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The Effective Leadership and Pupil Outcomes Project from the DSCF has reported that head teachers in improving schools are particularly good at motivating staff and maintaining their enthusiasm over a long period of time. However many heads have had little training in motivational techniques.
Leading head teachers are also highly skilled in understanding the characteristics of the local community and building strong links with families, but again training in this area is often week.
Delegation was also a key characteristic of successful head teachers. The study found that head teachers at the improving schools analysed promoted “layered leadership”.
The Effective Leadership and Pupil Outcomes Project was the largest and most extensive study of contemporary leadership to be conducted in England to date. Its sampling methods and innovative mixed methods design have enabled it to examine the work of head teachers and other school leaders in a range of primary and secondary schools nationally.
Analysis of national pupil attainment data identified three groups of schools which had made sustained improvements in academic outcomes but from different starting points.
Questionnaires from a sample of heads and staff in these schools and twenty detailed case studies were used to address the research aims.
You can find it at http://tinyurl.com/mra973
This report appeared on the Motivation and Behaviour news service - on a series of free news services from Hamilton House for teachers. If you would like to susbscribe to any of them please do take a look at our web site.
Each term we publish a guide to school money - where it is, who has got it, where it is being spent. There’s a link to the current edition at the end - a new edition will emerge in the summer hols.
Now the Audit Commission has joined in the analysis and they focus on two facts…
a) Some money is being horded rather than spent
b) Schools are wasting money by not not shopping around enough.
Michael O’Higgins, chairman of the Audit Commission, said: “Schools are not wasting money deliberately, but I don’t think the focus has been enough on economy and efficiency. The focus has been the drive to raise standards – that’s not incompatible with economy and efficiency, but if you take your eye off the ball you lose that focus.”
The report concludes that despite record increases in funding since 1997, when Labour came to power, headteachers have not put all the money to good use. They could save £415m if they negotiated better contracts for the running of their schools and are also sitting on £530m in “excessive” reserves. There has been a collective failure through the system – from schools right up to government level – to emphasise efficiency, the report will say. “If no one is asking ‘could you do this more efficiently, more cheaply?’, you’re not going to be focused on it,” O’Higgins said.
“Individual schools have taken their eye off the ball. If you’ve had resources pumped in, you might not be aware of the last 1% you could be saving. Given the tight financial forecasts, they are going to have to [be aware].”
The report asks the government to consult over methods to redistribute school budgets if it isn’t being spent. Some councils already claw back money.
It also suggests that Ofsted should scrutinise schools’ finances more closely during inspections. The reverse could hardly be possible since Ofsted inspectors generally do little in terms of admin and funds. Indeed during several of the most famous cases of school fraud Ofsted inspected the school in question and found its accounts and finances to be robust. When I challenged Ofsted on this four years ago, I got back a short email saying “we are inspectors, not auditors”.
Vernon Coaker, the schools minister, said the government expected “local authorities to take action where necessary to ensure … proper value for money.”
The current review, prepared at the start of the summer 2009 term is available free of charge at
http://www.hamilton-house.com/free%20reports/When.pdf
This story first appeared on Education Marketing News. If you want to read this daily bulletin for companies that sell to schools please send an email to education-marketing-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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Ofsted has conducted a series of inspections to look at the way the new secondary curriculum has been implemented. It says that, rather than taking school-wide decisions, most schools have left the matter up to individual heads of department. Ofsted says this results in a jumbled whole-school curriculum.
Of 37 inspected for this particular purpose four were outstanding, 21 were good, eight satisfactory and one inadequate.
The best schools had developed a coherent curriculum which was led and monitored by senior managers. But in other schools where individual departments took control some made only slight changes to their normal procedures. This was particularly noticeable in areas such as personal, learning and thinking skills, teamwork, creative thinking and self-management. Ofsted was looking for these to “underpin” the curriculum - and it was in schools where it happened that the top reports were given.
Ofsted said that in some schools it was unclear where the skills were being taught. But where these skills were taught there was a positive impact on progress in lessons and the enjoyment of learning.
There was also criticism of functional skills in English, mathematics and ICT which were introduced in most cases and taught well but without integration across the school. “Only three of the schools visited included functional skills outside the core subjects of English, mathematics and ICT in an effective way,” the report says.
As always, in Ofsted reports there is no recognition of the problems that introducing such widespread change can give schools.
If you would like to receive news of this nature on a weekly basis via email you can join the Education Management News free email service. Please visit www.schools.co.uk/aboutEMN.html
The new Principal Learning and Project qualifications in Wales have been announced. They have been developed in partnership with employers and universities and will offer Welsh Baccalaureate students a study option that places emphasis on developing and applying knowledge and skills through practical activities related to different work sectors.
Principal Learning qualifications give students an insight into different occupations whilst the ‘Project’ enables learners to research individual areas related to their chosen line of learning.
From September the new qualifications will be offered across specific Welsh Baccalaureate centres in areas such as Construction and the Built Environment, Engineering, Creative and Media and Information Technology. A second phase of implementation will see a further six further Principal Learning qualifications including Environmental and Land based studies and Society, Health and Development available from September 2010.
Teacher Support Network Chief Executive, Julian Stanley, has given evidence to the House of Commons Children’s, Schools and Families Committee evidence session on Allegations Against School Staff.
Speaking ahead of the session, Julian Stanley said: “Allegations against teachers are becoming more frequent but very few are eventually proven to be true. Far too often, the long, drawn our process and the ‘guilty until proven innocent’ approach means that perfectly innocent teachers are experiencing severe emotional turmoil, having their confidence undermined and struggling to ever return to work despite being cleared.
“While we absolutely support the need to protect children from abuse, we also need to do more to protect teachers who are subjected to malicious and unfounded allegations from emotional distress and long-term damage to their mental health.
“Teacher Support Network is on hand to help teachers 24 hours a day, with trained coaches and counsellors available over the phone and online. Nevertheless, proper procedures and policies that take into account the safety of pupils and the wellbeing of staff must be in place and effectively implemented once allegations arise.”
Originally the Teachers’ Benevolent Fund, Teacher Support Network has evolved to meet the needs of the modern teacher, now providing telephone and online services which offer both preventative and reactive support. Through coaching, counselling, information, money advice and financial support, the charity helps tens of thousands of teachers tackle personal and work-related issues each year.
The Contact Centre can be contacted on 08000 562 561.
Tony Attwood
Research commissioned by the National College of School Leadership (NCSL) suggests that professional school business managers (SBMs) can save almost one third of a headteacher’s time and up to £18,000 a year in primary schools, or up to £56,000 a year in secondary schools.*
If you achieve such savings it does quite a lot for your professional standing too!
Yet many SBMs report that their skills and professional experience are not always recognised or used to the full. As more responsibilities are devolved to schools from local authorities, your role becomes more diverse as we have often noted here, bringing the need for the development of new skills.
I’ve recently been told about a publication which addresses this issue called “Practical Tools to Support Professional School Business Managers: Time-saving checklists, worked examples and training”. The promotional materials state that “by using our CD-ROM together with the companion handbook, you’ll be able to:
Clearly define your role and responsibilities using our template job descriptions and checklists
Free up time to support your headteacher with strategic planning with time-saving customisable policies and forms
Save time and money on training and extend the skills of administrative staff using cost-effective practical training and support to help them to tackle their different responsibilities effectively
Improve financial management and fundraising in your school with practical tips, checklists and spreadsheets to increase the amount you can spend on classroom resources
Develop your career either by working towards NCSL SBM qualifications using ready-made information, or, if you haven’t got time to study for a qualification, by improving your skills with our best practice guidance.”
These are obviously all highly beneficial skills and achievements. You can find out more by calling 020 8941 8589, by going to www.forumpublishing.co.uk/sbmdetails_139_09.php or emailing cs@forumbusinessmedia.co.uk
I published an item recently, following a survey of school administrators, concluding that many schools still communicate with parents using entirely paper-based systems and that it is difficult to move away from this because parents refuse to give out email addresses or prefer paper.
This is contrary to Becta surveys carried out during 2008 (summarised in various news and BBC reports) which found that parents wanted more electronic communication from schools. It is also contrary to other findings recently published, wherein schools that have adopted an email to parents policy have found only tiny numbers (in one example just 4 out of 700) for whom the school does not have a valid parent email address.
Indeed, I was in a rural community in Devon this week visiting a primary school in a village which has no broadband, and even there 95% of parents have signed up to information by email.
It seems that if schools signal clearly that ‘online’ is the way in which they are going, then parents will sign up to it. Many parents welcome it and find it significantly more reliable, as messages do not get lost (as we all know they can do when going via ‘pupil post’!). A two-way communication system with built-in online reply forms also helps to save parents time - and to save the school administrators even more time.
My article also discussed the government targets for schools to put assessment, attendance and other details online, and how this will lead to duplication if the paper systems cannot be dropped and have to keep running in parallel. Although the government is now holding on the previously announced change over to real-time reporting, they continue to believe that:
parents will engage with the online systems and become more involved in the child’s education as a result, and
the long term cost and environmental savings will be significant.
Several suppliers wrote to me after the article to say that they are working on ways to help schools get all this information online and are already offering an online communication system which gives both parents and the school much more than just ‘electronic broadcasts’ of emails and texts.
One company (Schoolpost) also told me that they are including a private ‘webspace’ for every parent which shows all their school messages and includes (where appropriate) web-based reply forms. This makes it easier for parents to reply (just a few clicks rather than filling in and sending back a reply slip) and saves the school a huge amount of admin time as all the responses can simply be downloaded into a single spreadsheet.
If you are looking to change over to this system, you can find out more about that company at
http://www.schoolpost.co.uk
Tony Attwood
Teachers TV statistics show that over 40 percent of teachers have experienced stress-related illnesses.
These statistics are in line with findings in 2008 from Teachers Support Network, which showed that 87 per cent of teachers had experienced stress in the last two years. Of those who identified problems at work as the cause, 78 percent said this was due to excessive workload with 43 per cent citing the rapid pace of change.
Effects can range from a loss of concentration in the classroom to damage to personal relationships and even prolonged sickness absence.
Teacher Support Online is a secure email-based coaching service for teachers accessible via www.teachersupport.info
There is also a valuable book on teacher stress - details here.
Tony Attwood
I recently wrote a piece on Functional Skills that included the words: “the 2010 cohort onwards won’t get their Maths and English GCSEs at A*-C without Functional Skills passes”.
Some regular readers have contacted me to take issue with that statement – quoting DCSF announcements of 2nd April to suggest otherwise.
I’m never very comfortable with the idea that I might be wrong (or fallible … mortal even) so a bit of digging was required to establish that yes, there have been some changes in how Functional Skills will work in the new GCSEs – but I would cautiously add that I think my original statement still stands, indeed it’s stronger than ever.
The situation can be summarised as:
Originally, the plan was for Functional Skills to be a “hurdle” to getting a good (C or above) GCSE pass – ie, a separate exam to be sat and passed.
It’s true that for a number of fairly pragmatic reasons involving Ofqual, this is no longer the case.
HOWEVER:
The new GCSE criteria for Maths and English (the exams that the current Year 8 will sit) now have a massive element of Functional Skills built into the qualification – talk is that 50% or so of the marks in the exams will be for Functional Skills.
So it’s now integral to GCSE rather than separate – and because Functional Skills is also an essential part of all Diplomas, Apprenticeships and all four pathways in the Foundation Learning Tier, it seems clear that all learners at every level will need to prove they are “functional”.
And on top of that, it’s become increasingly clear that the Government, CBI and so on are as keen as ever on everyone having a separate, standalone Functional Skills qualification. So they’ve already said that the new School Report Card – which will replace the current performance tables – will include standalone Functional Skills qualification pass rates as one of the KPIs.
… and realistically, if schools have succeeded in making pupils “functional” enough to get a good GCSE pass – doesn’t it make sense to put them through the separate Functional Skills exam too?
So yes, there has been a little step backwards since I last wrote on the topic, but swiftly followed by several steps forward to make sure that Functional Skills are even higher on schools’ agendas.
September is a going to be a key time for many schools to move forward with Functional Skills, and that’s only a few working weeks away, so you could do worse than talk to the flexible people at Guroo (who still seem to be more or less the leading supplier of resources in this area). They’ll give you a free 30-day no-cost, no-catch trial of their resources and they can set things up to give your staff access now to resources in advance of your students in September – perhaps a perfect opportunity to get up to speed for next term?
More info at http://www.guroo.info/how-to-buy/free-trial/
Tony Attwood
Our brains are singularly effective at learning through language – and because of that most of us tend to learn in a linear manner.
But when we push ourselves to learn visually, suddenly a whole new perspective opens up – and learning can proceed far more effectively and far more efficiently.
Going visual transforms how we learn. Just by making thoughts visible, we also make them both concrete and public. And it’s at this point that breakthroughs occur.
By being visible thoughts can be seen, by being concrete they can be manipulated, and by being public the whole process can be easily talked about. All the elements are in place for the student to accomplish the key challenge of successful learning — organising thoughts.
Recent meta–studies report that visual methods are the highest–ranking strategy for raising attainment. What’s more, they also combine with the other top strategies to increase their effectiveness.
I have often found this a difficult point to put across, so I’m really pleased to have found a company that not only embraces this view, but also offers free resources (in Powerpoint) which relate to this issue.
Each Powerpoint addresses specific issues that we all face every day. They can be used by you directly, shared with colleagues (they are copyright free) and they can be used to help with continuing professional development programmes within the school.
To subscribe for your free powerpoints just click www.modellearning.com/ideas.aspx
Tony Attwood
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