Targeting Excellence - Modernising Scotland's Schools

Chapter 7 - Targeting Excellence

"Schools will only be able to achieve excellence if they plan rigorously for improvement and if they are properly and effectively supported."

We need to ensure that each school takes responsibility for seeking its own improvement, so that every school is excellent, improving or both. Schools will only be able to achieve excellence if they plan rigorously for improvement and if they are properly and effectively supported. Determined and effective action to address underperformance is also necessary. This chapter therefore sets out a strategy for the modernisation of the framework within which schools operate to ensure that it provides the best possible basis for schools to take responsibility for planning and implementing their own strategies for improvement. It reviews the important roles and responsibilities which education authorities, HMI and the wider community have in supporting schools, and in challenging them to target excellence in everything they do. To achieve the Government's vision of a world class schools system, the framework of statutory and other responsibilities must embody at all levels the shared commitment to excellence.

Schools are the Centres of Improvement

1. The approach set out in this White Paper is based on the belief that the focus of improvement is the school. No school can be continuously improving unless it reviews what it does on a rigorous, systematic and regular basis, comparing itself with its peers and considering examples of best and improved practice. Teachers and non-teaching staff, pupils and parents all need to take responsibility for the part they play in focusing on improvement.

2. HM Inspector's publication How good is our school?: Self-evaluation using performance indicators is the essential tool to assist schools address the key questions How are we doing? How do we compare with others? How can we improve?

3. Self-evaluation is now well established in schools, and is widely recognised as the basis for seeking and implementing improvement. Scotland's approach is examined with great interest by others from all over the world.

4. The Government will continue to publish benchmark information and other material which will allow schools to compare rigorously the level of their own performance with that of others so that they can identify how best to improve.

Schools should Plan for Improvement

5. Self-evaluation by a school should lead to the identification of strategies for improvement and for maintaining existing good practice. These should form the basis of the School Development Plan, which sets out for the school a strategic three-year programme, identifying priorities for development and improvement, closely linked to targets for success. The Plan should be prepared taking account of consultations with the School Board and parents. It should link strongly to staff development and review and provide the basis for decisions on school spending. All schools should have a development plan.

6. The present approach which schools take to planning has generally been successful but a number of deficiencies are consistently identified in

HM Inspectors inspections. These include the need to Improve monitoring and evaluation Provide a more secure basis for identifying priorities Make clearer specified targets and success criteria Improve linkage between whole school and departmental plans in secondary schools Hasten progress in implementing national initiatives such as 5-14 Ensure that staff development is adequately covered.

7. The Government believes that the development of a statutory framework to underpin the planning process undertaken by schools, and by education authorities, would ensure greater definition and consistency in approach. Such a framework would have to allow flexibility for local circumstances and priorities to be taken into account, but it would clarify the expectation that, as a minimum, development plans should identify targets for improvement in key areas and the actions necessary to achieve them.

Targets as a Focus for Improvement

8. Targets are fundamental to the planning process. They are not an end in themselves, but a vital focus of improvement. From school year 1998-99, all schools are working towards realistic, achievable and challenging targets which they have set for improvement in the 3 year period to 2001.

9. The Government sees advantage in formalising the requirement to set targets in key areas. This would make absolutely clear the commitment to target setting as an aid to improvement and would delineate the key priorities for the system as a whole. It would ensure consistency across Scotland - in the interests of fairness and to level up standards. Both schools and authorities would be expected to set targets. A statutory framework would provide that Targets should be set for specified measures over specified periods Targets and relevant benchmark information should be published Monitoring and follow-up action should be carried out by the school and education authority.

Empowering Schools to Make Decisions

10. Devolved School Management (DSM) is now in place across Scotland: control of the school's budget is largely devolved to the headteacher. The headteacher has a key role to play in initiating and implementing change and he or she must have the skills and powers to provide effective leadership.

11. Devolved management empowers the school so that decisions on resource allocation and priorities can be considered locally in the light of the needs of each school; it brings greater flexibility and choice to the school; it enables the school to respond quickly to changing needs; and morale can increase as schools see the results of increased control and responsibility.

12. Now that DSM is fully introduced, it is appropriate to consider how best to extend day-to-day devolved management; and how best to review the existing guidelines on and approaches to resource allocation to eliminate unnecessary restrictions and bureaucracy.

13. There are a number of options for moving to the next stage which include Increasing the percentage of expenditure which must be devolved beyond the current 80% - many authorities already exceed this Increasing the range of expenditures identified at school level (for example, home to school transport, school meals and clothing and footwear grants are at present central costs outwith school level expenditure) Removing restrictions on moving money between different parts of the school budget (ie restrictions imposed by authorities which stop headteachers from significant reallocation of expenditure) Providing that a financial and needs audit should form part of each school's annual report to parents.

14. As is the case with targets and development planning a statutory framework would ensure consistency and transparency.

Seeking Radical Improvement in Performance

15. The vast majority of schools can plan successfully for improvement within this framework. However, a number of schools face significant levels of challenge in improving performance and more radical approaches will be necessary. The targets such schools have set for improvement in exam performance will consistently be at the upper values, and other indicators such as attendance and declining rolls will also be relevant. Overall, their performance may have been static, or declining, over a number of years and may compare unfavourably with schools in broadly similar circumstances.

16. Such schools may be few in number in Scotland, but where they exist we must all ensure that action is taken so that they receive the support and direction they need to avoid falling further into a spiral of decline from which it will be hard to recover.

Education Action Plans

17. Under the Excellence Fund, £15m will be made available to authorities to support Education Action Plans to develop radical approaches to raising attainment and attendance in schools facing significant challenges.

18. Action Plans should be innovative; they should be clearly focussed on a programme to raise the performance of all the pupils in the school. It will be for education authorities in bidding for support under this programme to identify, in discussion with the schools concerned, the appropriate actions necessary to make a sustained impact on performance. However, significant features of such plans are likely to include Adjustments to the curriculum for particular groups of pupils - or pupils with particular needs - where it can be demonstrated that a better educational experience will be offered and student success maximised The innovative use of able teaching and learning support staff, possibly as behaviour counsellors, who would work with pupils and their families Determined steps to improve partnership with parents and their involvement in their children's learning.

19. Action Plans must also specify and measure results, with particular targets for raising attainment, improving attendance and reducing exclusion. The bidding process for Action Plans is underway at present - and plans will be put into action as soon as possible.

Addressing Underperformance: A Framework for Action

20. We expect that Action Plans will make a significant impact on many schools where levels of performance give cause for concern and the scope for improvement is most significant. They will be an important part of the Government's strategy to root out underperformance where it exists in Scotland's schools. The Government does not consider it would be helpful to label particular schools as failing, but it must be clear that no one - teachers, pupils or parents - should tolerate underperformance. Underperformance is nothing more than a betrayal of the interests of pupils.

21. The Government therefore wishes to ensure that early and determined action is taken by schools and by education authorities to address and rectify underperformance. All education authorities should have in place the procedures to ensure that they do this. A focus on improvement at all levels will avoid the situation where schools drift into underachievement.

22. Careful monitoring of performance is essential and must be a primary responsibility of each school and education authority. Early warning signals must be recognised and heed paid to them. Where performance gives cause for concern, or where satisfactory progress is not being made, swift corrective action must be identified and taken. Failure to make steady progress against improvement targets may be one indicator of concern, rising levels of non-attendance another, and continuing decline in roll through placing requests to other schools may also indicate underlying problems to be addressed.

23. Action to address underperformance when it is identified will be specific to the circumstances of each school. The redeployment of existing resources, additional teaching resources, additional staff development, changes in class organisation may all have a role to play. In many instances, the school will be able to identify and implement for itself appropriate corrective steps. Effective monitoring will ensure that the authority also gets the earliest possible warning. Its duty must be to respond energetically to those signals and support the school in ensuring that steps to secure improvement are identified and effective.

24. Early and swift action should restore performance to an acceptable level. Where this is not the case, or where the school or the authority fail to respond to the signals referred to above, more radical approaches may be required.

25. These might include Full inspection of the school by HM Inspectors to identify areas of serious weakness Where weaknesses continue, the authority might be directed by the Scottish Ministers to take appropriate action to address them The Scottish Ministers might appoint a team to give teaching and management support to the school, in co-operation with the authority, to ensure that the underlying issues are addressed satisfactorily.

26. The Government recognises that a new legislative framework will be required to provide the basis for such action on underperformance. It would include a duty on education authorities to have in place procedures to address underperformance and new powers for the Scottish Ministers to intervene in cases of continuing weakness.

27. A decision on whether to confer such powers will however be a matter for the Scottish Parliament.

Supporting and Challenging Schools - The Education Authority

28. School development planning and devolved school management are the essential framework for schools to seek improvement. Education Action Plans and strategies to address underperformance will build on these and the role of the education authority in each is significant. However the authority has a wider range of responsibilities _ to plan for and pursue improvement schools need to operate in an environment of support and challenge. The roles of education authority, HM Inspectors and central government are of critical importance.

29. The education authority's role in creating a framework and culture for improvement in all its schools is vital. The Government does not wish to change education authorities' statutory role in the provision of school education: there is a clear need for the management of the service to be responsive to local needs in a manner that only local authorities can fulfil. Responses to the Parents as Partners consultation document recognised the positive role of the education authority. We want to build on that to ensure that it is consistent with modern developments which correctly place greater decision taking at school level.

30. The Government does not believe that the concept of self-governing schools fits well with the state education system. The two schools currently opted-out of local authority control should return to the education authority framework. The Government considers that the first legislative opportunity should be taken to return these schools to local authority control. In the meantime, closer co-operation between Dornoch Academy and Highland Council, and St Mary's Episcopal Primary School and Stirling Council has developed.

31. The 32 authorities in Scotland vary greatly in size, circumstances and organisational structures. What authorities must all share is the overriding aim of raising standards through the continuous process of improvement - in this their key role is to support schools and challenge them to do better. Schools have the right to expect the highest quality advice and support and all the education authority activities must carefully be measured against the contribution they make to raising standards.

32. Intervention by an authority in a particular school should be in inverse proportion to success. The framework for addressing underperformance, which has been described above, is based on this assumption. Day-to-day interactions with schools should be guided by a strategic framework in the form of an education plan which Links to the authority's overall corporate aims, vision, values and objectives Describes the key services provided or managed by the education authority Sets clear targets for improvement in these services Includes an asset management plan setting out a clear strategy for the provision and maintenance of appropriate school buildings Provides the basis for resource allocation - and in particular for the direction of additional resources to areas of deprivation or schools in areas of deprivation with clearly targeted outcomes Provides a framework for monitoring progress and ensuring that underperformance is addressed Contains clear statements of policy in key areas including special educational needs.

33. This strategic framework should take the form of an education plan. It should build on existing processes, and provide effective linkages particularly with the children's services plan and planning for pre-school provision. It is important that this plan is clearly and concisely presented and made available in a form that is understandable and accessible to parents and teachers. The process of consultation, particularly with both parents and teachers, in the course of developing the plan will be of key importance to its success. Reports on progress against the plan should also be understandable and accessible.

A Duty to Plan for Improvement

34. Planning for improvement across the education service is of fundamental importance. This chapter has already recognised the importance of effective planning at school level and the case for it being placed on a statutory basis. There should be strong links between the school development plan of each school and the strategic framework developed by the authority. There is therefore a strong case for such planning by authorities also to have statutory backing. A statutory requirement to prepare and consult upon an education plan might be related to a general duty on education authorities to act so as to seek improvement; and it would cover the approach to underperformance reviewed above.

35. This framework would ensure consistency of approach and underpin the essential consultative process which must inform an effective plan. It would require authorities to set targets in key areas of the services they provide or manage. It would provide a basis for the identification and implementation of key national priorities, building on the common commitment to improvement and excellence that is shared by the Government, all authorities and schools.