Schools are more likely to thrive and drive improvement when they work in effective partnership with other schools. The question is not whether but how staff from different schools can best support each other. What skills and techniques do they need to enable purposeful school-to-school collaboration? How can teachers and leaders from different schools work together to respond to their most challenging professional problems?
These questions lie at the heart of Education Development Trust’s Schools Partnership Programme (SPP) and the approach used is based on the principle that systematic peer review should be part of the answer and has the potential to transform our schools.
Peer review must be guided by rigorous, research-based enquiry if it’s to uncover actionable new learning and ultimately drive impactful school improvement.
Since it was launched in 2014 hundreds of schools in England and Wales have taken part in SPP. In 2018, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) commissioned an independent evaluation of our programme. EEF published their evaluation report earlier this month. While disruptions associated with Covid meant that the impact assessment was unable to go ahead, the headline findings from the process evaluation were positive.
The trial cohort was substantial – 422 primary schools educating over 100,000 pupils. These were grouped into 89 clusters of an average size of just over five schools. Leaders from each of the clusters attended four days of training, and went on to undertake two structured peer reviews, each taking one to two days.
A large majority of school leaders surveyed felt there had been a positive overall impact on pupils’ outcomes at their school. The independent evaluators from IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society described how participants ‘learned how to collaborate more rigorously and transparently, offering increasing challenge to each other with time, and enabling more fluid knowledge exchange and shared professional development that benefited their staff and schools’.
Their report sheds important light on why the programme was positively received. School collaboration and forms of peer review are not new; what is distinctive about SPP is the methodology and the clarity about roles.
The aim is to foster ‘culture-based accountability’
Unique to the Schools Partnership Programme is the role of the Improvement Champion. This is someone within each school who takes ownership of school improvement by facilitating transformation through the shared goals that emerge from the process.
That doesn’t mean more work for the headteacher, or even the senior leadership team. The Improvement Champion can come from the wider school team and in fact the evaluation found that this was perceived to be most impactful, for the individual and the school, if someone from middle management took up the role.
It is a demanding role, but we provide training in how to evaluate, deliver feedback and coach colleagues in their own schools and in others in the group working together. Relevant training and quality training materials matter (Indeed, our materials were deemed by most participants to be of very high quality), as does agency for change being in the hands of teachers.
SPP is about empowerment. Schools agree on the steps they need to take in partnership. Participants visit each other, support teaching and learning, talk to senior teachers with an emphasis not so much on sharing good practice but on joint practice development. This aims to foster ‘culture-based accountability’ – the idea that through trust and interaction teachers and senior leaders are mutually committed to improvement in their own settings and in other schools.
It was notable that, among the evidence and the testimonials gathered as part of the EEF evaluation, many teachers felt that through purposeful peer review they could take ownership of their professional development and learn through a rich dialogue with others. The schools surveyed by EEF routinely reported improvements for the school, the staff and – most importantly of all – the students.
We were really encouraged to see that the Schools Partnership Programme was so well-received during the EEF’s trial. Findings from the evaluation and feedback from schools who have taken part also highlight the key aspects that school leaders felt contributed to any good peer review programme.
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