1. Professor David Hopkins HSBC iNet Chair of International Leadership
Every School a Great School Realising the Potential of System Leadership Keynote Presentation RTU Building Leadership Capacity Co-Constructed Leadership Project Belfast, Northern Ireland, Tuesday 2nd October 2007
Professor David Hopkins HSBC iNet Chair of International Leadership 1

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4. Moral Purpose of Schooling
I know what my learning objectives are and feel in control of my learning
I get to learn lots of interesting and different subjects
I can get a level 4 in English and Maths before I go to secondary school
I know what good work looks like and can help myself to learn
I know if I need extra help or to be challenged to do better I will get the right support
My parents are involved with the school and I feel I belong here
I can work well with and learn from many others as well as my teacher
I enjoy using ICT and know how it can help my learning
I know how I am being assessed and what I need to do to improve my work
I can get the job that I want
All these …. whatever my background, whatever my abilities, wherever I start from 4

5. The G100 Communique They concluded their communique in this way -
A group of 100 principals from fourteen countries (G100) met at the National Academy of Education Administration (NAEA) in Beijing, China October 2006 to discuss the transformation of and innovation in the world’s education systems.
They concluded their communique in this way -
We need to ensure that moral purpose is at the fore of all educational debates with our parents, our students, our teachers, our partners, our policy makers and our wider community.
We define moral purpose as a compelling drive to do right for and by students, serving them through professional behaviors that ‘raise the bar and narrow the gap’ and through so doing demonstrate an intent, to learn with and from each other as we live together in this world. 5

6. The need for a systemic response …
We aspire to a society that is not merely civil but is good. A good society is one in which people treat one another as ends in themselves. And not merely as instruments; as whole persons rather than as fragments; as members of a community, bonded by ties of affection and commitment, rather than only as employees, traders, consumers or even as fellow citizens.
The vision of a good society is a tableau on which we project our aspirations, not a full checklist of all that deserves our dedication. And the vision is often reformulated as the world around us changes, and as we change.
The Third Way is a road that leads us toward the good society. However, it should be acknowledged at the outset that the Third Way is indeed fuzzy at the edges, not fully etched.
Amitai Etzioni – The third way to a good society 6

7. ‘Every School a Great School’ as an expression of moral purpose
What parents want is for their local school to be a great school.
(National Association of School Governors; Education and Skills Select Committee 2004).
Test of resolve:
An educational system that enables every individual to achieve their potential and enhance their learning skills;
a stress on moral purpose and social justice in order to equalise life chances ;
enhance teaching quality rather than structural change;
commitment to sustained, systemic change since a focus on individual school improvement distorts social equity. 7

8. Towards system wide sustainable reform
Prescription
Building Capacity
Professionalism
National Prescription
Every School a Great School
The real challenge we all face is to move the system from National Prescription  Schools Leading Reform.
As the Minister says, to move from a situation where Government delivers policy  to one that builds capacity.
This is not a chronological shift, it takes time and it is always a blend, but we want to shift the balance.
The aim is to go from a)  through b)  c). When at c) = High Excellence High Equity
Schools Leading Reform
System Leadership 8

9. Four key drivers to raise achievement and build capacity for the next stage of reform
Personalising Learning
Professionalising Teaching
Building Intelligent Accountability
Networking and Collaboration 9

10. ‘Joined up learning and teaching’
(i) Personalising Learning
‘Joined up learning and teaching’
Metacognition
Curriculum choice & entitlement
Assessment for learning
Co-production
‘My Tutor’
Interactive web-based learning resource enabling students to tailor support and challenge to their needs and interests. 10

11. (ii) Professionalising Teaching ‘Teachers as researchers,
schools as learning communities’
‘The Edu-Lancet’
A peer-reviewed
journal published for practitioners by practitioners & regularly read by the profession
to keep abreast of R&D.
Enhanced repertoire of learning & teaching strategies
Evidence based practice with time for collective inquiry
Collegial & coaching relationships
Professional development to tackle within school variation 11

12. ‘Balancing internal and external accountability and assessment’
(iii) Building Intelligent Accountability
‘Balancing internal and external accountability and assessment’
‘Chartered
examiners’
Experienced teachers gain certification to oversee rigorous internal assessment as a basis for externally awarded qualifications.
Moderated teacher assessment and AfL at all levels
‘Bottom-up’ targets for every child and use of pupil performance data
Value added data to help identify strengths / weaknesses
Rigorous self-evaluation linked to improvement strategies and school profile to demonstrate success 12

13. (iv) Networking and Collaboration
‘Disciplined innovation, collaboration and building social capital’
Best practice captured and highly specified
Capacity built to transfer and sustain innovation across system
Greater responsibility taken for neighbouring schools
Inclusion and Extended Schooling
‘Autonomous Federations’
Groups of schools opt out of LEA control but accept responsibility for all students in their area 13

14. 4 drivers mould to context through system leadership
Personalised
Learning
Professional
Teaching
SYSTEM
LEADERSHIP
Networks & Collaboration
Intelligent Accountability 14

15. System Leadership: A Proposition
‘System leaders’ care about and work for the success of other schools as well as their own. They measure their success in terms of improving student learning and increasing achievement, and strive to both raise the bar and narrow the gap(s). Crucially they are willing to shoulder system leadership roles in the belief that in order to change the larger system you have to engage with it in a meaningful way.’ 15

16. System leaders share five striking characteristics, they:
measure their success in terms of improving student learning and strive to both raise the bar and narrow the gap(s).
are fundamentally committed to the improvement of teaching and learning.
develop their schools as personal and professional learning communities.
strive for equity and inclusion through acting on context and culture.
understand that in order to change the larger system you have to engage with it in a meaningful way. 16

17. Evidence from OFSTED suggests that teaching is still a relatively weak area17

18. ‘Seven Strong Claims about School Leadership’
School leadership is second only to classroom instruction as an influence on student learning.
Almost all successful (school) leaders draw on the same repertoire of basic leadership practices.
It is the enactment of the same basic leadership practices – not the practices themselves – that is responsive to the context.
School leaders improve pupil learning indirectly through their influence on staff motivation and working conditions.
School leadership has a greater influence on schools and pupils when it is widely distributed.
Some patterns of leadership distribution are much more effective than others.
A small handful of personal “traits” explain a high proportion of the variation (such as being open minded, flexible, persistent and optimistic) in leader effectiveness. 18

19. Lead and Improve a School in Challenging Circumstances
Act as a Community Leader
Work as a
Change Agent
Managing Teaching and Learning
Developing Organisations
Personal Development
Partner another School Facing Difficulties and Improve it
Moral Purpose
Lead a Successful Educational Improvement Partnership
Strategic Acumen
Developing People
Lead and Improve a School in Challenging Circumstances 19

20. Leadership for Learning
Setting direction 
Total commitment to enable every learner to reach their potential 
Ability to translate vision into whole school programmes
Managing Teaching and Learning
Ensure every child is inspired and challenged through personalized learning
Develop a high degree of clarity about and consistency of teaching quality
Developing people 
Enable students to become more active learners
Develop schools as professional learning communities
Developing the organization 
Create an evidence-based school
Extend an organization’s vision of learning to involve networks 20

21. I wrote (with Bruce Joyce) some time ago that:
Learning experiences are composed of content, process and social climate. As teachers we create for and with our children opportunities to explore and build important areas of knowledge, develop powerful tools for learning, and live in humanizing social conditions. 21

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23. Powerful Learning … Integrate prior and new knowledge
Is the ability of learners to respond successfully to the tasks they are set, as well as the task they set themselves In particular, to:
Integrate prior and new knowledge
Acquire and use a range of learning skills
Solve problems individually and in groups
Think carefully about their successes and failures
Accept that learning involves uncertainty and difficulty
All this has been termed “meta-cognition” – it is the learners’ ability to take control over their own learning processes. 23

24. Teaching Models
Our toolbox is the models of teaching, actually models for learning, that simultaneously define the nature of the content, the learning strategies, and the arrangements for social interaction that create the learning contexts of our students. For example, in powerful classrooms students learn models for:
Extracting information and ideas from lectures and presentations
Memorising information
Building hypotheses and theories
Attaining concepts and how to invent them
Using metaphors to think creatively
Working effectively with other to initiate and carry out co-operative tasks 24

25. The Dialectic between Curriculum, Learning and Teaching
Group
Investigation
Role
Playing
Synectics
Curriculum
Development
Evaluation
Concept Attainment
Curriculum
Development
Synthesis
Simulations
Inductive Thinking
Concept Attainment
Analysis
Models of Learning – Tools for Teaching
Inductive Thinking
Concept Attainment
Application
Comprehension
Inductive Thinking
Mnemonic
Inductive thinking
Knowledge
Mnemonic
Simulations 25

26. System Leadership and Student Achievement
To sustain improvement:
the leadership develops a narrative for improvement
the leadership explicitly organises the school for improvement
the leadership is highly focussed on improving the quality of teaching and learning (and student welfare)
the leadership creates:
clarity (of the systems established)
consistency (of the systems spread across school), and
continuity (of the systems over time)
the leadership creates internal accountability and reciprocity
the leadership works to change context as a key component of their improvement strategy 26

27. Teacher performance – Determinants Pj = f (Mj, Aj, Sj)
P = teacher’s performance
M = teacher’s motivation
A = teacher’s abilities, professional knowledge and skills
S = work settings and features of their school and classroom

28. Effects of School Leadership on Student Learning
Motivation
Capacity
Setting
Pupil Learning
Altered Practices * **
***

29. System leaders share five striking characteristics, they:
measure their success in terms of improving student learning and strive to both raise the bar and narrow the gap(s).
are fundamentally committed to the improvement of teaching and learning.
develop their schools as personal and professional learning communities.
strive for equity and inclusion through acting on context and culture.
understand that in order to change the larger system you have to engage with it in a meaningful way. 29

30. Lead and Improve a School in Challenging Circumstances
Act as a Community Leader
Work as a
Change Agent
Managing Teaching and Learning
Developing Organisations
Personal Development
Partner another School Facing Difficulties and Improve it
Moral Purpose
Lead a Successful Educational Improvement Partnership
Strategic Acumen
Developing People
Lead and Improve a School in Challenging Circumstances 30

31. System Leadership Roles
A range of emerging roles, including heads who:
develop and lead a successful educational improvement partnership across local communities to support welfare and potential
choose to lead and improve a school in extremely challenging circumstances
partner another school facing difficulties and improve it. This category includes Executive Heads and leaders of more informal improvement arrangements
act as curriculum and pedagogic innovators who develop and then transfer best pracatice across the system
Work as change agents or experts leaders as National Leader of Education, School Improvement Partner, Consultant Leader. 31

32. Key strategies – responsive to context and need
Networking and Segmentation: Highly Differentiated Improvement Strategies
Type of School
Leading Schools
Succeeding, self-improving schools
Succeeding schools with internal variations
Underperforming schools
Low attaining schools
Below floor target
Key strategies – responsive to context and need
- Become leading practitioners
- Formal federation with lower-performing schools
- Regular local networking for school leaders
- Between school curriculum development
- Consistency interventions: such as AfL.
- Subject specialist support to particular depts.
- Linked school support for underperforming depts.
- Underperforming pupil programmes, e.g. catch-up.
- Formal support in Federation structure
- Consultancy in core subjects and best practice
- Intensive Support Programme
- New provider: e.g. Academy. 32

33. Segmentation requires a fair degree of boldness …
All failing and underperforming (and potentially low achieving) schools should have a leading school that works with them in either a formal grouping Federation or in more informal partnership.
Schools should take greater responsibility for neighbouring schools so that the move towards networking encourages groups of schools to form collaborative arrangements outside of local control.
The incentives for greater system responsibility should include significantly enhanced funding for students most at risk.
A rationalisation of national and local agency functions and roles to allow the higher degree of national and regional co-ordination for this increasingly devolved system. 33

34. KEY STAGE CURRICULUM STRATEGIES INTELLIGENT ACCOUNTABILITY FRAMEWORK
NEW RELATIONSHIP WITH SCHOOLS
SCHOOL SPECIALISM & COLLABORATION
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING
TEACHING
CURRICULUM
STAFF DEVELOPMENT
INVOLVEMENT
LEADERSHIP
COLLABORATIVE PLANNING
POWERFUL LEARNING EXPERIENCES

35. The Systemic Agenda
The future reform agenda is about schools supporting each other in a new educational landscape:
Schools exist in increasingly complex and turbulent environments, but the best schools ‘turn towards the danger’ and adapt external change for internal purpose.
Schools should use external standards to clarify, integrate and raise their own expectations.
School benefit from highly specified, but not prescribed, models of best practice.
Schools, by themselves and in networks, engage in policy implementation through a process of selecting and integrating innovations through their focus on teaching and learning.
Schools use the principles of segmentation to transform the system 35

36. A Three Phase Strategy for School Improvement
Phase One: Establishing the Process
Phase Two: Going Whole School
Phase Three: Sustaining Momentum 36

37. Phase One: Establishing the Process
Commitment to the School Improvement Approach
Selection of School Improvement Group or Cadre
Enquiring into the Strengths and Weaknesses of the School
Designing the Whole School Programme
Seeking Partners and Seeding the Whole School Approach 37

38. Establishing the Process
During this early phase, strategies need to be clear and direct focusing on a limited number of basic curriculum and organisational issues, to build the confidence and competence:
provision of early, intensive outside support;
surveying opinion; disaggregating data on student achievement
identify a school improvement group (SIG), who receive specific training in classroom practices crucial to achieving school’s goals:
focus on managing learning behaviour, not behaviour management;
work on re-skilling teams of teachers in specific repertoire
progressive restructuring to generate new opportunities for leadership, collaboration and planning. 38

39. Preparing for School Improvement
Pre-conditions
School Level Preparations
Unifying Focus
Means
Commitment to School Improvement
General consensus on values
Understanding of key principles
Shared values
A mandate from staff
Leadership potential
Identification of change agents
Willingness to make structural changes
Capacity for improvement
Improvement Theme -
An enquiry into Teaching and Learning
School Improvement Strategy

40. Phase Two: Going Whole School
The Initial Whole School INSET Day(s)
Establishing the Curriculum and Teaching Focus
Establishing the Learning Teams:
Curriculum groupings
Peer coaching or ‘buddy’ groups
The Initial Cycle of Enquiry
Sharing Initial Success on the Curriculum Tour 40

41. Going Whole School Developmental activities at this stage include:
The use of whole school training days to focus on practical teaching and learning strategies.
The allocation of dedicated time for school improvement activities.
The organising of staff into critical friendship groups.
Monitoring progress through a focus on student learning.
Generating an on-going dialogue about values across staff and with key groupings such as heads of faculty. 41

42. Curriculum Tour WHOLE SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT PRIORITY
An Enquiry into Teaching and Learning
Dept. A
(Inductive Teaching)
Dept. B
(Inductive Teaching)
Dept C
(Inductive Teaching)
Stage I
Stage II
‘Curriculum Tour’
Stage
III
Group Work
Memory
Synectics
WHOLE SCHOOL WORKING TOWARDS REPERTOIRE OF
TEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES 42

43. Phase Three: Sustaining Momentum
Establishing Further Cycles of Enquiry
Building Teacher Learning into the Process
Sharpening the Focus on Student Learning
Finding Ways of Sharing Success and Building Networks
Reflecting on the Culture of the School and Department 43

44. Sustaining Momentum
School improvement is not another project. It needs to be built into the fabric of the school & the ways teachers work together.
new understandings about learning & change management;
more flexible and creative use of space, time, and people;
widespread use of collaborative ways of working; and
redefinition & adaptation of ideas through the use of evidence.
When these are internalised then not only will student attainment have risen but also the school will be a learning organisation. 44

45. Moving to Scale Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Cohorts of 6 - 8 Schools
6 - 8 Members of School Improvement Group
Year Year Year 3
PLAN
Cohort A | | ……………………….
Cohort B | | …………
Cohort C | | …………..... 45

46. iNet’s Mission
“to create powerful and innovative networks of schools committed to achieving systematic, significant and sustained change that ensures outstanding outcomes for all students in all settings”.

47. OECD Trends The nature of childhood and ‘extended adolescence’
The knowledge economy
Inequality and exclusion
Changing family and community life
And more broadly:
Alarming increase in the inequalities between rich and poor countries
Patterns of population growth

48. Why Scenarios?
Scenarios translate trends into imagined probable futures, helping us to:
understand more about our current direction of travel, our values and our principles;
imagine the preferred future we hope to shape together;
explore how school leaders and policy makers can work to make this a reality.

49. Six OECD Scenarios Maintaining the Status Quo Re-schooling
1. Bureaucratic school systems continue
2. Teacher exodus, the ‘meltdown scenario’
Re-schooling
3. Schools as core social centres
4. Schools as focused learning organisations
De-schooling
5. Learning networks and the network society
6. Extending the market model

50. 1. Bureaucratic School Systems Continue
strong pressures towards uniformity
schools as distinct institutions, knitted together by complex administrative arrangements.
media commentaries frequently critical in tone, but radical change is resisted.
fear that change will not address fundamental tasks of guardianship & socialisation, alongside cognitive development & equality of opportunity.

51. 2. Teacher Exodus - ‘Meltdown Scenario’
crisis triggered by a rapidly ageing profession, exacerbated by low teacher morale and buoyant opportunities in graduate job market
large size of the teaching force makes improvements in relative attractiveness costly, with long lead times for tangible results
disparities of the crisis by socio-geographic, as well as subject, area.
creates vicious circle of retrenchment & conflict

52. 3. Schools as Core Social Centres
schools enjoy widespread recognition as the most effective bulwark against social, family and community fragmentation.
extensive shared responsibilities exist between schools and other community bodies, expertise and institutions of further education, shaping, not conflicting with, high teacher professionalism.
generous levels of financial support meet demanding requirements for quality learning in all communities, elevating the esteem of teachers and schools.

53. 4. Schools as Focused Learning Organisations
schools are revitalised around strong knowledge agendas (rather than a social agenda), in a culture of high quality experimentation, diversity and innovation.
new forms of evaluation and competence assessment flourish.
ICT is used extensively alongside other learning media, traditional and new.
knowledge management moves to the fore, and the very large majority of schools have extensive links to tertiary education and other organisations.

54. 5. Learning Networks - Networked Society
dissatisfaction with institutionalised provision & diversified demand leads to the abandonment of schools in favour of multiple learning networks.
networks are founded on extensive possibilities of powerful, inexpensive ICT.
deinstitutionalisation of school systems becomes part of the emerging ‘network society’.
various cultural, religious and community voices come to the fore in the socialisation and learning arrangements for children.

55. 6. Extending the Market Model
governments encourage diversification in a broader environment of market-led change,
many new providers are encouraged by reforms of funding structures, incentives and regulation.
flourishing indicators, measures & accreditation arrangements start to displace direct public monitoring and curriculum regulation.
Innovation abounds, as do painful transitions and inequalities.

56. The iNET Scenario Breaking with the past Preferred future
Transmission model Learning focussed
Jack of all trades Supported professionalism
Islands of excellence Networking
Secret gardens Social centres

57. Critical path: how do we get there?
Personalised
Learning
Professional
Teaching
SYSTEM
LEADERSHIP
Networks & Collaboration
Intelligent Accountability 57

58. The Logic of System Leadership
Learning Potential of all Students
Repertoire of Learning Skills
Models of Learning - Tools for Teaching
Embedded in Curriculum Context and Schemes of Work
Whole School Emphasis on High Expectations and
Pedagogic Consistency
Sharing Schemes of Work and Curriculum Across and Between Schools, Clusters, Districts, LAs and Nationally 58

59. Paulo Freire once said…
“No one educates anyone else
Nor do we educate ourselves
We educate one another in communion
In the context of living in this world” 59

60. Professor David Hopkins HSBC Chair in International Leadership
David Hopkins is the inaugural HSBC Chair in International Leadership, where he supports the work of iNet, the International arm of the Specialist Schools Trust and the Leadership Centre at the Institute of Education, University of London. He is also a Professorial Fellow at the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne. Between 2002 and 2005 he served three Secretary of States as the Chief Adviser on School Standards at the Department for Education and Skills. Previously, he was Chair of the Leicester City Partnership Board and Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Nottingham. Before that again he was a Tutor at the University of Cambridge Institute of Education, a Secondary School teacher and Outward Bound Instructor. David is also an International Mountain Guide who still climbs regularly in the Alps and Himalayas. Before becoming a civil servant he outlined his views on teaching quality, school improvement and large scale reform in Hopkins D. (2001) School Improvement for Real, London: Routledge / Falmer. His new book Every School a Great School has just been published by The Open University Press.
Website: 60