Every Schools a Great School

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Every Schools a Great School The Vision and
Challenges Keynote Presentation to theiNet
Chile First National ConferenceSantiago,
Thursday 27th October 2005
Professor David HopkinsHSBC Chair of
International Leadership
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Why Every School a Great School?

• What parents want most is for their local school
  to be a great school.
• (National Association of School Governors
  Education and Skills Select Committee 2004).
• Test of resolve
• moral purpose and social justice
• focus on enhancing teaching quality rather than
  simply structural change
• commitment to sustained, systemic change because
  a focus on individual school improvement always
  distorts social equity.

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OECD Trends

• The nature of childhood and extended
  adolescence
• The knowledge economy
• Inequality and exclusion
• Changing family and community life
• And more broadly
• Alarming increase in the inequalities between
  rich and poor countries
• Patterns of population growth

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Why Scenarios?

• Scenarios translate trends into imagined
  probable futures, helping us to
• understand more about our current direction of
  travel, our values and our principles
• imagine the preferred future we hope to shape
  together
• explore how school leaders and policy makers can
  work to make this a reality.

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Six OECD Scenarios

• Maintaining the Status Quo
• 1. Bureaucratic school systems continue
• 2. Teacher exodus, the meltdown scenario
• Re-schooling
• 3. Schools as core social centres
• 4. Schools as focused learning organisations
• De-schooling
• 5. Learning networks and the network society
• 6. Extending the market model

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The iNET Scenario

• Breaking with the past Preferred future
• Transmission model Learning focussed
• Jack of all trades Supported professionalism
• Islands of excellence Networking
• Secret gardens Social centres

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Developing the Policy Framework
Intervention in inverse proportion to success
Ambitious Standards
High Challenge High Support
Devolved responsibility
Accountability
Access to best practice and quality professional
development
Good data and clear targets
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Distribution of Reading Achievement in 9-10 year
olds in 2001
575
550
525
500
475
450
425
400
375
350
325
300
Italy
Israel
Latvia
Belize
France
Greece
Iceland
Cyprus
Turkey
Kuwait
Norway
Sweden
England
Hungary
Bulgaria
Germany
Slovenia
Morocco
Lithuania
Scotland
Romania
Colombia
Argentina
Singapore
Netherlands
New Zealand
United States
Czech Republic
Hong Kong SAR
Slovak Republic
Moldova, Rep of
International Avg.
Macedonia, Rep of
Russian Federation
Iran, Islamic Rep of
Canada (Ontario,Quebec)
Source PIRLS 2001 International Report IEAs
Study of Reading Literacy Achievement in Primary
Schools
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Percentage of pupils achieving level 4 or above
in Key Stage 2 tests 1998-2003
English
Maths
80
75
70
Percentage
65
60
55
50
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003

• Test changes in 2003
• Major changes to writing test/markscheme
• Significant changes to maths papers

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The Key Question

• Most agree
• standards were too low and too varied in the
  1970s 80s
• some form of direct state intervention was
  necessary
• the impact of this top-down approach was to raise
  standards (particularly in primary schools).
• But now
• progress has plateaued - while a bit more might
  be squeezed out nationally, and perhaps a lot in
  underperforming schools, must question whether
  this is still the recipe for sustained reform
• there is a growing recognition that schools need
  to lead the next phase of reform.
• The 64k dollar question is how do we get there?

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Towards large scale sustainable reform
Building Capacity
Professionalism
Prescription

National Prescription
High Excellence, High Equity
Schools Leading Reform
System Leadership
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Four key drivers to raise achievement and build
capacity for the next stage of reform

1. Personalising Learning
2. Professionalising Teaching
3. Networking and Collaboration
4. Building Intelligent Accountability

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The Moral Purpose of Schooling
I get to learn lots of interesting and different
subjects
I know what my learning objectives are and feel
in control of my learning
I can get a level 4 in English and Maths before I
go to secondary school
I know what good work looks like and can help
myself to learn
I know if I need extra help or to be challenged
to do better I will get the right support
My parents are involved with the school and I
feel I belong here
I can work well with and learn from many others
as well as my teacher
I know how I am being assessed and what I need to
do to improve my work
I can get the job that I want
I enjoy using ICT and know how it can help my
learning
All these . whatever my background, whatever my
abilities, wherever I start from
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(i) Personalising Learning Joined up learning
and teaching

• Metacognition
• Curriculum choice entitlement
• Assessment for learning
• Co-production

My Tutor Interactive web-based learning
resource enabling students to tailor support and
challenge to their needs and interests.
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(ii) Professionalising Teaching Teachers as
researchers, schools as learning communities
The Edu-Lancet A peer-reviewed journal
published for practitioners by practitioners
regularly read by the profession to keep abreast
of RD.

• Enhanced repertoire of learning teaching
  strategies
• Time for collective inquiry
• Evidence based practice
• Collegial coaching relationships

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(iii) Networking and Collaboration Disciplined
innovation, collaboration and building social
capital
Autonomous Federations Groups of schools opt
out of LEA control but accept responsibility for
all students in their area

• Best practice captured and highly specified
• Capacity built to transfer and sustain innovation
  across system
• Greater responsibility taken for neighbouring
  schools
• Link between central and local policy initiatives

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(iv) Building Intelligent Accountability Balancin
g internal and external accountability and
assessment
Chartered examiners Experienced teachers gain
certification to oversee rigorous internal
assessment as a basis for externally awarded
qualifications.

• Moderated teacher assessment
• Targets for every child and use of pupil
  performance data
• Value added data to help identify strengths /
  weaknesses
• Rigorous self-evaluation to demonstrate good
  management

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4 drivers mould to context through system
leadership
Leading
Personalised Learning
Failing
Success-ful
SYSTEM LEADERSHIP
Networks Collaboration
Professional Teaching
Low attaining
Intelligent Accountability
Internal variation
Underperforming
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Highly differentiated improvement strategies
Type of School Key strategies responsive to context and need
Leading Schools - Become leading practitioners - Formal federation with lower-performing schools
Succeeding, self-improving schools - Regular local networking for school leaders - Between school curriculum development
Succeeding schools with internal variations - Consistency interventions such as AfL. - Subject specialist support to particular depts.
Underperforming schools - Linked school support for underperforming depts. - Underperforming pupil programmes, e.g. catch-up.
Low attaining schools - Formal support in Federation structure - Consultancy in core subjects and best practice
Failing schools - Intensive Support Programme - New provider eg Academy.
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System Leadership A Proposition

• System leaders care about and work for the
  success of other schools as well as their own.
  They measure their success in terms of improving
  student learning and increasing achievement, and
  strive to both raise the bar and narrow the
  gap(s). Crucially they are willing to shoulder
  system leadership roles in the belief that in
  order to change the larger system you have to
  engage with it in a meaningful way.

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System Leadership Roles

• Leading a Federation with another school which is
  facing particular difficulties i.e. to run two
  plus schools. This role is now commonly called an
  Executive head.
• Leading a Federation of schools voluntarily
  collaborating to share goals and working
  facilitates to boost the achievement of their
  students.
• Becoming an Academy Principal.
• Choosing to lead a school that is in extremely
  challenging circumstances.
• Other roles
• working as a consultant leader with a school
  leadership team to improve levels of attainment.
• operating as one of the new School Improvement
  Partners
• acting as a civic leader to broker and shape
  the networks of wider relationships across their
  local communities that can support children in
  developing their potential.

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The Inside - Out Story
Reform is neither only system led nor only
schools led, but necessarily both supporting each
other

• Schools exist in increasingly complex and
  turbulent environments, but the best schools
  turn towards the danger and adapt external
  change for internal purpose.
• Schools should use external standards to clarify,
  integrate and raise their own expectations.
• School benefit from highly specified, but not
  prescribed, models of best practice.
• Schools, by themselves and in networks, engage in
  policy implementation through a process of
  selecting and integrating innovations through
  their focus on teaching and learning.

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For more information

• Hopkins D (2001) School Improvement For Real,
  Routledge / Falmer.
• Hopkins D (2002) Improving the Quality of
  Education for All, David Fulton Publishers.
• Hopkins D (2002) A Teachers Guide to Classroom
  Research (3rd Ed.), Open University Press.
• Hopkins D (2005) Every School a Great School,
  Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.
• Hopkins D and Harris A (2000) Creating the
  Conditions for Teaching and Learning, David
  Fulton Publishers.
• Joyce B, Calhoun E and Hopkins D (2001) Models of
  Learning Tools for Teaching (2nd Ed.), Open
  University Press.

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Professor David Hopkins HSBC Chair in
International Leadership
David Hopkins was recently appointed to the inaugural HSBC Chair in International Leadership, where he supports the work of iNet, the International arm of the Specialist Schools Trust and the Leadership Centre at the Institute of Education, University of London. Between 2002 and 2005 he served three Secretary of States as the Chief Adviser on School Standards at the Department for Education and Skills. Previously, he was Chair of the Leicester City Partnership Board and Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Nottingham. Before that again he was a Tutor at the University of Cambridge Institute of Education, a Secondary School teacher and Outward Bound Instructor. David is also an International Mountain Guide who still climbs regularly in the Alps and Himalayas. Before becoming a civil servant he outlined his views on teaching quality, school improvement and large scale reform in Hopkins D. (2001) School Improvement for Real, London Routledge / Falmer.