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Transforming schools for real

Currently schools are being actively encouraged to embrace new forms of cooperation and collaboration with the promise of extra resources or kudos for their efforts. The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) is actively promoting collaborative networks of schools and more specifically, supporting school partnerships in the form of ‘tight’ or ‘loosely’ coupled federations. This policy drive is viewed as one of the prime levers for securing higher achievement and improved learning outcomes. At face value, this policy imperative reflects a move away from the drive for hard-edged competition between schools offering a different approach to systemic change. However as a means of system transformation, networking between schools raises a number of important issues. Firstly, there is an inherent tension and contradiction between the continued existence of the central apparatus of standardization and accountability alongside the aspiration that by collaborating schools can transfer knowledge, innovate collectively and improve teaching and learning. How can schools be encouraged to work in authentic partnerships if they are judged and assessed independently? While emphasis upon partnership, collaboration, and networking is to be welcomed it does assume that teachers automatically possess the will, skill and ability to work in this way. Secondly, the policy emphasis upon collaboration also assumes that all schools have the same possibility and opportunity of being part of a network, federation or partnership. For schools considered to be in challenging circumstances and (or) identified as failing to meet the floor targets set by Government, the collaborative playing field may be far from level. There is the potential for an ‘apartheid of school improvement’ created by the fact that schools who are performing well are given the latitude and resource to collaborate and innovate. Conversely, those schools which are considered to be underperforming are in receipt of even tighter prescription and scrutiny. The resulting effect is a sharp divide between those schools able to participate in the new collaborative or networking efforts and those schools exempted by virtue of their under-performance. Put bluntly, those schools best placed to improve are rewarded by being given even greater opportunities to develop, change and grow. Conversely, those schools in less favourable circumstances with poorer results are penalized by the imposition of even tighter control and prescription. While there are examples of partnerships between schools in difficulty and schools in more favorable circumstances, there appears to be little evidence to suggest that these partnerships are genuinely two-way or that there is a joint innovative process at work. Thirdly, there is the very important question of ‘networking for what purpose’? While the process of collaboration or networking is one that has been enthusiastically