Steve Rollett, Deputy CEO, Confederation of School Trusts
Look beneath the Schools White Paper headlines and you’ll see what I think could be the most important line, buried on page 21 of the annexe to the White Paper called The case for a fully trust-led system: "We know that teachers and teaching make the biggest in-school difference to pupil outcomes, and our best trusts build communities of practice and mobilise evidence of what works.”
This is important because it explains why people like me bang on about collaboration and being part of a group. Contrary to what you’ll be told on Twitter and in some of the comment pieces in the coming days, many advocates of school Trusts (including me) are not ideologues or politically motivated – the organisation I represent is strictly politically neutral.
Rather, I am driven by what I think is most likely to support children to have the best possible education. That’s it. And my contention is that this is most likely to happen when we can bring teachers into relation with each other so they can share, debate and collectively build knowledge about how best to teach this subject, that concept, those skills, these children.
That’s hardly revelatory. It’s the sort of thing that many of us who have done the job have enjoyed and benefitted from at times. Often this was done through subject meetings within the school (assuming your subject team was of a sufficient size), but it’s also something we may have experienced through wider forms of collaboration. I remember how incredibly fortunate I was as a new History teacher to be part of a ground-breaking history network run by a local authority in the South. It was considered so powerful that Ofsted wrote a best practice report about the network.
This was a place where teachers could share lessons and teaching strategies. But it was more than this too. Participation in the group meant that you were part of the discourse of the subject community, you and your department team were not going it alone.
Through being a part of this type of discourse we stay up to date on the latest thinking, as well becoming attuned to where there is consensus and debate.
This doesn’t only apply to subject communities; all of us are likely to be part of a field of practice in some way, whether that be concerned with pastoral support, leadership or some other part of school life.
And this isn’t about being in a talking shop – it goes to the heart of our professional standing. Just as we would expect doctors to continue to be engaged with the latest thinking in their profession, I think it’s important we support people working in schools to do the same.
A few years ago the brilliant curriculum thinker Christine Counsell described to me the concept of the teacher’s ‘locus of authority’. Yes, teachers have authority from society to do their job because they have particular qualifications. Yes, they have been given this authority because they hold the position of ‘teacher’. But also, just as with other professions, they maintain this authority over time because they continue to be part of the community, connected to the scholarship of the field.
So, if teachers are already doing this, why do we need them to be part of school Trust?
The problem is that this is not routinely systematized, and it is unlikely to be in a fragmented system. Firstly, not all teachers have meaningful access to a community of practice. My experience as a new teacher (outlined above) was in the early 2000s. In many parts of the country local authorities are no longer able to run these networks across all subjects and responsibilities, if indeed they ever did.
Secondly, even where these opportunities do exist, because they tended to be facilitated by an organisation outside of the school, aside from the cost there could often be logistical challenges too, such as having lessons covered or having to travel after school. These barriers are easier for a Trust to overcome.
I am sceptical when people point to other forms of collaboration as an alternative to school trusts. They’re just not the same. In a loose collaboration it’s too easy to opt out or for other priorities to take over. school trusts are single organisations with the power and purpose that can be leveraged at scale. As Jen Barker and Katy Patten argue in the latest of CST’s ‘Bridge to the Future’ papers, Trusts have the capacity (scale and expertise) alongside their ability to control the conditions and culture in which teachers work and professional development takes place.
This is why school Trusts are going to be so important in the coming years. We already see many Trusts maximising their capacity for collaboration; bringing teachers, leaders and other staff together in ongoing communities.
The Trust has the internal agency and accountability to make sure that all teachers are able to be part of a community of practice. Plus, the scale many Trusts offer makes it easier to connect teachers to the wider professional and disciplinary communities that already exist.
At CST we think the notion of Trusts as communities of practice – communities of improvement – is going to be important in improving schools in the coming years. Indeed, we wrote a paper last year outlining this thinking. This is why we welcome the government’s reference to Trusts as communities of practice. For us it’s not about ideology, it’s about creating a system with a greater capacity for connecting teachers.
It’s up to Trusts now to seize this opportunity on behalf of children.
