Strategies for improvement
Contents
Highlights from school evaluation and improvement
4 articles
Developing an ethos and vision
- How to develop and embed your school's vision Collaborate with governors to develop a vision that represents where your school aspires to be. Turn your aspirations into reality by keeping your vision at the heart of every decision you make and bringing your community on board.
- Making sustainability a strategic priority Mobilise your school or trust to embed environmental sustainability into its vision, strategy and practice, in line with the DfE's sustainability strategy. Find out how to get started and get your whole school or trust community involved.
- School vision statements: examples If your vision statement is due for a review, take a look at these examples of how different schools set out their values.
- Subject leadership: how to develop and embed a vision Find out what to take into account when writing your subject vision and get tips on how to embed it. See examples of vision statements and a case study from a secondary teaching school.
7 articles
Learning from good and outstanding practice
- Developing an 'outstanding' school: examples of strategies Get advice from our associate experts on what makes a school 'outstanding' and how you can get there. You'll find features of 'outstanding' practice for each Ofsted judgement.
- Features of 'outstanding' EYFS settings Learn why Ofsted judged 3 Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) settings to be ‘outstanding’. Watch what an 'outstanding' early years’ classroom looks like in practice, and use our resources to improve your provision.
- Journey to become an 'outstanding' school: case studies Get advice and inspiration from other schools about how they turned the dial to push school improvement, and to go on to be rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted.
- Leadership in 'outstanding' schools Understand what makes leadership 'outstanding'. Based on extracts from recent 'outstanding' Ofsted reports, find suggested actions to help strengthen your leadership in key areas.
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Ofsted's MAT research: key learnings and recommendations
Find out what schools in trusts find helpful about their MATs, and where the schools and the MATs face challenges. This research also covers what most MATs do similarly and what differs from trust to trust - use our summary to get straight to the bits you can learn from.
For Trust Leaders
- Outstanding practice in alternative provision: examples See examples of outstanding alternative provision (AP) in an AP free school, pupil referral unit (PRU), and AP academy.
- Teaching: how to go from 'good' to 'outstanding' (primary) Find out how to sustain and improve 'good' teaching to make it 'outstanding'. Discover the key concepts of an 'outstanding' lesson, and see what Ofsted said about teaching in 3 'outstanding' schools.
30 articles
Planning and supporting school improvement
- Action plan for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Use our template and completed example to inspire you and save you time when developing your EYFS action plan. See examples from other schools to see how they've done it.
- Action plans for writing (primary) Download and adapt our Key Stage (KS) 2 writing action plan template to help you create your own. Find suggestions on how to improve writing in your school, and see examples from other schools.
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Collaborating with other trusts and schools
Explore how your multi-academy trust (MAT) can collaborate with other trusts and maintained schools. We explain what sorts of partnerships you can form, and advise on how to set up these collaborations to ensure they’re worth your time.
For Trust Leaders
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Creating a school improvement framework for your MAT
Learn how to create the right environment in your MAT to drive school improvement. Get to grips with what you need to determine as a central team, and how to involve each school in creating the improvement framework by sharing good practice and successful interventions.
For Trust Leaders
- English and maths action plans: templates Download our subject action planning template, and use our sample completed action plans for guidance.
- Getting the most out of your Ofsted feedback Make sure you take the opportunity to get useful feedback on how to improve your school. You can download our reflection sheet to help you record what inspectors are saying.
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How to deliver school improvement across your trust
The improvement needs of each school are unique, but the process for delivering school improvement support is transferable across trusts. Read on to find out how to get this process right.
For Trust Leaders
- How to develop your long-term strategic plan Long-term strategic planning will give you an overview of the direction of your school improvement over the next 3 to 5 years. Find out how to develop a robust plan that will help you achieve your school's vision. Plus, download our template plan to save you time writing your own.
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How to get headteachers to work together to support each other
We spoke to Russell Boulton, CEO of Enrich Learning Trust, to find out the 3 key ingredients to getting school principals/headteachers to collaborate and work together. Find out how you can equip your heads to do the same in your trust.
For Trust Leaders
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How to involve pupils, parents and staff in trust development
Learn how The Compass Partnership of Schools built a thriving community where staff, pupils and parents have a say on trust development. Trust leader John Camp explains how this approach has led to high staff retention, engaged parents and pupils who feel part of something more than just their school. Find out how you can achieve this too.
For Trust Leaders
- How to organise your monitoring schedule Find out how you can monitor with purpose so you don't overload staff with unnecessary monitoring. Plus, see examples of policies from schools.
- Make pupil feedback count: how one SLT hears from every pupil, every year The Marlborough Science Academy revolutionised pupil voice by introducing weekly feedback sessions across the entire school and making regular improvements in response. Here's how this SLT did it, and how you can too.
- Post-inspection action plan: guidance and template Get advice on how to use feedback from your inspections to create effective post-Ofsted action plans for your school or your subject.
- Premises development plans: template Use our template premises development plan to help you audit your school grounds and buildings and plan improvement tasks.
- Raising attainment plans Raising attainment plans (RAPs) are tactical, short-term plans to help schools raise standards. Get to grips with how they work, who's involved, and how they differ from a school improvement plan.
- Reading action plans (primary) Download and adapt our Key Stage (KS) 2 reading action plan template to help you create your own. Also check out examples of action plans from other schools.
- Reviewing the quality of your teaching and learning Use a range of sources to get a reliable overall picture of the quality of teaching and learning in your school. Download our tracking and summary sheets to record and communicate the outcomes of your monitoring activities, and understand how to act on this evidence to improve your offer.
- School improvement planning: how to work with your governors Know how to involve your governors in the process, so you get the challenge and support you need to create an effective school improvement plan (SIP).
- School improvement plans based on the 2019 Ofsted framework Use our template to create a school improvement plan (SIP) based on the 2019 Ofsted framework. See examples of SIPs from a range of schools.
- School improvement plan: template, checklist and monitoring guidance Download one of our school improvement plan (SIP) templates and use our checklist to help you evaluate your SIP. Also learn how you can monitor its implementation.
- SENCO action plan: template and example Download and adapt our action plan template for a special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO). Get inspiration from a special educational needs (SEN) action plan from a school.
- SIP vs strategic plan: what the difference is and why it matters Learn the distinction between a school improvement plan (SIP) and a strategic plan, and how the 2 can be used in tandem to plan your school improvement.
- SMSC development: action plans Take a look at different ways primary, secondary and special schools are making action plans for their spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development provision, so you can get inspiration to write your own.
- Subject action plan: template and guidance Once you’ve evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of your subject or department, you’ll want to turn that information into a coherent improvement plan. Download our template and follow our guidance to get the most out of your plan.
- Sustainability resource hub: how to achieve a whole-school focus on climate action Navigate the complexities of reducing the impact of your school on the climate with a curated selection of resources.
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Talent mapping across your trust: getting the most out of a skills database
Auditing your staff to create a skills database can help the schools across your trust access in-house experts. This can save you money, encourage collaboration, manage talent and drive improvement. Follow our tips to make this work in your trust and find examples of audits you can use.
For Trust Leaders
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Trust strategic plans: template and guidance
Use the template and advice in this article to get started with your trust’s strategic plan, and take a look at examples to see how other trusts have set out their plans and what they’ve included.
For Trust Leaders
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Trust-wide collaboration: overview
Chris Kirk, director of CJK Associates, gives us a rundown on collaboration models and how to make them work for your trust.
For Trust Leaders
- Whole-school pastoral action plans Download our template for a whole-school pastoral action plan and a sample completed plan. You will also find examples of school approaches to planning for improving pastoral provision.
- Writing an effective SIP: planning guide Be confident that your school improvement plan (SIP) is set up for success. Use our tools to narrow down competing priorities, develop achievable actions and create SMART targets, so you don't risk overburdening your staff and can keep on track with your long-term goals.
