Fresh from the buzz of Partnerships Week 2023 and as the year draws to a close, it feels like a good time to reflect on school partnerships: what’s changed, what’s working well and where 2024 might take us.
This year has witnessed unprecedented challenges in education: student attendance, teacher recruitment, school building decay, questions over Ofsted, severe budgetary pressures and family poverty, continued COVID fallout for young people and more. Dame Alison Peacock, CEO of Chartered College of Teaching, referred in her discussion with me at our #PartnerChat Breakfast Briefing earlier this month, to the many issues affecting all schools, and observed that by building bridges between schools, within or across sectors, such challenges can be addressed.
Encouraging ever deeper and more purposeful partnerships for this reason is what gets me up in the morning. I work mostly with partnerships between state schools and independent schools, and between state schools and corporate partners. There is a surprisingly large overlap between these types of partnership and I always enjoy the cross-over learning I get from each, which inform my reflections here.
I hope that the title of this blog becomes clear as you read – and I’d invite you please to share your thoughts too, from whichever educational or corporate sector you come from. I’d love to hear from you.
What’s changed? 1. An increasing focus on impact measurement driving resource allocation
Schools, especially in the state sector, have been measuring the impact of educational resources, innovations and interventions for years, but with increasing intent recently; knowing what works well helps school leaders to direct resources to where they are most needed. Look at the astonishing impact of CREST awards, for example, or the benefits of meeting Gatsby benchmarks.
It’s never easy measuring educational impact; after all, the idea of randomised controlled trials on children is unethical and impractical. But in the last two decades research about learning and the brain and other pedagogical issues have (finally!) found their way into classroom practice because they have been testable.
Measuring the impact of a partnership between schools is even harder. Schools have differing cultures and priorities; added to that, if the partnership involves a variety of activities for different year groups with different aims, then the difficulties are compounded.
Yet more and more schools are attempting to measure not only the numbers of interactions and participants (‘outputs’), but also the impact of those interactions on those participants (‘outcomes’). These may be quantifiable, such as academic results or attendance, or less tangible, such as resilience, self-efficacy or sense of community – all important aims of many partnerships.
We know that building a bridge across a river will yield huge benefits for a community – and now we can measure those benefits.
What’s changed? 2. The development of more equitable partnerships
This focus on following the impact data is quietly revolutionising partnership working, not only in the obvious way that we now know what works well, but for cross-sector partnerships in particular. In this context, there may be an imbalance of resources and an asymmetry of motivation but a richness of diversity and depth of impact.
Historically, at least, we might have seen one sector motivated by a sense of moral purpose borne out of charitable status; the other by more acute resource needs. But the idea that both partners can benefit – measurably – has taken hold. For many, the benefits, although two-way, are different: older pupils in one school volunteering with younger pupils in another. The older students gain many skills and widen their horizons. The younger ones might learn maths, reading, chess, or what it’ll be like being a teenager.
What is really exciting now, is a move towards more interactions based on more equitable and democraticrelationships where each partner feels equally confident to contribute to and draw from the partnership. Not just parity of esteem, but equity of contribution. As Gordon Montgomery points out so eloquently in this article: “the voice and the expertise of the maintained sector schools has been missing” from local collaborations.
These partnerships are designing and building their bridges together, so that all involved can say with pride that they helped to make a difference. Conversely, schools that have been slow to appreciate the reciprocal benefits will have found it hard to build bridges from their side of the river, rather than looking to meet in the middle…
Once this perspective is changed, schools begin to take a strategic approach which harmonises with their own aims and capacity.
What’s changed? 3. Being strategic in addressing whole-school and whole-community issues
Most schools (of both sectors) have collaborated with others on an ad hoc basis, determined by the evangelical teachers who are passionate about sharing their subject, the happenstance of contacts in another school, or a network they find themselves in. This happens in the corporate world to, with companies choosing to work with schools they already have a connection with.
But this is changing; schools (and businesses) have started to perceive partnerships from a different angle, informed by where the need and impact are greatest, and aligning with their school improvement strategy and that of their partners down the road.
Herne Bay High School is a member of several different partnerships. Jon Boyes, the school’s Principal, referred in a webinar recently to their membership of East Kent Schools Together: “It’s not what about you can get from the partnership; it’s about what you can do collectively for the greater good for the community.”
These schools are working together as what Leora Cruddas from the Confederation of School Trusts would call ‘community anchors’, quietly solving problems from across the local educational scene by sharing resources and expertise.
What problems are they addressing strategically?
- Slowing science teacher attrition through shared CPD and a network of local support for physics specialists.
- Increasing numbers of care-leavers applying to university by mobilising experienced tutors and mentors.
- Developing policies together around the ethics of adopting generative AI in schools through joint conferences.
- Collaborating on a plethora of urgent pastoral concerns about pupil well-being: anxiety, mobile phone use, sleep hygiene…using joint buying power to book expert trainers.
- Creating orchestras and choirs to make music together with the input of professional groups and making use of shared facilities.
These partnerships can be transformational. They are looking at the local landscape and choosing carefully where the optimal position of the bridge might be.
Gordon Montgomery again: “schools should have the confidence to share what we possess that is of real quality, but also the humility to respect the talents of our neighbours”. Talking and building relationships has to be the first step towards successful partnership.
Partnership working is rewarding but challenging and it takes time, transport, tenacity and tea. School budgets can help or hinder here; suffice to say that any school facing a 20% cut in budget might struggle, but if the impact is clear, the bridge-building budget will remain a priority.
What’s changed? 4. The professional space occupied by school partnerships is vibrant!
Finally, one thing that has changed in the last few years and accelerated this year, is the collegiality in the world of partnership practitioners. It felt a lonely place a few years ago, but we have organised, supported each other, shared good practice and now get a huge amount from meeting in person and virtually. Our efforts are validated by research into this particular branch of bridge-building, and this has lent real momentum to our work. Join us!
Have you co-designed some bridges? What are the challenges and where are the pockets of real transformation? Please get in touch if you have a wonderful example to share.