The existential question for a multi-academy trust: are the schools within it better off as a result? By ‘better off’ I mean do the schools deliver superior outcomes (in the broadest sense) for the children who attend them? If you cannot confidently say yes then there is a problem. If you cannot provide evidence to support your confidence, there is work to do.
This is the question I will be asking as I set out to visit various trusts over the coming months. I’m looking for trust models that truly add value. Do you know one? Then get in touch.
I shall also be asking what the theory of improvement is? How do schools get better and what role does ‘The Trust’ play in this? All trusts should have a theory of improvement; a hypothesis that is continually tested and evolves.
I have thought a lot about how schools improve and more recently about how groups of schools improve. I am pleased to see that others are doing the same. This month, the Confederation of School Trusts (CST) published ‘School improvement architecture’ which makes a series of assertions about how the trust system needs to evolve if it is to deliver on its potential. I broadly agree with its contentions, particularly that it might be helpful to view school improvement as being about knowledge-building and knowledge-sharing.
I’d like to draw on this paper and add some thoughts of my own.
Transplants and immune systems
Schools are strangely resistant to foreign bodies. It is as if a transplanted idea or innovation is rejected by the immune system of the school. In The Next Big Thing, we wrote about why this might be. In essence, the analogy works because schools, like human bodies, are complex organisations which don’t take kindly to parts being replaced. We can’t just take ‘what works’ in one school and assume it will work in another.
However, where imported ‘solutions’ fail, borrowing (or leveraging) expertise may be more likely to succeed.
Let’s define expertise first. If we define it as ‘knowing the answer’ then the effect will be no different to importing solutions. Instead, I will define expertise as ‘informed insight into complex educational problems’. Like CST, I suggest that expertise is situated not within individuals but across communities. This avoids the trap of identifying ‘the expert’ – that superhuman person who can come and fix things – and instead looking to leverage expert knowledge dispersed across the Trust. I also suggest that expertise only exists as potential until it makes contact with the school, thus the use of the term ‘insight’. Expertise is only ignited if new insights emerge.
How might leveraging expertise help school improvement efforts?
First, we can bring new perspectives – fresh pairs of eyes. We make sense of the world according to our prior experience. Others will see things we don’t see. Expert insights see through the superficial features of the problem (how the problem manifests) to the underlying structure. Often, we need multiple eyes on the problem to build a rich picture.
Second, we can enhance feedback loops. Those committed to the success of improvement strategies can bring bias to the gathering and analysis of information about efficacy. Bringing in those with no skin in the game may lead to more objective appraisal, therefore better adaptation and calibration.
Third, we can leverage implementation expertise, drawing on institutional memory of past improvement efforts and likely points of failure. For this to be possible, Trusts must have mature systems for capturing and codifying past school improvement efforts, or be part of a wider educational ecosystem that is knowledge-rich.
Note that what is absent from the above is the ‘tough talk’ of accountability. Strong-armed accountability is a failed improvement model. Nothing grows in poisoned soil. However, that does not mean accountability is absent. We are never more accountable than when we are asked questions by informed people, when a spotlight shines on our assumptions, and when the impact of our efforts are robustly analysed. But this accountability is not unkind. Indeed, it is a kindness to make leaders’ decision and actions more effective and their standing more credible.
The role of ‘The Trust’
Where I often see improvement efforts in trusts go wrong is where ‘expertise’ is drawn upwards and away from the school. Expertise is immediately weakened when it is promoted to a central team. It should not be ‘The Trust’ acting upon the schools but rather establishing an improvement methodology whereby expertise can be leveraged between schools. Large central teams are a sure sign that a trust does not understand how to leverage expertise.
If the trust system becomes top-heavy, we will draw expertise away from schools. This is not to say we shouldn’t centralise functions; do whatever is economical and effective with the back-office functions. It is the expertise in the core business – curriculum, instruction, assessment, culture, behaviour, safeguarding – that should remain rooted as far as possible in the schools.
The focus of the central team should be on how schools are connected. Channels must be established through which expertise can pass but novelty cannot. The expertise needed at the top is the ability to establish and evolve a theory and practice of improvement: a theory of organisational learning.
Why do we need a trust to share expertise? What about the ‘soft’ networks and partnerships that existed long before academisation? These collaborations fail on at least three counts: 1) they thrive on novelty as ‘good ideas’ are showcased by those who have a vested interest in looking good, 2) they are driven by the egos of leaders, and 3) the power to adopt or reject innovation lies with the naive. Such partnerships rarely lead to significant improvement as the shared purpose and relational trust required to open up to scrutiny and honest feedback do not exist.
However, trusts can be far worse than soft partnerships because they have the power to royally f**k it up. They can ignore the immune response that normally protects schools from bad ideas if they take the view that head office knows best. To protect against this, we should protect the ‘commissioning rights’ of the headteacher wherever possible. By commissioning right I mean the ability of the headteacher to identify when and where expertise needs leveraging. This is not an inalienable right, but we should think twice before disempowering the very person who we have employed to lead the school.
So, when I visit trusts I will be asking whether the schools are better off within them than without and I will be asking what their theory of improvement is. I will then look for how they are leveraging expertise for the benefit of all schools in the Trust and the extent to which headteachers are trusted to commission expertise to help solve the problems they face. I want to know if their methodology overly relies on the strong arm of accountability and an excessive pooling of resource. I want to know if the channels by which expertise flows are established and effective and mitigate against scaling up novel and fadish ideas.
I have a theory for how school improvement might be enhanced in a trust-led system, but it is just a theory. We are yet to achieve an informed understanding of what works when it comes to trust-led improvement. CST wisely call for the creation of a solid evidence base about trust improvement capacity. In the meantime, we rely on our instincts, prejudices and critical faculties. I hope to find satisfactory answers to my questions. I hope to find trusts leveraging expertise from across all their schools and for the benefit of all their schools. I hope that CST are right when they say that trusts ‘bring professionals together in ways that have the potential to go beyond what can be achieved in individual schools’.
Let’s see.
Matthew Evans 