Outstanding Leaders Partnership

Annual Review2015/16

Welcome Welcome to the Outstanding Leaders Partnership Annual Review 2015/16. We are immensely proud of how far we have come over the past 12 months and hope you enjoy reading about the many achievements and highlights of the past year in this Annual Review.

Another successful year has enabled the partnership to extend the scope and capacity of our leadership provision whilst continuing to drive forward on-going quality improvement. The partnership has advanced our goal of building self-sustaining, school-led professional development across the North West. This report reflects the achievements of the last year and demonstrates the impact our qualifications are having on schools, school leaders and most importantly pupil outcomes.

We would like to give particular recognition to all those who continue to support the partnership. These include the growing number of affiliate hubs who continue to promote, host and facilitate on behalf of the partnership; our highly skilled delivery team of facilitators, coaches, online tutors and subject matter experts; and the schools and their leaders providing facilities, placements and support for our growing number of candidates. It is the enthusiasm, commitment and collaboration of these stakeholders that has defined the quality and relevance of our leadership provision.

This year recruitment has risen 15% with 546 candidates starting leadership qualifications with OLP. The level 4 & 5 Diplomas in School Business Management have been added to the provision available through the partnership and development of contextualised faith versions of the NPQs has got underway. For the first time, the Outstanding Leaders Partnership has been able to utilise a surplus of £36,000 to create targeted scholarships to support candidates on our qualifications.

We look forward to the year ahead that will bring fresh challenge as we look to embed our model of self-sustaining, school-led leadership development across the region.

Tarun Kapur CBE CEO, The Dean Trust

Colin McLean CEO, Best Practice Network

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Thank you for your support throughout the course. I benefitted so much from your support (and challenge!) and even though I had a lot of experience as Associate Headteacher, I really don’t think that I would have been completely ready for headship without NPQH.

James Marsh, NPQH

Adam is Assistant Headteacher at Tottington High School in Bury, where his primary responsibility is for professional development. Adam researched the opportunities available and gained a place on NPQSL through the Bury Secondary Learning Collaborative, which has an outstanding reputation in the borough for leadership development. Adam shares the impact of his successful completion of the National Professional Qualification for Senior Leadership:

“I wanted a system that was sustainable so that faculties, subjects and individuals were able to identify and address needs and ultimately improve student outcomes.”

Adam introduced a number of significant improvements to the school CPD system. These were designed to encourage faculties and staff to take responsibility for identifying, organising, sharing and reviewing CPD.

The outcomes were extremely positive:

■ GCSE performance on the five A*-C measure improved by 12% between 2013 and 2014

■ Three of four subject areas targeted as priorities for improvement achieved their goals

■ The systems introduced by Adam have been sustained and incorporated into wider school changes

What is particularly pleasing is that the changes Adam introduced have been sustained, a key requirement of the NPQSL assessment task, and a terrific example of a leader growing the leadership capacity of their organisation.

Adam states the qualification provided two key elements. Firstly, it deepened his knowledge and understanding of the underpinning theories of leadership and management. Secondly, the resources helped Adam to confirm that strategies he had arrived at through professional intuition and practice had external verification.

Adam is now supporting the growth of leadership capacity across his locality as a trained facilitator for the National Professional Qualification for Middle Leadership working on behalf of Bury Secondary Learning Collaborative.

“My project is not the sole factor, but I can say that the CPD supported the improvement strategies faculties were putting in place”

Case StudyAdam Rashud, NPQSL

“I wanted to support the school’s priorities for raising attainment, and to do this I wanted to develop the school CPD system so that it was more effective in supporting specific faculty, subject and individual priorities.”

About UsThe Outstanding Leaders Partnership (OLP) is a National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) accredited licensee offering National Professional Leadership and School Business Management Qualifications. The partnership comprises of The Dean Trust, an expanding Multi-Academy Trust with a very successful teaching school at its heart, and Best Practice Network, a national training organisation who specialise in school leadership and other professional development opportunities.

Our key aims ■ A collaborative partnership of schools and academies committed to the

design and implementation of a local strategy for leadership development

■ Provision of supported, structured and sustainable professional qualifications that inspire and develop local leaders

■ Improved quality of leadership underpinned by national qualifications that recognise professional achievement

■ Increased school effectiveness and the highest possible pupil standards

■ Support the development of a school led system - with the profession taking a lead in local leadership development

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56

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1015

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1646

2947

2746 39

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51 48

50 2320

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The year in numbers

“Outstanding and a benchmark for performance”

National College for Teaching & Leadership

= Schools engaged with OLP

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1015

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1646

2947

2746 39

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51 48

50 2320

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NPQH

All-through 4%

NPQSL

Secondary 42%

NPQML

Primary 54%

494

Graduates

Almost a quarter of all NW schools engaged with OLP (23.4%)

820 Schools

All data current as of 01/03/2016

100% final assessment success rate

71NPQH trainees have secured first headship post

650667

264

NPQML NPQSL NPQH

1,581 candidates registered

HALF of NPQML & NPQSL graduates promoted

Highlights of the Year 15/16

Apr 15 May 15 Jun 15 Jul 15

Aug 15 Sep 15

Oct 15 Nov 15 Dec 15 Jan 16

Feb 16 Mar 16

OLP Strategic Board createdA Strategic Board is created to drive forward the future long term growth of the Partnership. The board will capture the focus and remit of the Strategic Group, but will ensure its reach, capacity and capability is enhanced.

Affiliate Hub model establishedOLP board establish a strategic model to engage locally based ‘school’ sites to act as a sustainable infrastructure from which to design and deliver quality leadership provision within each North West local authority.

DSBM provision addedOLP board agree the addition of the Level 4 to 6 Diplomas in School Business Management to our leadership offer.

Assessment resultsA total of 31 NPQML & SL candidates pass final assessment, with an overall pass rate of 100%.

5 trainee headteachers pass Task 3 and graduate from NPQH. 100% pass.

Faith module development beginsWorking groups begin contextualising NPQML & NPQSL qualifications for Faith leaders.

Autumn recruitment closesRecruitment closes with a 20% increase in candidate numbers since Autumn 2014. 74% of NPQH Gateway Assessment graduates select OLP as their preferred provider. A total of 348 candidates start their qualfication with Intake 6 across 20 groups.

First MAT group startsSir William Stanier School, support by The Heath, begin delivery of NPQML & NPQSL for 28 staff.

Assessment resultsA total of 46 NPQML & SL candidates pass final assessment, with an overall pass rate of 93%.

23 Trainee Headteachers pass Task 3 and graduate from NPQH.

Oaks TSA join OLPThe Oaks Teaching School Alliance in St Helens join the OLP as an Affiliate Hub.

Merseyside SEN TSA join OLPMerseyside SEN TSA, a collaboration of four special schools located in Sefton and Liverpool, join OLP as an Affiliate Hub.

Assessment resultsA total of 37 NPQML & SL candidates pass final assessment, with an NPQSL pass rate of 100%, NPQML pass rate of 95%.

NPQH RC leaders development beginsLiverpool Arch Diocese lead project to connect Catholic Certificate for Headteachers within our existing NPQH provision.

Highlights of the Year 15/16

Apr 15 May 15 Jun 15 Jul 15

Aug 15 Sep 15

Oct 15 Nov 15 Dec 15 Jan 16

Feb 16 Mar 16

OLP host Hub eventActive and prospective Affiliate Hubs came together for an update on the current landscape, to review practice and processes as part of OLP’s continued quality improvement and to network with one another.

Assessment resultsA total of 66 NPQML & SL candidates pass final assessment, with an overall pass rate of 93%.

OLP Targeted ScholarshipsOLP put forward £36k of surplus to be distributed through Targeted Scholarships for the NPQML & SL qualifications. Boards in each of the three NW sub-regions tasked with determining eligibility and awarding scholarships.

Spring 2016 NPQH recruitment closesRecruitment closes with a 21% increase in candidate numbers from Spring 2015. This equates to 67% of gateway assessment graduates in the North West.

Spring 2016 NPQML & NPQSL recruitment closesRecruitment closes with a 6% increase in candidate numbers despite the loss of NCTL scholarships. A total of 169 candidates start their qualification with Intake 7 across 11 groups.

First Annual Affiliate EventOLP host 1st Annual Affiliate Event. The event brings together all OLP stakeholders and provides opportunity to reflect on success to date, look ahead to 2016/17 and provide CPD on effective facilitation.

System Leadership Programme consultationOLP launch project to develop a programme to meet the professional needs of experienced school, academy and system leaders working within the changing education landscape.

NCTL modules ported to CanvasNCTL modules updated and imported into our online learning environment to better enable candidate collaboration and accessibility.

NCTL extend supportNCTL host a licensee meeting to gather views regarding future direction of leadership qualifications. Roger Pope, Chair of NCTL, confirms 18 month extension to existing model.

New Affiliate Hubs join OLPNorth Chadderton in Oldham, Aspirer Teaching Alliance in Macclesfield and Deyes High School in Sefton join OLP as Affiliate Hubs.

360° tool updatedDiagnostic tool updated to enable reporting across an organisation, MAT, TSA or local authority.

Assessment resultsA total of 57 NPQML & SL candidates pass final assessment, with an overall pass rate of 100%. 13 Trainee Headteachers pass Task 3 and graduate from NPQH. 100% pass.

Farzana was newly appointed as the headteacher of a hospital school while undertaking her NPQH with OLP. The week before she took up post, the school, that had previously been judged outstanding, was inspected and placed into special measures. Farzana shares the varied learning experiences the qualification provided and how they helped her chart a course through a turbulent year.

“I had to think and act fast...being in special measures gave me the main driver I needed to implement real change.”

The school’s situation provided an ideal and pressing focus; her project would be to get the school out of special measures. She adopted a systematic approach to her challenge. She started by meeting with the head of a local primary school who had successfully led his school out of special measures to get advice.

She then engaged governors and the local authority’s School Effectiveness Partner, presenting an action plan for discussion. She received terrific support from them and got a similar reaction when she met with parents whom she had invited to attend an ‘Ofsted surgery’. So far, so good.

However, when Farzana presented the issues to staff and shared her plans she “quickly realised some of them were in denial about being in special measures and they felt that the Ofsted inspector had not understood the context of our school.” At this point Farzana turned to her NPQH training to provide insight into her situation:

“I had read and heard about similar reactions in other schools placed into special measures in the NPQH materials and from my placement school headteacher. This was useful to know and explained the staff’s limited input into the action plan.”

Farzana quickly recognised that she would be able to apply many more facets of her learning from NPQH to the processes she would undertake in the coming months.

The qualification supported her through a very difficult and challenging time. She describes the face-to-face days and the support from her mentors as ‘invaluable’.

“The next steps on my leadership journey are for me to use the experiences I have to help others and in doing so to increase my own skill level and competency at whole school leadership.”

Case StudyFarzana Shah, NPQH

“I shared learning from my NPQH modules with stakeholders. When it came to us evaluating and updating our curriculum offer, I shared with governors the thinkpiece from my elective module on ‘Curriculum design’.”

“The college is transformed. It now provides a good education for students and makes an effective contribution to their recovery”

Ofsted

“As a direct result of my school improvement project literacy results increased by 9%. If it was not for this course, I would not have carried out this project and results would not have risen.

The rise in results across the school impacted our Ofsted outcome, and Literacy was at the forefront.”

Hayley Tobias, NPQML

John is Vice Principal of the Manchester Communication Academy which opened in 2010 and serves one of the most socially deprived areas of the country. After graduating NPQSL in 2014, John progressed on to NPQH and has recently completed his final assessment. John shares how he has used the varied learning opportunities afforded by the National Professional Qualification for Headship to provide a framework for his leadership development and to prepare him for future headship.

The opportunity to work with like-minded colleagues, and be challenged by skilled facilitators at the face-to-face training was a powerful experience. John recalls the Leading and Improving Teaching event and the profound impact of encountering Frisk’s notion that “vision is something we can see well enough to recognise if it appeared in reality”.

John explains how he needed to be much more strategic and far less ‘scattergun’ in his leadership of the school’s improvement strategies.

“I was doing a lot, but not trusting enough of others…and the net effect was limited impact. Previously I had undertaken all of the learning walks myself and I had tended to look at why things had gone wrong…now I have coached middle leaders so that they carry them out and the focus has changed, now it’s about developing staff rather than a judgmental activity.”

John found that his nine day school placement was “one of the most effective parts of the qualification”. John was placed in an all-girls catholic school, rated outstanding by Ofsted; a very different context to his own school. The headteacher was clear what she would like from him - a report, in one month’s time, on how the school could tackle the problem of closing the gap for its pupil premium pupils. The task was a challenge, but one that John relished.

John and his colleagues are enthusiasts of NCTL’s suite of leadership development qualifications. To date, over 25 of their staff have completed a qualification with OLP. He describes OLP’s qualifications as ‘relevant’ and ‘credible’ leadership development that dovetails effectively with the academy’s succession planning strategy. His advice to those contemplating whether or not to complete NPQH:

“If you don’t open yourself to the challenge, you won’t know the leader you want to be.”

Case StudyJohn Rowlands, NPQH

“It gave me confidence. I saw that I had influenced the SLT, key staff, governors.

I now feel confident in holding my own in meetings with senior figures like the Regional Schools Commissioner and I feel more ready for headship”

“I realised that our school’s vision was not matched by the reality of our exam data. The next day I decided to adopt a different approach”

“NPQH has been the best piece of CPD I have undertaken bar none. Not only did it give me a solid theoretical grounding but it also gave me the confidence to put these skills into practice on a daily basis. Staff and colleagues say that they have seen the dramatic impact the course has had on my leadership development.”

Leigh Holmes, NPQH

Local workingLisa Bradshaw, Director of the St Helens Teaching Schools Alliance (SHTSA) explains how the Outstanding Leaders Partnership (OLP) and the St Helens TSA have forged a powerful working relationship and how this has translated into concrete outcomes for leaders in St Helens and across the North West.

About St Helens TSAIn Spring 2013, two outstanding primary schools in the borough successfully gained Teaching School Status and formed the St Helens Teaching Schools Alliance, which includes 16 strategic partners and a further 28 partner schools from all phases. In September 2013, the Alliance began looking for a licensee to support their leadership development provision. In Lisa’s words “OLP’s name just kept coming up amongst colleagues in the Learn and Lead Network…all the feedback we get is that OLP programmes are of high quality, and we wanted to be associated with something that is quality”.

OLP were enthusiastic about supporting and promoting the Alliance’s philosophy that “facilitators should be local, serving headteachers in schools judged as good or outstanding”. Lisa is extremely positive about the support the Alliance receives from OLP and highlights the guidance received from the management team which she describes as “very responsive, providing good advice on how to scope provision”.

Strategies for leadership developmentThe Alliance is committed to the development of leadership capacity amongst its partner schools with a clear focus on its responsibility for succession planning and talent management. It aims to provide a comprehensive and coherent package of CPD to meet staff needs. Lisa reveals three key strategies the Alliance adopts to generate interest in, and enthusiasm for, leadership development:

■ An annual scoping exercise: Concerned with the low response to questionnaires, Lisa adopted the strategy of visiting partner school heads and completing an annual TSA audit with them.

■ The St Helens TSA Leadership Ladder: A poster for display in staffrooms that clearly maps the leadership development opportunities available to staff.

■ Briefing sessions: Once demand has been established, after school briefing events are jointly delivered by SHTSA and OLP.

“A particularly strong feature (of the day) was the headteachers’ capacity for bringing theory to life by effective references to their personal professional practice”

Measuring impactLisa uses three impact measures:

■ Candidate volumes: From September 2014 to March 2016 St Helens TSA have delivered five groups of candidates on the National Professional Qualifications for Middle & Senior Leadership and two groups on the Level 4 Diploma for School Business Management. This amounts to a total of 96 teachers and 24 SBMs - very impressive figures for one of the smaller metropolitan boroughs in England.

■ Career progression: This is used as a proxy measure to determine if the qualifications have impacted on the leadership development of individuals and therefore, their ability to secure promotions to posts carrying greater responsibility. During the period 2014-2016 all SLEs and PDLs in the Alliance followed either NPQML or NPQSL, and 43% have already achieved a promotion.

■ Contribution to the development of a self-improving system at a local level: Utilising serving school leaders in the delivery of leadership training has required significant capacity building and the Alliance has invested heavily in this. They now have 15 headteachers trained to facilitate across NPQML, NPQSL, NPQH & DSBM Level 4 & 5.

What makes St Helens TSA successful?When asked what single thing has been the key to St Helens TSA’s success, Lisa is very clear: “It’s the scoping exercise. While the personal visits to every school are time consuming, meeting face-to-face with each headteacher means that we can have a dialogue about what the school needs and what we are able to offer that just can’t be replicated through a paper exercise”.

“My project has had a dramatic impact on progress and attainment in writing across the school and is now filtering its way through all subjects.

I have definitely become more effective in my leadership role as a result of undertaking this qualification and more confident to address change.”Jane Rhodes, NPQSL

Our Hubs

Witherslack Group

East Cheshire Association of Primary Headteachers (eCAPH)

Trafford TSA

The Dean Trust

The Heath Family

Weatherhead TSA

Bury Secondary Learning Collaborative (BSLC)Deyes High School

Affiliate Hub

Board Member

Best Practice Network

North Chadderton School

Rowan Learning Trust

St Helens TSA

Oaks TSA

Wade Deacon High School

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool

Great Sankey TSA

Manchester TSA

Silk Alliance

Merseyside SEN Alliance

Aspirer Teaching Alliance

St John Bosco Arts College Teaching School

Rainbow Education MAT

Last wordThe Outstanding Leaders Partnership has had an excellent year, delivering fantastic leadership training across the North West, further developing the range of qualifications available and extending the reach of the partnership. A great example of how a self-improving school-led system can really make a difference.

The Outstanding Leaders Partnership will continue to develop our offer for 2016/17 in the following areas:

■ Analysing leadership development need: To do this we are developing the 360° online leadership skills diagnostic to enable schools to use the tool as part of their performance management and to assess leadership capacity across their school or Trust.

■ School Business Management: Delivery of the level 4, 5 and 6 School Business Management qualifications, accredited by the Institute of Leadership and Management.

■ Faith Leadership: Working in partnership with the Arch-Diocese of Liverpool and faith leaders to contextualise the National Professional Qualifications.

■ Multi-Academy Trusts: Development of a multi-academy trust offer to support their leadership development and capacity building.

■ What’s after NPQH?: We are exploring how we can support the leadership development of experienced headteachers, executive headteachers and system leaders.

As a school-led partnership we prioritise and identify developments based upon feedback from schools within the partnership and candidates on our qualifications. The spirit of collaboration in the North West is outstanding and we thank all the schools, school leaders and staff involved in making the Outstanding Leaders Partnership a success.

Neill Harris Chair, OLP

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