The most common frustration vexed by schools I hear is “…if only we could…” Faced with increased pressure to demonstrate progress through pupil outcomes, primary schools have developed learned behaviours, sometimes losing sight of our need to do right by students and communities. We have retro-fitted school improvement to accountability frameworks; the measurement of learning has become the proxy for success. In blunt terms, we teach pupils to read nonsense phonics words because that is what we test. The impact has normalised the view that school improvement can only be measured through outcomes, rather than interactions. It is a misguided ideal, and as we are slowly learning, it hasn’t worked. An obsession with accountability has created an environment where unethical practice has become accepted—we view students as objects and over emphasise the importance of measurement as our proxy for success, a reverse engineering which retro-fits curriculum to fit an assessment framework.
Earlier this year, I was asked by a leading school improvement organisation to deliver a presentation to a group of executive leaders. Having carefully planned a session around learning-focused ethical leadership, which was warmly received by delegates, I was more than surprised to open an email from the event team, questioning the focus of my session, admonishing me for over-emphasising the leadership of teaching and learning. They wanted to know whether future sessions could possibly concentrate on the more technical aspects of school improvement, including delivery of sustainable business strategy, processes and accountability frameworks.
My response was unequivocal. I asked about the messages are we giving the teaching profession if the narrative of authentic school leadership concentrates on dashboards, compliance checks and frameworks instead of the real substance of education—improving the life chances of the children within our communities? I questioned why any worthy executive leadership programme should encourage the most senior system leaders, including MAT CEOs, to divorce their actions, behaviours and intentions from the most important element of our moral purpose? Needless to say, I have not been invited back to speak at future programme events!
The exchange helped me reflect on the simplistic representation of school improvement that has defined the public perception of what schools concentrate on to improve. We have tamely accepted that ‘increased rigour’ and ‘robust measures’ provide the script, which too many schools adopt. Politicians, who have never taught in our most challenged schools or faced the pressures of being defined by a set of test scores, divorce the complexity of school leadership from crude and basic of education measurements, resulting in an education system which shamelessly fails our most vulnerable students, year on year. It is a system which fails to draw the dots between funding, recruitment, ethical leadership and poverty. This is what Philip Alston, the United Nations poverty envoy, speaking in 2018, described as ‘not just a disgrace, but a social calamity’.
It underlines the point—there is no compelling story of leadership in schools if it does not concentrate leadership behaviours and actions directly on deepening student learning, changing lives of young people and tackling the barriers of disadvantage. Sure, the accountability frameworks and balance checks are important, but they should never become the story or dictate the narrative of school improvement. Senior leaders, at all levels, should be as deeply invested in learning, including curriculum design, pedagogy and assessment as they are school dashboards. Isn’t this how schools really improve?
It highlights a dichotomy between how the policy wonks think schools improve versus the reality of leading complex, adaptive organisations. Mature school improvement is founded on high levels of trust and shared accountability. It places greater emphasis on interaction and collaboration, instead of simplistic, headline-grabbing numerical measurements. Instructional change frequently falters because it fails to understand that schools are essentially complex, composed of elements which flex and evolve through relationships. The illusion that schools improve in a linear fashion that can be determined simply by creating a measurement, often using crude proxy to evaluate performance, is a misguided ideal which distorts the reality.