School Leadership Toolkit for Accelerating Achievement Erasmus Project

Project Title

School Leadership Toolkit for Accelerating Achievement

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Inclusion – equity; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development)

Project Summary

This project brought together 6 partners from 5 countries to address the issue of school transformation and use the UK experience as its base-line. It addressed the issues identified by the European Policy Network on School Leadership (EPNoSL), and the impact that successful and pro-active school leadership can have on the performance of schools.

It examined the characteristics of successful school transformation, the practical measures taken, and developed a new set of training resources, trialed at a European level, to up-skill school leadership teams to transform low performing schools into high performing schools. It was based the resources on real case studies, using in real situations in 4 countries. The methodology started with an analysis of best practice in schools in challenging circumstances. The consortium worked with schools to develop and test the training packages in the workplace ensuring that there was a constant focus on impact in real situations.

The overall objectives of the project were:

• to identify the strategies, tools and resources required to turn a low performing school into a high-performing one and to develop a set of training packages which are applicable to all schools across the EU.

• to develop training materials to equip school leadership teams to:

analyse examples of successful school transformation.
identify and use the tools required to measure performance
use self-evaluation as a tool for school improvement planning
design and implement the school improvement plan
identify and use tools to evaluate impact in the short, medium and longer term, including data and feedback from students, teachers and parents
pilot, test, evaluate and refine the training modules in 4-6 schools in each of 4 countries

The partnership consisted of six partners from five countries. Four were University education departments, one was a professional association and the other was an NGO working nationally on improving standards.

P1, the Applicant, Durham University, School of Education was the UK representative on the EPNoSL network. The School of Education was graded ‘Outstanding’ by the Inspectorate Ofsted and works with many schools in the North East of England on professional development programmes.

P2, is the major UK professional organisation for Secondary Headteachers and College Principals. ASCL’s role is to support and represent school leaders and they have extensive networks both in the UK and across Europe.

P3, University of Debrecen (Hu) was a member of EPNoSL. The Institute of Education is responsible for the following: teachers’ training, professional development and postgraduate courses for teachers.

P4, The Faculty of Education, University of Tartu (Ee) is Estonia’s leading centre of research and training and a member of EPNoSL. It works to advance learning and to provide a modern higher education based on the integration of teaching and research activities,.

P5, Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias (Pt) supports research on areas which offer great potential, in particular the areas of education and training. The University was a capacity building member of EPNoSL.

P6, Teach for Bulgaria (Bg) –has made a significant impact on schools in Bulgaria. It is part of the Teach First network and this project was a new development for the organisation.

The workplan consisted of 8 intellectual outputs and 22 activities, the main ones being:

• a study of turnaround schools’ best practice
• creating a draft Scheme of Work for the training Modules
• running workshops to analyse school contexts and develop tools for improvement
• developing and trialing the draft set of training modules
• finalizing the modules
• undertaking a research strand
• disseminating locally and internationally
• developing an exploitation and marketing strategy
• providing policy feedback to EPNOSL

All of the intended intellectual outputs were achieved and the training modules are now freely available on the project website, http://www.slt4aa.eu

The impact in the trials was evaluated as significant by the schools involved, with the strategy linking into their individual contexts. Given that this strategy is aimed at longer term improvements, it is too early to collect data on pupil achievement or improvements in quality, but the objective of empowering schools to use this strategy to improve themselves has been achieved.

The project modules will continue to be promoted through the partner networks and will be shared at the educational and academic conferences. Partners are offering their services to undertake training on how best to use the modules. The policy recommendations have been shared with the EPNoSL network and are an exemplification of the practical implementation of their earlier policy recommendations. The outcomes of the project research strand will be shared at future education and academic conferences.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 292578,44 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM & Country: UK

Project Partners

• COFAC COOPERATIVA DE FORMACAO E ANIMACAO CULTURAL CRL
• Association of School and College Leaders
• DEBRECENI EGYETEM
• ZAEDNO V CHAS
• TARTU ULIKOOL