Leadership Dialogues II

Leadership in times of change

Dave Harris, John West-Burnham

• Publisher: Crown House Publishing
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781785832567
• eBook ISBN: 9781785833236
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Following on from their bestselling title Leadership Dialogues, Dave Harris and John West-Burnham's Leadership Dialogues II: Leadership in times of change examines eight more themes crucial to the effective education of our young people in schools. We are living in times in which school leaders are looking for both simple answers and detailed instructions to help them progress to their goals. But in a period of rapid change, like the one we are in now (at least for the foreseeable future), there is no step-by-step guide, there is no instruction manual only strong tools to support leadership teams on their journey. Leadership Dialogues II is not a book containing all the answers; rather it is a book containing many of the questions that will help school leaders work with their colleagues to find the answers for their own schools within the communities in which they work. Harris and West-Burnham believe that the best people to interrogate the problems and find the answers are those people working in, leading and governing these schools every day, and so they have compiled this helpful resource to promote more constructive dialogue and debate which will result in the generation of feasible solutions specific to their own schools. Each of the eight themes in Leadership Dialogues II is of contemporary relevance to 21st century education and is split into five sections, each containing an outline on why this is an important topic, some key quotes to engage your thinking, a 10 minute discussion to provoke debate, some questions for your team to consider and to help frame the dialogue's outcomes downloadable, printable resources for each section. The resources are often in tabular form and relate to the material, which means they can be used with little extra preparation, and are all available for download in PDF and Word formats for ease of circulation. The only thing you have to do is think, discuss and then act. The eight themes explored are: securing equity and engagement; clarifying the purpose of education; middle leadership the engine room of the school; managing resources; learning and technology; education beyond the school; alternative staffing models; and developing evidence based practice. Suitable for school leadership teams in any setting.

Securing equity and engagement

A The education of vulnerable and disadvantaged pupils

Why is this an important topic for conversation?

One of the great challenges for those involved in any aspect of public service is to secure equality and equity, notably for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. In essence, most education systems in the developed world have achieved equality – in that every child goes to school. However, it is true of many systems that not every child goes to a good school or that for many children the education system actually exacerbates their disadvantage by not providing appropriate compensatory interventions. Equity is essentially about fairness and social justice. Securing equity can be seen as the most fundamental component of school leadership and governance, and yet it remains elusive and problematic.

Key quotes for the section

“There is a growing body of evidence that shows that the highest-performing education systems are those that combine equity and quality. Equity in education is achieved when personal or social circumstances, such as gender, ethnic origin or family background, do not hinder achieving educational potential (fairness) and all individuals reach at least a basic minimum level of skills (inclusion).

(OECD, 2015: 31)”

“[E]quity is not the same as equal opportunity. When practiced in the context of education, equity is focused on outcomes and results and is rooted in the recognition that because children have different needs and come from different circumstances, we cannot treat them all the same.

(Noguera, 2008: xxvii)”

Section discussion

Securing equity in education is both a moral imperative and a highly practical approach to governance, leadership and management. In many ways it can be seen as a test of the ability of leaders to translate policy into practice. It might be argued that the priority of some education systems has been quality, in terms of outcomes measured as academic excellence. Only in recent years has equity been seen as a significant factor.

In broad terms this is all about closing the gap. This is one of the crucial challenges for schools and government, and one that in England and other similar education systems remains stubbornly elusive. In England, the gap is usually understood as the difference in performance between pupils who are entitled to free school meals (FSM) and those who are not. In one of his final speeches as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw made the following depressing observation:

The attainment gap between FSM and non-FSM secondary students hasn’t budged in a decade. It was 28 percentage points 10 years ago and it is still 28 percentage points today. Thousands of poor children who are in the top 10% nationally at age 11 do not make it into the top 25% five years later. (Wilshaw, 2016)

A key strategy for closing this gap has been the pupil premium, but evidence about its use seems to suggest that schools have not always followed the evidence available from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) Toolkit on Teaching and Learning.1 Research has shown that ‘Early intervention schemes, reducing class sizes, more one-to-one tuition and additional teaching assistants in the school were the most frequently cited priorities for the Pupil Premium’.2 This is in spite of the fact that these approaches were rated as being less effective in terms of cost and impact.

Clearly, schools believe they are responding to research – in fact, ‘More than half (52%) of the teachers said their school uses past experience of what works to decide which approaches and programmes to adopt to improve pupils’ learning. Just over a third (36%) said their school looks at research evidence on the impact of different approaches and programmes’ (ibid.).

Drawing on the NFER review of the strategies to support the education of disadvantaged pupils (Cunningham and Lewis, 2012) and the EEF toolkit, the following themes emerge as a basis for moving towards more equitable school based policies and interventions (Macleod et al., 2015):

1 A culture of high expectations and aspirations that apply to every aspect of the school’s life and every member of the school community. In essence, the idea of the growth mindset applies to every dimension of school life – moving from ‘I can’t’ to ‘I can’t yet’.

2 Securing engagement (see Section 1B).

3 Working towards consistently high teaching standards for all students – deploying the most effective teachers to the most disadvantaged groups.

4 Professional practice is evidence based in terms of accessing the research evidence to identify effective practice; developing a culture of professional enquiry across the school to review and improve practice; and ensuring that provision is informed by accurate and meaningful data.

5 Working towards personalised approaches for every student in order to optimise the relevance of their curriculum experience and the appropriateness of teaching and learning strategies. Crucially, providing choices that enhance the potential for engagement.

6 Leadership which secures that all of the above is consistent and equitable.

A crucial dimension of the leadership culture that is necessary to secure equity is a focus on middle leadership and, in particular, a strong sense of personal and collective accountability for the success of every individual. Middle leaders are essential to this process. A key theme of senior leadership and governance has to be the development of this culture across the school and the embedding of such accountability in the work of school governors, the leadership priorities of senior staff and the clarification of focus for middle leaders.

Equally significant is the development of a culture that is responsive to the actual involvement of pupils rather than relying only on adults’ perceptions. This requires the detailed monitoring of pupil voice and the active involvement of pupils in the critical decisions that inform and influence their educational experiences.

With this in mind, three resources accompany this section. Resource 1A(i) enables you to obtain a real view of how your staff feel the key areas identified in the NFER review are progressing in your school. Resource 1A(ii) does the same for pupils. Resource 1A(iii) can be used to collate the results and focus priorities for the school.

Key questions

What do your school’s aims or value statement say about fairness, equity and securing parity of esteem for all pupils?

When did you last audit the extent to which your principles on equity are reflected in practice?

What are the perceptions of your pupils and their parents?

To what extent are your strategies to close the gap (and spend pu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• How to use the book
• Introduction
• 1 Securing equity and engagement
• 2 Clarifying the purpose of education
• 3 Middle leadership – the engine room of the school
• 4 Managing resources
• 5 Learning and technology
• 6 Education beyond the school
• 7 Alternative staffing models
• 8 Developing evidence based practice
• References and further reading
• Download menu
• About the authors
• Copyright