Federated Schools: Common features of effective federation, published by Estyn, notes these points

The most most successful federations have:

• Senior leaders and local authorities with a clear vision of what they want to get out of federation process.
• Outcomes for pupils as the clear focus.
• Communication systems that inform staff, parents and pupils.
• Leaders that improve provision and outcomes for pupils by sharing resources, systems and good practice across schools.
• Good governors and an effective executive headteacher in place, which has a positive impact on leadership capacity at all levels.
• Budget efficiencies where capacity allows. This might see an increase in the role of administrative staff and the employment of a business manager to oversee budgets across the federation often results in further savings and efficiencies.

Some warnings/ shortcomings:

• Federations of smaller schools can be a challenge.
• Surprisingly, in most cases, federated schools do not use information and communication technology (ICT) effectively to support collaboration, and in particular pupil collaboration, across member schools.
• “… there are too few opportunities for headteachers to engage in professional learning that will prepare them to lead a federation or for senior leaders and staff of federated schools to network and share practice”. (p6)

A selection of ‘Estyn recommends’:

“R2 Develop leadership structures for the federation, including some non-teaching time for a senior leader on each site, to support effective day-to-day operation and good communication within and between schools.”

“R4 Develop the use of ICT to support collaboration by staff and pupils”.

“R7 Identify and evaluate the potential impact of any barriers to effective federation, such as geographical remoteness”.

“R8 Provide relevant professional learning opportunities for senior leaders of federated schools”.

The Welsh Government should:

“R12 Explore arrangements to help federated schools pool their resources”.

 

This is a useful document for anyone considering federation of any type.

 

The Education Commission  (a global initiative dedicated to greater progress on Sustainable Development ) is helping to create a route for reform and increased investment in education. In this report, it recognises that we need to apply robust evidence and analysis and engaging with world leaders, policymakers and researchers.

It has a  particular interest in ensuring inclusive and quality education and promoting lifelong learning for all.

The Commission argues that teamwork as a key to educating the world’s children.

It cites existing evidence and innovations from different sectors, including education. It suggests that there needs to be a rethink of how we structure the education workforce. Creating  quick responding , ‘collaborative teams and systems’ that respond to our rapidly changing world is seen as a way to equip our young people with the skills they need for the future.

The work centres around three visions:

Vision 1 –

Professionalise teachers (and others with key roles) with appropriate recruitment, training, professional development, career paths, and working conditions to enable them to be effective.

Vision 2 –

Develop collaborative teams focused on improving education outcomes in the classroom, within schools, and at all levels in the system to result in more effective teaching and better support for inclusion, on-the-job learning, and motivation. They suggest that developing these teams does not always mean having to take on new staff , but more considering how best to utilize  current colleagues by realigning roles and identifying the areas of greatest need.

Vision 3 –

This sounds intriguing: “Transforming an education system into a learning system,” that will  provide ‘paradigm-shifting change’ by harnessing teams to build networks of schools, professionals, and cross-sectoral partnerships that use data and evidence to transform education systems into learning systems that are self-improving and adaptable to change.

There is an admission that “Advancing these visions will depend on the political economy and financial support” (p46).

To give you a flavour of the report, this is copied from p48

“Box 3: Benefits of the learning team approach

• More effective teaching: Planning and teaching in teams; peer collaboration; coaching and mentoring; learning assistants and trainee teachers supporting proven teaching and learning strategies

• More instructional time: Learning assistants and trainee teachers supporting classroom management and routine/administrative activities task shifted to these roles; administrative support and technology

• Greater access to specialist expertise: Identifying gaps in subject and pedagogy expertise and devising solutions to provide needed expertise potentially across schools, harnessing technology where appropriate

• Better support for inclusion: Access to specialist inclusion expertise, classroom support for children with greatest needs, and better links to the community

• On-the-job learning and support: Planning and teaching in teams; peer collaboration; coaching and mentoring

• Improved workforce motivation: More team working, support, development, and variety of career opportunities.”

These are components that can apply across different aspects of a learning institution’s provision.

Details of each part of the process are found in these sections:

6.1 Develop innovative learning configurations to address individual learner needs

6.2 Develop school networks and harness system leaders

6.3 Leverage cross-sectoral partnerships

6.4 Encourage a research and development culture where high impact innovations are identified and scaled

6.5 Key shifts in the education workforce at each level in a learning system.

If this is something that interests you, then have a looks at Chapters 7 and 8

Chapter 7: How to make education workforce reform happen

7.1 Navigating the political economy of workforce reforms

7.2 Planning, costing, and financing the education workforce 

Chapter 8: Agenda for action

8.1 Call to action for policymakers and the education workforce

8.2 Call to action for international actors.

The report is in  Educational Psychology (Routledge). The research was carried out in Singapore.

The authors,  Francesca Wah and Tick Ngee Sim of the National University of Singapore’s Psychology Department say that if we want to keep pushing for excellence in our classrooms, we need to be applying more evidence-based practice.

Be aware that the age range of the children involved is ‘Primary 3 and 4’.

• 1,000 primary age children
• Found that children of all abilities who competed in groups against other groups (rewards such as verbal praise and actual prizes) achieved higher scores
• Suggests that a common goal of winning and an ‘us versus them’ mindset encourages higher achieving pupils to help the weakest in their group do better.
• A team approach is preferable to rewarding just the best student  at the expense of others
•  It was also found that these children became more prosocial.

The authors are critical of some previous work done on reward – noting that several have been in ‘laboratory-like’ conditions that are not like classrooms at all.

They note that different rewards work for different pedagogical approaches and that ability level plays a significant part in response to the reward incentive.

There are some very interesting comments, such as the citing of Sansone and Harackiewicz (2000) who argue that rewards only work for those who think they can achieve them.

There are very complex issues at play here and the whole paper needs to be read carefully. There are many nuances.

However, the authors claim that cooperative-competitive reward is a way forward (at least for their researched group) and that we can stop discussing whether or not to use rewards and think about how best to use them.