Viewpoint: why teaching schools will accelerate school improvement

Plans for a national network of teaching schools – unveiled in November’s White Paper – amplify and accelerate the partnership approach to school improvement already adopted by many of England’s best school leaders, says National College Chief Executive Steve Munby.

This year promises more change – and as leaders our role is to manage that change as best we can, responding to it in a way that ensures the best possible impact on the lives of the young people in our schools.

One key priority will be to ensure that more schools benefit from great leadership at all levels.

We know that the quality of school leadership is second only to teaching and learning in terms of the influence it has on young people’s progress. If we are to make sure that more young people, in more schools, are getting the opportunities and chances they deserve, we need to carry on building on the very best leadership development and sharing it across the system.

“I believe teaching schools will help many more schools access great leadership development and learn from best practice.”

The key to this ambition is that school leaders take on a much greater role in developing their own and each other’s staff and supporting each other to improve. We need the very best schools to be at the heart of this approach: not as beacons that others are expected to learn from irrespective of context, but as strategic partners, working together with other schools to identify needs and to share skills and expertise from across the partnership so that all schools can benefit.

The teaching schools initiative announced in November’s White Paper will, I think, amplify and accelerate this approach.

The White Paper’s teaching schools proposal is that outstanding schools – those with a strong track record in developing leaders and in working in partnership with other schools – can become teaching schools. These schools will work with other schools and together they will take on greater responsibility for developing future leaders and managing talent and training across their partnership of schools. The National College will support their work, help create regional and national networks and manage the designation of teaching schools.

There is already a firm foundation for this way of working. We know that two out of every five schools do much of their leadership development themselves. We also know from our succession planning work that schools now place far greater emphasis on growing leaders. Critical to this is that leadership development and school improvement has become integrally linked: for example, a 2010 Ofsted report on national support schools showed how national leaders of education and national support schools actually develop leaders as they support other schools.

And in recent years the National College has increasingly applied this more practical, school-based approach to key areas of leadership development. Our middle leadership development initiative, for example, is about local clusters of schools organising themselves to deliver professional development. This approach draws on the very best practice within that local area and also responds to local need.

The teaching schools pilot within the Leadership Strategy areas of London, the Black Country and Greater Manchester gives a glimpse of the real difference this initiative could make. Primaries in the three regions supported by the teaching school pilot improved by two-and-a-half times the national average while secondaries improved by one-and-a-half times the national average.

I believe teaching schools will help many more schools access great leadership development and learn from best practice. Just as teaching hospitals have grown generations of doctors, so these schools, working with partner schools and with the best universities, will help ensure that the standard of training and development in schools is consistently high.

But teaching schools won’t just be about initial teacher training. They will provide continuous development right through to headship and beyond.

Teaching schools won’t be a programme packaged up in Whitehall and delivered around the country. It’s an evolving picture and the key partners in the development of the detail will be school leaders like you and your colleagues. This will only work if all schools seize the opportunity to shape it so that it works for their context.

“Teaching schools won’t be an initiative packaged up in Whitehall and delivered around the country.”

The success of teaching schools will depend on partnership working and we are very keen that we make the most of existing expertise and partnerships. Teaching schools are not about inventing a totally new designation – they are about building on the best of what already exists, whether that be in schools accomplished in providing support to others or the work of groups or clusters of schools growing leaders and improving their practice.

As we work with schools to develop the approach over the next year, it is critical that the College hears your views on what will make this successful. To that end we’ve launched a consultation. We want to hear and discuss your views and concerns so we can create the teaching schools approach together.

The science fiction writer William Gibson wrote, “the future is already here: it is just not distributed very well”. I genuinely believe that the seeds of the new approach are already established. The best schools already work together to provide great professional and leadership development and to support each other to improve. Teaching schools can help accelerate the pace and embed that approach so all schools can benefit.

Steve Munby is chief executive of the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services.