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Improving standards and attainment

The link between the Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda and student attainment involves several factors. These include meeting students’ needs and encouraging collaboration both among staff and with external agencies. Research has identified eight leadership ‘levers’ to help you succeed, including creating structures that effectively distribute leadership.

The link between ECM and attainment

There is a strong link between the ECM agenda and student attainment. Research from the National College shows that improvement in attainment is the product of several factors, including the following:

  • Working systematically towards achieving the ECM agenda. This includes evaluating curricular and non-curricular activities against the ECM five outcomes to ensure that these are being addressed.
  • Auditing and revising curricular provision to match students’ needs.
  • Providing learning opportunities outside regular school hours for students whose needs have been identified through regular monitoring.
  • Restructuring the school by creating new responsibilities for staff to encourage more collaborative working.
  • Employing strategies that help parents support their children’s learning.
  • Sustaining collaboration with statutory and voluntary agencies to extend expertise and resources.

These represent an ambitious mix and are difficult to realise without leadership that is able to share a vision and sustain moral energy in the long term. Success usually requires adopting a distributed leadership approach, which includes clearly defining responsibilities among staff while leaving some room for spontaneity and initiative.

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Issues for school leaders: the eight levers

Leadership implies the will and ability to influence others and to effect change. This is often described in terms of ‘leverage’, that is, finding the means by which to share priorities, address needs and enhance practice. Research from the College has identified eight leadership levers that leadership teams, school staff and multi-agency groups can use as a framework to address the ECM agenda. The levers are:

  1. Navigating national, local authority and community politics.
  2. Engaging the commitment of staff, students and partners in a vision of the purposes and ethos of the school.
  3. Shaping school culture and ethos proactively around children’s needs.
  4. Creating structures that distribute leadership, spread responsibility and foster trusting relationships.
  5. Managing workforce remodelling with a clear understanding of - and sensitivity to - professional expertise and capacity.
  6. Placing high priority on the professional development of the whole staff.
  7. Managing external relationships and the permeable boundaries between school and community.
  8. Ensuring sustainability of commitment, finance and resources.

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Examples of good practice

Bournville Junior School students achieve well, despite rising numbers coming from unsupported and deprived single families. Typically over 80 per cent attain level 4 or above, with a substantial proportion achieving level 5. The school fosters children’s attainment by encouraging student voice activities such as an active student council and consultation with students. It also offers extended services, including childcare and study support. It works closely with parents and has formed multi-agency partnerships to meet community needs.

The Canterbury Campus, which consists of Beauherne Primary School and Canterbury High School, has improved student attainment every year. This is despite the challenges of students’ low self-esteem and poor attendance. The percentage of secondary students achieving the equivalent of 5A*–C GCSE passes was 72 per cent in 2007, having risen every year from 39 per cent in 2004. Primary school test scores for level 4 and above have risen from 152 in 2004 to 189 in 2007. The Campus offers study support, parenting programmes and childcare. There is also an effective range of external support services for students.

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