Supporting Improving Primary Schools Supporting Improving Primary Schools reveals how a group of self- managing and improving schools went about enhancing their pupils’ achievements. It is based on the findings of the Essex Primary School Improvement Research and Development Programme, which aimed to enable schools to develop strategies for improving the quality of teaching and learning, increase the LEA’s capacity to support schools and increase knowledge and understanding of the processes and outcomes of school improvement. The book argues that an evidence-based approach to school improvement is essential. Key ingredients for school improvement include self evaluation, supplemented by inspection; action planning and target setting; examining and monitoring pupils’ achievements, progress and provision; and the building and sustenance of a sharing and analysing teacher culture. The editors conclude that improving primary schools need to strive to develop a clear focus for their improvement efforts. It is necessary to audit, monitor and evaluate progress towards stated goals; track the processes of improvement inside the school; emphasise learning and teaching; and adopt the formal strategy of school improvement. Geoff Southworth is Professor of Education at the University of Reading School of Education. He has been a primary school teacher, deputy and headteacher. His interests include primary school leadership and improvement, and he has published widely in these areas. He is committed to school-based and school-focused research and development. Paul Lincoln is Director of Learning Services for Essex County Council. He taught for 19 years before joining the local education authority as an inspector. He was chair of the Essex Primary School Improvement Programme Steering Group and was closely involved with the programme throughout. Supporting Improving Primary Schools The Role of Heads and LEAs in Raising Standards Edited by Geoff Southworth and Paul Lincoln First published 1999 by Falmer Press 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Garland Inc., 19 Union Square West, New York, NY 10003 Falmer Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2000 Edited by Geoff Southworth and Paul Lincoln All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data are available ISBN 0-203-98441-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-750-71014-4 hbk ISBN 0-750-71015-2 pbk Contents List of Figures and Tables vi Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Geoff Southworth and Paul Lincoln Part 1: Overview and Main Findings 7 Chapter 1 Overview of the EPSI Programme 8 Paul Lincoln and Geoff Southworth Chapter 2 Main Findings 22 Pete Dudley, Tina Loose and Geoff Southworth Part 2: School Insights 63 Chapter 3 Headship, Leadership and School Improvement 64 Geoff Southworth Chapter 4 Primary Schools and Pupil ‘Data’ 81 Pete Dudley Chapter 5 Taking Pupil Perspectives Seriously: The Central 100 Place of Pupil Voice in Primary School Improvement Michael Fielding, Alan Fuller and Tina Loose Part 3: LEA Insights 115 Chapter 6 The LEA and School Improvement 116 Sue Kerfoot and Gary Nethercott Chapter 7 Process Consultancy: The Role of LEA 130 Consultants in Supporting School Improvement Alan Fuller and Sue Fisher Part 4: Wider Issues and Conclusions 143 v Chapter 8 Evaluating School Improvement 144 Tina Loose and Judy Sebba Chapter 9 Improvement Policies and LEA Strategies in Light 162 of the EPSI Programme Findings Paul Lincoln Chapter 10 Key Points and Conclusions 174 Geoff Southworth and Paul Lincoln Appendices 1. Programme Aims, Targets and Success Criteria 197 2. Common Measures Agreed Across All EPSI 201 Programme Schools 3. Pupil Attitude Survey 203 4. EPSI Workshop Programmes 205 5. The IQEA Six School Conditions 207 Notes on contributors 210 References 212 Index 217 List of Figures and Tables Figures 2.1 Increases in gains in EPSI schools, as a percentage of gain in all 24 Essex schools 1995–8 2.2 Gains in percentage of pupils at or above level 4 in KS2 English 26 tests for 11-year-olds 2.3 KS2 English test scores: EPSI v. Essex 27 2.4 EPSI schools KS2 English test results 1995–8 28 2.5 KS2 Mathematics tests: EPSI v. Essex 29 2.6 EPSI schools KS2 Mathematics test results 1995–8 29 2.7 KS2 Science tests: EPSI v. Essex 30 2.8 EPSI schools KS2 Science test results 1995–8 30 2.9 EPSI schools ‘value added’ 1996–7 31 4.1 Sample summary mark sheet 88 4.2 The perceived impact on improvement of the EPSI data sets 93 5.1 A climate conducive to learning 106 5.2 Feedback format 107 9.1 The Essex Quality Framework—the 12 quality dimensions 167 9.2 The Essex Quality Framework—the 12 questions 168 Tables 2.1 KS2 English tests, EPSI pupils and Essex pupils, percentages 27 attaining level 4 and above 2.2 Percentages attaining level 4 and above in KS2 Mathematics tests 28 2.3 KS2 Science tests, total EPSI and Essex pupils attaining level 4 29 and above 2.4 EPSI improvement targets 34 4.1 What EPSI schools identified as ‘data sources’, which were being 86 monitored and analysed as a result of the EPSI focus 4.2 Contrasting patterns of results for three schools when expressed 97 as percentages at level 4 and above, average levels and value added indicators 4.3 School data—triangulation of evidence of improvement 97 Acknowledgments The Essex Primary School Improvement Programme was a partnership venture involving colleagues from schools, the Local Education Authority and the University of Cambridge School of Education. Consequently, thanks are due to many groups and individuals who participated in the programme or assisted those who did. In particular we would like to thank the staff in all the primary schools that participated in the programme. Though we cannot name these schools, we do want to acknowledge them. Their cooperation and willingness to provide information on their work, efforts and ideas form the foundations of this programme and we are indebted to them. Similarly we want to note the efforts of the LEA staff who were involved. The School Development Advisers, Senior Educational Psychologists and Special Educational Needs Team Leaders not only supported the schools, but also gathered a great deal of the data we present in this book. Their observations and views, which they shared during programme development days, have helped to inform and shape the outcomes and conclusions of this research. There are three individuals whom we also want to thank. Ann Davies of Essex LEA throughout the programme played a vital role in terms of supporting the Steering Group, maintaining communication channels between all the partners and ensuring that all loose ends were tied together. We also want to thank Ruth Naunton of Essex LEA and Rosemary Jones of Reading University School of Education whose secretarial skills ensured that the manuscript of this book was put together and completed. Introduction Geoff Southworth and Paul Lincoln The Essex Primary School Improvement Research and Development Programme (EPSI) was a partnership between Essex Local Education Authority (LEA) and a group of staff who then worked at the University of Cambridge School of Education (UCSE). The programme aimed to enable schools to develop strategies for improving the quality of teaching and learning, to increase the LEA’s capacity to support schools and to increase knowledge and understanding of the processes and outcomes of school improvement. The EPSI programme was a three-year-long initiative, formally commencing in September 1995 and closing in the summer of 1998. However, there was a lengthy period of project negotiation and design that occurred during 1994–5 when it was provisionally agreed who would be involved and supported, and that we would simultaneously research the process of primary school improvement. The programme had two main elements. One was to offer LEA staff a programme of professional development to enhance their knowledge of school improvement research and practice, to increase their awareness of primary schooling and to build multi-disciplinary teams. The latter was an innovative feature of the programme, since it was decided that support for school improvement should forge new coalitions of LEA staff. Programme Teams were introduced, comprising School Development Advisers (SDAs), Special Needs Support Staff (SNSS) and senior educational psychologists. By combining these three different groups, it was intended that the teams and their schools would have a range of expertise available to them and that this range would assist their professional development. The second element centred on how staff in the participating primary schools worked towards improving the quality of teaching and the pupils’ learning and achievements and how they were supported by the programme teams. One objective of the programme was to work with and learn from the schools’ experiences in using performance data to improve school outcomes and processes. Consequently each school was required to collect and analyse assessment information. In addition to end of key stage data from Year 6 pupils, schools were invited to use the then newly 2 GEOFF SOUTHWORTH AND PAUL LINCOLN introduced Year 4 assessments. Key Stage 2 pupils were the focus for the EPSI programme. This was because there were national and LEA concerns about this key stage and because the programme was specifically designed to support primary schools. The emphasis on primary schools arose from a number of sources. The LEA in the early 1990s experienced the switch of many secondary schools (as well as some primary) to grant maintained status. Grant maintained schools became totally independent of the LEA and were thus self- governing as well as self-managing. Consequently, the balance of the number of primary and secondary schools in the LEA tilted even more strongly in favour of primary schools. Yet the majority of senior staff in the LEA were from secondary school backgrounds and many of the school development advisers also only had secondary experience, although they would now be working in many more primary schools. Such a distribution of experience is not uncommon in other LEAs. What it reflects is a wider, structural issue that ensures that at policy-making levels and senior positions in LEAs there is a predominance of colleagues with secondary experience over those with primary phase expertise. We say this not to infer a sectarian outlook, nor to imply that cross- phase working cannot take place, but to recognize a structural bias in parts of the educational system and to argue that it needs to be addressed. Since 1997, central government’s reforms have been focused strongly on primary schools and this emphasis looks set to continue. Therefore, it is important that staff in LEAs, as well as national policy-makers and their advisers, remain keenly aware of the implications of their reforms for primary schools and how they improve and prosper. Primary schools are not little big schools. They are different organizational units, often working in different ways and, sometimes, adopting different emphases and practices from their secondary phase counterparts. For example, class teaching remains the main structural arrangement, rather than subject-based teaching. Primary schools do not enjoy curriculum-led staffing, but must manage on teacher-pupil ratios. Yet, since the advent of the National Curriculum, primary teachers have had to teach a subject-based curriculum, which requires them to command knowledge of nine subject areas and a volume of content that would challenge the most able of polymaths. It is also true that primary schools have not been well served by school improvement studies, which have generally favoured secondary schools, despite evidence from the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) indicating in 1994–5 some concerns about Key Stage 2 that warranted closer examination. These concerns probably related to the overloaded content of the National Curriculum and the lack of subject teaching specialists in primary schools, but whatever the specific reasons for them, these points also generally supported the case for studying primary schools.