“When every child attends a good school we will be closer to a world

class education system”

Sir David CarterNational Schools Commissioner

“The power of collaboration in sustaining long term school

improvement”

Sir David CarterNational Schools Commissioner

A Sequence of Structural and Cultural Shifts

2010-2015• From

– Changing the status of your school

– Being part of single Teaching School Alliance

– Governance– Single School Leadership– Informal Partnerships– School led Accountability– Relative Isolation

2015 onwards• To

– Using the status to drive change

– Joining TSA together to add capacity

– To strategic capability– Multi School Leadership– Formal Partnerships– Trust led Accountability– Collaborate to Improve

Strategic Priorities for the South West

• Developing our capacity to support Academies, free schools, studio schools and UTC– Growing our MAT capacity– Increasing the number of strong sponsors

• Intervening in underperforming academies• Holding the system to account• Developing the role of the Headteacher Board

– Developing our 4 sub regional groups• Increasing the number of Free Schools

– 32 open with 9 in pipeline– Further 50 by 2019-20

Performance Priorities for the South West

• Challenge 1-Progression for the most vulnerable children in our schools

• Challenge 2-Making sure that our most able children achieve

• Challenge 3-Ensuring that the culture of Continuous Improvement is true in every school

• Challenge 4-”Growing the Top” whilst we improve standards nationally

• Challenge 5-Recognising that poverty and deprivation is not unique to urban areas

• Challenge 6-Ensuring that there are enough great schools and leaders willing to support schools to become great

“A Glimpse at the South West in September 2015”

Building Sustainable Momentum

The South West now has…• 117 Approved Sponsors and Multi Academy Trusts-

429 Academies and Free Schools are in these groups• 482 Primary Academies (24.9%) with 98 approved

since September-96 joined MATs– 364 Convertors and 113 Sponsored

• 233 Secondary Academies ( 72.1%)– 160 Convertors and 67 Sponsored– 32 Free Schools open

• 11 Academies have or are about to be re-brokered to new sponsors

The South West now has…• The highest % of academies out of the 8 regions

– 29.4% of 2319 schools are academies– 72% of Secondaries & 25% of Primaries

• The highest % of good or outstanding academies out of the 8 regions– 87% are good or better

• The 7th highest number of outstanding academies out of the 8 regions (24%)– South Central and NW London have 31%

Sponsorship, MATS & Leadership

What are the Key Progression Points leaders have to get right?

• Progression 1-ENTRY to SCHOOL

• Progression 2-RECEPTION to Y1

• Progression 3-Y2 into Y3

• Progression 4-YEAR 6 into YEAR 7

• Progression 5-TOWARDS GCSE

• Progression 6-ENTRY POST 16

• Progression 7-HE and WORK– Each School leads on at

least one transition point

The Twin Leadership Intelligences for Collaboration

IMPACT INTELLIGENCE

SELF AWARENESS

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

IMPACT ON OTHERS

IMPACT ON OTHERS

SELF AWARENESS

Multi Academy Trusts

• Why Sponsorship? Why MAT?– Trust wide ethos– Accountability and Collective Responsibility for

more children– School Improvement– Capacity – Economies of Scale– Career Development, CPD and Succession

Planning– Shift from Isolation to Collaboration

Benefits of Multi Academy Trust• Collective Responsibility for

the results of all children– “If one fails we all fail”

• 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

• Economies of Scale– Procurement and bulk

purchasing– Trust Appointments on behalf

of the schools– Trust Leadership Structure

that incorporates Executive Heads, Curriculum leadership

– Collaborative Practice• Transmission of the best

practice into some/all schools• Strategic Governance allied

to educational focus at LGB

Does membership of a MAT reduce Autonomy?

• Yes it Probably does!• Ensures entitlement to

the best education possible– Systems and Operating

procedures– Data Collection Points– Common Exam Syllabi– Assessment and Reporting– Key Educational Policies– HR practice as one

employer

• Not in every respect– Culture of the school– Uniform– Enrichment– Relationship with the

local community– Educational networks

unique to the school

What are the personal Skill Sets needed by Collaborative Leaders?

• Vision, Values and Beliefs– What does the leader of the

collaboration believe in?• Change Management

Expertise– Scale, Scope and Reach of

Influence• Holding others (senior

leaders) to Account for their decisions – and not making decisions

for them– Leading through others

• Using data to inform strategy – Test decisions against the

core values • Communication Skills

– Written and Spoken• Performance Manager

– Every Meeting and Interaction counts

• Insight to see how a successful strategy in one context could be applied to a different one

My National Priorities

• Continue to improve standards– 131 Academies are in special measures out of

5479 (Jan 1 2016)– Many sponsored academies were SM or RI at

transfer. 45% now good and outstanding• Grow the number of sponsors and multi

academy trusts– 20,000 schools in England and 5500 (approx) are

academies– How many MATS will we need?

My National Priorities

• Enable trusts to grow but health-checks critical to ensure stability– Starter– Established– National– System Leader

• 100 Worst Academies and the 20 largest sponsors reporting in to the NSC

• 500 Academy Advocates across the system by 2016-17

• Capacity Maps across the regions – Cold spots and what we do

about them• Academy Awards Events• School to School support-

TSA, NLE and NLG– Next Generation of CEO