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Implications for leadership and governance

The challenges of developing extended services, involving local communities and working in a multi-agency setting are inevitably leading schools into new ways of working. You and your school’s governing body are operating in an increasingly complex environment and, as a result, you need new structures and skill sets.

Key messages for school leaders

Research has identified six key messages about the Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda that should guide your leadership approach:

  • Effective school leaders are able to convince their staff that a focus on the ECM programme can raise standards.
  • The ECM outcomes cannot be achieved by a single school leader: effective leaders share leadership responsibilities widely among professionals working within the school.
  • The school alone cannot meet all of the ECM outcomes: effective school leaders adopt a collaborative approach with other schools, agencies and services.
  • ECM has widened school leaders’ role and led to an emerging model involving leadership beyond the school, within the wider community.
  • Effective school leaders believe in genuine student, parent, and community consultation to develop locally responsive solutions to the challenges that ECM offers.
  • To implement ECM effectively, school leaders will require new skills: effective school leaders engage in ongoing professional development and promote a whole-school learning culture.

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The abilities needed by school leaders

There is a shared set of skills, knowledge and behaviours for those who lead and manage integrated children’s services. You should have an understanding of the particular abilities for effective leadership of these services:

  • Be clear about what must be achieved. To ensure clarity, your role will involve stressing shared purpose and the values and skills that professionals hold in common.
  • Safeguard and promote the welfare of the child. This means championing the rights of excluded and under-served groups and improving the quality of the services they receive.
  • Provide direction. You will need to model an open and inclusive approach in your own behaviour.
  • Work with people from different professional backgrounds. You will need to support a group of professionals from different sectors to work as a team.
  • Manage information. Information sharing is not just about record management and personal files: keeping abreast of research and developing practice are equally important.
  • Engage with children and their families. You will need to understand the communities with whom you are working and produce solutions specific to local children’s needs.

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The changing role of the governing body

Working collaboratively means that groups of schools have the opportunity to form a new level of corporate accountability, taking responsibility for the wellbeing of all the children in a locality.

This idea of taking collective responsibility has implications for governing bodies. A governing body that embraces more than one school may become increasingly common. Rather than artificially conjoining two separate boards of governors, schools may start to re-think from scratch the way governing bodies are structured. This includes reviewing the skill sets of governors and determining where roles could be harmonised. This might lead to governing bodies sharing responsibility and accountability in new ways.

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Example of good practice

St John Vianney Primary School and Children’s Centre has joined forces with five primaries and a secondary to empower local people to pinpoint their own needs and to tackle local issues themselves. The schools also invited the West View project - a not-for-profit body working with youngsters - to join the partnership. They formed a community company with a council made up of the seven headteachers, plus local authority and West View Project representatives.

A separate brokerage board is made up of members of this partnership, representatives from the local authority and other statutory bodies, participants from charities and community groups operating locally - plus people from the community. This brokerage board identifies potential solutions to local challenges and reports these back to the community company. This work has included developing a plan for how the community might work to address students’ behavioural, emotional and social difficulties. The ultimate aim is for the brokerage board to function separately, building up community leadership.

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Related publications and resources