Leas and School Improvement: What Is It That Makes the Difference

LEAs and school improvement: what is it that makes the difference?

Mel Ainscow and Andy Howes University of Manchester

Paper presented at the British Education Research Association Annual Conference, University of Leeds, 13-15 September 2001

1 We are currently working with a number of LEAs in relation to their school improvement strategies, focusing specifically on the relationship between achievement and inclusion. Whilst our main purpose is to carry out research that can contribute directly to the development of practice in the field, we have also found that our work is helping to throw light on the wider policy contexts in which practice develops. In this paper we use the evidence of a recently completed three-year evaluative study of one Authority in order to illustrate the impact of these policies and the way they play out in respect to the attempts of LEAs to develop useful roles in respect to school improvement.

When we use the term LEA, we mean not only the central organisation overseeing education in an area, but also the schools, and therefore headteachers, teachers and children who are involved in education in that area.

The policy context In an earlier paper we told the story of how we had prepared an evaluation report for one LEA, looking specifically at the impact of its work on schools (Ainscow, Howes and Nicalaidou, 2000). Overall we were very positive in our comments, not least because of the reactions we had picked up during our discussions with Heads and teachers. However, senior officers within the LEA expressed concern about certain aspects of our report. They were particularly doubtful about the sections in which we referred to the long hours spent by members of their service in preparing schools for Ofsted inspections. Their concern was that during their forthcoming LEA inspection this evidence could leave them exposed to criticism, since national guidelines discourage such interventions.

This story illustrates the sense of uncertainty and, indeed, threat that seems to permeate the work of senior staff within English LEAs at the moment. It illustrates a pattern that is evident within current LEA practice and which, in our experience, can act as a perverse barrier to sustainable school improvement.

Many of the LEA staff we meet in our research work closely with schools to analyse complex social situations in order to develop effective strategies that fit with local circumstances. Often their involvement is welcomed by headteachers who see a need for external support from colleagues who bring an outside perspective and a critical edge to their strategic thinking. In these contexts some of the approaches required as part of the national strategy for educational improvement, such as target setting and action plans, are often seen as being irrelevant or even as barriers to progress. Consequently, LEA staff are faced with considerable tensions as they use their deep experience of local conditions in order to do what they believe to be most appropriate, whilst, at the same time, pretending to adopt the Government’s prescriptions. A worrying aspect of this informal policy of concealment is that it may well prevent those who are guiding the national reform effort from learning as a result of what is happening on the ground.

Bearing these concerns in mind, we will examine the work of one apparently successful LEA, looking in particular at how its approach to school improvement relates to Government requirements, as laid out in the Code of Practice on Local Education Authority –School Relations (DfEE, 2001). In particular, we consider how far its success reflects the requirements of the Code and, indeed, the extent to which the LEA goes beyond these requirements.

An example of good practice? The story is set during a period of three years when the national education system was subject to a series of deep changes in respect to the way in which schools are managed; a period when the Government introduced a series of policies the were intended to transform the working relationships between local authorities and their schools. The experiences and struggles of the particular LEA in relation to these changes, therefore, illuminate the processes involved in these reforms.

During the period 1998 to 2001 a small team of researchers from the University of Manchester was privileged to be able to observe closely colleagues within the Authority as they worked together in order to engage with the challenges of creating a new LEA which had been established in 1998. The new Authority focused its strategy specifically on the area of school improvement. Its success in this respect was signalled in a very positive Ofsted inspection report, published in 2001.

2 Our involvement was funded by the LEA as part of its commitment to the development of its provision. In setting up the arrangement to carry out a process of evaluation that could contribute to development activities we noted that:

Research suggests that local education authorities can and do make a significant contribution to the capacity of schools and teachers to provide effective learning experiences for all their pupils. The evidence is that what LEAs do makes a difference to the ways in which particular innovations are implemented. However, there is far less evidence indicating what it is that makes the difference. Specifically, what can LEAs do to foster improved practice and better learning outcomes in their schools?

The study set out to engage with this agenda, using opportunities provided by the creation of the newly established LEA. The overall aim was be to strengthen the work of the LEA in supporting school improvement, whilst at the same time collecting evidence that could inform wider understandings in the field. The overall context for the study was the Government’s agenda to improve standards for all learners in all schools. The intention was to collect evidence about processes used within the LEA, using a collaborative action research approach. This would focus specifically on the work of the newly created team of School Improvement Officers (SIOs), but would also seek to involve other stakeholders, including, where appropriate, school staff, pupils, parents, officers, governors and elected members.

The methodology The design of the study developed around a contract of commitments that specified the expectations the partners in the initiative would have of one another, a detailed protocol as to how data would be collected and used, and a timeline for reporting the findings. There was also an ethical framework that set out to protect the interests of all participants.

The overall methodology emphasised a strong action research approach that was intended to lead to the development of improved practice within the specific research contexts (i.e. the LEA and its schools), whilst, at the same time, providing theoretical understandings of what these practices involve that would be of interest to a wider audience. The experience of our existing research had led to a commitment to the use of collaborative forms of inquiry that emphasise practitioner research as a means of understanding the development of more effective practices. Specifically it led us to believe that greater understandings of how educational contexts can be developed in order to foster the learning of all children are most likely to emerge from studies in which outsiders, such as ourselves, work alongside teachers, pupils, parents and local authority support staff as they attempt to explore ways of improving their schools. Kurt Lewin’s dictum that you cannot understand an organisation until you try to change it is perhaps the clearest justification for this approach to research (Schein, 2001)

Our aim, then, was to establish working links with members of the SIO team in order that we could understand their work in some detail. Our assumption was that through close involvement we would learn more about what it is they do that has an impact on school improvement. This meant, of course, that we also needed other forms of data that could be used to scrutinise their work from different angles

With this in mind, the study involved a range of approaches that were intended to provide a multiple perspectives on the work of the SIO team. These were as follows:

 Attendance at meetings and conferences Throughout the study we attempted to be present in LEA events that were relevant to the school improvement agenda. On some of these occasions we became involved in making presentations, facilitating discussions or leading workshop activities. Whilst these dual roles meant that it was sometimes more difficult to act as systematic observers, we felt it appropriate to make contributions when invited to do so.

 Shadow visits to schools with School Improvement Officers Through a programme of visits alongside SIOs we were able to get closer to the members of the team and, indeed, to record detailed accounts of their practice. Visits were usually followed by immediate de-briefing sessions during which SIOs could offer their reflections, and the researcher would also share their impressions. Written records of visits were prepared and agreed with the SIO involved.

3  Interviews with staff and pupils in schools, and with individual school improvement officers Impressions gained through observation and shadow visits were compared with other data gained through more systematic forms of interview. In order to introduce an element of triangulation, interviews were carried out separately to shadow visits and by a different member of the research team.

In addition, statistical data on the LEA and individual schools, and an analysis of LEA policy documents and various reports, were used to provide a wider evaluative context for reviewing the qualitative evidence.

There was a strong formative emphasis throughout the study, using interactions between LEA staff and members of the evaluation team, and termly reports and meetings with the whole team, as a means of stimulating regular discussions of the immediate implications of emerging themes. This meant that practitioners were involved in the process of inquiry in ways that we believe contributed to the further development of the LEA’s strategy. A central strategy in this respect was the use of ‘group interpretive processes’ as a means of analysing and interpreting evidence. These involve an engagement with the different perspectives of practitioners and academics in ways that encourage critical reflection, collaborative learning, and mutual critique (Wasser and Bresler, 1996). In this context, the theoretical perspectives of members of the research team provided a means of questioning taken for granted assumptions and helping colleagues within the LEA to consider new possibilities for moving their practices forward.

Defining the strategy During the three years of our involvement in the LEA there was increasing evidence that its school improvement strategy was paying off. Test and examination results rose across all phases of the service, with improvement rates in the Key Stage 2 tests among the highest nationally. And, whilst over the period the LEA had up to 15 schools either requiring special measures or having serious weaknesses, by early 2001 the figures were down to just two with serious weaknesses. In addition, some schools that had previously been in crisis subsequently received positive inspection reports. As a result, in its report on the LEA following the inspection Ofsted stated, ‘This is a remarkable, unique record that is not paralleled elsewhere in the country’.

The actual strategy for school improvement developed within the LEA involved a complex set of interconnected strategies, implemented by a team of hard-working and committed SIOs. In this sense, much can be learnt from what they do and how they do it. Having said that, our close involvement led us to believe that a deeper analysis was needed in order to understand the full significance of what had occurred within the LEA over the three years. Such an analysis also has implications for conceptualisation the forms of learning that can occur as a result of engaging with the LEA’s story.

The American researcher Bruce Joyce argues that school improvement is technically simple but socially complex. In many ways this applies to the story. These is no doubt that those within the LEA have been remarkably creative in inventing ways of working that have stimulated and supporting change within schools. However, we remain unconvinced that simply teaching new people how to use these approaches, or, indeed, lifting them in order to reproduce them in a different context, will have the powerful impact that they have clearly had within the LEA. The problem with such an approach is that it overlooks the essence of the social processes of learning that created the relationships that enabled the strategies to have their powerful impact.

Consequently, we have been reflected on our evidence in order to seek a deeper understanding of what was involved in these ‘social processes of learning’. To assist in this process we have used as our guide the idea of a ‘community of practice’, as developed by Etienne Wenger (1998), focusing specifically on the way he sees learning as ‘a characteristic of practice’.

Although the words ‘community’ and ‘practice’ evoke common images, Wenger has particular definitions of these terms, giving the phrase ‘community of practice’ a specialised meaning. A practice, for example, need not be framed as the work and skill of a particular practitioner. Rather, a practice consists of those things that individuals in a community do, drawing on community resources, to further a set of shared goals. It goes beyond how practitioners complete their tasks, however, to include how they make it through the day, commiserating about the pressures and constraints within which they have to operate.

4 Wenger provides a framework that can be used to analyse learning in social contexts. At the centre of this framework is the concept of a community of practice, a social group engaged in the sustained pursuit of a shared enterprise. Practices are ways of negotiating meaning through social action. In Wenger’s view, meaning arises from two complementary processes, ‘participation’ and ‘reification’. He notes:

Practices evolve as shared histories of learning. History in this sense is neither merely a personal or collective experience nor just a set of enduring artefacts and institutions, but a combination of participation and reification over time. (Page 87)

Participation consists of the shared experiences and negotiations that result from social interaction within a purposive community. Participation is thus inherently local, since shared experiences and negotiation processes will differ from one setting to the next, regardless of their interconnections. So, for example, within the SIO team we saw how hours of meetings, shared visits to schools and informal discussions over hurriedly taken lunches, all helped to develop particular meanings as to what was meant by frequently used phrases such as ‘school self-review’ and ‘support and challenge’. These shared meanings helped to define the particular LEA’s SIOs experience of being a SIO. In the same way we can assume that groups of colleagues doing similar work in another LEA have their own shared histories that give meaning to being a SIO in that particular context.

Reification is the process by which communities of practice produce concrete representations of their practices, such as tools, symbols, rules and documents (and even concepts and theories). So, for example, a document such as the LEA guidance on school self-review, is a reification of the practice of SIOs. It includes a representation of the activities in which SIOs engage, and some illustrations of the conditions and problems that a SIO might encounter in practice.

Wenger argues that learning within a given community can often be best explained within the intertwining of reification and participation. He suggests that these are complementary processes, in that each has the capacity to repair the ambiguity of meaning the other can engender. So, for example, a particular strategy may be developed as part of the SIO planning activities and summarised in a set of guidance for action, providing a codified reification of intended practice. However, the meaning and practical implications of the strategy only become clear as it is tried in the field and discussed between colleagues. In this way, participation results in social learning that could not be produced solely by reification alone. At the same time, the reified products such as documents serve as a kind of memory of practice, cementing in place the new learning.

Although there is no definitive test for judging whether a particular social collectivity should be considered a community of practice, Wenger offers some helpful guidelines. If a community of practice involves mutual engagement, a negotiated enterprise, and a repertoire of resources and practices, then we should expect members to:

 Interact more intensively with, and know more about, others in the community than those outside the community;  Hold their actions accountable (and be willing for others in the community to hold them accountable) more to the community’s joint enterprise than to some other enterprise;  Be more able to evaluate the actions of other members of the community than the actions of those outside the community; and  Draw on locally produced resources and artefacts to negotiate meaning more so than resources and artefacts that are imported from outside the group.

By these criteria the SIO team in our study can be seen as a community of practice. Whilst no doubt they shared commonalities of purpose with colleagues engaged in related work within their LEA and, indeed, with those who have similar duties in other LEAs, the explanation of the learning that led to their practices is grounded in their shared experiences.

We can, then, use the notion of communities of practice to offer some further explanation of what happened in the LEA. It does seem that the key to the LEA’s success lies in its success in encouraging networking at

5 different levels within the service. In particular, the links encouraged between headteachers seemed to encourage the creation of many different communities of practice that helped to break down the sense of intellectual and, indeed, emotional isolation that had characterised the previous working lives of Heads within the LEA. Then, through a complex set of strategies and processes, the LEA facilitated participation and reification procedures that helped such learning communities to grow.

Returning to the ideas of Wenger, we find that he also sees the value of interconnected communities of practice. He uses the term ‘constellation’ to describe a grouping of discrete communities of practice that are related by some form of continuity in meaning - whether purpose, membership, identity, artefacts, history, or environment - across these communities.

From this perspective, the many staff employed within the LEA in our research can not be defined comfortably as a community of practice, due to the many discontinuities that existed within it. On the other hand, our research showed that much had been achieved in encouraging the growth of some continuities that served to give a strong sense of identity amongst those within the LEA, such that, in Wenger’s terms, it may be correct to view it as a ‘constellation of communities of practice’.

Such an analysis seems to provide a way of describing the social processes that took place. Our impression was that these processes were at the heart of the LEA’s success. So, to what extent is this consistent with what the Government has in mind for the future of LEAs?

Looking to the future Whilst the LEA in this study was created before the actual publication of the Code of Practice, it was clearly designed with similar principles in mind. For example, the following extract from the Code provides a reasonable summary of the LEA’s overall approach:

The highest priority for the Local Education Authority is to promote high standards of education. Key to this is its support for self-improvement in all schools. It needs to monitor information and facilitate the sharing of best practice among local schools and more widely. The Authority’s energies and resources should otherwise be focused on schools which monitoring information suggests need further challenge or support to secure improvement (DfEE, 2001) .

When we go into more detail, however, some important differences of emphasis become apparent. These differences seem to relate directly to the social processes of learning that contributed to ways in which practices developed within the LEA. This suggest that if Authorities are to make a positive contribution to school improvement, further thought needs to be given to the Government guidelines within which LEAs are required to operate.

From the point of view of learning in a community of practice, we suggest that the Code of Practice assumes greater significance in an era of change than in a time of stability, when the interpretation is balanced by experience-in-use which comes through participation in improvement efforts.

An analysis of the Code of Practice document points to eight key areas of responsibility that LEAs are expected to take on. We will consider each of these in turn, comparing some of our evidence about what happened in the LEA in our study with what the Code requires.

1. School self-improvement Schools are responsible for their own performance and the achievements of their pupils. They must plan for continuous improvement and need the maximum freedom to make decisions and manage resources.

Certainly the LEA emphasised the idea of school led improvement and we noted that SIOs were often conscious of the danger of creating dependent relationships. Nevertheless, many of the senior staff within the LEA, particularly Headteachers, recognised that they needed considerable technical and, indeed, personal support in learning how to manage change. Often it was through there close relationship with a particular

6 SIO that such support was provided It does seem, then, that if taken literally, the notion of ‘maximum freedom’ could actually be a means of limiting school improvement efforts.

2. Monitoring ….Authorities should monitor the performance of their schools, in order to support and challenge them where necessary

It is here that the focus on ‘maximum freedom’ becomes even more worrying. The Code suggests that monitoring of schools should be based on ‘routinely available information’, such as test data, Ofsted reports and information from school-self review. Indeed, it concludes that an ‘Authority which makes effective use of the full range of information which is routinely available to it will rarely need to visit schools solely for the purpose of gathering further information’. The SIOs in our study had developed a formula for carrying out their visits that certainly reflected the spirit of the Code. In particular, they saw them selves as supporting and, where necessary, challenging school-led improvement strategies. However, all of this was set within a wider context of relationships and procedures that meant that they had developed a deep knowledge of what went on in the schools. In this way they were able to engage senior school staff in discussion of their improvement strategies, bringing to bear their detailed knowledge of particular people (staff and pupils), contexts, policies and practices. It is difficult to see how such understandings could be achieved simply through the use of ‘routinely available’ information of the sort outlined within the Code. SIOs feel that they know their schools, and that it is this knowledge which makes their interventions authentic. By and large, headteachers are in agreement.

3. Target setting Schools are responsible for setting and publishing their own targets for pupil performance, and developing strategies for raising the quality of teaching and learning to ensure that these targets are met…….. The Authority is expected to identify which targets it considers to be insufficiently challenging and set out the action it intends to take to help those schools to exceed them.

The SIOs in our study became increasingly competent at analysing the annual package of performance data provided for schools, whilst also having detailed knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of practice within each school. This meant that they were in a good position to comment on a school’s proposed targets, coming from an informed yet different position from that of the headteacher. The LEA produces a 'school profile' for each school, a very useful digest for comparison of results.

During the run in to a school’s inspection, however, SIOs tended to want to help schools to present themselves in the most favourable way. So, for example, it might be suggested to a Head who had disappointing SAT results in relation to the school’s targets that more children could be placed on the SEN register. Similarly, a Head might be helped to develop of a ‘script’ as to what should be said in the written self-review documents that are prepared for the inspection team, focusing on areas of evidence that seemed to be potentially problematic. Here specific attention would paid to the importance of terminology. So, for example, one SIO said to a Head that it was important to avoid words such as ‘sustaining’ or ‘consolidating’, which might imply an element of coasting. On the other hand, a phrase such as ‘striving to improve’ might be a sensible comment when addressing areas of what seem to be statistical weakness. In relation to such processes we are left reflecting upon what are the intentions. Is the purpose of analysing pupil performance data intended to inform school improvement activity, or, in cases like this, is it simply a form of ‘window dressing’ in preparation for the visit of Ofsted inspectors? If so, there must be a real danger that this emphasis on short-term targets and strategies could act as a barrier to longer-term, sustainable development.

4. Sharing best practice Successful schools will want to share best practice and Authorities have a role in enabling this to be done.

Over the three years of the study we collected evidence indicating an increased understanding of school improvement issues in the schools. We also saw how the actions taken by SIOs acted as a means of facilitating such learning, not least because their detailed knowledge of the strengths of particular schools enabled them to act as brokers in encouraging the sharing of ideas. In carrying out this brokering role, SIOs

7 have been far more subtle than identifying schools as successes for others to emulate. They have sufficient knowledge of, and sufficiently developed relationships with staff in schools to be able to identify particular teachers or key stages who have developed particularly interesting practice in certain areas, thus facilitating much richer sharing.

It also became apparent that SIOs could provide a deeper contribution in respect to the development of teaching. Sometimes their own preoccupation with learning about practice, through observation and discussion, led them to take on a coaching role with staff in school. In this sense, they increasingly could be seen as co-learners, working alongside teachers in order to foster the development of a common language with which colleagues could talk to one another and, indeed, to themselves about detailed aspects of their practice. Research suggests that without such a language teachers find it very difficult to experiment with new possibilities (Ainscow, 1999). This is why having the opportunity to see colleagues at work is so crucial to the success of attempts to develop practice. It is through shared experiences that colleagues can help one another to articulate what they currently do and define what they might like to do. It is also the means whereby taken-for-granted assumptions about particular groups of pupils can be subjected to mutual critique. However, the message is clear: for all of this to be effective, teachers need somebody who can help to make sense of the experience of observing teaching.

5. Identifying schools causing concern In the interests of pupils, Authorities should regard the early identification and provision of support to schools causing concern as their highest priority……..

It was through the increasingly close knowledge of the schools that SIO were able to pick up signs that things were not altogether well. In this way they were often able to mobilise additional human resources in order to enable a school to head off a growing difficulty. In some instances, schools were placed on the LEA’s list of schools causing concern. This signalled that a more formal support strategy was to be involved, with the Headteacher, Chair of Governors and link SIO meeting with a senior LEA officer termly in order to ensure that appropriate measures were in place.

6. Supporting schools causing concern ‘Authorities support for schools causing concern should, whenever possible, be designed to help the school to improve by its own efforts rather than take away its responsibility for self-improvement. Their prime focus in such schools should be to ensure that an effective headteacher and senior management team are in place, working with an effective governing body in pursuit of a good and deliverable action plan’.

SIO's actions in schools causing concern often seemed to be effective, not least in preventing a school from getting into difficulty with Ofsted. However, increasingly SIOs began to question the long term effects of this approach, raising the question of what happens after the LEA has been successful in preventing a school from being categorised as ‘special measures’ or ‘serious weakness’. Their worry was that having helped a school to ‘patch up’, this might provide it with the excuse for not taking serious action to address its difficulties. In this context, of course, the LEA’s commitment to be seen to have fewer schools in difficulties (particularly in the run-in to an inspection), had the potential to create new barriers to school improvement.

7. Adding value Beyond target setting, the Authority’s role in school improvement in successful schools ….. should be limited to activities which the schools themselves agree add value. For example, the Authority can help schools to access support they wish to purchase, either from the Authority or another source.

To consider an LEA as a network or constellation of communities of practice is to resist measures which lead to the isolation of successful schools. Collaboration and extension in such a network are seen to be valuable for those who are succeeding and struggling alike, and are much more difficult with the formal contractual relationships implied in the Code of Practice.

8. Supporting the Implementation of national strategies

8 ……Authorities should also – through advisory service monitoring and visits to schools – support schools in implementing the strategies.

Throughout the Code of Practice, the role of LEAs is reduced to the implementation of national strategies. This implies a very mechanistic view of the interface between policy and practice….

Concluding comments As we have seen, the strategy for fostering school improvement in the LEA in this study was in many ways consistent with the approach now recommended by the Government. In particular, it involves a small team of experienced staff in ‘supporting and challenging’ schools as they take responsibility for reviewing and developing their policies and practice in order to improve achievement. And, of course, this emphasis on school-led improvement strategies is in line with the overall recommendations within the research literature (e.g. Hopkins et al, 1994; Fullan, 1991).

On the other hand, other aspects of the work of this particular LEA suggest that some elements of the Government’s approach are less positive. In particular, the emphasis on school autonomy, if taken too far, would mean that many of the features that have made this particular LEA successful would be almost impossible to introduce. At the same time, the current approach to the evaluation of schools, through comparisons made on the basis of aggregate test and examination results, and through the Ofsted inspection process, seems to encourage a focus on short-term targets that may act as a barrier to sustainable school improvement.

References

Ainscow, M. (1999) Understanding the Development of Inclusive Schools. Falmer

Ainscow, M., Howes, H. and Nicolaidou, M. (2000b) The changing roles of English LEAs: a study of practice. Paper presented at the British Education Research Association Conference, Cardiff

Hopkins, D., Ainscow, M. and West, M. (1994) School Improvement in an Era of Change. London; Cassell

Schein, E.H. (2001) Clinical inquiry/research. In P.Reason and H. Bradbury (Eds.) Handbook of Action Research. London: Sage

Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge University Press