The Role of the School Improvement Partner - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The Role of the School Improvement Partner

Diane Dockrell

Consultant Headteacher/SIP

West Sussex County Council

Adviser to the DfES

• What is a School Improvement Partner?
• What does a SIP do?
• How is a SIP different?
• The experience of one SIP in one LA
• Emerging Issues for the future

Data

Self-evaluation

Communication

Single Conversation

Inspection

SIP

Profile

NETWORKING & COLLABORATION

CHALLENGE

SUPPORT

TRUST

• To act as a critical professional friend
• To help a school’s leadership to evaluate its performance, identify priorities for improvement and plan effective change
• To help build the school’s capacity to improve
• To provide challenge and support for the senior leadership team
• To provide information to a Local Authority and Governing Body on a school’s performance

• Respect for the school’s autonomy
• Focus on pupil achievement
• Professional challenge and support
• Evidence based
• Coherence
• Intervention in inverse proportion to success
• Confidentiality

• Their ability to analyse a school’s strengths and areas for improvement
• Their judgement of effective strategies for school improvement
• Their ability to interact effectively with school leaders in a variety of circumstances

• Trials in 62 secondary schools in 6 LEAs
• 29 SIPs

14 serving heads in their own or other LEAs

• 6 former or seconded heads
• 8 LEA school improvement staff
• 1 Member of the PMDU team (minimal teaching experience)

• The SIP will have a limited number of exchanges with the school’s leadership about how well the school is serving its pupils and how the school needs to improve.
• The nature of this dialogue will vary from school to school. Whilst it is likely to have a common core the SIP will make an evidence based professional judgement about what issues should become part of the debate.

• School’s self- evaluation, linked to SEF
• School’s development plan
• Data/exceptions report to identify areas of underperformance in groups of pupils
• Value for money comparisons
• Data on pupil well-being
• Most recent Ofsted report

• How well is the school performing?
• What are the key factors?
• What are the key priorities and targets for improvement?
• How will the school achieve them?
• Headteacher’s performance management objectives and LTV of school’s performance management systems

• Report to Headteacher, governors and Local Authority on: Self Evaluation, priorities and targets, action, package of support
• Recommendation on secondary specialist school re-designation
• Advice to governing body on headteacher performance management and LTV of school’s P.M systems

• 9/10 schools in the trials (one school technically without a SIP)
• 5 SIPs
• Consultant Head – 5 West Sussex (and 2 Hampshire) schools
• 3 serving Headteachers taking one school each
• 1 member of Hampshire Advisory Service

• Attached to different “categories” of schools – differentiated practice
• Core function + very specific school issues
• Dynamic and creative relationship focused on school improvement (rather than monitoring)
• Natural development for SIP to become adviser to Governors on Headteachers PM arrangements

• Establishing the relationship
• Getting underneath the “skin” of the school – analysing the data/documentation/contribution to the ECM agenda
• Reviewing standards/debating targets
• Identifying priorities through reference to Self Evaluation
• Providing feedback on a school’s SEF
• Contributing to a Leadership and Management Review

• Providing effective high quality CPD
• Building overall capacity into the system by formalising the sharing of good practice
• Contributing to the Heads Performance Management process
• Providing feedback on a Specialist School Bid
• Agreeing a package of School Improvement Consultant support
• Investigating the extent of a school’s budget problem

• Will depend on current experience.
• Trials indicate:
• A significant shift from monitoring to improvement assisted by more forensic data
• Improved credibility and quality of personnel carrying out an enhanced role (eg. specialist school re-designation, performance management role)
• May simply build on existing good practice

• Moved from 9 secondary schools to 40
• Mixed economy of SIPs: 3 West Sussex Heads, 2 consultant Heads, one Head from London borough, 4 SIS staff
• 70% of secondary schools will have SIP with Headship experience
• Criteria for deployment agreed
• Full scale involvement in primary pilot

• Continuity of SIP (where possible and appropriate)
• Locality deployment of SIP (to aid local knowledge of community and enhance networking, partnership and sharing of good practice)
• Availability of SIP in relation to categorisation of school
• Personal experience/expertise of SIP to category of school

• The trials have provided an opportunity to help shape national policy
• LAs support the principle of making the best use of headteacher expertise in school improvement work
• The role of the SIP has potential to build capacity and add value to the whole system by sharing good practice

• Strong LAs in a position to build on established practice
• There are longer term opportunities to “join up” national and local policies through SIP networks

• Engagement with the SIP/SIPs reports
• SIPs role in advising Governors in Headteacher’s PM arrangements
• SIPs (possible) involvement in Headteacher appointment process
• Governors involvement in the preparation of the School profile/SEF

• Managing the “interface” between the SIP and the Local Authority
• The role of the National Strategies Contractor
• The matching of SIPs to schools
• What happens when a school does not want a SIP, or when the relationship breaks down?
• What happens when the SIP judgements are different to Ofsted judgements?