifications to management arrangements to enable targets to be met;
Tasks to be done to achieve the targets set and who is responsible for doing them;
Time it will take;
How much it will cost in terms of the budget, staff time, staff development and other
resources;
Responsibility for monitoring the implementation of the plan;
Evaluating its impact over time.
As distinct from previous approaches that focused on the management of external change
and the implementation of school-wide policies, this approach to development planning
begins with the learning needs of students and moves out from there. After setting targets
for student learning, progress and achievement, the plan focuses on developing a strategy
for enhancing teaching and creating powerful learning experiences; and then on the
Page | 30
management arrangements required to support such changes in classroom practice. In
reality, both these aspects of the school’s development plan coalesce in practice. They are
also grounded in and supported by other forms of planning in the school.
We have previously (Ainscow et al. 2000: 11) set out the case for enquiry-driven
improvement efforts:
We have observed that those schools which recognise that enquiry and reflection are
important processes in school improvement find it easier to sustain improvement effort
around established priorities, and are better placed to monitor the extent to which policies
actually deliver the intended outcomes for pupils. Central to the conditions, which promote
the effective use of enquiry and reflection as developmental tools, are:




Systematic collection, interpretation and use of school-generated data in decisionmaking.
Effective strategies for reviewing the progress and impact of school policies and
initiatives.
Widespread involvement of staff in the processes of data collection and analysis.
Clear ground rules for the collection, control and use of school-based data.
Unfortunately, in a large number of schools the range of data available is being underused.
Of course, some schools are much better organized in this area, and have clear systems and
procedures for collecting, analysing and interpreting information which is seen as relevant
to particular aspects of the school or particular decisions. Even in these cases, however, a
more general commitment to enquire into and reflect on the school’s progress is rare –
more often it is the issue that is identified then the information collected, rather than data
being collected to help identify what the issue should be.
I would not want to suggest here that everything that takes place in a school can be noted,
nor that all information has equal significance. But our work with schools that have adopted
a sustained commitment to improvement initiatives has led us to identify the habits of
enquiry and reflection as important forces for improvement. Schools that, for example, have
experienced success at development planning have checked regularly on progress. By doing
this staff ensure that the implementation of the action plan is kept on track, is of high
quality, and that necessary adjustments are made as action proceeds.
As has already been noted, the key to the integration of implementation and evaluation of
school improvement activities is the action plan used by groups of teachers. An action plan
is a working document that describes and summarizes what needs to be done to implement
and evaluate a priority. It serves as a guide to implementation and helps to monitor
progress and success. There are three key elements to the enquiry aspect of the action plan:
1
2
3
the success criteria against which progress and success in reaching targets can be
judged;
the allocation of responsibility to assess progress;
how success is subsequently judged.
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Teachers often find defining the success criteria the most difficult part of the action plan. It
is much easier to break down a priority into targets and tasks than it is to define success
criteria. As we noted in The Empowered School (Hargreaves and Hopkins 1991: 50–51)
targets must, however, specify the criteria by which success in reaching the target can be
judged, both by team members and by others. These success criteria are a form of schoolgenerated performance indicator, which:




give clarity about the target: what exactly are you trying to achieve?;
point to the standard expected by the team;
provide advance warning of the evidence needed to judge successful implementation;
give an indication of the time-scale involved.
The success criteria are a means for evaluating the outcomes of the plan, as well as
providing benchmarks for development. It is important that they specify the minimal
acceptable standard, though the team will usually have aspirations to a standard of
outcome that is much higher than this.
At least once a term progress should be formally checked for each task against the success
criteria associated with the target. We defined a progress check in The Empowered School
(Hargreaves and Hopkins 1991: 67) as an act of evaluation in the course of implementation.
It is a response to the question: how are we doing so far? Many progress checks are
intuitive, a ‘feel’ for whether things are going well or badly. This is a natural part of
monitoring one’s activities: it becomes more systematic if these intuitive reactions are
shared within the team, and evidence is produced to support them. Regular progress checks
involve:





giving somebody in the team responsibility for ensuring that the progress checks take
place;
reviewing progress at team meetings, especially when taking the next step forward or
making decisions about future directions;
deciding what will count as evidence of progress in relation to the success criteria;
finding quick methods of collecting evidence from different sources;
recording the evidence and conclusions for later use.
Success checks take place at the end of the developmental work on a target. The team now
decides how successful the implementation of the target or priority as a whole has been.
Checking success need not be complex or time-consuming. It will consist largely in collating,
and then drawing a conclusion about, the earlier progress checks. The relationship between
progress and success checks is represented diagrammatically in Figure 3.
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Figure 3
The relationship between progress and success checks in development
planning (Hargreaves and Hopkins 1991: 68).
In The Empowered School David Hargreaves and I argued that the process of checking on
progress and success in development planning requires teachers to use their professional
judgement in a systematic way (Hargreaves and Hopkins 1991: Ch 9). It is not the
mechanistic completion of progress and success checks that is important, but rather it is the
enhancing of the teachers’ professional judgement that is the crucial aspect of embedding
an ethos of enquiry and reflection within a school. This process provides the interface
between development planning, classroom research and school improvement.
Teachers already, as part of their everyday activities, monitor and evaluate their own
actions as well as the behaviour and work of pupils. If teachers did not rely on their intuitive
professional judgement, they would not be able to cope with the complexities of their work.
There are occasions, however, when it cannot be wholly relied on as a basis for making a
decision. Such occasions are when teachers are not entirely confident about their intuitive
judgement, or the issue is of considerable importance or significance. In these
circumstances, teachers make a considered professional judgement, which requires some
action to check the intuitive judgement. A considered professional judgement is reached
through reflection and further investigation. Using intuitive and considered professional
judgements is a routine part of being a teacher. Both are a natural and inherent part not
only of assessing progress for evaluation but more generally as a key feature of the school
improvement process.
Innovations often create new working circumstances with which the teacher is less familiar.
Since teachers usually want the innovation to succeed, there may be a bias towards noticing
Page | 33
the most favourable evidence. Professional judgement may therefore be less trustworthy
than usual. In these cases a refined professional judgement is required. This is an
opportunity for enhancing professional judgement, and is achieved:




through discussion with colleagues about the extent of progress or success in school
improvement work;
by establishing agreement on standards used to make judgements;
through mutual observation in the classroom;
through the use of informed opinion.
When it is well structured, development work provides ample opportunities for teachers to
talk with others, to seek agreement on standards, to observe one another and to read
relevant documentation: all are means of refining the professional judgements which are so
essential for evaluation and school improvement. It is here where the potential of
evaluation as school improvement is realized. Extending teachers’ professional judgements
therefore links the professional development of the individual teacher to the development
of the school as a whole as well as improving the quality of teaching and learning.
There are circumstances when teachers need to complement even a refined professional
judgement with additional evidence. Such occasions are when others need to be persuaded
of the validity of teachers’ judgements, or when there are benefits to all if teachers’
judgements are backed by independent evidence. Collecting complementary evidence is
usually more time-consuming than making professional judgements, so careful thought
needs to be given to questions such as: What kind of complementary evidence is
appropriate to documenting success? How can it be collected as quickly and easily as
possible without adding substantially to existing workloads? There are different types and
sources of complementary evidence, and it is these that reflect what is often regarded as
more formal approaches to evaluation:





observations (e.g. mutual observation during teacher appraisal),
views and opinions (e.g. short questionnaire to colleagues, students or parents),
written materials (e.g. a ‘book look’ of students work),
statistical information (e.g. trends in student attendance rates),
more formal research (e.g. by a colleague on a ‘masters’ course).
To summarize, the formative evaluation of development planning is supported through the
identification of success criteria and the use of regular progress and success checks.
Although these frameworks are important in underpinning a process of evaluation process,
it is the enhancing of the professional judgements of teachers that sustains and adds value
to the process. As is seen in the following section it is the role of classroom research and the
enquiry into teaching and learning that in the longer term positively affects the culture of
the school.
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Case example
To be added
Page | 35
Activity
To be added
Page | 36
Networking
In this section, we will examine why reform efforts struggle to achieve system wide impact,
and how a focus on innovation, the diversity within an education system and the different
stages of an improvement cycle can be used strategically to drive school improvement.
System leaders need an understanding of the concepts of systems and governance, but also
an understanding of the high degree of diversity within the school system, and the
importance of their role in spreading innovation.
Networks of schools can stimulate and spread innovation as well as collaborate to provide
curriculum diversity, extended services and community support.
Effective networks require strong leadership by participating heads and clear objectives that
add significant value to individual schools' own efforts. Without this, networks wither and
die, since the transaction costs outweigh the benefits they deliver.
Nor is there a contradiction between collaboration and competition - many sectors of the
economy are demonstrating that the combination of competition and collaboration delivers
the most rapid improvements.
Although evidence of effectiveness is still accumulating, it is becoming clear that networks
support improvement and innovation by enabling schools to collaborate on building
curriculum diversity, extended services and professional support to develop a vision of
education that is shared and owned well beyond individual school gates.
What is innovation and how do you spread it?
Many have become excited recently over the potential of viral communication as an
alternative approach to managing and implementing educational change. Viewing the
process of educational change as akin to the spreading of a virus stands in stark contrast to
the centre-periphery model of change that has been so dominant in the recent past.
The best known exposition of this alternative theory of change is that of Malcolm Gladwell
in his book, The tipping point2 . He argues that every successful innovation that impacts
upon society has a 'tipping point', where the change transforms itself exponentially from
enjoying a limited local or sectional interest to become a mass phenomenon In detailing this
process, he identifies three laws of the tipping point:

Gladwell argues that the first lesson of the tipping point requires concentrating
resources on a few key areas. The law of the few says that connectors (those who
know lots of people), mavens (those who accumulate knowledge) and salesmen
(those who spread the message) are responsible for the starting of word of mouth
epidemics, which means that resources ought to be solely concentrated on those
three groups.
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
The second law of the tipping point relates to the stickiness factor. This says that
there are specific ways of making a contagious message memorable; there are
relatively simple changes in the presentation and structuring of information that
can make a big difference to how much of an impact it makes. The theory of
tipping points requires, however, that we reframe the way we think about the
world. The world - much as we want it to - does not accord with our intuition. This
is the second lesson of the tipping point. Those who are successful at creating
social epidemics do not just do what they think is right, they deliberately test their
intuitions.
 The third law of the tipping point is the power of context. This says that human
beings are a lot more sensitive to their environment than they may seem. That is
why social change is so volatile and so often inexplicable. We are powerfully
influenced by our surroundings, our immediate context, and the personalities of
those around us.
Gladwell argues that, if there is difficulty and volatility in the world of the tipping point,
there is also a large measure of hopefulness as well.
Merely by manipulating the size of a group, we can dramatically improve its receptivity to
new ideas. By tinkering with the presentation of information, we can significantly improve
its stickiness. Simply by finding and reaching those few special people who hold so much
social power, we can shape the course of social epidemics. In the end, he says, tipping
points are a reaffirmation of the potential for change and the power of intelligent action.
In his monograph, The education epidemic3 , David Hargreaves, working within the same
paradigm, describes the various forms of capital as they applied to schools, but also an
agenda for educational transformation based on innovation and networking. The essential
task, Hargreaves argues, is to create a climate in which it is possible for teachers to actively
engage in innovation and to transfer validated innovations rapidly within their school and
into other schools. This does not mean a return to 'letting a thousand flowers bloom', but a
disciplined approach to innovation.
If leading edge schools - by definition a minority - take the lead in knowledge creation he
asks, what happens to innovation in the rest of the system? Hargreaves responds that
transformation is achieved in two ways:

By moving the best schools (or departments within them) further ahead. That is,
through frontline innovation conducted by leading edge institutions and
government supported pathfinders that develop new ideas into original practices.
 By closing the gap between the least and most effective schools (or subject
departments) - transferred innovation.
Transformation thus combines moving ahead with levelling up.
To achieve such a lateral strategy for transferred innovation requires the following strategic
components:


It must become clear what is meant by good and best practice among teachers.
There needs to be a method of locating good practice and sound innovations.
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

Innovations must be ones that bring real advantages to teachers.
Methods of transferring innovation effectively have to be devised.
Networks, Hargreaves argues, are the foundations for an innovative system of education.
Only networks can deliver a mix of vertical-central and lateral-local reform strategies
necessary for transformation.
It is evident that, in the context of supporting innovation, one can discern the beginnings of
a typology of networks. At the basic level, networks facilitate the sharing of good practice.
At the highest level, they can act as agents of system renewal.
Briefly, the emerging typology of networks is as follows:

At its most basic level, a network could be regarded simply as groups of teachers
joining together for a common curriculum purpose and for the sharing of good
practice.
 At a more ambitious level, networks could involve groups of teachers and schools
joining together for the purposes of school improvement with the explicit aim of
not just sharing practice, but also of enhancing teaching, learning and student
achievement throughout a school or groups of schools.
 Over and above this, networks could also not just serve the purpose of knowledge
transfer and school improvement, but also involve groups of stakeholders joining
together for the implementation of specific policies locally and possibly nationally.
 A further extension of this way of working is found when groups of networks (within
and outside education) link together for system improvement in terms of social
justice and inclusion.
 Finally, there is the potential for groups of networks to work together not just on a
social justice agenda but also to act explicitly as agents for system renewal and
transformation.
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Case Example
Networks and diversity in an educational ecosystem4
The Networked Learning Communities (NLC) programme, launched in September 2002 from
the National College of School Leadership (NCSL), is one of the largest school-to-school
network-based programmes in the world. It is a co-ordinated reform initiative currently
involving 137 school-to-school Networks (1543 schools representing ~6% of schools) in the
UK. Each Networked Learning Community (NLC) comprises a group or cluster of schools
working collaboratively in partnership with Local Education Authorities, Higher Education
Institutions and the wider community to improve opportunities and raise standards for their
pupils. Networks can be geographically dispersed but united by a common interest, with the
average size being about 12 schools.
The NLC design
There are six strands to the basic framework of the Networked Learning Communities
design, and four non-negotiable principles. The six strands are:






Pupil learning (a pedagogic focus)
Adult learning (with professional learning communities as the aspiration)
Leadership learning (at all levels, but particularly collaborative headteacher learning)
Organisational learning (progressive redesign around learning principles)
School-to-school learning (and between communities of practice)
Network-to-Network learning (a programme priority).
The four non-negotiable principles are:

Moral purpose a commitment to success for all children. ('Raising the bar and closing
the gap' is a social justice representation of the same theme.)
 Shared leadership (for example, co-leadership)
 Enquiry-based practice (evidence and data-driven learning)
 Systematic engagement with the three fields of knowledge
Both collaborative engagement and generosity of spirit are involved hence two key mantras
within the initiative. One emphasising collaboration is: working smarter together, rather
than harder alone. A part of the critical moral purpose dimension is captured in the phrase
learning from, with and on behalf of one another the on behalf of being a critical element of
the work.
4
This section was prepared by David Jackson
Page | 40
The NLC model of learning
There are many elements to the learning models within Networked Learning Communities.
At its heart lies a recognition the importance of:



the social construction of learning;
the role of enquiry processes in taking learning for practice forward; and
an emphasis on the importance of focusing on learning over specific curriculum
contexts or teaching as transmission.
We also explicitly emphasise the importance of drawing equally upon three fields of
knowledge or three ways of learning within a powerful model of learning. These are:
1. Practitioner knowledge (starting from what people know, the knowledge that
people bring to the learning table).
2. Publicly available knowledge (the theory and research publicly available to be
drawn in to learning environments).
3. The new knowledge that we are able to create together (through collaborative
working and enquiry).
These three fields of knowledge are identified as being in interdependent relationship with
one another - as shown in figure 1:
Figure 1 - 3 fields of knowledge
A key dimension of the model, as indicated, is the inter-relationship of the three knowledge
fields through network-based activity and use within classrooms represented by the
connecting ring of the model. This is consistent with what we know about knowledge use in
networks:
Linking school knowledge and university knowledge, they (networks) find ways for inside
knowledge (the knowledge that teachers create on the job) to inform outside knowledge (the
knowledge of reformers, researchers and policy-makers), and vice versa (McLaughlin and
Talbot, 2001 quoted in Lieberman and Wood, 2003).
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What is networked learning - a working definition
Networked learning occurs where people from different schools in a network engage with
one another to learn together, to innovate and to enquire into practice. Such activity tends
to be purposeful, designed, sustained and facilitated. Unlike networking, it doesn't happen
by accident. Facilitation, active support and brokerage are required.
Within schools and between schools, adults will be involved in multiple random and
networking relationships, some with strong ties, others arising from weak ties (Granovetter,
1973; Watts, 2003). These connections offer rich opportunities for learning and make up an
unpredictable tapestry of interpersonal connections. They are not, though, networked
learnin they are networking.
During our earlier pursuit of helpful theory and research, we encountered a detailed study
by a team based at University College, London (Church et al, 2002), which looked, amongst
other things, at the elements of participation, relationships and dynamics within networks.
At one point they state:
This research has led to a profound belief that participation is at the core of what makes a
network different from other organizational or process forms. Who participates (issues
around power, and resources), how they participate (issues about relationships,
coordination, facilitation, governance) why they participate (issues around vision, values,
needs, benefits, motivation, commitment), and for how long (issues around sustainability).
'Networked learning' is not just a type of learning, or a particular combination of
participants. It entails four distinct learning processes:
1. Learning from one another: is where groups capitalise on their individual
differences and diversity through sharing their knowledge, experience, expertise,
practices, and know how.
2. Learning with one another: is where individuals are doing the learning together,
experiencing the learning together, co-constructing the learning, making meaning
together. Collaborative practitioner enquiry, and collaboratively learning about
recent research is a good example of this activity.
3. Learning on behalf of: is where the learning between individuals from different
groups or schools is also done on behalf of other individuals within their groups or
the wider network or system. High order lateral leadership is bound in with this.
4. Meta learning: is where individuals are additionally learning about the processes
of their own learning.
Networked learning takes place when individuals come together in groups to engage in
purposeful, and sustained developmental activity informed by the public knowledge base,
utilising their own know-how and co-constructing knowledge together. They learn with one
another, from one another, and on behalf of others.
The idea of learning on behalf of others is very important to the concept of networked
learning. It means that networked learning is the interaction of three types of learning:
Page | 42
1. Collaborative learning that takes place between individuals from different schools
2. Learning by individuals and the group on behalf of others in their home school
3. Subsequent Learning that is facilitated for individuals within those schools.
Effective, networked learning also needs to be purposeful. In other words, the participants
all need to have a shared content focus for their learning, they need to use proven models
of professional development and their learning needs to have practical relevance to the
context and purposes of their network. The content and purpose of the learning matters. It
is also the case that the purpose, particularly the on behalf of purpose, holds a key to the
distributed leadership opportunities in networked learning.
In summary, networked learning activity in NLCs is:
1. focused upon shared learning objectives;
2. comprised of participants drawn from different schools, learning on behalf of
colleagues within their own and other schools in the network;
3. comprised of participants within the same schools, learning on behalf of
colleagues within their own and other schools in the network;
4. designed to enable individuals to learn from, with and on behalf of others;
5. exhibits the characteristics of the learning design outlined above;
6. purposefully designed and facilitated to change professional knowledge and
practice in order to improve student learning.
Networked learning knots are the right place to start in planning networks for these
purposes.
From our observation of NLCs there seem to be five types of networked learning knot that
are worthy of further study:
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Joint work groups (eg project teams, curriculum development groups)
Collective planning (eg steering groups, professional development groups)
Mutual problem-solving teams (eg focus groups)
Collaborative enquiry groups (eg enquiry teams)
Shared professional development activities (learning forums/joint staff days).
Some of these might be seen as being architectural to the network (such as steering groups
and learning forums), whilst others are more fluid and adaptive (such as enquiry teams and
project teams). Both may be important.
There also appear to be four types of networked learning knots that are particularly high
yield, both symbolically and practically. They are:
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Launch events and joint staff days;
Head teacher learning groups;
A shared professional development planning function;
A research, evaluation and dissemination group.
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The issue of dynamic and sustained participation, and its purposes, also seems crucial to an
understanding of networked learning. Answering questions about who participates, why,
how, when, for what purposes and for how long may well provide a useful analytical model
and offer some interesting insights into networked learning.
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Activity
1. Discussion: take Gladwell's three laws of the tipping point and use them to analyse an
example of innovation and change that you are all familiar with. How applicable are these
laws to educational innovation? Is there a theory of action here?
2. Explain your school’s model of networking.
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