School Requires Improvement

Bojorojo,
In defence of governors I think it is easy to pick out examples of bad practice when appointing a head teacher. There is no question that the appointment of a head teacher is the single one act that is most important in anything that a governing board does. Get it wrong and the school and the school pupils will suffer and the governing board should also suffer the consequences.
On the other side of the coin, I have seen "advisers" blatantly push their preferred candidate who was demonstrably poorer at interview than other candidates. There is a real concern that many head teachers are still living in a previous age when they only had to be the best teacher, now they have to be a rounded manager, having a grasp of finance and HR, with good communication skills and too many struggle with this. Put in the context of industry, without that rounded managerial experience they would not progress and that to my opinion is where there is a massive gap - the training of teachers to become well-rounded managers.

I have seen schools be able to recruit excellent Heads when they are about to spiral downwards, but it is very hard to stop the rot. Mainly because it is the Governors who are part of the problem and they are doing the recruiting, as you correctly suggest . I have seen governors (a few years ago now) be extremely arrogant in their approach to recruitment and over-estimating their own skills. That is on the wane largely.

Safer recruitment is non-negiotable for us if we recruit. We must do the course. The recruitment course is optional but the courses are full so Governors are keen to train. It also allows governors the chance to swap good practice and no-one wants to make an expensive mistake or let their children down. I do not think any governor (or even pupil) should have anything to do with recruitment unless they know the basics! Usually with a pupil panel, a Governor or Advisor sits in to evaluate. Hopefully this was done!

A lot of schools now use specialist recruitment agenciies to actually get a field of suitable candidates. Around me the salary for secondary/grammar Heads is sky high. Schools have lured Edcational Advisors out of their well paid jobs to be Heads. The Headships pay a lot more!

I have seen governors totally swayed by a flashy "Head" at interview, many years ago. His description of an electronic signing in system almost swayed some governors where I advised a few years ago. They were prepared to overlook all the other things he was less good at! In the end, they were persuaded that the system of scoring the interviews and presentation clearly pointed to another candidate but even this Head ended up with difficulties due to his lack of experience and arrogance! God - its hard! Another Head has taken this school back into RI. And so it goes on.

That is interesting. I was a primary school governor and the only recruitment training which was even suggested was safer recruitment and even then that was not really pushed. Sadly in our case even the safer recruitment training would have been too little too late as the abusing supply teacher was already in our midst (subsequently convicted and imprisoned).

Two of my DC have been part of student interviewing panels for Head recruitment. Neither was given any training.

Perhaps part of the problem is that failing schools get into a downward spiral. Recruitment becomes more panicked as results get poorer. I think this was the problem at my DCs' school. Recruitment became more desperate. The school had become a last chance saloon for Heads. It isnt really that surprising that the majority of the recent Heads have subsequently ceased to be Heads.

I agree that a competent GB wont look to recruit a Surgeon Head but failing schools dont necessarily have a fully competent GB.

Yes. That's how I knew about it - Governor training on recruitment! Ofsted make it very clear they now look at progress rather than short term improvement. This is why Governors must be trained and able to challenge the Head. They must performance manage them against rigorous targets and not be in awe of them.
Having recruited quite a few Heads in my working life, I don't think governors go into the process looking for a quick fix. They spend a huge amount of time considering the type of person they want and, believe me, a surgeon head is not on the list! It can sometimes be difficult to know what a Head will actually turn out like. The recruitment process is very thorough but no-one really knows if a Head will start excluding left right and centre. However the Governors have a role in monitoring this and asking questions if it gets too much. There needs to be oversight of everything and this means being vigilant and not just accepting what the Head says as the gospel truth if there is no data to back it up. No Governors should be surprised at an Ofsted inspection's results. They should know their strengths and weaknesses and be dealing with the weaknesses!

Certainly the Head can only be recruited from the pool of applicants. However the research could be used to encourage recruiting GBs to focus on the things which actually work rather than quick fixes.

When the research hit the headlines the head of Ofsted was interviewed on Newsnight and recognised that Ofsted had focused too much on short term results.

So Gnome, the OPs school may have had a surgeon head but they did not move on. In my career I have seen lots of Head teachers who have a demi-God status with their Governing Bodies. They tend to earn this by doing very good work to begin with, the Governors see that but then do not challenge them. The Head brushes off any parent Governor that may query something. Then things go wrong. No-one spots it. The Head keeps brushing things aside and the Development Plan is weak because no-one is admitting what the challenges are.

I know the research you are talking about. However it is vital to realise that schools cannot always get the type of head they want. Also Heads change and circumstances change. It is up to the Head and Governors to recognise the difficulties (and that can be an under performing Head) and deal with it. There is no excuse and no hiding place.

One of the schools on the list that's local to me is rated outstanding by ofsted.

That is interesting bojorojo. That type of unchallenged complacency and arrogance must be quite difficult to turn around. I wonder if it was a sign that the Head had other problems going on elsewhere.

I have had experience of damp incompetence in one of our (oh so many) preceding Heads but nor arrogant incompetence. That must be very difficult to deal with and improve.

admission the problem is that Surgeons arent good Heads. They manipulate the results rather than actually make good changes. The changes they make cut out good wood as well as dead.

Too much focus is placed on achieving short term results. As you will know, 'you are what you measure'. If the measure is percentage reaching a particular grade then you can get to that by permanently excluding low achievers. This is a short-term goal but the Surgeon Head doesnt care. They are able to pocket their big salary and 'wow arent I amazing' MBE and push off to create mayhem in the next school. The school they leave behind is smaller (all those excluded students), has fewer permanent staff and quickly drops down to a point lower than when the Surgeon Head arrived.

What schools really need are Architect Heads. They cost less for a kick off (the lowest paid of the Head styles). They make more careful short term changes, are inclusive so staff and students are retained. The school thrives and grows but more slowly than the big bang of a Surgeon Head.

The study which I linked to came as a shock to OFSTED. It lights a fire under the received wisdom that the Surgeon is a good thing.

The Ofsted report says the GB has reconstituted and now has the required skills. It is not an IEB and does not need to be. It is an RI judgement. If you read the report it is quite clear that the Governors were not asking for, or receiving, detailed reports on the progress of the children or asking the right questions. Their development plan was weak. In this case the Head did not move on, they assumed a position of not sharing information or improving the school when things were going wrong (although they did not appear to know what was wrong). . No really good Head gets into this situation, whatever their improvement/management strategy. I think the Head was complacent and arrogant.

If you look at industry there is a parallel which seems to have been missed by most in authority in education.
If a company is in trouble then a number of managers are parachuted into the company with the remit to sort out what are the issues and take the immediate steps necessary to start to get the company back on an even keel. This is typically a 12 month assignment and during this time basics are put in place and "deadwood" disposed of. Then after that typically a different sort of manager comes in who is able to continue to make small consistent improvements. They are very different animals in their approach to solving issues.
For a school in trouble the same kind of approach should be being taken but it is far less well organised and understood. To me if there is a school in trouble, who ever has jurisdiction be it the local authority, the EFA or the Regional Schools Commissioner, needs to take appropriate action. That should be the governing body being removed and an Interim Executive Board (IEB) put in place. This is typically 3 to 5 people who have the right experience. The first priority is to decide whether the head teacher can actually make the changes necessary in the short term and frequently the answer is no and they should depart. That is when the "surgeon" comes in and with the IEB makes things happen. But where education still has a lot to learn is to get the right "surgeons" and to be able to handle the turn over from a "surgeon" to a more long term head and also for the IEB to hand back to a reconstituted and better Governing Board.

That's the thing, the Surgeon Head improvement to results are very short term. In reality they arent improvements at all, they are just a way of manipulating the results.

Even in a failing school it is possible for students to get good results but they (and you) have to stay focused and be quite selfish about getting what they need to achieve. This means following up on vague promises made during Parents Evening conversations, getting assessed work back promptly etc.

I cant say it enough but under a Surgeon Head personal discipline is vital. It is easier for a Surgeon Head to permanently exclude a below average student with slight discipline problems than resolve the issues.

Our last Head was a Surgeon through and through (he was even a former PE teacher to boot!). Permanent exclusions from lower sets in year 11 were rife. It is all done under the guise of being 'strong on discipline' but the aim is to raise the percentage 5 A* to C (or whatever the new version of this will be).

Yes, Gnome, you are correct.

There is only very poor teaching in lower years if the school cannot fill the teaching posts with good teachers. It may get good teachers if it really does try to improve and teachers can see that is the case and want to work at the school.

In the case of this school, the Head and governors are aware of the weaknesses (says Ofsted). Therefore they are on the starting blocks of improvement. They know what they have to do. They will not be able to make huge improvements in 6 months and any further review by HMI will not look for huge improvements in 6 months. What they will look for is a workable Improvement Plan which is SMART, an upward trajectory on as many areas as possible contained in the plan, and evidence that the improvements have had an effect on learning - all pupils' learning. HMI do at just look at exam groups. They look at all year groups. That is why a Surgeon Head is not the best solution and keeping the one they have may be better for the school.

The current Head has improved the school before. Exactly this happened to my local school. After improvement the first time, Heads and governors can be complacent and take their collective eyes off the ball. Standards slip. My local school kept the Head and they were greatly improved, until it slipped into RI again. They still kept her and they are back on track. It is a sought after school. My gut reaction is that the Head will not be forced out of the door with RI because the school was improved under his/her leadership before, but they may be older and want to retire. You also have to be certain you can get someone better. Very hard these days. Here, the Governors are to blame to. They did not hold the head to account. This will be an important factor for HMI to consider when returning.

bojorojo while the original descriptors may have come from the USA the findings were based on research done on 411 UK schools (a reasonable sample size).

The Head may stay or may not. My experience is of a continually failing school which got itself into a downward spiral resulting in a revolving door for Heads (I think we are now on our 4th since 2014) so the Head at the OP's school may do better but equally may decide to move on.

While there is a normal tendency to focus the best teachers on the exam years, under a Surgeon Head that can be taken to an extreme resulting in very poor teaching in lower years. The Surgeon Head moves on having made 'great improvements' but as the lower years move up they have huge gaps in their knowledge so the improvement is short-lived.

I agree that a Head is not going to change their personality but under pressure from the Governing Body to make quick improvement the Head may be pushed into Surgeon like activities.

My apologies if my years of bitter experience are showing!

The exam cohorts get the better teachers in nearly every school.

The Head descriptors were from the USA originally I believe and most Heads are a bit of a mix. The fact that HMI will be coming back fairly quickly means the school really must start working on the Improvement Plan and have evidence that progress has accelerated and stability in staffing is going the right way. As the school is keeping the Head, as far as can be ascertained, and she/he had a track record of improving the school previously, it would seem that improvement can take place. I would be surprised if the Head changed their personality or management style drastically, but has clearly been told to give accurate info to the governors and they must drive improvement by challenging the Head far more. They became complacent and have had to change. The huge challenge is recruitment and the plans to deal with this will be interesting!

AtomHeart well that is good. Then the key thing is to keep a watching brief.

Very fast improvement isnt always a good thing. I dont know if you followed the link I put in above about different styles of Head.

The particular concern is if you end up with a 'Surgeon' Head. These Heads make improvements by essentially manipulating numbers (students in lower sets being permanently excluded). I know it sounds like fiction but we did see it last year in DCs' school. Students below the school average finding themselves permanently excluded for reasons which upper sets are not excluded for. So behaviour is important in a very specific way as consequences for minor rule infractions can be draconian.

'Surgeon' Heads will focus the best staff on top sets and the later years. This means that lower sets and lower years get more of the supply and out of subject teachers.

As you can see, we have had a lot of experience of 'Surgeon' Heads!

It is a tricky decision for A levels: follow the normal stream into the local 6th form college or break free and aim for a higher achieving sixth. At sixth form you have more choices as catchment is different.

There are advantages and disadvantages with each choice.

Normal destination 6th form/college
They will be the natural follow on from the school. Transition should be fine as they will transition with their cohort. The school/college curriculum will tend to follow on from the Y11 school.

Downside is that the teaching standard may not be consistent. Teachers teaching out of subject which matters far more at A level.

Non-standard high achieving destination
Advantages are good subject teaching, focus on achievement.

Downsides:
Transition can be harder as not transitioning with cohort so longer to settle in which matters as there are only 2 years to play with. Curriculum may not follow on from GCSE as exam boards may be different.

We have experience of both as DCs took 3 different paths for post GCSE.

I don't think the must includes schools that go up to Y11 only for obvious reasons. Is the likely 6th form school on the list? The problem is that if poor teaching has severely dented GCSE results then getting good A levels is really hard. The govt is now giving massive cash incentives (£25,000) for maths graduates to train as maths teachers but it will take a while before they are good teachers. Ofsted says the main problem is in the North and Midlands. My BIL (late 40s) is a MFL teacher who is now teaching maths and geography! He will wing it because he is a great teacher but he does not have a degree in either of those subjects. He has never taught them before either!

Bristol Uni is very up front about wanting to attract students who have been disadvantaged by their school. To this end they have created a list of schools which attract contextual offers:

list

A number of other unis do something very similar. Some focus purely on the school some also take the postcode into consideration (areas of low HE participation rates).

Sadly this is the case in the vast majority of schools at the mo: teaching is a profession in crisis.

Teachers are leaving every year and training places for core subjects aren't getting filled and many drop out. Half the cohort who were signed up have dropped out already for a core subject.

So be aware the grass could look greener but in many schools key departments are struggling to recruit!

Two of my DCs were and are very self motivated and despite being in a school which repeatedly returns to Special Measures like a homing pigeon got good GCSE results. Unfortunately one of my DCs needed much more support which was not available and is still trying to make up lost ground.