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School Leadership and Partnerships

Brian Lightman General Secretary November 2013

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Confident Constrained

Exam results safe

Oversubscribed

Well to do catchment

Very good, recent Ofsted report

Parents supportive

Stable staffing

Stable industrial relations

Close to floor targets

Free school opening down the

road

Surplus places

Challenging catchment

Ofsted could come any time

Staffing

Industrial action

Can choose to ignore government policy

Curriculum designed according to long

term vision of leadership

Able to relax about accountability

measures

Unlikely to be at risk if inspected

Teaching can be innovative and creative

Reactive to government policy

Curriculum dominated by

external demands

Can never relax about

accountability measures

Focused on Ofsted framework

Teaching to the test – constrained

by C/D borderline

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The purpose of education?

To build mastery of key subjects, skills and concepts

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The purpose of education?

To prepare young people to be effective and successful in the workplace

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The purpose of education?

To inspire and equip young people to learn how to learn – and to be lifelong learners

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The purpose of education?

To develop resilience and creativity through learning from failure

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The purpose of education?

To develop informed, and act citizens who contribute to society

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The purpose of education?

To enable young people to grow up as balanced, happy and fulfilled individuals

John Lennon

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More functional

Individual

Lessfunctional

Collective

The purpose of education?

Better life chances

Good society

Mastery of key skills

Active citizen

Contributing member of society

Skills for work and career

High achievementFulfill potential

Inquiring, creative and informed learner

Happy and balanced individual

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The focus of the curriculum?

KNOWLEDGEbalancing conceptual and practical

and connect the content to real-world relevance

META-LAYERlearning how to learn,

interdisciplinarity, use of ICT, systems thinking

SKILLSdeveloping higher-order skills such as the ‘4 C’s’: Creativity,

Critical thinking, Communication, Collaboration

CHARACTERnurturing behaviours and values for a changing and challenging

world: adaptability, persistence, resilience and moral-related traits

(integrity, justice, empathy)Source: Schleicher, A 2012, Preparing Teachers and Developing School Leaders for the 21st Century: Lessons from around the world, OECD

The challenge of seeking a consensus.

Development of a clear, widely-owned and stable statement of the outcome that all schools are asked to deliver. This should go beyond the merely academic, into the behaviours and attitudes schools should foster in everything they do. It should be the basis on which we judge all new policy ideas, schools, and the structures we set up to monitor them.

CBI First Steps report

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Employability / RPA etc

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Schools cannot do it on their own• IAG / work experience etc.• Ensuring that all young people have routes into employment.• Services for vulnerable young people• Work with other agencies such as CAMHS• Responsibility to whole community• Family learning / parenting• Safeguarding• Health issues• Societal challenges – intergenerational unemployment, low

self esteem.

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Some current trends and opportunities• Growing to commitment to partnership and collaboration

between schools especially where academisation levels high or LA services reduced.

• LAs coming back and beginning to offer different kinds of services in partnership with schools.

• Bottom up initiatives such as ResearchEd, #SLTchat, HT round table, GED, Schools of tomorrow, Whole Ed.

BUT• Need to redefine relationship between schools and youth

services and break down ‘ ‘silo’ approach to supporting young people’.

The proposed focus

• Purpose of education; to cover philosophical questions such as what is education for, what the term 21st-century education means, curriculum and qualifications.

• Leadership, developing the best teachers, teaching and learning, assessment, CPD.

• Systems and structures; to include accountability and autonomy

What the Great Education Debate is seeking to do.

• To enable school and college leaders and the teaching profession to be fully involved in shaping the future of our education service.

• To engage in serious, unbiased debate with all stakeholders in order to establish a coherent vision which can outlast the political cycle and ensure public confidence in our education system.

• To provide leadership and inspiration for ASCL members.• To take a constructive and proactive lead towards the future

development of our education service.

What will the next steps be?

During the next six months we will be gathering evidence and views

We will collate the findings into an interim report in early 2014 and feature this at ASCL’s annual conference.

At that stage we will evaluate progress and decide what still needs to be done.

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Mick Waters: Thinking allowed on Schooling• ‘We will need people to grow things. There will need to be

some who seek a just and fair society on behalf of all of us and there will be those who seek to help us to avoid conflict and uphold rights. We will need people to entertain us. We will need people to do the dirty jobs and the unthinkable tasks that most of us would turn away from. We will need people who are happy to work behind the scenes to make things happen.. We will need people who are brave…. We will need those who will care for others and nurture talent. On top of all of this we will need leaders to organise the very society in which we live.’

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