HC 269 Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Dr Caroline Kenny Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education

Executive Summary

Collaboration is seen as one of the principal ways to achieve school improvement and there is now significant political emphasis given to encouraging partnerships between schools and other types of organizations. Within this, schools collaborating or partnering with each other has been particularly highlighted. School-to-school partnerships are seen as an important way for schools to learn from one other, share best practice and raise educational performance. Often missing from this discussion however, is the role that research evidence can play in improving school performance and, in supporting partnerships between schools. Four points are of relevance here:

Reliable and robust research that builds upon previous knowledge explicitly (such as systematic reviews) can be just as effective, if not more so, than school-to-school partnerships for school improvement. There are now a number of services and organizations that can assist teachers and schools in finding, understanding and using research for their management decisions.

Taking a research-informed approach can support school-to-school partnerships by asking critical questions and “holding up a mirror” to existing practice. This approach has been found to be effective in other work with practitioners in education and health and as has been recognized in a recent report by the National College for Teaching and Leadership.

A research-informed approach can also assist schools to identify the core components of what makes a particular practice or teaching strategy successful in another school or classroom. Understanding what makes something work in one context and for one group of students is fundamental to ensuring that it is implemented effectively elsewhere. Taking such an approach can help prevent against unnecessary wholesale root and branch reform.

By and large, we need more reliable and robust evidence about the effectiveness of school partnerships and collaborations and particularly, what is it about school-to-school partnerships that make them effective and do different approaches or models of partnership work better than others? This is related to a wider point about the need to try and untangle what is meant by partnership, collaboration and interaction and what effective methods or approaches to these terms look like in practice.

Introduction

1. School partnerships are seen as an important way for schools to learn from one other, share best practice and raise educational performance (Arnold 2006: i-ii. See also DfES 2003a, 2003b, 2005, 2006, Kampfner 2005). Such partnerships can involve a range of organisations including, federations and trusts, faith schools, teaching schools and alliances, academy groups, subject associations, local partnerships and trusts, unions and professional associations, higher education institutions (HEIs) and partnership schools (both within and outside the state-sector), and major national organisations such as the Cambridge Primary Review and Whole Education. One type of partnership that has been particularly advocated is for schools to collaborate with one another. The existence, maintenance and indeed encouragement of what David Hargreaves terms a “self improving system has been celebrated most recently in the edited collection published by the Royal College of Surgeons Towards a Royal College of Teaching: Raising the stats of the profession (Peacock 2013: 37) and the Pearson/RSA Academies Commission Report which believes that schools work best when connected to the rest of the system.

(i) These schools would work with one another to accelerate school improvement, in particular the quality of teaching and its impact on learning and the achievements of children and young people (Academies Commission 2013: 5)

2. Two developments have sought to expand the number of schools collaborating with other schools. These are the establishment of The National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) and the development of National Teaching Schools. The National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) was established after the merging of the National College for School Leadership and the Teaching Agency. The NCTL is a government agency that has been created to enable and support the development of a self-improving, school-led system. One of the two aims of the NCTL is to help schools to help each other to improve by encouraging schools to develop their own local networks of high-quality, school-to-school support (DFE 2013a). Similarly, the idea of school-to-school collaboration is embedded in the National Teaching Schools model:

(ii) All teaching schools will be expected to work with a number of schools and other strategic partners to form a teaching school alliance. Working together, the alliance will deliver support for other schools in their wider network to… lead peer-to-peer professional and leadership development (continuing professional development) [and]… provide support for other schools (DFE 2013b)

3. The idea that schools working together can improve educational performance is a convincing one, particularly when involving schools at different performance levels. Indeed, partnership and collaboration is often held up as a key means to achieve change (references?). Research can also assist school improvement when conducted using reliable methods and explicitly building upon existing knowledge in the area. Despite the often cited difficulties that teachers and other practitioners face when trying to access and use research, there are now many organisations and services to assist them in doing so. Services such as these offer schools a route into what is known about how other schools or organisations have addressed similar issues and the effectiveness of the practices or strategies used. Knowledge of this type, where multiple sources, cases and examples are brought together, can provide schools with information that is of equal usefulness to that gained through partnerships with other schools, which can only offer recommendations on the basis of a successful practice in one classroom or school.

4. Using research approaches and techniques can also facilitate successful school partnerships. First, in a recent report, the National College for Teaching and Leadership advised that “getting underneath the obvious and really developing a good understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses” was imperative to successful partnerships (Rea et al 2013: 6). Critical questions and honest answers are essential here to provide a good understanding of the specific context, a thorough clarification of the issue to be addressed and an honest assessment of the school’s capacity to effect change. This process of “holding up a mirror” or “being a critical friend” has been highlighted as a crucial aspect by several different organisations with experience of working with practitioners in both the health and education fields.

5. Second, approaching school improvement as a researcher should lead us to investigate why a particular practice or strategy is successful in a school or classroom. Copying and pasting from other schools is unlikely to be successful without understanding why something works in one school and for certain students. Examining and identifying the core components and mechanisms of change of a practice that is successful in a particular school or classroom should be the first step for any school partnership.

6. Finally, research can tell us more about whether, and to what extent, school partnerships are achieving what they set out to. There is evidence to suggest that partnering schools in this way does have some positive effects (for example Hutchings 2012; Hill and Matthews 2010), but as yet we do not know why such partnerships work or whether certain models of partnership work better than others or for particular clients. Given that the present Government has committed itself so publicly to being informed by the best available evidence with the recent decision to build on existing evidence-based policy making to guide decision-making with a £200 billion investment in a series of “what works centres” (Cabinet Office 2013; see also Willetts 2012), answering this question should be the first job before further partnerships are put in place.

Main Points

7. The overriding objective of most school-to-school partnerships is school improvement. There are two ways that research can assist school improvement:

Research as an alternative to school-to-school partnerships

8. Initiatives such as the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) Teaching and Learning Toolkit1 (www.educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit) demonstrate the impact that research can have upon school improvement. The Toolkit’s success is grounded in its adherence to systematic review principles in bringing together existing, reliable research on specific topics and, its presentation of this research in an accessible and easily understood way that gives a clear indication about practical matters such as cost effectiveness and average impact. Bringing together what is known about a particular topic in an explicit way that outlines how the literature was found, what is included and why, protects both against decisions being made on the basis of single pieces of research that may give unrepresentative or inconclusive findings and, reviews that put forward only a selection and/or biased account of the existing literature on a given topic.

9. Rather than making recommendations on the basis of a successful practice in one classroom or school, systematic reviews can draw together what is known about the effectiveness of a particular practice from many different classrooms and/or schools. Adopting a practice that has been shown to be effective elsewhere is of course no guarantee of success. However, it makes sense for us to base our decisions on those practices that have been shown to be effective in a number of different contexts rather than one and this is something that systematic reviews can help us with.

10. Using research for school improvement is not without its problems. Research is often not communicated clearly to non-academic audiences or easily available to them. Academic research is often not relevant to the needs of non-academic audiences because of its focus or methods for example and, in some cases, teachers and other practitioners do not have the time or skills to be able to use research effectively. Although there is now more awareness about this and greater pressure upon academics to address these gaps, we are still a long way from a situation where research can be used directly by teachers and schools. A number of attempts have been made to “bridge the gap” between academic research (both how it is undertaken and communicated) and its use. The EEF Toolkit is one example but there are many others that include organizations specifically set up for this purpose for example, the Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education (CUREE) as well as specific services being offered to support teachers and other users to find, understand and/or use research such as the consultancy service delivered through the European Commission funded “Evidence Informed Policy and Practice in Education in Europe” (EIPPEE) project and now being offered through the Institute of Education (IOE). The existence and popularity of these initiatives illustrate the need and demand for this type of service. Yet this should not be seen as an endorsement of those initiatives to connect schools with HEIs. Such partnerships, as with school-to-school partnerships, have the same risks about informing decision-making with knowledge that is not grounded in what is known or perhaps, may not be the best available knowledge we have.

Research approach before school-to-school partnerships

11. A research-informed approach can provide a solid foundation for school-to-school partnerships to build upon. Asking a series of critical questions about existing practices, the nature of the goals trying to be achieved and why these are the goals being focused upon is a useful exercise in itself. Such questions will provide a good understanding of the specific context that trying to improve (for example nature of the student profile, areas of strengths and weaknesses), a thorough clarification of what we are seeking to change (educational attainment? In what subjects and for which students?). They can also provide an honest analysis of the school’s willingness and capacity to change. Experience of working with practitioners in both the health and education field (for example work undertaken as part of the European Commission funded “Evidence Informed Policy and Practice in Education in Europe” [EIPPEE] project2 and that undertaken in the health field in Canada by John Lavis)3 has shown that asking these types of questions at the start of the process can be enormously beneficial to all participants. Indeed, in supporting schools and other practitioners, clarifying the issue under concern (including how it is understood, what the goals are and why it is of interest) as well as what is already happening to address this issue is of the most importance and usefulness to practitioners.

12. This is something that has been recognised as fundamental to school-to-school partnerships by the National College for Teaching and Leadership. In its recent report summarising the outcomes from an action research project with national leaders of education (NLEs) and teaching school alliances to examine how they could work with and support other schools to close gaps in attainment, they report that the advice from NLEs’ advice was:

(iii) [T]hat the important skills were in getting underneath the obvious, and really developing a good understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses as this would have a strong bearing on its capacity to close gaps… NLEs would begin to role model the behaviours of collaborative enquiry, talking to staff about their successes and barriers, and enable opportunities for staff from the schools involved to have a genuine peer engagement about learning and the barriers faced by specific pupils (Rea et al 2013: 6)

Research approach during school-to-school partnerships

13. Taking a research-informed approach during school-to-school partnerships can also be beneficial. Too often in education, solutions are looked for on a grand scale (class sizes etc) and in addressing school improvement, it is easy to look to large-scale programmes which reform on a whole-school level, for example Assessment for Learning. These programmes work because of the care and attention given to implementation fidelity to ensure every part of the process is geared towards the same end. Adopting these types of programmes is often not an option for most schools given their resources and capacity and even when it is, buying in such programmes is largely useless unless the same level of care and attention to fidelity is given. Aside from this, what this type of approach also overlooks is what already maybe happening in a school which does work and/or is being effective. It may be that in such circumstances a school may just need to tweak their existing practice rather than wholesale root and branch reform.

14. Adopting a research-driven approach to school improvement can also assist school-to-school partnerships. Copying and pasting practices that are successful in one school or classroom overlooks the important detail that what works in one context and for one group of people may not work in another. We also need to understand why something is working in a particular school and/or for a particular group of students before we can try and transfer this to other contexts. Practices that have been shown to be effective in particular schools should be examined in order to identify the key mechanisms that are behind the success of these practices and furthermore, the extent that such mechanisms are specific to that school or context and therefore, the degree that they can be transferred to other contexts. In other words, taking a research-informed approach can help us to determine “what practices work for who and in what contexts and why?”

Research on school-to-school partnerships

15. Related to the point above is the role that research can play in evaluating school-to-school partnerships. We need to know more about the impact of school-to-school partnerships; are they achieving what we want them to, and we should seek such knowledge both during active partnerships and after, once they have been completed. Just as chefs need to constantly taste their food to see if it needs more seasoning, so do teachers need to check that their teaching approach/methods are working with their students. In relation to School-based interventions on alcohol, NICE recommends that “[h]ead teachers, school governors, healthy school leads, school nurses and extended school services should monitor and evaluate partnership working and incorporate good practice into planning” (NICE 2008). In the same way that we should try to understand why particular learning or teaching practices work in a school and/or for a particular group of students before we try to transfer to another context, we need to know what is it about school-to-school partnerships that make them effective if they are shown to be so? The knowledge we gain from this type of investigation can then inform our development and roll-out of partnerships in the future. At the moment we are faced with a situation where school-to-school partnerships are being promoted and advocated on the basis of very little robust evidence (Hutchings 2012; Hill and Matthews 2010). This is despite such evaluations being a central role of local governments;

(iv) [H]olding school improvement partnerships to account should continue to be a key part of the council role in education, backed by a continuing council role in tackling underperforming schools (see Education Committee 2013: 39)

16. The factors, components or mechanisms that make school-to-school partnerships effective raise some important and very interesting issues about what is it about partnerships more generally that is effective. Collaboration and interaction is frequently held up to be the essential requirement for successful partnerships but we are rarely told what these terms mean in practice: how should we collaborate, in what ways, with whom in order to maximize our effectiveness? Do different approaches or models to collaboration, partnership or interaction have an impact on effectiveness or success? Do particular models of partnership work better for certain people, schools, organizations or when focused upon particular goals or outcomes than others?

References

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October 2013