Every School a Great SchoolEvery School a Great School

Realising the Potential of System LeadershipRealising the Potential of System Leadership

Keynote Presentation Keynote Presentation

RTU RTU Building Leadership Capacity Building Leadership Capacity

Co-Constructed Leadership ProjectCo-Constructed Leadership Project Belfast, Northern Belfast, Northern IrelandIreland, Tuesday 2, Tuesday 2ndnd October 2007 October 2007

Professor David HopkinsProfessor David HopkinsHSBC iNet Chair of International LeadershipHSBC iNet Chair of International Leadership

Moral Purpose of SchoolingMoral Purpose of Schooling

All these …. whatever my background, whatever my abilities, wherever I start from

All these …. whatever my background, whatever my abilities, wherever I start from

I know how I am being assessed and what I need to do to improve my work

I know what my learning objectives

are and feel in control of my learning

My parents are involved with the school and I feel I

belong here

I enjoy using ICT and know how it can

help my learning

I can get the job that I want

I know if I need extra help or to be challenged to do better I will get the

right support

I know what good work looks like and can help myself to

learn

I can work well with and learn from many others as well as my teacher

I can get a level 4 in English and Maths

before I go to secondary school

I get to learn lots of interesting and

different subjects

The G100 CommuniqueThe G100 CommuniqueA group of 100 principals from fourteen countries (G100) met at the National Academy of Education Administration (NAEA) in Beijing, China 16-19 October 2006 to discuss the transformation of and innovation in the world’s education systems.They concluded their communique in this way - We need to ensure that moral purpose is at the fore of all

educational debates with our parents, our students, our teachers, our partners, our policy makers and our wider community.

We define moral purpose as a compelling drive to do right for and by students, serving them through professional behaviors that ‘raise the bar and narrow the gap’ and through so doing demonstrate an intent, to learn with and from each other as we live together in this world.

The need for a systemic response …The need for a systemic response …

We aspire to a society that is not merely civil but is good. A good society is one in which people treat one another as ends in themselves. And not merely as instruments; as whole persons rather than as fragments; as members of a community, bonded by ties of affection and commitment, rather than only as employees, traders, consumers or even as fellow citizens.

The vision of a good society is a tableau on which we project our aspirations, not a full checklist of all that deserves our dedication. And the vision is often reformulated as the world around us changes, and as we change.

The Third Way is a road that leads us toward the good society. However, it should be acknowledged at the outset that the Third Way is indeed fuzzy at the edges, not fully etched.

Amitai Etzioni – The third way to a good society

‘‘Every School a Great School’Every School a Great School’as an expression of moral purposeas an expression of moral purpose

• What parents want is for their local school to be a great school.

(National Association of School Governors; Education and Skills Select Committee 2004).

• Test of resolve:

− An educational system that enables every individual to achieve their potential and enhance their learning skills;

− a stress on moral purpose and social justice in order to equalise life chances ;

− enhance teaching quality rather than structural change;

− commitment to sustained, systemic change since a focus on individual school improvement distorts social equity.

Towards system wide sustainable reformTowards system wide sustainable reform

Every School a Every School a Great SchoolGreat School

National National PrescriptionPrescription

Schools Leading ReformSchools Leading Reform

Building Capacity PrescriptionPrescription ProfessionalismProfessionalism

System Leadership

Four key drivers to raise achievement and Four key drivers to raise achievement and build capacity for the next stage of reformbuild capacity for the next stage of reform

i. Personalising Learning

ii. Professionalising Teaching

iii. Building Intelligent Accountability

iv. Networking and Collaboration

• 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.

(i) Personalising Learning(i) Personalising Learning‘Joined up learning and teaching’

• Enhanced repertoire of learning & teaching strategies

• Evidence based practice with time for collective inquiry

• Collegial & coaching relationships

• Professional development to tackle within school variation

‘The Edu-Lancet’

A peer-reviewed journal published for

practitioners by practitioners & regularly read by the profession to keep abreast of R&D.

(ii) Professionalising Teaching(ii) Professionalising Teaching‘Teachers as researchers,

schools as learning communities’

• Moderated teacher assessment and AfL at all levels

• ‘Bottom-up’ targets for every child and use of pupil performance data

• Value added data to help identify strengths / weaknesses

• Rigorous self-evaluation linked to improvement strategies and school profile to demonstrate success

‘Charteredexaminers’

Experienced teachers gain certification to

oversee rigorous internal assessment as a basis for externally awarded

qualifications.

(iii) Building Intelligent Accountability(iii) Building Intelligent Accountability

‘Balancing internal and external accountability and assessment’

• Best practice captured and highly specified

• Capacity built to transfer and sustain innovation across system

• Greater responsibility taken for neighbouring schools

• Inclusion and Extended Schooling

‘Autonomous Federations’

Groups of schools opt out of LEA control but

accept responsibility for all students in their area

(iv) Networking and Collaboration(iv) Networking and Collaboration

‘Disciplined innovation, collaboration and building social capital’

Networks & Collaboration

PersonalisedLearning

ProfessionalTeaching

SYSTEM

LEADERSHIP

Intelligent Accountability

4 drivers mould to context through 4 drivers mould to context through system leadershipsystem leadership

System Leadership: A PropositionSystem 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.’

System leaders share five striking System leaders share five striking characteristics, they:characteristics, they:

• measure their success in terms of improving student learning and strive to both raise the bar and narrow the gap(s).

• are fundamentally committed to the improvement of teaching and learning.

• develop their schools as personal and professional learning communities.

• strive for equity and inclusion through acting on context and culture.

• understand that in order to change the larger system you have to engage with it in a meaningful way.

15

25

34

44

63

49

43

40

36

29

24

19

15

5

7

8

8

5

15 18

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%Excellent/Very good

Good

Satisfactory

Unsatisfactory/Poor

Teaching

Behaviour, including theincidence of exclusions

Overall effectiveness of the school

How well the pupilsachieve

The leadership andmanagement of the

Headteacher and key staff

(OFSTED Annual Report 2003)

Evidence from OFSTED suggests that teaching is still a relatively weak area

‘‘Seven Strong Claims about School Leadership’Seven Strong Claims about School Leadership’

• School leadership is second only to classroom instruction as an influence on student learning.

• Almost all successful (school) leaders draw on the same repertoire of basic leadership practices.

• It is the enactment of the same basic leadership practices – not the practices themselves – that is responsive to the context.

• School leaders improve pupil learning indirectly through their influence on staff motivation and working conditions.

• School leadership has a greater influence on schools and pupils when it is widely distributed.

• Some patterns of leadership distribution are much more effective than others.

• A small handful of personal “traits” explain a high proportion of the variation (such as being open minded, flexible, persistent and optimistic) in leader effectiveness.

Personal Development

Strategic Acumen

Managing Teaching and Learning

Developing People

Developing Organisations

Work as a Work as a Change Agent Change Agent

Lead a Lead a Successful Successful Educational Educational Improvement Improvement Partnership Partnership

Moral Purpose

Partner Partner another another School School Facing Facing Difficulties Difficulties and and Improve itImprove it

Lead and Improve a School in Lead and Improve a School in Challenging CircumstancesChallenging Circumstances

Act as a Act as a Community Community LeaderLeader

Leadership for LearningLeadership for Learning

Setting direction 

• Total commitment to enable every learner to reach their potential 

• Ability to translate vision into whole school programmes

 

Managing Teaching and Learning

• Ensure every child is inspired and challenged through personalized learning

• Develop a high degree of clarity about and consistency of teaching quality

 

Developing people 

• Enable students to become more active learners

• Develop schools as professional learning communities

 

Developing the organization 

• Create an evidence-based school

• Extend an organization’s vision of learning to involve networks

I wrote (with Bruce Joyce) some time ago I wrote (with Bruce Joyce) some time ago that:that:

Learning experiences are composed of content, process and social climate. As

teachers we create for and with our children opportunities to explore and build important areas of knowledge,

develop powerful tools for learning, and live in humanizing social conditions.

Powerful Learning …Powerful Learning …Is the ability of learners to respond successfully to the tasks they are set, as well as the task they set themselves In particular, to:

• Integrate prior and new knowledge

• Acquire and use a range of learning skills

• Solve problems individually and in groups

• Think carefully about their successes and failures

• Accept that learning involves uncertainty and difficulty

All this has been termed “meta-cognition” – it is the learners’ ability to take control over their own learning processes.

Teaching ModelsTeaching Models

Our toolbox is the models of teaching, actually models for learning, Our toolbox is the models of teaching, actually models for learning, that simultaneously define the nature of the content, the learning that simultaneously define the nature of the content, the learning strategies, and the arrangements for social interaction that create strategies, and the arrangements for social interaction that create the learning contexts of our students. For example, in powerful the learning contexts of our students. For example, in powerful classrooms students learn models for:classrooms students learn models for:

• Extracting information and ideas from lectures and presentations

• Memorising information

• Building hypotheses and theories

• Attaining concepts and how to invent them

• Using metaphors to think creatively

• Working effectively with other to initiate and carry out co-operative tasks

Curriculum Development

The Dialectic between Curriculum, Learning and TeachingThe Dialectic between Curriculum, Learning and Teaching

Group Investigation

Role Playing

Synectics

Knowledge Mnemonic Simulations

Inductive thinking

Mnemonic Inductive Thinking

Simulations Concept

Attainment

Inductive Thinking

Concept Attainment

Inductive Thinking

Concept Attainment

Mo

dels o

f Learn

ing

– T

oo

ls for T

eachin

g

Curriculum Development

Evaluation

Comprehension

Analysis

Synthesis

Application

System Leadership and Student AchievementSystem Leadership and Student Achievement

To sustain improvement:• the leadership develops a narrative for improvement

• the leadership explicitly organises the school for improvement

• the leadership is highly focussed on improving the quality of teaching and learning (and student welfare)

• the leadership creates:• clarity (of the systems established)

• consistency (of the systems spread across school), and

• continuity (of the systems over time)

• the leadership creates internal accountability and reciprocity

• the leadership works to change context as a key component of their improvement strategy

Teacher performance – DeterminantsPj = f (Mj, Aj, Sj)

P = teacher’s performance

M = teacher’s motivation

A = teacher’s abilities, professional knowledge and skills

S = work settings and features of their school and classroom

SchoolLeadership

Motivation

Capacity

Setting

Pupil Learning

Altered Practices

*

** **

***

***

*

Effects of School Leadership on Student Learning

System leaders share five striking System leaders share five striking characteristics, they:characteristics, they:

• measure their success in terms of improving student learning and strive to both raise the bar and narrow the gap(s).

• are fundamentally committed to the improvement of teaching and learning.

• develop their schools as personal and professional learning communities.

• strive for equity and inclusion through acting on context and culture.

• understand that in order to change the larger system you have to engage with it in a meaningful way.

Personal Development

Strategic Acumen

Managing Teaching and Learning

Developing People

Developing Organisations

Work as a Work as a Change Agent Change Agent

Lead a Lead a Successful Successful Educational Educational Improvement Improvement Partnership Partnership

Moral Purpose

Partner Partner another another School School Facing Facing Difficulties Difficulties and and Improve itImprove it

Lead and Improve a School in Lead and Improve a School in Challenging CircumstancesChallenging Circumstances

Act as a Act as a Community Community LeaderLeader

System Leadership Roles

A range of emerging roles, including heads who:

• develop and lead a successful educational improvement partnership

across local communities to support welfare and potential

• choose to lead and improve a school in extremely challenging

circumstances

• partner another school facing difficulties and improve it. This

category includes Executive Heads and leaders of more informal

improvement arrangements

• act as curriculum and pedagogic innovators who develop and then

transfer best pracatice across the system

• Work as change agents or experts leaders as National Leader of

Education, School Improvement Partner, Consultant Leader.

Networking and Segmentation:Networking and Segmentation:Highly Differentiated Improvement StrategiesHighly Differentiated Improvement Strategies

Type of School

Leading Schools

Succeeding, self-improving schools

Succeeding schools with internal variations

Underperforming schools

Low attaining schools

Below floor target

Key strategies – responsive to context and need

- Become leading practitioners

- Formal federation with lower-performing schools

- Regular local networking for school leaders

- Between school curriculum development

- Consistency interventions: such as AfL.

- Subject specialist support to particular depts.

- Linked school support for underperforming depts.

- Underperforming pupil programmes, e.g. catch-up.

- Formal support in Federation structure

- Consultancy in core subjects and best practice

- Intensive Support Programme

- New provider: e.g. Academy.

Segmentation requires a fair degree Segmentation requires a fair degree of boldness …of boldness …

• All failing and underperforming (and potentially low achieving) schools should have a leading school that works with them in either a formal grouping Federation or in more informal partnership.

• Schools should take greater responsibility for neighbouring schools so that the move towards networking encourages groups of schools to form collaborative arrangements outside of local control.

• The incentives for greater system responsibility should include significantly enhanced funding for students most at risk.

• A rationalisation of national and local agency functions and roles to allow the higher degree of national and regional co-ordination for this increasingly devolved system.

POWERFUL LEARNING

EXPERIENCES

The Systemic AgendaThe Systemic Agenda

• 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.

• Schools use the principles of segmentation to transform the system

The future reform agenda is about schools supporting each other in a new educational landscape:

A Three Phase Strategy for School A Three Phase Strategy for School ImprovementImprovement

• Phase One: Establishing the Process

• Phase Two: Going Whole School

• Phase Three: Sustaining Momentum

Phase One: Establishing the ProcessPhase One: Establishing the Process

• Commitment to the School Improvement Approach

• Selection of School Improvement Group or Cadre

• Enquiring into the Strengths and Weaknesses of

the School

• Designing the Whole School Programme

• Seeking Partners and Seeding the Whole School

Approach

Establishing the ProcessEstablishing the Process

During this early phase, strategies need to be clear and direct

focusing on a limited number of basic curriculum and

organisational issues, to build the confidence and competence:

• provision of early, intensive outside support;

• surveying opinion; disaggregating data on student achievement

• identify a school improvement group (SIG), who receive specific

training in classroom practices crucial to achieving school’s goals:

− focus on managing learning behaviour, not behaviour management;

−work on re-skilling teams of teachers in specific repertoire

• progressive restructuring to generate new opportunities for leadership,

collaboration and planning.

Preparing for School ImprovementPreparing for School Improvement

Pre-conditions School Level Preparations

Unifying Focus Means

Commitment to School Improvement

General consensus on values

Understanding of key principles

Shared values A mandate from

staff Leadership

potential Identification of

change agents Willingness to

make structural changes

Capacity for improvement

Improvement Theme

-An enquiry into Teaching and

Learning

School Improvement

Strategy

Phase Two: Going Whole SchoolPhase Two: Going Whole School

• The Initial Whole School INSET Day(s)

• Establishing the Curriculum and Teaching Focus

• Establishing the Learning Teams:

− Curriculum groupings

− Peer coaching or ‘buddy’ groups

• The Initial Cycle of Enquiry

• Sharing Initial Success on the Curriculum Tour

Going Whole SchoolGoing Whole School

Developmental activities at this stage include:

• The use of whole school training days to focus on practical

teaching and learning strategies.

• The allocation of dedicated time for school improvement

activities.

• The organising of staff into critical friendship groups.

• Monitoring progress through a focus on student learning.

• Generating an on-going dialogue about values across staff

and with key groupings such as heads of faculty.

Curriculum TourCurriculum Tour

WHOLE SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT PRIORITYAn Enquiry into Teaching and Learning

Dept. A(Inductive Teaching)

Dept. B(Inductive Teaching)

Dept C(Inductive Teaching)

Memory SynecticsGroup Work

WHOLE SCHOOL WORKING TOWARDS REPERTOIRE OF TEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES

StageI

StageII

StageIII

‘Curriculum Tour’

Phase Three: Sustaining MomentumPhase Three: Sustaining Momentum

• Establishing Further Cycles of Enquiry

• Building Teacher Learning into the Process

• Sharpening the Focus on Student Learning

• Finding Ways of Sharing Success and Building

Networks

• Reflecting on the Culture of the School and

Department

Sustaining MomentumSustaining Momentum

• new understandings about learning & change management;

• more flexible and creative use of space, time, and people;

• widespread use of collaborative ways of working; and

• redefinition & adaptation of ideas through the use of evidence.

When these are internalised then not only will student attainment

have risen but also the school will be a learning organisation.

School improvement is not another project. It needs to be

built into the fabric of the school & the ways teachers work

together.

Moving to Scale

Cohorts of 6 - 8 Schools

6 - 8 Members of School Improvement Group

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

PLAN

Cohort A | | ……………………….

Cohort B | | ………….........

Cohort C | | ………….....

iNet’s Mission

“to create powerful and innovative networks of schools committed to achieving systematic,

significant and sustained change that ensures outstanding outcomes for all students in all

settings”.

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

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.

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

1. Bureaucratic School Systems Continue

• strong pressures towards uniformity

• schools as distinct institutions, knitted together by complex administrative arrangements.

• media commentaries frequently critical in tone, but radical change is resisted.

• fear that change will not address fundamental tasks of guardianship & socialisation, alongside cognitive development & equality of opportunity.

2. Teacher Exodus - ‘Meltdown Scenario’

• crisis triggered by a rapidly ageing profession, exacerbated by low teacher morale and buoyant opportunities in graduate job market

• large size of the teaching force makes improvements in relative attractiveness costly, with long lead times for tangible results

• disparities of the crisis by socio-geographic, as well as subject, area.

• creates vicious circle of retrenchment & conflict

3. Schools as Core Social Centres

• schools enjoy widespread recognition as the most effective bulwark against social, family and community fragmentation.

• extensive shared responsibilities exist between schools and other community bodies, expertise and institutions of further education, shaping, not conflicting with, high teacher professionalism.

• generous levels of financial support meet demanding requirements for quality learning in all communities, elevating the esteem of teachers and schools.

4. Schools as Focused Learning Organisations

• schools are revitalised around strong knowledge agendas (rather than a social agenda), in a culture of high quality experimentation, diversity and innovation.

• new forms of evaluation and competence assessment flourish.

• ICT is used extensively alongside other learning media, traditional and new.

• knowledge management moves to the fore, and the very large majority of schools have extensive links to tertiary education and other organisations.

5. Learning Networks - Networked Society

• dissatisfaction with institutionalised provision & diversified demand leads to the abandonment of schools in favour of multiple learning networks.

• networks are founded on extensive possibilities of powerful, inexpensive ICT.

• deinstitutionalisation of school systems becomes part of the emerging ‘network society’.

• various cultural, religious and community voices come to the fore in the socialisation and learning arrangements for children.

6. Extending the Market Model

• governments encourage diversification in a broader environment of market-led change,

• many new providers are encouraged by reforms of funding structures, incentives and regulation.

• flourishing indicators, measures & accreditation arrangements start to displace direct public monitoring and curriculum regulation.

• Innovation abounds, as do painful transitions and inequalities.

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

Networks & Collaboration

PersonalisedLearning

ProfessionalTeaching

SYSTEM

LEADERSHIP

Intelligent Accountability

Critical path: how do we get there?

The Logic of System LeadershipThe Logic of System Leadership

Learning Potential of all Students

Repertoire of Learning Skills

Models of Learning - Tools for Teaching

Embedded in Curriculum Context and Schemes of Work

Whole School Emphasis on High Expectations and Pedagogic Consistency

Sharing Schemes of Work and Curriculum Across and Between Schools, Clusters, Districts, LAs and Nationally

Paulo Freire once said…Paulo Freire once said…

“No one educates anyone else

Nor do we educate ourselves

We educate one another in communion

In the context of living in this world”

David Hopkins is 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. He is also a Professorial Fellow at the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne. 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 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. His new book Every School a Great School has just been published by The Open University Press.

Email: d.hopkins@ioe.ac.ukWebsite: www.davidhopkins.co.uk

Professor David Hopkins HSBC Chair in International Leadership