From White Paper to Practice

1. From White Paper to Practice Making it work for Medway schools

2. A radical alternative to the current model of school improvement • Emphasises and extends the autonomy of schools whilst recognising the place that collaboration can and must play in the search for continuous improvement “We expect schools to use their increased autonomy to explore new ways of working together – but collaboration in the future will be driven by school leaders and teachers – not bureaucrats”.

3. School Improvement: what the WP says • Make it easier for schools to learn from one another through role of data • Schools to have access to evidence of best practice, high quality materials and improvement services which they can choose to use • Frees LAs to provide whatever forms of improvement support they choose • Ensure schools below floor standard receive support

4. What the WP says about school improvement • Schools -governors, head teachers and teachers-have responsibility for SI • End requirement to have a SIP • Increase NLEs and LLEs • Ofsted will sharpen its focus on teaching

5. Implications for School improvement Services • LA role in school improvement will be determined locally: “Local authorities will have the freedom to define what role they will play in supporting school improvement for local schools” • Local arrangements will have partnership working at the core: “We anticipate that school-to-school support will be at the heart of very many local authority strategies” • LA will stop delivering key services: LA’s will increasingly move to a strategic commissioning and oversight role

6. School Improvement: What we’ve done so far • Followed up the National Strategies Review from March • Asked a sample of HTs what was working well and what needs to improve. We used this information as the basis for our draft strategy • Made a start in drafting the School Improvement Strategy to reflect what Heads told us- now shared with you to enable you to become architects of the strategy. • Clear definitions across the family of Medway schools on what is meant by: “support”, “challenge” and “monitoring” and clarity on how each aspect will be delivered and by whom • Main focus of draft Strategy is on role of LA to help prevent school failure. Too many schools in Medway go into categories of concern and this has to stop. • Planning a cross phase conference for HTs on 8th March to highlight the importance of high quality leadership, teaching and learning • Discussions with NCSL on role of LLEs and NLEs

7. School Improvement - more • Raised floor targets increase the vulnerability of local schools • Draft Strategy Identifies the main areas that need urgent improvement- these will be the principle focus of LA attention • The LA will stop doing things e.g No SIPS post March, ASTs • With greater autonomy for schools comes greater risk if their provision is not good

8. Commissioning: What we’ve done so far • Set up a Task and Finish Group (chaired by CM ) to explore future LA in commissioning services • We now need HTs and Governors to work with us to determine : what aspects of improvement will be undertaken by schools for schools; what aspects will be brought in from elsewhere; what will schools commission directly and what aspects will the LA continue to offer? • We know from what you have told us that you will buy in services that are of the highest quality that make an impact on outcomes for pupils and give good value for money. The challenge to us is to build such an offer. • We have held exploratory discussions with other LAs and other providers to consider shared services.

9. Commissioning - more • The challenge to schools is to be clear about your individual improvement priorities, to become smart commissioners of support and to be good judges of the impact of external support • How will we get nominations/ representations for this group? • Proposal is that we also set up one to one meetings or small groups with HTs and Govs to hear your ideas of what you would like to buy in 

10. Partnership Working: What we’ve done so far • Headteachers , governors and officers in Medway have drafted a vision for partnership that will celebrate excellence and hasten improvement in all Medway schools • Described the behaviours that would be a pre requisite to successful partnership working of the future and • Compiled a sample action plan for year 1 ( 2011- 2012) to model how proposed new ways of working could become a reality.

11. Medway vision for partnership working • A shared commitment to improving opportunities for all children and young people • A challenge to every school to consider what it could do for the benefit of all • Outstanding schools that open their doors to share their practice with others but which also continue to learn from others: reciprocity should be a guiding principle of partnership working in Medway

12. Draft Action Plan for partnership working in year 1 (2011 – 2012) • No school or head should feel that they had been excluded from exploring better partnership working in year 1 irrespective of school’s status • The strength of partnership working in Medway varies across clusters of schools. In some clusters new ways of working collaboratively are further advanced than in others • Some partnerships should be invited to lead the way in testing out new ways of working as Pathfinder Partnerships in 2011-2012. The identification of such Pathfinders should be agreed across the community of schools and the LA • No school in a category in 3 years

13. What do we need to do now? • Agree a partnership vision through consultation • Agree the concept and remit of Pathfinder Partnerships • Enable pathfinder partnerships to operate in 2011/12 and to learn from their experience of what works • Agree the Medway SI Strategy • Schools to tell LA what services they will buy from the LA • LA to develop its services in response and produce prospectus of services • Continue the conversation in heads’ and governors’ meetings about these new ways of working • Agree a reference group of Headteachers to help drive these changes