In setting up its new regional improvement (RISE) teams, government should draw on lessons from previous experiences. In particular, they should be guided by the success of London Challenge and the follow-up interventions in Greater Manchester and Wales.
A central strategy in all these developments was the creation of teams of challenge advisers whose role was to support schools facing challenging circumstances. Employed on part-time contracts, these expert school leaders were directly accountable to a minister. This provided the political mandate that is essential to improvement strategies that mainly emphasise bottom-up action.
The schools supported by the challenge advisers were defined as the ‘Keys to Success’, a phrase introduced by Sir Tim Brighouse. His idea was that rapid improvements in these schools would create a ripple effect across the local education system.
Initially schools tended to be reluctant to join what was seen as a ‘club for failing schools’. However, as success stories started to spread this changed. Indeed, the title Keys to Success became a badge of honour, with some schools signalling the fact on their websites and letterheads.
Further impetus to all of this came about as word got around that some of these schools were invited to be the strong partner supporting other schools facing difficulties.
The interventions in the Keys to Success schools were not imposed centrally. Rather, they were developed as result of a close analysis of existing practices in order to define why progress was not occurring, while simultaneously locating examples of good practice to build on.
This led to the development of improvement strategies that fitted particular contexts. The challenge advisers had a central role here, working alongside senior school staff in carrying out an initial analysis and mobilising external support.
Much of the progress made in the Keys to Success schools was achieved through carefully-matched pairings (and sometimes trios) of schools that cut across social ‘boundaries’ of various kinds, including those that separate schools in different local authorities. In this way, expertise that was previously trapped in particular contexts was made more widely available.
Strengthening relatively low performing schools can foster wider improvements
Crossing borders sometimes involved what seemed like unlikely partnerships. For example, a highly successful primary school that caters for children from Jewish Orthodox families worked with an inner-city school to develop more effective use of assessment data, and boost the quality of teaching and learning. This school has a high percentage of Muslim children, many of who learn English as a second language.
Over a period of 18 months, the partnership contributed to significant improvements, as reflected in test results. It also led to a series of activities around wider school issues, such as the creative arts and the use of student voice, where the two schools shared their expertise.
Other unusual partnerships included a primary school supporting a secondary school in another local authority where low levels of literacy have acted as a barrier to student progress, and a girls grammar school working with an inner-city comprehensive.
Significantly, these examples indicated that such arrangements can have a positive impact on the progress of students in both of the partner schools.
This is an important finding in that it draws attention to a way of strengthening relatively low-performing schools that can, at the same time, help to foster wider improvements.
It also offers a convincing argument as to why a relatively strong school should support another school. Put simply, the evidence is that by helping others you help yourself.
These experiences also underlined the importance of the challenge advisers operating as a team. With this in mind, they met together on a regular basis to support one another’s work.
These discussions proved to be splendid opportunities for collective learning, as these highly experienced professionals argued about what actions should be taken to move schools forward.
In drawing lessons from these experiences, it is important to remember that the Keys to Success schools were chosen because of the challenges they faced and the fact that they had, to varying degrees, performed poorly over many years.
Many of them became striking examples of what is possible when the expertise and energy within schools are mobilised.
Mel Ainscow was chief adviser to the Greater Manchester Challenge, 2008-11 and Schools Challenge Cymru, 2014-17
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