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Yewlands Family (collaborative leadership)

How the Yewlands Family of seven schools is developing leadership and governance arrangements in north Sheffield.

Summary

This case study looks at the leadership and governance arrangements that the Yewlands Family is developing for its seven schools – primary, secondary and special – on the northern edge of Sheffield.  

Key outcomes

• Strategic planning and decision-making for the family of schools has become significantly more efficient since the introduction of a joint governing body at which representatives from each school have devolved power.
• Based on this case study, leaders of partnerships, networks or families of schools could usefully consider the following questions:
  • What factors need to be taken into account when weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of making a formal commitment, for example to a federation or trust? Will an informal, voluntary arrangement create the environment needed for radical change? Could the process of formalising relationships into legally binding contracts cost more goodwill than you can afford?
  • When is the right time to start succession planning for the leadership of a complex collaborative?
  • What skills should prospective leaders be developing? What intelligence and resources do they need and what relationships should be brokered on their behalf?
  • What measures can be taken to secure a healthy and productive relationship between a school partnership and a local authority? Where are the potential areas of mutual benefit and how can they be optimised? Where are the areas of potential conflict and how can these be dealt with?

Background

Yewlands is a family of seven schools (one secondary, one special, five primary) on the northern edge of Sheffield. The schools have been working as an informal advanced collaborative for four years, including shared staffing, joint leadership appointments and cross-phase curriculum development projects. From late 2008, Yewlands Technology College is to occupy a new campus, funded through the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. Two sixth form colleges are also associated with the family.

The catchment area for the schools is a challenging and mainly urban area, characterised by poor housing, high unemployment and low aspirations. Standards of attainment have remained persistently low in the secondary school and vary widely across the family as a whole.

The seven schools in Yewlands Family are: Yewlands Technology College, Fox Hill Primary School, Grenoside Primary School, Mansel Primary School, Monteney Primary School, St Thomas More RC Primary School and Woolley Wood Primary School.  

Challenges and issues

Poor attainment

Standards of attainment have remained persistently low in the secondary school and vary widely across the family as a whole. Twenty-five per cent of students at Yewlands achieved five A*-C grades at GCSE in 2007. Year 6 SATs results range from the top five per cent to the bottom five per cent nationally.

Conflicting priorities

Yewlands Family leaders sometimes struggle to balance the needs and interests of individual schools with those of the collaborative.

Uneven commitment

The absence of formal partnership arrangements means that participation is voluntary and this translates into varying levels of commitment from each of the schools. This in turn limits the impact of membership on the schools that are less involved.

Distributed leadership for the family

Although Yewlands schools are successfully distributing leadership in order to build capacity, it is harder to distribute the leadership of the family itself which depends heavily on two co-leaders. A broader leadership base is needed.

Uneven access to support and resources

Accountabilities and arrangements for accessing support and resources are different in different schools. This can be awkward for some and can cause school leaders to question the value of their membership. More synergy with the local authority would relieve some of this tension.

The Yewlands approach

School leadership arrangements

Each Yewlands school retains its existing leadership team. The family is co-led by two headteachers, one from the secondary school and one from a primary school, who is also the executive headteacher of two other primary schools in the family.

Regular headteacher meetings and occasional whole-family strategy planning events (senior leadership team and governors) help to ensure that the family is a living organisation with sufficient capacity and security in its relationships to fulfil its vision.

Distributed leadership

All Yewlands Family headteachers, and some deputies, have significant leadership responsibility for development work in the family as well as in their own schools. It has been an explicit requirement in recent appointments to senior leadership roles that candidates should demonstrate enthusiasm for the family’s vision for 0–19 provision.

There are leadership development opportunities across the family and in particular Yewlands and the National College have worked together to develop a bespoke programme for aspiring leaders as part of a succession planning strategy.

Cross-family leadership roles

There are curriculum director posts, based in the secondary school, for modern foreign languages, music and physical education, and there is a director for continuing professional development. Posts for foundation and Key Stage1, and for data and intervention, will be added.

These roles were designed to help the family’s schools work together, as a focus for involving external expertise and to secure consistency in the overall offer. The director posts, along with deputy headteachers and advanced skills teachers (ASTs), form a teaching and learning directorate. The directorate leads the development of a skills-based curriculum for all schools in the family and makes an important contribution to succession planning to sustain growth.  

Joint governing body

Each school retains a discrete governing body. However, a joint governing body oversees strategy and policy in the family and comprises all seven headteachers and two governors from each school (including the chair).

The joint governing body was a significant breakthrough for Yewlands Family. Having a coherent family ethos makes it possible to align ‘backroom’ services, such as estates management, finance and ICT support. It also facilitates streamlined access to children’s services and deeper engagement with the community, especially parents.

Recruitment and retention advantages

Some schools in the Yewlands Family have historically been hard to recruit to. Posts advertised as part of the family identity, rather than as single school appointments, have yielded significantly more responses and a higher calibre of applicants because they bring opportunities for system leadership and career development.

Established staff also report increased motivation and self-esteem and a sense of optimism for the future as a result of new leadership opportunities.

Establishing the family identity

For children and their families, Yewlands Family has become a more meaningful entity with which they can identify.

This is an important step towards establishing the family, rather than individual schools, as the principle broker of access to other children’s services. It is the basis for a family support strategy.