Annual Report 2018 Published January 2019 Our goal is to reduce educational inequality and improve the life chances of all children. Through collaboration, challenge and professional development, we are working to ensure every school community can benefit from the combined wisdom of the whole system. Contents Foreword 2 WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE STAND FOR 3 Celebrating success and building for the future 4 Our mission, our values 6 Achieving, sustaining and sharing excellence 8 Our Network of Excellence — 2018–19 partnership year 10 WHAT WE DO 23 The Network of Excellence 24 The Quality Assurance Review 26 Leadership Development Days 31 School Support Directory 31 Programmes tackling educational disadvantage 32 Challenge the Gap 32 EAL in the Mainstream Classroom 35 Getting Ahead London 36 2018–19 pilot programmes 37 Growing the Top – Stand-Out Schools 37 MAT Peer Review 37 Events 38 IMPACT 39 Our aims 40 Impact and performance against our aims 41 Hubs 44 Challenge Partners and ImpactEd 49 Meet the team 52 Schools participating in our programmes 54 Foreword Jon Coles Chair of Trustees 2018 has been a momentous year for Challenge Partners, with the retirement of Professor Sir George Berwick as CEO and the appointment of Dr Kate Chhatwal as his successor. George has been integral to the growth and success of Challenge Partners in its first years and the organisation is an important part of his legacy of change and innovation in education over a long and distinguished career. I won’t be the only one to miss his wisdom and insight. We have been fortunate to attract Kate as our new CEO. Her excellent track record in education policy, development and delivery, including at Department for Education, The Future Leaders Trust and Southwark Teaching School Alliance makes her an absolutely ideal person to continue the development and with trust in order to enable everyone to benefit of Challenge Partners and to take it into the next from the shared wisdom of the education system. exciting phase of its development. In discussion with Senior Partners, Hub Managers, our Before and since Kate joined us, we have thought hard Education Advisory Group, the Board and leadership about this next stage of development and spent some team, we felt that it was a good moment to refresh the time reflecting on our purpose and on the values that statement of our values and mission to bring out more guide us. Founded to continue the work of collaborative clearly how our values can guide us in this next phase school improvement begun within London Challenge, of work. Schools increasingly work together in new configurations and much has changed in education policy since we began Challenge Partners. Yet in Schools increasingly work new forms, the challenges of sharing knowledge and together in new configurations best practice remain central to the task of improving education. Our new statement of mission and values, and much has changed in which you can find on pages 6 and 7, sets out, we education policy since we began hope, how we will continue to work to our founding Challenge Partners. Yet in new principles while meeting today’s challenges. forms, the challenges of sharing At this time of financial and other pressures in education, it is perhaps more important than ever that knowledge and best practice colleagues determined to carry on improving continue remain central to the task of to invest in collaboration and innovation. It is therefore a source of real encouragement as well as pride that the improving education. partnership has continued to grow over the last year. I have no doubt that by working together, sharing we have always based our work on the goal of ‘upwards knowledge and using their collective voice, the schools convergence’ — the idea that spreading our combined making up Challenge Partners will continue to thrive, knowledge will help all to improve and accelerate whatever the future holds. I hope that you enjoy this improvement most for those with the greatest need. Annual Report and take satisfaction from all we have Our work has always been based on sharing openly achieved together. 2 CHALLENGE PARTNERS WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE STAND FOR ANNUAL REPORT 2018 3 Celebrating success and building for the future Dr Kate Chhatwal CEO In education there is often a significant In 2018, we continued to build on the successes lag between the hard work of staff and of the first seven years of Challenge Partners, while students and the formal reporting of considering how best to respond to the challenges and results — by which time we’ve moved opportunities ahead. The period since 2011 has seen on to the next thing. This can mean that significant changes to many aspects of the educational we miss the chance to learn from our landscape, from curriculum and qualifications reform successes and thank those responsible. I am therefore delighted that this report provides an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of our schools The fact that Challenge Partners and partnership. schools continue to outperform Highlights include continued growth in the number others nationally underlines the of schools in our network, and sustained impact benefits of this outward-looking, on the children and communities they serve, and on the wider system. Our collective impact is brought to partnership approach. life in the case studies you can read throughout the report, which highlight just some of the amazing across all phases and stages of schooling, to the practice and people behind the numbers. huge growth of academies, teaching schools and area education partnerships. At the same time there have been seismic shifts in the global political and financial landscape, contributing to social and labour market changes, which seem only to be intensified and accelerated by the development of new technology and social media. Some of these changes bring new opportunities, others great challenge. Sometimes the immense pressure of strained budgets, teacher shortages, and relentless accountability can lead schools to pull up the drawbridge. Yet in Challenge Partners, we have seen an enduring generosity of spirit, and thirst for peer collaboration and challenge. The fact that Challenge Partners schools continue to outperform others nationally underlines the benefits of this outward-looking, partnership approach. While national and local government initiatives often focus primarily on educational deficits, it is a source of great pride for Challenge Partners that we are able to support schools at all stages of their improvement journey — including already high-performing schools looking to develop further. In her reflections, our Executive Director, Dame Sue John, shares the development of our Growing the Top – Stand-Out 4 CHALLENGE PARTNERS Schools pilot programme, which is providing Nationally, there are now more multi-academy trusts opportunities for some of the exceptional schools in (MATs) than there were single academies in 2011 when Challenge Partners to learn with and from each other, Challenge Partners was formed¹. Responding to the other sectors, and beyond our shores. growing proportion of academies in our partnership, 2018 also saw an acceleration of work with the 164 Our drive for excellence in education is matched only MATs represented. This included a successful event by our drive for equity, and narrowing achievement promoting collaboration and challenge among MAT gaps remains a priority across our partnership. In leaders, and the launch of our MAT peer review pilot, 2018–19 we are seeking to build on the important building on our successful school Quality Assurance learning from our Challenge the Gap programme Reviews. After further testing and refinement, these and Education Endowment Foundation (EEF)-funded MAT reviews will be rolled out more widely in 2019. EAL in the Mainstream Classroom pilot, and to further embed a focus on tackling disadvantage in all that To end almost where I started: it is good to take the we do. Every school’s Quality Assurance Review time to acknowledge achievements, and this report explicitly addresses the experience and outcomes of is an important celebration of the schools who are disadvantaged children, while many of our hubs and Challenge Partners. At the same time, it provides schools are exploring and sharing innovative ways an opportunity to look forward, to demonstrate our of tackling educational inequality. We have intensified determination to continue to push boundaries and our efforts to facilitate the sharing of evidence and shape the system around us. What remains constant is effective practice between our 84 special schools the commitment to our mission of fostering excellence and alternative provisions, and between them and and equity, and to being truly practitioner-led. mainstream settings. Our curriculum project, due to report next summer, will consider how the needs ¹ In 2011 there were just over 1,000 academies. By the end of 2018, of disadvantaged children can and should be taken this had risen to over 8,000 academies in around 1,400 multi- into account in curriculum design. academy trusts. ANNUAL REPORT 2018 5 Our mission, our values As mentioned in the foreword from our Chair of Trustees, we have been working with Senior Partners, Hub Managers, our Education Advisory Group and Board of Trustees to update our statements of our mission and values. Given the centrality of these to our collective endeavours, and the engagement of our schools in their formulation, we hope they articulate values and a purpose that all of our schools can continue to subscribe to. Mission Our goal is to reduce educational inequality and improve the life chances of all children. Through collaboration, challenge and professional development, we are working to ensure every school community can benefit from the combined wisdom of the whole system. 6 CHALLENGE PARTNERS Values We thought it would be helpful to share the previous description of our values alongside the new ones, so you can see how they have evolved.