The benefits of joined-up working
Despite being just five miles apart, a year ago Dane Court grammar school and King Ethelbert school, could not have been more different. One was a selective school where 96% of pupils achieved five or more GCSEs with A* to C grades. The other was a high school with many pupils from deprived backgrounds where just 14% achieved five or more GCSEs with top grades.
What the Kent schools did have in common was an "outstanding" judgment from Ofsted. Despite low GCSE grades King Ethelbert school's "valued-added" score, which measures pupils' progress against previous attainment, was very high, meaning pupils were actually improving, beyond all expectation, during their time at the school.
So when Paul Luxmoor, headteacher at Dane Court grammar school in Broadstairs, was approached by the local authority and asked to set up a federation (a pair or group of schools which shares the same governing body), in theory, he was being asked to do the impossible.
As a National Challenge school (the £400m government programme which aims to secure higher standards in all schools) St Ethelbert in Birchington had been set the target of at least 30% of its students achieving five or more A* to C grades, including English and mathematics, by 2011.
Working alongside Kate Greig, a head teacher seconded from another local school to manage the day-to-day running of King Ethelbert, Luxmoor rose to the challenge. Joint lessons and revision sessions were organised for some year 11 students and a mentoring scheme, where 6th formers from Dane Court worked with year 11 pupils at King Ethelbert school. "A lot of
our work was about restoring confidence and self-esteem," says Luxmoor. "Pupils at King Ethelberts generally didn't have high aspirations. Sitting in lessons with grammar school students made them realise they were just as clever."
While teachers at King Ethelbert were clearly excellent at tracking pupils' progress, hence their favourable Ofsted inspection, Luxmoor felt that reliance on data might actually be what was holding the school back. "There was almost a sense that the school believed they couldn't get 30% A* to C because the data said they couldn't. We directed National Challenge funding into additional resources so staff could be more creative."
This year's GCSE results showed King Ethelbert school had achieved the "unachievable" with 34% of pupils gaining five or more A* to C grades.
It is a striking example of the shift to a more "hands-off" approach to school improvement by local authorities. As the federation between Dane Court and King Ethelbert shows, schools have extensive knowledge and experience of their locality and its children, young people and families, meaning they are well-placed to take a leading role in their own school improve-ment and that of other local schools.
In the 21st Century Schools white paper, the government has set out its vision for schools as commissioners of school places, rather than providers. As Mark Gore, head of service, transforming education for Warwickshire county council, explains: "When I first came into administration, the local authority managed everything to do with schools, almost downto telling them how many pencils to buy. Now we're trying to encourage schools to be more autonomous and we hold them to account."
Schools setting their own priorities and managing their own school improvement can also work on a much smaller scale. Burgess Park primary school, in south east London, is one such example. It identified, along with its local authority school improvement advisor that mathematics was an area that needed improvement. Assessment manager and year 4 teacher Tim Ives secured local authority funding for himself and a colleague to take part in a training programme, run in conjunction with the Institute of Education and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority on assessment pupil progress (APP), a government-led approach to assessment, which puts the learner at the heart of the process.
He is now in the process of training all teaching colleagues to use APP. "We'd identified that some pupils weren't doing as well in mathematics as they could be. There were gaps in some pupils' understanding. At the other end of the scale some pupils weren't being stretched. We know it's working because since introducing APP results of both internal and external assessment have improved."
Greater autonomy and flexibility means schools can now provide services which meet the needs of the community much more closely, which ultimately improves outcomes for children and young people. This could mean groups or "clusters" of schools working together to commission after-school provision, employing or even "sharing" support staff. Under this new way of working, local authorities are most involved in the management stage of the commissioning process, offering robust support to schools as they plan, deliver and review services.
As Warwickshire's Gore explains: "Now the government is saying local authorities should be commissioners, rather than providers of school places. Now we're advocates of children and learners, giving schools a lot more autonomy."