Leadership

A Guide To Closing The Achievement Gap: Part 1 Leadership Attitudes Need To Change

After supporting 1000 schools, psychologist Daniel Sobel understands the dynamics and levers that can force the achievement gap to close. In a major 3-part series, he explains why attitudes does to data and staff must be the first things that undergo transformation.

The attainment gap is one of the most insidious social injustices in the developed world, responsible for concreting the growing inequality of our societies. Schools everywhere are obliged to tackle it, if not officially by their national or local government, then morally. It is now seven years since the UK government expressed this obligation in policy form in the pupil premium grant, but despite this, and the reams of academic research conducted all around the world on the attainment gap, there is still a limited amount of practical guidance out there for school leaders on how to actually respond.

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      string(419) "... of us needto change how we think about young people and aspirations3. His research challengedthe notion that low aspirations are the root cause of low achievement, asking instead52Vol 5.6School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comSchool ImprovementAchievementgap whether low achievement caused young people to lose faith in their ability to achievetheir aspirations ..."
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      string(5751) "50Vol 5.6School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comSchool ImprovementAchievementgapAll parents are ambitious for their children, but not all have theknowledge and confidence to help them reach their full potential.Helen Barnard explores how schools can use evidence-based practiceto engage low-income parents and give them the skills they need tohelp their children achieve their goals.Empoweringhard-to-reach parentsHandsworth Wood Girls Academy in Birmingham has 47 per cent of its pupilson Free School Meals. Last year, 64 per cent of those on Free School Mealsgot 5 A*-C grades, compared with 63 per cent of non FSM students. How didthey do it?The fashion for looking at successful schools and trying to extract a recipe seemsvery risky to me. The many factors that go into success for one school can rarely betransferred mechanically into a different context. Generally, the key factor underlyinga school’s achievements is the capacity of the headteacher and senior managementteam to analyse the specific issues facing their students and community, identifyactions that directly address those factors, and monitor and evaluate their impact. So Iam not suggesting that any one school has found the magic formula.However, one thing that struck me in speaking to the headteacher at Handsworthwas her description of her students and their families:51Vol 5.6School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comSchool ImprovementAchievementgap‘All of our students have high aspirations. It is our job to make sure they know whatthey need to do and are supported to achieve them. Working with the community andengaging parents is very important. Careers education starts in Year 7 and includesenterprise activities, work experience and specific support for students wanting to gointo careers such as medicine and law. Our mentoring focuses on help with academiclearning and skills such as asking questions and revision techniques.’TV programmes like Benefits Street whip up hatred against people in poverty,showing them as feckless, unambitious and lazy. For years, politicians and mediacommentators (as well as some educators) have talked about a ‘poverty of aspiration’.Some seem to think that if low income families could just be persuaded to aim higher,the attainment gap would be closed.The real role of aspirations in achievementThe Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Education Programme spent three yearsinvestigating what role the aspirations, attitudes and behaviour of parents and childrenplayed in the attainment gap between richer and poorer families.Our earlier research had showed big differences between these families – forexample in how likely they were to believe that they would succeed in educationand that their actions could affect their lives. Some of those differences did seem tobe directly linked to the children’s attainment. However, we needed to find out if thedifferences in attitudes and aspirations actually caused lower attainment and if therewas any evidence that interventions which changed those attitudes or aspirationscould raise the attainment of children from low income backgrounds.Our research included two international reviews and a big new study across threedeprived areas. We found first that most low income parents and children do valueeducation and have high aspirations, particularly when they start out. When childrenare born, 97 per cent of mothers want them to go to university, across all social groups.The big difference between parents and children from richer and poorerbackgrounds is their belief that they will be able to achieve such goals. By the timeyoung people are 14, only 53 per cent of low income parents believe their children willgo on to university, compared to 81 per cent of higher income parents1.Our large study in three deprived areas found the same2 – most young peopleaspired to professional or skilled work, far more than the current labour market couldprovide. However, they had a striking lack of knowledge about what paths they neededto follow in order to fulfil those goals. The researchers met many who were makingchoices about subjects and exams without realising that these would prevent themreaching their desired destinations.In another report for our programme, Loic Menzies argued that many of us needto change how we think about young people and aspirations3. His research challengedthe notion that low aspirations are the root cause of low achievement, asking instead52Vol 5.6School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comSchool ImprovementAchievementgap whether low achievement caused young people to lose faith in their ability to achievetheir aspirations. Therefore, rather than trying to raise students’ aspirations, we needto understand what they want and then help to keep those ambitions on track. Loicexplains this in much greater detail in the following article in this edition of SchoolLeadership Today.Evidence-based practiceThe Education Endowment Foundation is building up an impressive body of evidenceabout the tools schools can use to close attainment gaps4. (See figure 1).The EEF’s toolkit is a great place to start when looking for well-evidenced interventions.But, as with looking at the successful school down the road, it is a guide to options, nota recipe. It is vital to use the evidence from this toolkit in an intelligent and consideredway. The discussion of each of the recommended approaches shows that they areonly effective if done in particular ways and that they do not work in every context orfor every group of pupils. Likewise, some of the interventions which do not"
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Leadership

Empowering hard-to-reach parents

8 Apr 2014

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      string(5761) "20 Vol 1.1 n www.teachingtimes.co.ukLeadership Skills Professional LearningSchool Leadership TodayM ore than half of Britain’s heads are expected to retire in the next few years. In a bid to tackle this shortage of school leaders, and to adapt to the new demands of their role, theNational College for School Leadership (NCSL) decided it was important to redesign the statutory National Professional Qualification in Headship (NPQH).The redesigned programme, which speeds up the transition to headship, has much clearer criteria, with participants expected to take up their first headship soon after graduating. It highlights the need for distributed leadership and emphasises that this is about giving others the chance to lead, being clear what they will lead on, and giving them responsibility and accountability.A key part of the redesign was to both update the programme materials and to encapsulate key strategic messages for leaders associated with each of the six National Headteacher Standards. Online, the materials provide a more flexible resource which trainees can access according to their own learning needs. The online materials sit alongside other important elements of the programme such as the mandatory placement, regional and national events and access to a personal coach.The CEL Design Group – made up of the Centre for Educational Leadership (CEL) at the University of Manchester, interactive design company 3T Productions Limited, Hay Group and education consultant Dame Pat Collarbone, successfully bid to redesign both the written and online NPQH learning materials on behalf of NCSL earlier this year.Ann Dering of CEL said: “We suggested the change in format from written to online materials to make the process more responsive and to ensure the materials were kept upNew training for a new roleSweeping changes to headship and education itself have prompted a redesign for the UK’s foremost school leadership qualification. Nicola Mott and Bridget Hanney explainto date. The online materials encourage more self-directed learning and offer leaders access to the latest thinking on education policy and practice.”The issues facing headteachers involve improving the attainment and well-being of children and young people and the need to be more outwardly focused, responding to local priorities and concerns, embedding the Every Child Matters agenda, 14-19 diplomas and extended schools. With these major challenges in mind, the NCSL asked the CEL Design Group to redesign the NPQH materials ensuring that the Children’s Plan and ECM agenda were at the core of its learning framework.“When we were contracted to redesign the NPQH materials,” explains Ann, “we worked with Dame Pat Collarbone to put together a learning framework, setting strategic questions for each of the units and ensuring the role of the headteacher was at the centre of everything we designed.“We worked on the framework with a group of acting headteachers to assess the big strategic issues for current heads around each of the National Headteacher Standards.21www.teachingtimes.co.uk n Vol 1.1Leadership SkillsProfessional LearningWe gave them the title of each unit and the National Headteacher Standards and asked the headteachers what they thought a future headteacher needed to know around this. We also asked them what big strategic questions they needed to answer and worked with them to identify the main areas in each unit.“By involving headteachers at this stage, we ensured the information was based on the reality of leading a school and the future opportunities they perceived.”The Design Group carried out a two-stage review process in partnership with the NCSL for each of the six units of the programme. They needed approval from representatives of the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA), Becta, DCSF and Ofsted.“Becta worked with the CEL Design Group to ensure we had the latest, most up-to-date policies on e-learning and technology in schools. We spoke to various educational bodies and agencies about how the ECM agenda has been embedded in schools and about what is possible through the Children’s Plan,” says Ann.The redesigned online materials have been structured in a way that allows the trainee headteacher to save a record of their learning as they work through the programme – referred to as their ‘learning log’. This interactive online system enables the trainee headteachers to select a particular theme (or keyword), such as ‘communities’, ‘school planning’, or ‘extended schools’, and search for all the notes they have made in date order.Ann said: “This is particularly useful because at the end of each unit or module there will be an impact session which prompts the trainees to draw together all the learning they have recorded and asks them to assess how it can be taken forward to their graduation assessment.”The trainee headteachers have the option of choosing from six online units, which relate to the six areas of the National Headteacher Standards:Shaping the Future Leading Learning and Teaching Developing Self and Working With Others Managing the Organisation Securing AccountabilitynnnnnStrengthening CommunityThe NCSL identified major areas of change in education and requested that learning modules be created to relate to these themes. These are:Leading Personalised Learning: Closing the Achievement Gap Models of Leadership: Contextual Leadership Sustainable Schools – Learning for the Future“The units are based on knowledge and best practice,” explains Ann, “whereas"
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Leadership

New training for a new role

10 May 2009

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      string(341) "50 Vol 1.2 n www.teachingtimes.comLeadership Skills Change ManagementSchool Leadership Today“B eing a head is the best job in the world, but…” was how Jacques Szemalikowski, head of Hampstead School, started his question to thesecretary of state at the 2009 annual conference of the Association of School ..."
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      string(5708) "50 Vol 1.2 n www.teachingtimes.comLeadership Skills Change ManagementSchool Leadership Today“B eing a head is the best job in the world, but…” was how Jacques Szemalikowski, head of Hampstead School, started his question to thesecretary of state at the 2009 annual conference of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL).In his speech to the conference, Ed Balls had responded to my request that, with so many initiatives hitting schools, he should tell school leaders what his top two priorities are. “Raising standards and closing the achievement gap between rich and poor,” was his unequivocal answer.His speech was well received by the 600 leaders attending the conference, who made clear that they shared his priorities and approved of theLosing the best job in the world Headteachers’ leader John Dunford asks why, with a looming shortage of heads, the Government pursues policies that mean school leaders are losing their jobs in record numbers51www.teachingtimes.com n Vol 1.2Leadership SkillsChange Managementpart of the £2million deal, they would be able to appoint their own head. In some of these schools there was no permanent head and candidates were identified through the normal recruitment process.But the thrust of the academy programme has changed. As the pool of famous-name sponsors dried up, the Government turned to organisations such as the United Learning Trust and Oasis, as well as universities and colleges, for most of the newer academies. Edutrust, for example, is sponsoring nine academies in September 2009, with more planned for 2010. Since February 2009 it has been under the leadership of Sir Bruce Liddington, the former schools commissioner at the DCSF – a new role that was created for him in 2006 to promote the academy brand.TUPE – the Act of Parliament that is supposed to guarantee job rights of workers when organisations are taken over by new owners – applies to headteachers as much as to other staff, but too many sponsors are finding ways of getting rid of the head so that they can appoint their own leader, even in situations where the school is on a rising trend of achievement.Other incumbent heads have been appointed to the academy when their school has been reorganised, but then lose their job when, through lack of proper support or a too- hasty start, the academy starts to go wrong.It is telling that every academy is established with a ‘reorganisation fund’, the express purpose of which is to pay for the replacement of staff whose services are not required or whose faces don’t fit.As the number of academies increases towards the Government’s target of 400, this situation is likely to continue, even though local authorities are now more closely involved in the formation of academies as part of the Building Schools for the Future programme.With the credit crunch inevitably having an impact on the long-term viability of the Building Schools for the Future programme, there may be a move towards academies on the cheap. Reorganisations that are carried out without proper resourcing always create problems for the staff and the school leadership and, in these circumstances, heads will need to ensure that sufficient support is available for them to be able to meet the school’s targets. It will be the heads, and not the sponsors, who will get the blame when improvement is not at the required level.New powers The main problems with school leaders’ job vulnerability, however, lie with the new powers given to local authorities during the last two years, including statutory powers to deal with schools that they determine to be ‘causing concern’. Likewise, the National Challenge and ‘coasting’ schools’ strategies depend on local authorities to carry them out. Both of these are aimed exclusively at secondary schools.There are two problems with this. The first is that, while local authority staff tend to have expertise in the leadership of primary schools, there are too many local authorities which have very few senior staff – and, in some cases,moral purpose behind them. However, the questions after the speech left the secretary of state in no doubt that, while we share his central mission, we are deeply concerned at the way in which the Government is carrying out its policies.Fresh in the minds of those at the conference were the ASCL figures of the number of school leaders who have lost their jobs in the last year – 150, according to data provided by the ASCL field force, five times as many as four years ago.Half of the job losses had resulted from schools becoming academies or from the National Challenge, in which secondary schools with fewer than 30 per cent of 16- year-olds attaining five A*–C GCSE passes were threatened with closure unless they reached that benchmark by 2011.This fivefold increase does not result from school governors having a collective Damascus moment and suddenly deciding to get tough with their headteachers. The increase has happened because of top-down pressure on local authorities and governing bodies to ensure that schools meet this arbitrary benchmark, whatever the academic ability of their intake.In National Challenge schools the head and senior staff have been placed under immense pressure by the local authority acting on instructions from National Strategies personnel, who in turn are under pressure from DCSF officials charged by ministers with reducing to zero by 2011 the number of schools with fewer than 30 per cent A*–Cs. So we have the classic top-down situation, with school leaders and teachers at"
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Leadership

Losing the best job in the world

10 Jun 2009

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      string(5751) "Leadership BriefingArticle: Engaging and Motivating TeachersAuthor: Jody Goldsworthy, Hay GroupENGAGING AND MOTIVATING TEACHERSJody Goldsworthy, Head of Education at Hay Group, examines methods of engaging and motivating teachers.Schools are caught up in a whirlwind of change. Every Child Matters is the law of the land. Every local authority in the country is wrestling with academic standards, school funding and closing the achievement gap. Yet when school reformers speak of systemic change, they tend to avoid the most important system of all – the system of managing those who teach in, serve and administer schools.We cannot afford to overlook the human side of reform – it is school leaders, teachers and support staff who translate policy into outcomes. Whilst there are encouraging indications of progress in many parts of the country, there are also signs that the pace of change and sheer volume of initiatives are causing confusion and reducing motivation in some areas of the school workforce. Motivated employees are a school’s greatest asset.  Engaged workers can enhance school performance through increased innovation, better outcomes for children, better attendance (engaged employees in the UK take an average of 2.69 sick days per year; the disengaged take 6.19), clearer child and community focus, employee satisfaction and higher retention.  Research indicates that high performing staff can deliver around 20% more than ‘average’ employees because they give more discretionary effort. It is of course unrealistic to expect all employees to be totally engaged 100 per cent of the time, but the more the school works to create an environment whereby individuals can flourish, the better.School leaders usually know what they should do to engage and motivate. Why then, aren’t all school leaders creating exemplary workplaces with high staff engagement and motivation?  When Hay Group asked headteachers about the factors that hold them back, they reported lack of time, a personal preference to ‘do it all’ and governance structures that tie them up in day to day management.This article considers some practical steps leaders can take. There is no ‘magic bullet’ to secure sustained levels of individual and team effectiveness over time. To get the most from employees, leaders must focus factors that drive employee motivation but also enable staff to channel their extra efforts productively by ensuring certain organisational support factors are in place. The role of leadership Inspirational leadership is the greatest motivator. Hay Group found that up to 30% of organisational performance is dependent on a motivational working climate. By climate we mean the degree of flexibility, responsibility, standards, rewards, clarity and commitment that employees experience within the team. It is the manager’s leadership style that creates the team climate; and it is only through changing leadership behaviours and style that schools can leverage significant climate improvements.Employees need to have faith in the leadership of the organisation and this is most powerfully reflected through the integrity, role modelling and authenticity shown by the leadership team. Make sure that, publicly at least, there is consistency in the way the senior leadership team ‘walk the talk’ in the corridors.Our recommended starting point for busy leaders is to audit staff views about the drivers of engagement. This makes it possible for leaders to know their school’s strengths and to improve employees’ experience by tackling the right things, for the right people, in the right way. Community needs and views are important too; parents, communities and pupils themselves have become far more demanding and schools must work harder to define their ‘value proposition’.  Frustrated employeesMany teachers enter the profession with high levels of energy and a clear moral purpose to make a difference to the lives of children. In fact a recent work foundation study found a higher degree of employee engagement amongst teachers than amongst any other public sector workforce. However, many schools employ a sizeable number of people who have become frustrated at work. These individuals are often aligned with corporate goals and objectives and are enthusiastic about making a difference – but they are held back by roles that do not suit them and work environments that get in their way; high levels of motivation are not being translated into high outcomes for children. Research from Hay Group Insight – our employee and customer survey division – indicates that in organisations today frustrated employees may represent 20% or more of the total workforce.  Where strong individual motivation to succeed is not paired with similar levels of support within the school organisation, one of three things is likely to happen:1. Some engaged employees may find ways to break through the barriers presented by low level support and upgrade their work arrangements to match their motivational levels.2. Others may find equilibrium by reducing their motivation to match their limited opportunities to succeed and stop trying.3. Worse still, some may leave the school in search of a place where their strong motivation to succeed can be matched with more supportive working conditions, resulting in a drain of bright talent.ClarityStaff need clarity about how their work fits into the big picture; how it contributes in a meaningful way to the achievement of the school’s objectives. Whilst headteachers no doubt make these connections,"
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Leadership

ENGAGING AND MOTIVATING TEACHERS

29 May 2008