State of independence

With the expansion of the academy programme, the creation of free schools and the introduction of the teaching schools programme, more heads than ever are finding their powers and responsibilities widening. What does this greater autonomy mean for them? And how does it change the way they lead? Julie Nightingale reports.

Tom Packer was a headteacher in the North-East of England when he spotted the newspaper ad that would change his life.

It was for a head to lead west London free school, not only a brand new institution but a brand new model of school, instigated by local parents and independent of the local authority.

It offered a challenge to its leader, to shape the curriculum, choose the staff and set priorities. It was not, however as Packer was told at interview “a job for the faint-hearted” – a reference to the close media scrutiny and frequent negative publicity that the school attracted as a flagship project of the coalition government’s education strategy.

As head of an independent school, Packer had already been accustomed to a degree of freedom but was attracted by the opportunity to start a school from scratch with very few pre-conditions other than to educate children to a high standard.

He can tailor staff contracts, design the curriculum and timetable and set the length of the school day, among other things. With more than 600 applications for some 11 teaching posts, he has been able to select staff very precisely, a situation many heads would envy, and has brought in a deliberate cross-section from the independent sector, boys’ and girls’ schools, comprehensives, grammar with ages ranging from 20s to 50s.

Such flexibility over the operation of the school encourages you as a leader to think outside conventional lines in other ways, he suggests.

“Being a risk-taker is probably one of the things that in education as a whole you need to do. As a school leader, if all you do is tread the solid, well-trodden track of the National Curriculum and do standard this and standard that, you will get ‘bog standard’, to coin a phrase.

“By tweaking the curriculum – in our case going back to some more traditional teaching methods but also blending in some innovative ideas – we are taking a rational risk with the aim of producing the best results possible for the children.”

Possibly the most significant difference in leadership terms lies in Packer’s relationship with the governing body, led by the writer and journalist Toby Young who orchestrated the campaign to get the school off the ground. Because of their involvement in the school’s creation, this governing body is much more hands on, which, though it sounds like a potential threat to the head’s leadership, is actually liberating, says Packer.

“I also find myself delegating jobs to the governors which is fantastic and unlike anything I experienced in the independent sector. There, I used to come away from board meetings with 10 ideas floating in my head but there was only me to put them into practice. Here the governors will say, for example, ‘Let’s have a uniform like this’ and they then go on and design it. It’s like having an extra set of volunteers on hand.”

Packer’s emphasis on a willingness to take risks was echoed by other heads in a recent survey for the National College, who cited it as one of the key attributes required by heads of academies. (Others were being excited by autonomy and freedom, resilience, energy and drive, creativity and decisiveness.)

Risk-taking is a critical quality in leadership in the more autonomous models of school, agrees Sian Carr, who became principal of Skinners’ Kent Academy in Tunbridge Wells when it opened in 2009. And the more experienced the head, the more bold they are likely to be about it.

“Being an experienced head undoubtedly helped me when taking on an old style ‘turn around’ academy,” she says. “My previous headship meant that I came into this role with a clarity of purpose and absolute focus on student outcomes and achievement. So the risk-taking is not about doing off the wall things; it means not being distracted by things that others might feel are required. You do not need to do things ‘by the book’, you prioritise only those things that you believe support the overall aim of achieving high level outcomes for students.”

There is a pragmatic element to this, she points out, in that heads of ‘turn around’ academies which were created to replace under-performing schools, need to deliver results very rapidly and can’t necessarily afford the time to get immersed in bureaucracy and be distracted from the core moral purpose of raising standards.

“You’re constantly personalising the experience for the students and making sure that no barriers can get in the way of their achievement,” she adds. “That’s probably what risk-taking means ultimately – it’s not rocket science, actually, it’s about having high quality teachers engaging students in high quality learning and allowing nothing to distract from that.”

In 2010, the academy programme was expanded to allow outstanding schools to make the switch to semi-independent status. Somers Park in Malvern became one of the first outstanding primaries to convert in August this year.

For Stuart Sewell, the head, greater autonomy has had a significant impact in the way his school collaborates with the local community.

“Of course we worked with the community before and were quite maverick in a way. But by becoming an academy we have greater flexibility to respond to specific needs. For example, when the money ran out for the local Sure Start building, we took it over and use it for things like literacy support for under-fives, adult learning and healthy eating classes. They are areas that the school was already specialising in but which, in focus groups, teachers, parents and others in the community told us they wanted more of.”

Sewell sees his role as enabler in this area, pulling all staff, parents and community strands together to bring into being what the community needs. There’s been a similar shift in the classroom where the central curriculum has been stripped back to a core with teachers deciding how it is delivered.

“Younger teachers in particular are really enjoying the freedom that they now have to design the curriculum,” Stuart says. “Before, it was a bit top-down, if I’m honest.”

Deborah Odysseas-Bailey, head of the independent Babington House School in Kent and a National College Associate says that although independent heads are as accountable as their state counterparts, there is scope for much greater autonomy.

“Accountability comes in different forms, through our ISI (Independent School Inspectorate) inspection framework, whereby experienced inspectors hold us to account for the educational experience that our school provides. Governors have worked closely with the school to ensure that we steadily progressed to the point of gaining outstanding in all areas of school life and I suppose that because I have delivered they have provided me with the flexibility to operate within a paradigm which I believe to be most beneficial to the school.

“I know from maintained sector colleagues that they often believe that as long as they deliver, then their governing bodies and local authorities are happy to give them autonomy. Equally governing bodies in the Independent sector are powerful and the sense of accountability is often palpable. A few places adrift on the league tables, or a few pupils down on expected numbers will often have serious ramifications for the independent head, even when these factors may largely be beyond his or her control.

“But I do believe that within the independent sector there is certainly scope for considerably more freedom and it was something that I noticed upon first being appointed at my current school.

“The governors empowered me to articulate a vision that they could comprehend, share and collectively deliver.  How I did this was very much up to me. For example I have totally restructured the senior leadership team, according to evolving school requirements, several times, have created more leadership posts within the school than previously, implemented several  building projects, changed the length of terms and the school day, altered salary structures and budgets, brought in radical curriculum changes, and even had a job share as head.”

The greater autonomy now being enjoyed by free schools and academies will be extended further under the government’s teaching schools initiative, which gives outstanding schools and leaders the scope to work with groups of schools to drive improvement. The expectation is that teaching schools will go on to form regional and national networks, sharing good practice as widely around the school system as possible.

The College is running the designation process for the programme and gave the go-ahead to the first 100 teaching school alliances in September 2011 (see Mission:possible).

As with academy leaders and others who, in return for more independence from central control, are required to support other schools, skills in distributed leadership, building trust and working in partnership will be critical for heads of teaching schools. But they will need them to a very high degree, says Andy Buck, the College’s director for teaching schools.

“Teaching school leaders have to be incredibly good at distributing leadership as they can’t take on that role of leading an alliance of schools without empowering others working with them. They also have to have what leadership guru Jim Collins describes as level five leadership – a great degree of personal humility but incredible ambition for their organisation and the children not just in their own school but right across the country, ultimately.

“And they have to be really, really competent. Otherwise, they won’t be trusted.

“These are things that are true of all leaders with a system leadership aspect to their role. But the fact that teaching schools leaders will have autonomy to work not only with neighbouring schools but ultimately in regional and national networks does mean that they will need those skills in exceptional depth.”