Contact: John Clarke, telephone: 01962 846464, email: [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 Hampshire is involved in a national trial exploring new relationships with schools. This reports on the experience of the few schools that have had the new style Ofsted inspections, and on progress, to date, in other aspects of the new relationships work.

1.2 This work supports Corporate Aim 1 - Maximising Life Opportunities.

2 Background

2.1 At the north of England conference in January 2004, David Miliband announced plans to develop `new relationships with schools'. Six LEAs, of which Hampshire is one, were invited to take part in a trial, for secondary schools, from February 2004 until July 2005. At the same time, Ofsted began to trial its new inspection arrangements in the same LEAs.

2.2 The Education Department invited ten secondary schools to be part of the trial, a cross section of schools in the county, and their headteachers have been working together, locally and nationally, to develop the various strands of work.

2.3 At the same time, all schools on Ofsted's schedule for inspection in Hampshire were asked to indicate, through the LEA, if they were prepared to be inspected under the new arrangements, as part of that trial, and almost all agreed.

2.4 Subsequently, Hampshire has also been asked to become an associate LEA to the parallel new relationships trial for primary schools. Work has begun on that and it is clear that there are likely to be some significant differences between the phases.

2.5 Ofsted is canvassing views on how its new style inspections are being received, and whether they give accurate pictures of schools, but in the final analysis Ofsted itself will determine how future inspections are undertaken when the new system rolls out across the country. The New Relationships trials are different and, within ministerial guidelines, there is substantial scope for the trial schools and LEAs to `invent the future'. There is a real sense of moving forward together, experimenting with different ways of doing things and solving common problems - but they are trials and much could change.

3 Ofsted Inspections

3.1 The new inspections have these features that make them distinct from previous approaches.

· The period of notice is much shorter, less than a week.

· Inspections will be more frequent, probably once every three years for most schools and more frequent for weaker schools.

· The inspection report is produced much earlier than schools are used to. It is much shorter and its messages are stark and clear. The front page of the report sets out the inspectors' numerical judgements of the school's quality on a 4 point scale, alongside the grades the school has awarded itself following its self evaluation.

· The inspection is heavily dependent on the school's self evaluation. There is a common form that schools have to complete and, while Ofsted is at pains to point out that it is still inspecting the school, not its self evaluation, the quality and outcomes of the self evaluation process are very important.

· The inspection, itself, is much shorter, undertaken by fewer people, and much of the time is spent in checking the judgements of the senior management team.

· Teaching is not inspected as it used to be and many teachers are not seen at all during the inspection.

· Subjects are not inspected and Ofsted is planning a series of thematic inspections that will lie outside this general inspection regime.

· There is a growing emphasis on inspecting how well the school safeguards its vulnerable children, although there is still work to be done on this.

· More inspections will be led by HMI. Ofsted is saying that, when the system is national, it will be inspecting 300 schools each week and that 80% of secondary inspections and 20% of primary will be led by HMI. The number of private companies contracted to inspect schools is likely to reduce markedly.

3.2 During the summer term 2004, four Hampshire secondary schools were inspected under the new arrangements and one junior school. Two infant schools and one junior are to be inspected in this way during the autumn term. Generally, the experience of Hampshire schools has been positive although, as always, the quality of the inspection team has been seen as crucial to the success of the process. The best process cannot compensate for a poor team.

3.3 The evidence to date suggests that the inspection teams need more time for preparation than they have had; that, nationally, there need to be common data sets that accurately reflect each school's standards and the progress made by pupils; that the governing body's importance needs to be better recognised; and that headteachers need to prepare their staff for what will happen during the inspection. Those points aside, Hampshire schools are broadly satisfied that the process is better - and certainly more efficient - and leads to judgements that are, generally, accurate. It will be interesting to hear the views of headteachers and governing bodies in schools where the new inspection arrangements lead to judgements that are less than positive. Views of processes are frequently coloured by the nature of the outcomes.

4 New Relationships with Schools (Secondary)

4.1 There are four inter-related elements to this trial - the School Profile, Self Evaluation, the Single Conversation and the School Improvement Partner.

4.2 The School Profile will replace the Annual Governors' Report to Parents (AGRP). The ten trial schools have been given permission, under the power to innovate, to waive the requirement this year to produce an AGRP and have taken the necessary action to do that. The School Profile will be produced annually and will contain some common data on each school, provided by the DfES, and further text written by the school to describe its broader work. Models have been produced and the trial schools are experimenting with them, coming together locally and nationally to share their work and make suggestions that will lead to a final model.

4.3 Self evaluation is not only required for the new Ofsted inspection but also to make the new relationships function. Increasingly, a thorough and rigorous approach to self evaluation will be required in all schools. Some have a way to go in ensuring that their evaluations are truly evidence-based and analytical in nature, rather than descriptive, and to have the capacity to define accurately what action is needed to improve. The trial schools are all undertaking self evaluation and completing the same form, though there is no standard methodology required. In the same way as for the School Profile, they are coming together to share and learn from each other. Hampshire's participation in the trial is important for all the secondary schools, not just the ten that are heavily involved, because mechanisms are already in place to disseminate the lessons of the trial into all schools.

4.4 The concept of the Single Conversation requires explanation. It is not `single' in the sense that there will only be one conversation. There will be a series throughout the school year. It is `single' in the sense that the external person who has the discussions with each school will carry into the school the issues and concerns of a range of organisations - the Local Education Authority, for issues about school standards and provision; the Local Authority, for issues around vulnerable children; the Local Learning and Skills Council, for 14-19 and post 16 issues; and the DfES, for issues relating to targets and the national strategies. The point of the Single Conversation is to streamline these contacts and make sure that schools have one person who can speak authoritatively on behalf of all these organisations. Discussions are continuing to bring this about.

4.5 The person who carries all these messages into schools is the School Improvement Partner (SIP), someone who requires a very high level of skill and experience. The SIP has to challenge and support the schools, rigorously and sensitively, and in such a way as to add value and make a difference to the lives of pupils and students. On-going dialogue with the headteacher, senior team and governors is essential to achieve this. Currently, the national team is allowing the SIP six days a year with the best schools, rising to fifteen days a year for the weakest, far more than is allowed by the current Code of Practice governing LEA/School relations, which the new relationships will sweep away.

4.6 Many SIPs will be current or recently retired secondary headteachers, though not all will have this background. The key criterion is that they are able do the job and, within the trial LEAs, including Hampshire, people with a strong school improvement background are being trained for this role alongside headteachers. For the trial in Hampshire, there will be two current headteachers taking on this role with three schools each and one School Improvement Manager, who will be working with three Hampshire schools and one in West Sussex. One Hampshire school will have a SIP who is a headteacher in West Sussex. Trial schools will not have a Hampshire attached inspector for the duration of the trial. All that work, but much more besides, will be done by the SIP.

4.7 Every SIP, though trained and briefed nationally, will be the direct employee of the County Council for the time they undertake this work: subject to the normal performance management arrangements, and accountable to the Director of Children's Service or the County Education Officer. In an important sense, then, SIPs are to be seen as full members of the county's school improvement team, with access to the same support structures as all the other staff, the same information systems, data sets and reporting mechanisms, and their work will be determined by the same protocols that govern everyone else. The County Council's ability to carry the expectations of the Hampshire community into schools should be strengthened, not weakened, by New Relationships with Schools.

4.8 There is a budget from the DfES to support this work, through the trial, but the arrangements for funding a national roll out are very unclear. The current Hampshire School Improvement Service works within a budget that allows for only one visit a year to successful schools - the very large majority of our schools - and additional resource will be needed if the national roll out from January 2006 means that six visits a year are expected to secondary schools.

5 New Relationships with Schools (Primary)

5.1 There is a smaller scale, but parallel, trial taking place for primary schools. Three LEAs form the main trial but Hampshire is associated to it. Discussions are taking place about the same four elements - School Profile, Self Evaluation, Single Conversation and School Improvement Partner and, although work is not as well advanced as in the secondary trial, some differences seem to be clear.

5.2 The School Profile in the primary trial is very similar to that in the secondary. It will, in time, replace the Annual Governors' Report to Parents in the same way, will have common data drawn down from the DfES, and it will also allow schools to provide a description of the richness of their provision as well.

5.3 Current thinking on self evaluation suggests that more support is needed for primary schools than secondary. It is possible that there will be national guidance. Hampshire is contributing to the debate and much work has already been done, especially in the area of what constitutes good evidence for self evaluation.

5.4 There will, eventually, be a Single Conversation with primary schools but it is less complicated because the LLSC is unlikely to be involved. Most of the discussions will continue to be around school standards, targets, pupil progress and the school's work with vulnerable children.

5.5 Primary schools will have SIPs but, at this stage, it is envisaged that SIPs will be the permanent staff of the LEA, not current or past headteachers. The main difference between what is proposed and the way Hampshire currently goes about its school improvement work is that the number of visits made to each school is likely to be greater - with the same effect on the Code of Practice and the potential impact on budgets.

6 Legal implications

6.1 None

7 Financial implications

7.1 The cost of participation in the trials is covered by existing budgets and grants. There may be implications in the future, but that is uncertain and cannot be commented on at this stage.

8 Personnel implications

8.1 None

9 Impact assessment

9.1 Race and equality impact assessment has been considered in the development of this report and no adverse impact has been identified.

10 Crime Prevention Issues

10.1 Not applicable

11 Views of the Local County Councillor

11.1 Not applicable

Recommendations

1 That Members note developments, to date, in the new Ofsted inspections and the trials for New Relationships with Schools, and make observations that can feed into future work.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

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