Annual Report 2014–15

Annual Report 2014–15 Published February 2016 Challenge Partners is a national network of local school partnerships. Our mission is to enable every pupil to experience the combined wisdom of the education system. Contents The Partnership 4 Our Collective Aims 12 Our Activities 16 Finances 28 Looking Forward 31 List of Partner Schools 33 Message from the Chief Executive This year our fledgling organisation reached a number of milestones. The first and most significant was that we entered our fifth year. During that time we have learnt much about how to run a successful national network of local Hubs of schools with a common purpose of providing the best education possible for all our pupils, especially the most disadvantaged. Membership of the Network of Excellence reached over 300 schools. This increase came from some new Hubs and also the continual growth of our existing ones. The next milestone was our decision not to form a Challenge Partners MAT. This was made for two reasons. The considerable additional funding we would have had to provide to support its formation, and that our leadership team felt our role was to support those members who wished to form their own MATs and not to compete with them. There are now over 30 MATs in Challenge Partners, with more joining. Nearly a third of the schools are now in MATs and the numbers continue to increase significantly. This has caused us to focus on our core provision for our schools and that now includes the very popular weekly email and a national brokering service. The latter is in its early stages, but like the peer review before it we are convinced it will prove to be an invaluable resource for the development of our schools. I indicated the key role that the leadership team have played in wisely steering our development. I would like We have learnt much about to thank them for their hard work and support. Two of them, Teresa Tunnadine and Roger Pope who have how to run a successful been with us since our conception have recently national network of local Hubs stepped down. I am pleased to say their Hubs continue to thrive and they have taken up other important roles of schools with a common in the education system. We thank them and wish purpose of providing the best them success in their new roles. education possible for all our As ever we strive to improve the service we provide students, especially the most for our Partners and to meet with them the challenges they face. disadvantaged. Professor Sir George Berwick CBE Chief Executive 2 CHALLENGE PARTNERS The Partnership About Challenge Partners We provide locally organised networks that pool resources and share best practice strategies. Challenge Partners is a national We also provide a wide range of support to schools including unrivalled peer-review audits, toolkits and network of local school resources to help deliver best practice, training partnerships, owned and led opportunities and more. by its member schools. Challenge Partners schools are improving at rates higher than the national average: the vast majority Our mission is to enable every pupil to experience of schools in the Partnership are already deemed the combined wisdom of the education system. good and outstanding. With a proven track record We do this by facilitating effective collaboration in leadership excellence, we aim to be a world-class through our trusted membership network, making knowledge-sharing community leading the way the knowledge and skills of the best available in school improvement and raising the standards to all, and so improve the quality of sustainable of education for all. leadership and teaching in all our schools. 4 CHALLENGE PARTNERS Our approach THE FOUR CAPITALS Challenge Partners is founded on values The development of four areas of capital is essential in of collaboration, accountability, openness achieving an effective knowledge-managed community. and trust. We work within an ethical framework to achieve the improved performance of our students. We refer to this as our moral purpose, and it underpins everything we do. Because many of the excellent solutions K N in the school system to all the issues faced O L W A by school leaders often do not reside I L C E with those who need them, we’ve adopted O D S G a knowledge-management approach: E by effectively sharing the knowledge of outstanding practice we can improve the life chances of the young people we serve through: Xcreating the moral climate for O knowledge-sharing between staff RG AL ANISATION and schools (Moral Capital) Xidentifying those that have the MORAL knowledge of effective school practice and capturing it (Knowledge Capital) Xequipping the staff and schools with As a result of this approach, the number of people and the social skills to share their knowledge schools that can deliver best practice increases, as does effectively (Social Capital) the best practice itself. Our approach is to learn from the best, whilst simultaneously challenging them to learn Xsetting up the organisational systems for more. We reduce the gap between the highest and lowest them to share this knowledge with those performing schools. At the same time we seek to improve who need to learn (Organisational Capital). the performance of those at the top, thereby creating a sustained ‘upward convergence’ in the performance These four foundations of effective of our schools, teachers and pupils. knowledge-management drove the school-to-school approach to the London Increase the top Challenge, and underpins the work of through effective Teaching School Alliances; they are now learning partnerships being adopted by many emerging Multi- (mainly external) Academy Trusts. “Challenge Partners is a genuine collaboration between equals.” PERFORMANCE Roger Pope Reduce disparity Principal of Kingsbridge through effective Community College internal learning partnerships TIME “ I am pleased that we are part of the Partnership, and it has brought significant benefits to our school. As with any partnership, you only get out what you put into it.” Robert Lobatto Barnhill Community High School A School-Led Collaborative The operational structure of Challenge Partners draws upon those developed by groups like the John Lewis Partnership. Their structures provide the management with the freedom to be entrepreneurial and competitive in the way it is run, while giving the company’s members, the Partner schools, rights and responsibilities through active involvement in the organisation. “ In the current educational Senior Partners lead their own Hub and manage the local activities with the assistance of a Hub Manager. climate, the need for schools Senior Partners are the elected representative voice of to work together has never the Partner schools. They advise on matters of strategic leadership, priorities of the group’s activities and been greater.” together agree the framework within which Challenge Partners operates, ensuring that the Partnership Sarah Boyse Head of Teaching School, remains a genuine school-led collaborative. Altrincham Grammar School for Girls The Senior Partners Dr Penny Alison Mike Dame Yasmin Julie George Sara Steve Barrett Beane Bettles Bevan Bourdon-Pierre Croxford Davey Davies William Stephen Kate Sally John Gary Caroline John Deighan Dunster Frood Garrett Grove Handforth Haynes Hernandez Dame Susan Rebecca Kieran Leonie Dame Vicki Adrian Roger Matt Jowett Meredith Osborne Osborne Paterson Percival Pope Rampton Ian Carolyn Dr Jo Teresa Dr Josie Anthony Robertson Robson Saxton Tunnadine Valentine Welch ANNUAL REPORT 2014–15 7 Leadership in a changing landscape BY DAME SUE JOHN I am excited by the energy and embrace the ‘triple focus’ of leadership required in our dynamism that Challenge Partners global educational landscape. His thesis aligns with has generated in our rapidly changing Challenge Partners’ belief in the importance of educational landscape. It is increasingly demonstrating our ‘inner focus’ through our guiding clear that we are moving towards a values and moral commitment to collaboration. The system where all schools are in theory ‘other focus’ supporting the organisational and social highly autonomous, and in which there is significant capital required to connect with other people and to pressure to federate or become part of a MAT. mobilise our knowledge. Finally, the ‘outer focus’ which More schools are becoming eligible for intervention helps us to navigate in the larger world and to engage through the government’s ‘coasting schools’ policy: with key organisations at a national and global level. commissioning of school places and both structural and school improvement interventions are now often The genesis of Challenge Partners was rooted firmly done at a regional level. I would argue that there is in the need for schools to challenge each other if the capacity across Challenge Partners schools to support school-led system was to succeed and lead to raising RSCs in providing credible, practitioner-led support standards and improved outcomes for all of our pupils. to underperforming schools. Our annual QA Review whereby schools hold It is interesting to recognise that when Challenge each other to account has been subject to a rigorous, Partners was launched in 2011 the majority of schools independent evaluation conducted by Dr Peter were maintained schools or individual academy Matthews and Marcia Headon. Professor Chris convertors and now approximately 25% belong Husbands’ in his introduction to the publication to a MAT. We believe the trust that has been Multiple Gains, highlights the independent judgement built within our Hub structure has supported the that the success of our peer-evaluation model is based development of MATs, based on a strong foundation on the collective educational ambition and mutual of challenge, support, openness and collective trust built up within Challenge Partners. We believe the trust built within The QA Reviews are not an end in themselves and we have now established a matching and brokering model our Hub structure has supported which provides school improvement support at both the development of MATs, a local level and more widely across the Partnership.

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