Welcome to the LCLL 15th Anniversary Annual Lecture Celebrating 15 years of innovative leadership
www.ioe.ac.uk/lcll
Building a Great School (and a Great System) Ben Levin OISE – University of Toronto
Institute of Education, London March 2012
Outline • Building a great school • Challenges • A system perspective
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Perspective • From Canada – Senior official in government – Policy researcher – Political involvement
• England – Ongoing view of education policy over last 20 years – Evaluation of NLS/NNS – NCSL council 4
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We Know a Lot • Much knowledge about good policy and practice • Don’t use it all • Requires doing many things all at once
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World Challenge • Better outcomes than ever before • In a broader range of areas than ever before • For more students than ever before • With less inequity than ever before • And within fiscal constraints
England • Achievement appears quite good by international standards – TIMSS results high, improving – PISA results good though not improving
• There is no education crisis • Prime issue is equity – Some evidence of improvement – Large gaps remain 8
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What Causes These Gaps?
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Schools and Society • Schools cannot do everything • Social policy is also vital to good education – Housing, employment, health, child care
• More equitable societies have better outcomes • Schools often less unequal than other sectors
Schools cannot solve social inequalities - And should not be blamed for them But they can make an important contribution to reducing them
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How Much Could We Improve? • Much of the variance is within schools • Other countries do much better with similar challenges • Limits of improvement are not known
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Four Main Foci • • • •
Improving teaching and learning Student support and care Curriculum and program Community outreach
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Teaching and Learning • Teaching more than teachers • Like other professions, based on best available knowledge • Practice owned by teachers as a profession • Teaching as a collective activity • Continuous learning and adaptation
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Examples • • • • • • •
More formative assessment Building on students’ prior knowledge More student engagement More higher order tasks Less tracking Preventing failure as much as possible Second chances
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Student Support and Care • Knowing every student – Knowledge, respect, expectations
• Keeping track of every student’s progress • Intervening early when problems occur
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Curriculum and Program • • • • •
Teaching matters more than curriculum Build on students’ knowledge and interests High expectations – avoiding tracking Reducing special education placements Self-directed learning
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Community Outreach • Reaching out to parents and families – To support children’s progress
• Building broader community relations – Ethnic, religious, sports and other groups
• Working with employers – Work experience, mentoring
• Community study – Place as a curriculum area 35
What It Takes to Do This • A clear theory of action • Relentless focus on the things that really matter – It is very hard to change people’s behaviour
• Building a positive, collegial, supportive culture of high expectations for all • Providing the supports people need to get better at their work 36
Challenges • Wrong policies – Focus on competition, autonomy and blame as central drivers of improvement – Focus only on ‘failing’ schools
• Public beliefs – Failure, tracking, selection as desirable
• Distractions – Lack of focus on what really matters
• Professional beliefs – Individual autonomy – Blaming kids and families
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The Importance of a System • Each school improving on its own is not a reasonable approach – High performing systems do not do this
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Autonomy and Outcomes Country Autonomy measure UK +.83 Finland -.39 Canada -.39 Korea -.44 Japan -.18 Like the UK – Czech Republic, Hungary, Netherlands, Sweden 39
The Importance of a System • Each school improving on its own is not a good strategy – High performing systems do not do this – Does not provide enough support for improvement in all schools – Too many distractions for schools
• Key is the right balance between school and system effort • Collaboration more than competition 40
Policy Needs • More positive climate – support, not blame • Working on improvement in every school • Enough systematic supports to lead to real improvement
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Implications for Leaders • • • •
Keep focused on what really matters Build your own networks and supports Collaborate with others Work to influence public opinion and policy – Importance of equity – Need for support rather than blame
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Research • Some good progress in UK • Could be a much more important contributor to better education • Requires a more strategic approach – Improvements in the research enterprise – Improvements in the sector capacity to use research – Better mediation between the two
Vision, Optimism, Realism
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Thank You 45