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- Herausgeber: Crown House Publishing
- Kategorie: Bildung
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
In Leadership for Tomorrow: Beyond the School Improvement Horizon Malcolm Groves, Andrew Hobbs, and John West-Burnhampresent a vision-led analysis of what needs to change if schools are really to equip children and young people to thrive in our ever-changing world.Continually adding improvements to existing models of schooling isn't enough: we need a more radical reconceptualisation of schooling's function and purpose. We need school leaders who can look beyond the horizon and lead on the strength of lessons learned from the here and now. In Leadership for Tomorrow Groves, Hobbs, and West-Burnham expertly examine what needs to change if we are to lead our schools beyond today's limited school improvement horizon, and explore the nature of the change leadership which can make this happen. Rooted in the direct experience of innovative and successful school leaders, Leadership for Tomorrow presents a wide range of strategies and case studies that will enable and inspire leaders to future-proof their school improvement approach and to fashion better futures for the children and young people in their care. Furthermore, by sharing their research-informed insight into and vision for - the evolving nature of education, the authors hope to encourage leaders to go further in building both their own and their school's capacity to live, learn, and grow successfully. Split into three parts that interweave both theory and practice, Leadership for Tomorrow poses a number of questions throughout to stimulate thinking about current and emerging issues in education and argue that consequent responses will vary in different contexts. Part One sets out and justifies theoretically the principles and values that underpin the authors' vision for education, and signposts the evidence which highlights the limitations of short-term thinking and the reasons for why it is destined to fail. In Part Two the authors focus on more practical matters by presenting case studies of five school leaders to examine their work through the lens of the four-quadrant Schools of Tomorrow Framework, which depicts the 'beyond outstanding' school as one that delivers highly effective family and community engagement and preparation for the future, as well as the highest levels of achievement and of well-being and involvement. Part Three then blends theory and practice with an in-depth analysis of what these leaders' experiences can tell us about developing new understandings of leading change and school improvement for the future, which are at one and the same time values based and evidence informed. Leadership for Tomorrow is the result of nearly a decade of thinking, research, and observation of leadership practice which Groves, Hobbs, and West-Burnham have undertaken in a range of settings; the authors have written up some of this experience previously for Schools of Tomorrow (SoTo) a small research and development group made up of school leaders working together to shape a better future for their schools. Whilst Leadership for Tomorrow is primarily focused on changes within the English educational system, the authors hope that the lessons derived from the book's content will be of interest to leaders in other school systems too. Suitable for school leaders, those preparing for leadership, and those with an interest in leadership development and policy.
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For all who are striving today to be leaders for tomorrow.
Contents
List of figures
Figure 1: The three-horizon model (Curry and Hodgson, 2008: 2)
Figure 2: Relative influence of social and school factors on educational achievement
Figure 3: Areas of tension arising from neo-liberal/neo-conservative and socially democratic perspectives
Figure 4: The balance of autonomy and collaboration
Figure 5: Balancing objective and subjective factors in measurement
Figure 6: The four-quadrant Schools of Tomorrow Framework
Figure 7: Model of four-dimensional education (Centre for Curriculum Redesign, 2015)
Figure 8: The questions underpinning the NICER curriculum
Figure 9: A model of connected school leadership
Preface
This book is about and for school leaders who understand that they must live and lead in overlapping, often conflicting, and frequently ambiguous and uncertain worlds – which we broadly choose to characterise as the worlds of today and tomorrow – and who want to be better able to do that. It is also for anyone who in any way holds school leaders to account, as well as those who may look to lead the schools of tomorrow.
It is the result of nearly a decade of thinking, research, and observation of leadership practice which we have undertaken in a range of settings. We have written up some of this experience previously in a series of pamphlets called The Beauchamp Papers, developed for those school leaders who were involved in establishing a new research and development network of schools in England under the name Schools of Tomorrow. We have drawn on their work in writing this book. Whilst the book is focused on changes within the English educational system, we hope that the lessons derived from this will be of interest to leaders in other school systems.
The five leaders featured in this book have been the subject of intensive study over a number of years. Each has been the subject of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with at least one of the authors on more than one occasion over a three-year period (2013–2016), as have members of their leadership teams. School documentation has also been examined.1 In some cases, the views of other stakeholders, including students, have been sought. In addition, the work of two of the leaders has been the subject of more intensive study and research over a longer period as part of a doctoral thesis completed by Malcolm Groves at the University of Warwick.
What we have attempted to do here, however, is to draw all this thinking and practical experience together into a coherent whole. We have sought to project the meaning and implications forward into a new phase of school improvement, in the hope that this will assist others, both in the UK and internationally, engaged in leading or wishing to lead their schools beyond today’s limited school improvement horizon.
1 All school information is correct as of December 2016.
Part One:
The Case for Change
Introduction:
Three Horizons
In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, leaders of schools in England have been caught up in an almost bewildering vortex of swirling cross-currents and riptides as national policy has veered first in one direction, then in another. The forces which have given rise to this instability are, though, not unique to one country. They are better understood as part of a much wider phenomenon, even though some responses may be peculiar to English politics. In general, we cannot seem to agree on the purpose and rationale of our education provision.
Education is a significant example of an ‘essentially contested concept’. These, according to Gallie’s definition of the phrase, ‘inevitably involve endless disputes about their proper uses on the part of their users’ (1955: 169). For Guy Claxton and Bill Lucas (2015), this dispute in education is characterised as being between three groups. The romantics (roms) are so defined because of their belief in the innate goodness of children, who, by virtue of this innate quality, have no need for didactic teaching or adult authority. The traditionalists (trads), on the other hand, are so called due to their view of teachers as respected sources of culturally important tried and tested factual knowledge which they pass on to children and then test receipt of through formal examination. A third group, the moderates (mods), Claxton and Lucas suggest, reject this simplistic duality, understand complexity, do not believe in quick fixes or appeals to nostalgia, and so think, tinker, and explore so as to better understand the nature of learning. This book is essentially written from a mod viewpoint.
Educational discourse abounds with polarising spectrums – traditional or progressive, academic or vocational, skills or knowledge, and many more. This often contested theoretical space is also inevitably the territory in which school leaders exist and live, and through which they must move, having the direct responsibility to chart a course in the best interests of the young people in their care.
We believe, though, that there is now something more fundamental happening to education than suggested by these long-held, strongly argued debates. We think the present upheavals are in fact symptoms of a more terminal problem with our present concept of schooling, designed as it was to serve the purposes of different times and often reflecting the mindset of an analogue, pre-digital age.
A good analogy to help understand this can be borrowed from the energy industry. According to Curry and Hodgson (2008), the challenge of achieving a sustainable energy supply can be conceptualised using the lens of three different horizons (see Figure 1). The first horizon represents the way we generate and use energy at present. It is inefficient, damaging to the environment, short-term, and ultimately unsustainable. A third horizon represents the outlook of those who have seen these limitations and are trying to create alternative, viable, sustainable solutions to meet future energy needs. These might include, for example, solar and wind power, hydrogen cells, biofuels, and changing consumption patterns. Such solutions are currently still experimental, are not yet proven, may be contradictory, and none are yet to scale or fully tested. However, at some point in the future, a new way forward will emerge from this experimental cauldron to supersede the unsustainable status quo.
Between these points lies another conceptual horizon, termed the second horizon, falling as it does between now and the future. This is the space in which leaders try to make sense of and navigate between the failing, unsustainable present and the as yet uncertain future, in order to create a meaningful future for their organisation, and, in the case of schools, for those in their care. For one big difference between running a school and a running an energy business lies in the fact that what school leaders do and how they do it directly shapes individual lives now, as well as impacting on the futures those individuals are able to create for themselves.
Figure 1: The three-horizon model (Curry and Hodgson, 2008: 2) Reproduced with kind permission of the Journal of Futures Studies
The parallel of the original model for education leadership is uncanny. As Claxton and Lucas (2015) show, there is a strong body of opinion which recognises that our present concept of schooling in terms of its purpose and our understanding of quality are reaching the end of their useful life. There is, as well, a range of alternative thinking going on, frequently small scale, unproven, and often on the basis of individual enthusiasms. Think perhaps of studio schools, some free schools, or project-based learning (PBL) amongst many other initiatives.
But for a school leader, there is never going to be a completely clean slate from which to start, a day in the future when everything can begin afresh and be wholly reconstituted from the ground up. There are always real children to be educated today, who have a single best shot at their own future. There will always, legitimately, be government expectations to meet, although these may be more or less helpful. So leaders of change have no choice but to build their future plane in the sky as they fly it, rather than work on it in its hangar.
For these leaders, the role of leadership is therefore not confined simply to responding to the short-term demands of today, driven by government accountability alone. Leadership must mesh this with a clear vision of what is needed for tomorrow and a determination to find practical and effective ways to start moving towards that – within the constraints of today.
This means living and leading in two worlds at one and the same time, and it means living with the tension and ambiguity which that necessarily involves. Of course, the balance between the two worlds may shift according to context, circumstance, and capacity. But leadership for tomorrow is actually an integral part of leading effectively today. Furthermore, leading for today will ultimately not succeed if it fails to lead for tomorrow as well.
The central task of this book is to show how some leaders are already setting about using this tension creatively to start to fashion better futures for the children and young people in their care. In doing this, we hope to encourage others in positions of leadership and influence to go further in building their own and their schools’ capacity to live and grow successfully towards the second horizon, bringing together and into a new relationship the worlds of today and tomorrow.
The origins of Leadership for Tomorrow
This book’s origins lie in many places. It began, most obviously, through the work of a small group of school leaders in England, who met together one day in November 2011 at Beauchamp College, Leicester, to ponder whether there was any contribution they could make to collectively shape a better future for their schools. As a result, they formed a small research and development group, which they came to call Schools of Tomorrow,1 to support schools and school leaders who wanted to explore second horizon thinking and practice. Their experience and practice has directly informed the development of this book.
Another, more removed, origin lies in the intriguing story of the American township of Roseto (Gladwell, 2009). This close-knit Italian-American community in Pennsylvania was the focus of health studies for nearly 50 years, after it was noticed that heart disease was much less prevalent there than in the nearby similar community of Bangor. Wolf and Bruhn (1993), reviewing studies made of Roseto between 1935 and 1984, conclude that mutual respect and cooperation contribute to the health and welfare of a community’s inhabitants, and that self-indulgence and lack of concern for others have the opposite effect. They found that belonging to a tight-knit community was a better predictor of healthy hearts than low levels of serum cholesterol or abstaining from tobacco use.
More recently, Holt-Lunstad et al. (2010), looking more broadly at data from 148 studies totalling 308,849 participants, echoed the link between relationships and health, concluding that the influence of limited social relationships on mortality risk is comparable with other well-established risk factors, and exceeds many.
There is one further significant feature to pick out from the story of Roseto. The leadership of the parish priest, Rev. Pasquale de Nisco, was crucial in forging and sustaining the social networks and trust which underpinned Rosetan life in its early days (Bruhn and Wolf, 1979: 13–20). Arriving in Roseto in June 1897, he found a disorganised, disparate group of Italian immigrants clinging to their land, knowing little English and almost nothing of their new country. There was no coordination of effort and no grasp of citizenship. De Nisco set up spiritual societies and organised festivals. He also initiated projects to improve the diet of the population though planting gardens and vineyards and raising livestock. Gradually Rosetans developed a sense of civic pride and began to build civic amenities. Additionally, increased enterprise meant more employment opportunities. The town had started to come alive through the priest’s leadership, and that social interaction, Wolf and Bruhn demonstrated, had profound implications for physical health.
The story of Roseto is illuminating as a specific case study of the significance of social capital and its impact on one aspect of human development over time, as are the unique circumstances which allowed that to happen. Of course, Roseto was not perfect, and some would now regard it as an unduly restrictive community, not one we might choose to live in ourselves. However, it reminds us that so-called outliers can reveal important insights for ‘normal’ practice. It also says something important about the significance of leadership in building and shaping social capital, for better or indeed for worse.
Building social capital is something we believe to be critically important for leadership, Although a complex and to some extent contested concept, most definitions of the term would include the following elements:
A high degree of consensus around norms and values that actively inform day-to-day interactions.A shared language with a specialist vocabulary that enables open and lateral communication.A strong sense of shared identity and interdependence working through rich networks and a sense of mutual responsibility. Active involvement and participation in the working of the community – standing for office, voting, and accepting civic responsibility.A commitment to openness and sharing ideas and wisdom.A shared sense of purpose and optimism for the future.Field (2008: 1) helpfully sums up the complicated concept of social capital quite succinctly:
The theory of social capital is, at heart, most straightforward. Its central thesis can be summed up in two words: relationships matter. By making connections with one another, and keeping them going over time, people are able to work together to achieve things that they either could not achieve by themselves, or could only achieve with great difficulty. People connect through a series of networks, and they tend to share common values with other members of these networks.
But could changes in social capital influence educational outcomes in ways similar to their reported impact on health? If so, what forms could this influence take, how does it arise, and what might that impact be? Particularly, what does it mean for individual leaders who want to secure the best outcomes for all their pupils, and for the nature of their leadership? These questions are particularly pertinent for leaders who grasp the significance of the second horizon, at a time when new concerns have been raised about how well we are educating our young people in the context of a globalised economy. A context which is increasingly competitive at both a national and personal level, but also reveals major issues of fairness and sustainability. The influence and significance of social capital is a key theme to which we will frequently return.
Significance in the present context of English schools
One of the first actions of the coalition government which took office in the UK in May 2010 was to change the name of the Department of Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to the Department for Education (DfE). This gesture was intended to symbolise a renewed focus on the core business of teaching and learning. The subsequent White Paper (Department for Education, 2010: 8) stressed that: ‘Our school system performs well below its potential and can improve significantly. Many other countries in the world are improving their schools faster than we are.’
As part of the government’s refocusing of expectations on schools, a number of inherited policies which suggested that schools had some wider role in support of families and communities were changed or abandoned. The distinct funding for the specialist schools programme, which required such schools to share skills and resources across their communities, was no longer ring fenced, expectations around extended school provision were removed, and focus on the Every Child Matters agenda was much reduced.
A raft of other policy changes have included a focus on a narrower range of educational outcomes in terms of definition of attainment, with a stress on academic rigour in a reduced range of curriculum subjects. There is also a greater reliance on test-based assessment, with an associated return to norm-referencing, by which only a given percentage of students succeed, rather than criterion-referencing, offering success for all who meet a given standard, as in a driving test or passing a music grade.
At the same time, significant changes were made to the academies programme inherited from the previous government, with the focus shifting from academy status as a mechanism for improving those underperforming schools operating in very challenging environments to one which outstanding schools were encouraged to adopt. By the time of the 2016 White Paper, Education Excellence Everywhere (Department for Education, 2016), there was an unequivocal wish by government for all schools to become academies within the framework of a multi-academy trust (MAT), even though they subsequently rowed back a little from the notion of explicit compulsion.
This direction of travel is perceived as part of a move towards a self-improving school system. This notion of system leadership, and the related concept of self-improving schools, is strongly articulated by Hargreaves (2011: 8), who stresses the connections between schools in supporting each other to reach school-focused ends:
A maturity model of a self-improving school system is a statement of the organisational and professional practices of two or more schools in partnership by which they progressively achieve shared goals, both local and systemic.
System leadership is also strongly focused within that maturity model around the role of the head teacher (Boylan, 2016). Such thinking has been a key element in government policy in England since 2010. According to the White Paper of that year, The Importance of Teaching:
The primary responsibility for improvement rests with schools … Our aim should be to create a school system which is more effectively self-improving. (Department for Education, 2010: 13)
Many subsequent government reforms were directed towards such ends. For example, the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) was established in 2013 ‘to enable and support the development of a self-improving, school-led system’, although, as Greany (2015: 7) observes, the addition of ‘school-led’ alongside ‘self-improving’ is notable, since the two concepts are not necessarily the same. The principle was also endorsed by leading UK professional associations, such as the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) in their Blueprint for a Self-Improving System (Cruddas, 2015).
This book, however, will argue that the notion of system leadership thus described offers only a partial picture of what is needed if its place and purpose is to effect long-term improvement. We suggest that there is an additional need to understand system leadership more broadly: acting between the school, the learners, their families, and communities, causing each to interact differently with the others so as to promote both broader and improved learning outcomes. This inevitably highlights the need for greater understanding of complexity, a key theme of this book, and an associated deeper understanding of change and how it happens.
For many years, school improvement has been focused on the quality of teaching and learning in classrooms. The necessity of that focus will not in any way be challenged here. Rather, our argument is that, whilst necessary and important, on its own it is not sufficient either to develop fully that broader set of skills and attitudes which will equip young people to flourish in a rapidly changing world or to bring about sustainable long-term change in schools, especially within local cultures of educational indifference and low aspiration.
Behind many of these often government-imposed changes to classroom practice – in relation to pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment – lies a very strong policy concern to ‘narrow the gap’ in terms of the impact of social disadvantage on educational attainment. We believe this is sincere and right in intent, but will argue that the resulting strategy has only partly diagnosed the treatment needed, addresses symptoms not causes, and will, therefore, ultimately not be able to succeed.
Counter-indicators
The suggestion that schools may have some wider role than teaching and learning, important as this is, and that there could be benefit in schools focusing more explicitly on their role in developing social capital, might therefore be seen as going against the grain of much current national education policy. But this idea is certainly not new. A range of counter-indicators over the last two decades have pointed to the possibility of a closer connection between high social capital and educational attainment than recent government policy initiatives would suggest. We briefly highlight just three here.
Firstly, research published by the Audit Commission (2006) in England concluded that schools, particularly in the most deprived areas, need to be proactive in building social capital in order to overcome socio-economic disadvantage and bring about school improvement. Their report argued that the issues of school improvement and renewal are inseparable from neighbourhood improvement and renewal, particularly in the most disadvantaged areas. It concluded that, whilst schools are profoundly affected by their neighbourhoods, they equally have a key role in promoting cohesion and building social capital. We shall examine the implications of this further in Chapter 1.
Secondly, a series of reports by UNICEF has indicated a possible connection between children and young people’s well-being and their learning. The study attempted to measure the well-being of children and young people in 21 countries using the following criteria: material well-being, health and safety, educational well-being, family and peer relationships, behaviours and risks, and subjective well-being.
Using the 2007 report as an example, the UK was in the bottom third in all aspects of well-being except health and safety, where it was ranked 12th (UNICEF, 2007). It was the only country, apart from the United States, to be ranked in the bottom third in all but one aspects. Of those countries in the top third for educational well-being, four out of seven were also in the top third for at least four other aspects. We shall explore the significance of this further, and look at more recent data, when we turn specifically to well-being in Chapter 5.
Finally, there is a small though growing critique of the assessment measurements by which school effectiveness has come to be judged, whilst the data these generate form the underpinning of many government policies. Gorard (2009: 756) argues, from a viewpoint of deep statistical understanding, that when it comes to the statistical models used to measure school effectiveness:
the field as a whole simply ignores these quite elementary logical problems, while devising more and more complex models comprehended by fewer and fewer people.
He continues by relating the statistical problem to a critique of current models for school effectiveness, that it:
encourages, unwittingly, an emphasis on assessment and test scores – and teaching to the test – because over time we tend to get the system we measure for and so privilege. (Gorard, 2009: 759)
This leads him to his key conclusion:
One clear finding that is now largely unremarked by academics and unused by policy-makers is that pupil prior attainment and background explain the vast majority of variation in school outcomes. (Gorard, 2009: 761)
We will return to the significance of this crucial and fundamental point in Chapter 1.
In the context of recent policy change, these criticisms and counter-indicators suggest it might be a particularly apt time to try to understand more fully the ways in which social capital and educational outcomes may be connected, the influence one may have on the other, and the possible implications for school leaders who understand the imperative to look towards tomorrow.
To help us do that, we have divided the book into three parts. These parts deliberately interweave theory and practice, though we are mindful of the wisdom attributed to Yogi Berra: ‘In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.’
Much of the theory is concentrated in Part One. Its main concern is to set out and justify the principles and values from which we are working, as well as signpost the evidence which highlights the limitations of first horizon thinking and justifies why we think it is destined to fail. Part Two is more concerned with practice. It uses case studies based on interviews with five leaders to look at how those principles and values are being developed in real schools today. Part Three then attempts to bring theory and practice together to construct approaches to school improvement moving forward, which are at one and the same time values based and evidence informed.
Although there are significant lines of argument that run through the book in what we hope is a coherent and cumulative way, you may also want to chart a less linear route through it for yourself and dip into the three parts in a different order. For our part, we will try to assist you by providing regular signposts backwards and forwards to connecting parts of the book. This is intended to be a reflective book. It is not speculative, but rather grounded in solid evidence. We have referenced the book fully so that you can pursue any aspect in further depth or check our interpretation, if you wish. Throughout the book, we will also seek to create opportunities for your reflection as a reader, and we encourage you to pause at suitable stages to draw on and compare your own ideas and experience.
David Hargreaves (2001: 493) has criticised traditional models and understanding of leadership and school improvement, arguing that they largely ignore what he termed ‘the impact of the moral excellences and the underpinning social capital on the optimisation of intellectual capital’. He cited, by way of example, the common description of a head teacher’s leadership as ‘purposeful’, finding it ‘worryingly bland’:
It is not any purpose that matters: the nature and perceived legitimacy of the goals involved is critical to the purposefulness that a leader demonstrates. Moreover, leadership is concerned with the means of realising the goals, both their efficiency and morality, not only the goals themselves. (Hargreaves, 2001: 491)
The five school and MAT leaders that we shall meet in Part Two, who inhabit the second horizon – bridging today and tomorrow – understand the impact of both moral purpose and social capital. They have thought deeply about the nature of their goals. As a result, they are reaching for a deeper and broader understanding of the purpose of schooling, and therefore of what constitutes true quality.
Before we look in some depth at their experience, we want to do three particular things in Part One to set out a justification and context for their work, and to help us understand the bigger picture in which they are operating.
Firstly, we want to pursue further Hargreaves’ question of moral purpose by setting out the values and principles which underpin our understanding of leadership for tomorrow, along with the reasoning and evidence which gives rise to these. We will also start to introduce what we see as some of the implications for leadership flowing from these values and principles, which we will then glimpse in the practice of these leaders.
Secondly, we will look a bit further into the present direction of travel of the English school system, currently engaged in perhaps the biggest systemic upheaval in a hundred years, to try to enhance the understanding both of those who have to lead schools successfully through this confused and in many ways contradictory landscape, as well as those from other countries who may want to draw important wider lessons from this experience and will in any case be facing similar tensions from competing horizons.
Finally, by identifying some trends that have significant implications for learning, we will try to form a better understanding of the world of tomorrow for which we are preparing young people, whilst accepting that predictions are always notoriously difficult to make – especially when they are about the future!
Questions for reflection and discussion
To what extent do you think educational outcomes can be influenced by changes in social capital, bearing in mind their reported impact on health outcomes? What leads you to take that view?What is your understanding of the purpose of schooling? How well is this reflected in practice in your school or in schools that you know well?What priority do you currently give in your leadership to building social capital within and outside your school?How far do you see yourself as someone who has the capacity and desire to make a difference to your school and its communities?1 See www.schoolsoftomorrow.org.
Chapter 1
Values and Principles: Four Propositions
In seeking to discuss the characteristics of an outstanding school of tomorrow we feel we must exercise a necessary caution. At its worst this could become a dogmatic extension of current thinking or, at best, an aspirational scenario so fraught with contradictory variables that it appears naive or utopian. However, if the dictum ‘the future does not exist, we create it’ is taken as a starting premise, then perhaps there might be greater grounds for optimism. We create our personal and collective futures by making choices that move us closer to our preferred future state.
Education policy-making always seems to be a balancing act between evidence and dogma, with successive governments being located at various points on the spectrum. Of course, one person’s dogma is another person’s evidence. Objectivity is elusive in almost every aspect of educational decision-making; perhaps one can only hope to be less subjective. Any debate about the nature of the outstanding school of tomorrow is also beset by the endemic political short-termism of educational policy-making, with the inevitable disjointed incrementalism that results. For example, there is abundant and compelling evidence that investment in the early years is one of the most powerful ways of improving educational outcomes of all types. Yet pre-school provision is, along with 16–19 provision, a significant casualty of financial cutbacks; witness the closure of children’s centres and the Every Child Matters programme.
The ethical basis for leading a school of tomorrow
The very concept of the outstanding school of tomorrow is bound to be problematic and contentious in the absence of any sort of national consensus as to what constitutes an effective education, let alone an outstanding one. This chapter is therefore based on the consideration of four key points:
1 The ethical foundations that should inform any discussion about education in the future.
2 The significance of the social factors influencing educational success.
3 The development of strategies to secure outstanding teaching and learning for all.
4 The leadership that is necessary to help successfully move today towards tomorrow.
We will examine each of these points in turn, beginning with a proposition, then setting out the evidence and argument in support, and we will encourage you to think and reflect about possible implications for your leadership and for your school. In Part Two of the book, you will have a chance to look closely at how five school leaders have developed their role and their school in practice as a result of such thinking.
Proposition 1
The outstanding school of tomorrow is one in which every child is entitled to a holistic educational experience which is rooted in personal well-being, is delivered on the basis of equity, and is responsive to the personal needs of every learner.
The school is thus defined in essentially moral terms with an explicit focus on the overarching entitlement of every child to well-being, which includes – but is more than – exceptional levels of personal achievement. That means the school develops a culture, and secures systems and strategies, to embed equity and inclusion, starting from the premise of the centrality of the needs of the vulnerable.
Article 29 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF, 1989) offers a very clear view of the moral basis of education and the entitlement of every child, which should include:
e. The development of the child’s personality, talents, and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential.
f. The development of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and for the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.
g. The development of respect for the child’s parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values, for the national values of the country in which the child is living, the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilisations different from his or her own.
h. The preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin.
i. The development of respect for the natural environment.
This view seems to point to an implicit fundamental ethical framework based on supporting the well-being of each child, and the importance of a holistic model of education. Michael Fullan (2007: 11) argues that there is a close reinforcing link between well-being and educational achievement:
Well-being serves as a double duty. It directly supports literacy and numeracy; that is, emotional health is strongly associated with cognitive achievement. It also is indirectly but powerfully part of the educational and societal goal of dealing with the emotional and social consequences of failing and being of low status. In this sense, political leaders must have an explicit agenda of well-being, of which education is one powerful component.
Accepting the importance of a well-being agenda, what follows from this perspective is the pivotal importance of equity as a guiding concept. The challenge here is that most educational systems have achieved a high degree of equality – everybody has the right to go to school – but many systems have a long way to go with regard to equity, as not everybody goes to a good school.
Tomorrow’s outstanding schools need to develop an empirically robust methodology to go alongside any strategies aimed at securing equity. This sort of evidence is fundamental to effective professional practice (i.e. ensuring that strategies actually work). A classic example of this is the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) Teaching and Learning Toolkit which offers evidence of the relative impact of strategies to close the gap, their trustworthiness, and their relative cost.1
This type of valid and reliable evidence base has long been the Achilles heel of managing change and innovation in education. The sort of interventions that current evidence would seem to point to as improving equity, and where further sustained research is necessary, might include:
The development of language and social skills from birth.A focus on literacy in the family from birth.Targeted interventions to engage the most vulnerable learners.Community-based strategies designed to secure well-being – for example, focusing on parenting, diet, and psychological health.Opportunities for engagement in sport and the performing arts across the community.Community renewal schemes, including environmental projects.Support for vulnerable groups.Developing student leadership in all aspects of educational and community life.Schools openly and actively collaborating in cross-community projects.
