HC 269 Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Challenge Partners
Summary
1. Challenge Partners is a group of autonomous schools and academies, based on the principles of the London Challenge and Teaching School Alliances, who work together to lead school improvement both locally and nationally. The organisation:
Has an all-embracing, unrelenting desire to ensure that all the students in our system gain the best possible education.
Is underpinned by a strong sense that people who want to achieve excellence need to be sharing and developing their practice constantly.
Has agreed principles of collaboration, accountability, openness and trust at its core.
Aims to raise the bar of professional excellence, and believes that it is excellence that gives the profession the right to speak and be heard.
Impacts. Between 2011 and 2012 schools in Challenge Partners:
improved pupils’ exam results at a rate above the national average; and
improved the quality of their teaching.
The Principles and Ethos behind Challenge Partners
2. Over the last 10 years, results in London have increased at an unprecedented rate. London has moved from the worst performing region in England at Key Stage 4 in 2002, to the best in 2009. The capital now leads the rest of the country in all of the key pupil outcome indicators. Research has consistently cited that the main reason for this was the London Challenge programme. This government funded programme ran from 2002 to 2011 and was focused on making London the place where the link between deprivation and poor educational outcomes could be broken. When the programme ended many of the school leaders who played an important role in that work committed to developing a self-funding and sustainable way, through Challenge Partners, to continue and develop this approach to school improvement.
3. There were a range of very practical educational difficulties in London’s schools when London Challenge started in 2002 which meant that standards were poor across London. There were problems with the quality of teaching and school leadership, as well as difficulties for communities (and thus their schools) which were disproportionately affected by poverty. Teachers did not want to teach in London and the challenges of headship in many of the city’s schools were not attractive.
4. However, it was clear that there was great practice around and high levels of expertise within London’s school system, but too much was trapped within the boundaries of single schools or local authorities. London Challenge developed models of school-to-school support which demonstrated that it was possible to break through some of those boundaries and share knowledge and practice between schools and local authorities.
5. This analysis of the situation from a knowledge management perspective meant that the theory of action needed to:
Create the moral climate for knowledge sharing between schools and leaders.
Identify those that have the knowledge of effective school leadership and capture it.
Train the effective school leaders to share their knowledge.
Set up the organisational systems for them to share this knowledge with those who need to learn.
6. It was these four foundations of knowledge management, based on the “capitals”—moral knowledge, social and organisational (Berwick, 2010), which drove the school improvement approach to the London Challenge and now underpins Challenge Partners. In more detail these are described as:
Moral
Without moral purpose, and a culture of openness and trust, knowledge collection and its transfer is impossible. Simply put it raises the question: are those who teach and lead and manage willing to learn together for the greater good of their students’ learning? It requires a commitment from leaders and schools to care about and work for the success of other schools as well as their own.
Knowledge
Knowledge is the collection of qualities required to be an outstanding teacher, leader and manager. These individuals and schools demonstrate their outstanding practice by achieving high relative outcomes for students. Being able to capture, through an audit, where the knowledge and best practice exists both locally and nationally is the first stage. This then provides for colleagues a demonstrable and accessible source of outstanding knowledge. Challenge Partners has 25 Teaching Schools, over 80 outstanding schools, and scores more schools with identified excellent practice. Every schools has something to contribute to the knowledge economy, and no single school, no matter how highly performing, has a monopoly on all knowledge and expertise, and so can learn from its peers.
Social
Merely having the knowledge is not enough. Establishing the social skillset is necessary to enable the effective transfer of this knowledge. Challenge Partners, and the London Challenge before it, draws on the Olevi Adult Learning Model, which illustrates a sustainable cycle for sharing and learning. If the knowledge lies within the school or local system then the skills required will be role modelling, coaching and mentoring, and importantly learning together whilst solving common problems. The latter, also known as Joint Practice Development, ensures that highly performing schools benefit educationally, not only financially, from supporting other schools through partnerships, and is fundamental to ensuring a sustainable improvement system.
If the knowledge lies outside of the community then the skills required will also include networking with those outside who have the knowledge and are undertaking research.
Organisational
Organisational infrastructure is required to create the opportunities to move knowledge around. This requires a focus on building capacity (and ultimately sustainability):
locally, at the outstanding school level to allow them to develop their own knowledge and to share it with other schools, especially those with disadvantaged catchments; and
nationally, to facilitate the development of systemic effective knowledge management across the entire education system.
The Teaching School model was developed from London Challenge. Together with strategic partners—other high quality schools, higher education institutions and other organisations—teaching school alliances have the networks to identify, demonstrate and disseminate best practice.
This infrastructure requires funding to ensure stability in a school’s functions and allow for the release of capacity to support others.
7. Based on the underpinning of these four foundations, it was the reconnection of London practitioners with each other across a system which had become disconnected which is recognised by schools as the most important part of the London Challenge.
8. This approach resulted in improvements in the system being led by practitioners—school leaders and their schools—to create the transformation from within. Through this they produced a culture change within the system. London became a self-sustaining, more collegiate system with a commitment to school-to-school support for the benefit of all London’s children.
9. The model attracts attention because it demonstrated clearly and conclusively that it improved teaching, learning and educational outcomes in London:
Attainment at both primary and secondary has moved to being the highest in England.
The performance of disadvantaged children is better than in any other region in terms of the “gap” in attainment between FSM and non-FSM pupils. The poorest pupil in London now performs at the national average.
In terms of progression, disadvantaged children in London do markedly better than any other area, and are more likely to make expected progress whatever their starting point.
There is now a greater proportion of outstanding schools in London than in any other region.
10. The evaluation by Ofsted of the programme (December 2010) showed that early improvements were not only consistently sustained but that they were accelerated. Other evaluations of the improvements made in London have been undertaken by Centre Forum (Wyness, 2011), and the Department for Education (Hutchings, 2012).
11. The London Challenge also saw a re-balancing of roles between policy-makers and practitioners in the policy process, which permitted practitioners to lead the system whilst accepting accountability. Practitioners had the power to exercise increasing control over the shape and character of the London Challenge as they implemented it. This allowed practitioners to develop the strategy themselves, leading to a stronger possibility of lasting change: in 2012 London was the only region which saw gains for all its pupils (low performing through to high performing).
12. The Teaching Schools model encapsulates the four principles of knowledge management at a local level, and through Challenge Partners is given a national coherence. The great strength of Challenge Partners is in the moral unity, and in the coming together of effective local networks of schools to pool their knowledge, wisdom and resources.
Challenge Partners—Exemplifying Cooperation and Partnership
13. Following the London Challenge, Challenge Partners was named quite deliberately to illustrate two key factors required for effective collaboration and school improvement.
“Challenge” indicates the rigour that is built into the organisation through strong quality assurance measures, self-regulation and accountability to the whole system. Challenge is required to the status quo, and current definitions of excellence, if all schools are to improve pupil outcomes.
“Partners” indicates a compelling and inclusive moral purpose and strong, shared values, principles and beliefs. It shows that it is a partnership owned and led by its members who decide together how they want to shape its activity and direction ensuring a sustainable and effective approach to collaborative improvement.
References
Berwick, G T, 2010, The approach, Engaging in excellence, vol 1, London, OLEVI.
Hutchings, M, Greenwood, C, Hollingworth, S, Mansaray, A, Rose, A, Minty, S, and Glass, K, 2012, Evaluation of the City Challenge Programme. Department for Education.
Oftsed, 2010, London Challenge, Reference: 100192.
Wyness, G, 2011, London Schooling: Lessons From the Capital. Centre Forum.
School performance data is from the Department for Education:
Percentage of pupils achieving level 4 or above in both English and mathematics in Key Stage 2 assessments.
GCSE and equivalent results of pupils at the end of Key Stage 4.
Percentage of pupils making expected progress in mathematics1 between Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.
Percentage of pupils making expected progress in English1 between Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.
Percentage of pupils in state-funded schools1 making expected progress2 in English and mathematics between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4.
Annex
DETAILS ON THE CHALLENEG PARTNERS ORGANISATION
Aims of Challenge Partners
To make every teacher and school effective by sharing the best of what exists. The group has four aims:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Structure
Challenge Partners is a charity and company limited by guarantee, registered with the Charities Commission, accountable to a board of trustees. The Senior Partners (serving head teachers) are the company members which ensures that Challenge Partners remains a genuine school-led collaborative, and all of the financial benefits from the group’s activities are reinvested into the charity.
The structure of Challenge Partners draws upon those developed by groups like the John Lewis Partnership. Their structures provide the management the freedom to be entrepreneurial and competitive in the way the business is run, while giving the company’s members, the Partners, the rights and responsibilities of ownership through active involvement in the organisation.
All schools are linked to a “Hub”. These are the teaching school alliances in Challenge Partners which are responsible for co-ordinating the Challenge Partner activity in their area. Senior Partners are the head teachers of the teaching school alliances.
Partners
Partners are full member schools. They participate in an annual school review and assessment; contribute to, and benefit from, learning and best practice from within the Partnership; and take part in local programmes and activities within their Hub.
Senior Partners
Senior Partners are the representative voice of the Partners. Senior Partners have governance responsibility for the organisation; they control entry into the Partnership and provide strategic leadership. Each Senior Partner is responsible for a Hub of Partner schools, and is appointed to the position either through proven experience as a Teaching School (or other significant contribution) or as an elected representative from within the Hub of schools.
Senior Partners provide the structure for knowledge to be mobilised widely within the network. Their role is to act as an enabling centre which draws on some of the best expertise around, and take advantage of the strength of outstanding schools in the system to support others. This movement of knowledge around the system is regardless of school governance type.
The organisation also has a small central team which supports the running of Challenge Partners by providing administrative functions and facilitation.
The Membership
A national network of local partnerships
Every school pays in £7 per pupil into the organisation to fund its activity. The organisation initially began with 71 schools in 2011. It now contains over 200 schools, across all phases and school types.
Each Hub consists of schools at different stages of development, and has grown organically, such that each is unique, with its own history, focus and ways of working. The Hubs form out of relationships rather than any prescribed criteria and may be same-phase, cross-phase, rural, urban, academy chains or local authority schools.
Many of the founding Partner schools were outstanding schools who recognised that external challenge was necessary for them to stay on top of their game. Others joined because they were ambitious and wanted to improve to reach good or outstanding.
Each Hub leads their own local agenda and programmes which may cover everything from Initial Teacher Training to headship development; and have put in place their own resources and systems to coordinate these activities in order to become self-sustaining.
This model means that Challenge Partners can have strong sense of shared purpose which recognises unique local factors and emphasises working in partnership.
What Challenge Partners does
Challenge Partners groups its activity into areas.
Network of Excellence
A school improvement network, led by schools, which improves performance through effective learning partnerships and rigorous quality assurance processes. The network forms the main focus of the Partnership’s activities across three areas.
1. QA Review which lays the foundation for sharing and collaboration
The Challenge Partners Quality Assurance Review is a peer-led review undertaken by outstanding practitioners from Challenge Partner schools alongside an Ofsted-accredited Lead Reviewer. The tone of the review is developmental in approach; relying on a collaborative dialogue between the school being reviewed and the review team. In this sense the strength of the QA Review lies in how it allies the rigour and professionalism of Ofsted with the care and collaborative approach of a partnership. Each school undertakes one of these a year.
2. Teaching and Learning programmes delivered through local Hub networks
The quality of teaching and learning is crucial to how well children perform at school.
For this reason we invested heavily to subsidise teacher training courses in each Hub to ensure that our schools have access to the very best teacher training opportunities. The two training courses which are subsidised are:
The “Improving Teacher Programme” which gives improving teachers a set of skills and strategies to deliver consistently good lessons.
The “Outstanding Teacher Programme” which works with teachers who demonstrated they have the potential to be excellent teachers to equip them to be consistently and sustainably outstanding.
3. Subject networks driven by schools to share effective practice and raise standards locally, nationally and internationally
These communities (in English, maths, science and early years) aim to capture and share the best practice that already exists in our schools. If Challenge Partners is to embrace a school-led system then the best schools and teachers much share their ideas if professional autonomy is going to work. Many outstanding schools are going above and beyond what the Ofsted framework defines as outstanding and these communities are tasked with articulating what that practice looks like. These outstanding practitioners are also encouraged to lead debate and innovation.
Engine of Improvement
This is the vehicle that will be used to draw on the strength of the Partnership to turn failing schools around and bring improvement where it is most needed.
Challenge Partners will broker relationships, pairing schools and heads for improvement activities, making best use of the broad geographical reach and the skills across the Partnership. Challenge Partners will agree an improvement package of proven learning activities with appropriate outcome measures to drive whole-school improvement. Where appropriate, Challenge Partners will provide a vehicle, through the Challenge Partners Multi Academy Trust, for weaker schools to convert to academy status.
Sources of Efficiency
We recognise, given the number of schools in the Partnership, that through collaboration, sharing of resources and group purchasing; we will be able to secure significant savings for our schools. Responsibility of their budgets will remain with the individual schools, however Challenge Partners expects to be able to negotiate rates and terms that would otherwise be unavailable to individual schools, and therefore anticipates that in time some schools will centralise some of their back office and bought-in functions.
Projects
Our flagship project is Challenge the Gap. More projects are in development.
Challenge the Gap programme
This programme, funded by the Education Endowment Fund, is nearing the end of its first year and is well on track to deliver a strong uplift in attainment for children from low income families. The programme is delivered through “Trios” of schools. A Lead school, which has demonstrated excellence in leadership and teaching across the board, is connected with two Accelerator schools that are aiming to boost the academic attainment of their FSM pupils.
October 2013