Building the Capacity to create a

School led system of improvement

June 2016

Sir David Carter

National Schools Commissioner

Educational Excellence

Everywhere

• Education is the hallmark of a civilised society

– It is the engine of productivity

– It is the foundation of our culture

– It is the underpinning of the success of this country

• Every child born in England deserves and has an entitlement to a free world class education

My Priorities as the National

Schools Commissioner

The Two Core Priorities that we need to

Deliver between 2016 and 2022

Growing the capacity of

the System with Care

Expanding our Existing

MATS

Improving the system

strategically

Approving and

Developing new MATS

Raising the

performance of

Academies

Embedding the

MAT as the best

structure for

improvement

Core Aims of the RSC Role

• Monitoring the performance and intervening to secure improvement in underperforming academies

• Taking decisions on the creation of new academies

• Ensuring that the sponsor market meets local need by authorising new sponsors and challenging those that exist to perform even better– Promoting and supporting new models of

System leadership

The Leadership Challenges we face if we

are to create a world class education

system

Depth and Breadth

Redefining Today V Unknown

Possibilities of Tomorrow

The 6 Leadership Challenges

for the next five years

Redefining Today V Unknown Possibilities of Tomorrow

• Leading Impact & Improvement– Progress v Attainment

– Curriculum Development

– Teacher Recruitment

• Leading at Scale– Larger MATS

– Best Schools and System Capacity

• Leading a new model of collaboration– MAT to MAT partnerships

– Every school a giver and receiver of support

• Leading in a Shrinking Financial Climate– What does your staffing

model need to look like now?

• Leading our Communities– Gap Analysis of what the

community needs

– Free Schools-making a unique community offer

• Leading the System– More MAT by 2020

– More CEO

The mind-set that underpins future Leadership thinking

• Scanning the Horizon and looking ahead.

– Preparing and Anticipating change

• Collaborate with people who are different

to you

– Too many collaborations reinforce similarities not

the differences

• Be bold enough to abandon the past

– Dare to be different and stand out from the crowd

More Leaders are Leading in

a Collaborative Context

Leaders need to understand the 2-19 learning experience irrespective of

the phase they work within

The system-led collaborative culture

• Definition of collaboration– Collaboration is working

with others to do a task and to achieve shared goals.

– Fundamental part of human interaction

• The Arts

• Sport

• Charity

• Private and Public Sector

• Conditions that support collaboration– Authority to make

decisions

– Competition and Collaboration

– Clarity of vision

– A well-executed plan

– A governance model that holds people to account

– Buy-in

– Giving and Receiving

The Context for Strategic Leadership is changing

Every Leader is a system leader from the classroom to the community

Underpinning my thinking

about System Leadership

• Every school should be a giver and receiver of support and challenge

• It is right to have the expectation that the strongest schools support the weakest schools to equalise the experience of children

• The most effective form of intervention is the sustainability of high quality teaching

• The best leaders hold themselves and others to account every day

The multi-academy trust as the vehicle for collaboration

Value of multi-academy trusts

• Building a Community

around moral purpose

• Collective responsibility for

the results of all children

– “If one fails we all fail”

• Strategic governance allied

to educational focus at LGB

• Recruitment and retention

– flexibility to deploy staff in

the most effective way to

benefit the largest number

of children

• Career progression for staff

– retain the best staff in the

trust if not in the same

school

• Efficient Management of

Resources

– Trust appointments on

behalf of the schools

• Where possible the “all

through” 0 to 19 MAT makes

sense of the learning

progression of children

Outstanding Leadership

in a MAT is different

• System leadership development providing Executive Leaders for the future

– Leading a phase or subject across several schools

– Leading improvement beyond a single school and being accountable for it

– Transmitting effective practice and abandoning that which does not work

– Change Management

– Potential to progress from NQT to Principal within the same MAT as talent gets developed

The qualities of the most

successful system leaders

• Diagnosis of what is needed

• Can lead with credibility in the school improvement space

• Can see the MAT as an educational hub for excellence

• Ability to take action and execute the plan & evaluate it

• Understands how to hold people to account and welcomes being held to account

• Can tell the difference between context and an excuse

• Has a mindset that puts children’s needs ahead of adults’ expectations

The system leader and the school

improvement space

• Phase 1 - De-clutter– The school is broken

– No underpinning of the future

– Real truth comes after project starts

• Phase 2 - Repair– Control from chaos

– Reactive decision making

– Make the school feel like a normal school

• Phase 3 - Improve– Leadership becomes

more proactive

– Strategies start to embed

– Outcomes never as bad again

• Phase 4 - Sustain– Maslow “self

actualisation”

– Confident, innovative and risk taking delivery

The twin leadership intelligences for successful collaboration

IMPACT INTELLIGENCE

SELF AWARENESS

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

IMPACT ON OTHERS

IMPACT ON OTHERS

SELF

AWARENESS

Leading Improvement in the

KS2-4 context

• What the best MATS and Sponsors Know about this

• Challenge 1– Improving teaching

• Challenge 2– Improving transition

• Challenge 3– Getting the curriculum

right

• Challenge 4– Getting the most from

Middle Leaders

• Challenge 5– Understanding how to

monitor and Intervene

The NSC and RSC

relationship with SFCA

How the 16-19 Academy

Agenda will work

• On SFC conversion the RSC and Peter Muckloware joint decision makers (delegated by Ministers)

• Single and Multi Academy Trusts are both full of equal potential

• There are reasonable links between EFA territorial staff and each RSC office

• RSC’s are engaged with the Area Review process

• Recommendations for ‘in principle’ approvals will go through EFA AMSG to each RSC HTB

• Early dialogue with the RSC is essential so that there is good engagement with the model(s) being proposed before they get to the HTB.