Strengthening professional accountability working with local education partnerships

Through the LocalEd 2025 programme, sponsored by the Association of Education Committees Trust, I have worked with four local areas and their education partnerships in Ealing, Milton Keynes, Sheffield and Surrey. These four partnerships tested out ways in which local areas might strengthen professional accountability within the framework of a locality partnership exploring -

how school self-evaluation can be based on rigorous evaluation methods on a theme such as inclusion;
how different types of school report might provide a more rounded summary of an individual school for parents and carers;
how peer review might promote local accountability and develop practitioner-led models of external challenge; and
how the existence of a local education partnership might help to support the development of a culture of professional accountability.

We wanted to understand how these approaches might support teachers and schools in an area to develop, to provide excellent information for parents and carers, and to enable the local area to understand common needs and priorities. We wanted to encourage teachers to feel part of a learning community, at school level and locally, that acts as a source of professional aspiration and development. Our four areas used a range of data, evidence and observation to support organisational improvement, particularly in relation to teaching and learning. We were trying to capture the benefits and challenges of within-school and across-school collaboration. Finally, we wanted to pilot approaches that might be credibly scaled up across a wider number of schools.

In her presentation to the Milton Keynes Education Partnership project launch in 2023, Christine Gilbert, our expert research partner on this work, summarised how we might understand professional accountability.

A shift in mindset and culture that enables teachers to feel greater ownership of accountability so it is seen as professionally owned, rather than being externally imposed.
An emphasis on both the individual teacher and the school but also on engaging other teachers, pupils, parents and the community to support accountability.
Ways of reframing individual accountability to support professional accountability, for example, a greater emphasis on professionalism and collaboration.
Leadership that builds on individual responsibility and commitment by embedding collective expectations, behaviours and routines.

Across all four projects, the local education partnership was crucially important to build and maintain momentum, develop trust and reciprocity between schools, and signal the importance of the work.

Learn Sheffield and Milton Keynes Education Partnership – school reports

A summary of the approaches taken in Sheffield and Milton Keynes to strengthen professional accountability through the use of school reports

Milton Keynes Education Partnership wanted to establish a collaborative approach to educational improvement and professional accountability. They have been developing and trialling a school report that strengthens professional accountability, supports collaborative improvement and provides parents, carers and the community with a broader view of a school and its achievements. They also developed collaborative capacity through a KS3 Reading for Life project across the local area.

Learn Sheffield wanted to explore school reports to investigate how different information might provide a more rounded perspective on a school and higher quality information to parents and the community. Learn Sheffield produced a detailed summary of their project explaining their approach and key local findings; examples of their pilot school reports have also been made available.

The pilot work in both areas was widely welcomed by school leaders, parents and carers. The feedback gathered in the two areas reflected the usefulness and accessibility of the school reports being tested. The potential benefits for school leaders and parents were about the breadth of the summary and a more balanced and rounded description of the school. For school leaders in particular, the opportunity to present the ethos, values, and culture of their school was important. Parents and carers “wanted a combination of well sourced independent information alongside the chance to get a feel for the school” (Learn Sheffield report).

Both areas identified a range of risks (in how to develop the idea in the right way and how to implement it effectively, rather than any concerns about the idea in principle). For example, whether the school report would duplicate or overlap with the existing ways that schools communicated with parents (via school websites); or whether some schools could be perceived as more or less inclusive if certain data was included in the report.

There were also several issues where the areas recognised further development and thinking would be required. For example, whether the school report should include any areas for improvement; the balance between hard data and the qualitative descriptions from the school; and how external quality assurance should be undertaken, how important this is, and what it means for who might undertake this (LA, trust, or local education partnership).

Presentations about the pilot work in Milton Keynes and Sheffield at the LocalEd 2025 conference in January 2025

We believe that, regardless of where proposals for an Ofsted report card end up, Ofsted’s views should feature prominently as one source of evidence in a school’s local school report. Our pilot versions included links to and quotes from Ofsted inspections. In the future, the local school report could link to the new format of the Ofsted report card. We continue to see the value of having a locality developed school report that draws on the information OFSTED will publish and places that in the context of wider information from the school, parents and pupils to provide a comprehensive picture of the school.

The work in both areas was featured in a Schools Week article on school reports in autumn 2024 as ideas were being developed. In parallel, we have been working with Christine Gilbert, MIME consulting and Camden Learning to develop their pilot Camden School Reports for all Camden schools, with parents and the community now able to view these reports for schools across a Camden map.

Ealing Learning Partnership and Schools Alliance for Excellence (Surrey)

A summary of the approaches taken in Ealing and Surrey to strengthen professional accountability through the use of self-evaluation, peer review, clusters of support, and area partnerships.

Ealing Learning Partnership have been building on the existing strengths of their Partnership and a primary peer review model, to develop a more formative model of peer enquiry that places greater emphasis on professional accountability for school improvement. They have been developing the skills and capacity of local system leaders to lead collaborative improvement, and in doing so develop the role of Ealing Learning Partnership.

Schools Alliance for Excellence (SAfE) in Surrey have been developing a digital inclusion framework that incentivises schools to be ambitious and inclusive. Through self-evaluation, they have been capturing the real story of the school, placing rigorous and robust self-evaluation as a key driver for continuous improvement and professional aspiration.

In both local areas, the role of the education partnership has been crucial to support the growth of local professional accountability. The partnerships have enabled schools to engage, leaders to be supported, and a growing sense of feeling mutually supported by and responsible for each other’s progress.

In Ealing, the Ealing Learning Partnership (ELP) has successfully developed a locality vision for ‘high trust and challenge, low threat’ that is understood by school leaders. Mutually supportive structures of learning clusters and triads have enabled collaborative school-to-school working to share knowledge and expertise. ELP was established with the vision of ‘no school left behind’ and ‘no learner left behind’ setting clear ambitions for the values that were important. Pupil attainment and Ofsted outcomes have remained strong. Externally, the partnership has been recognised and was a 2024 silver award winner in Pearson’s Education Awards for Impact Through Partnership.

Ealing have created opportunities for local system leadership. Serving school leaders have taken on roles to lead and facilitate the local learning clusters, helping to build collaborative capacity and enable cluster activity to be genuinely schools-led. Schools are encouraged to share priorities and identify what works well, growing trust among leaders, and promoting a culture of mutual respect. These Learning Cluster Leads observed the impact they were seeing from ELP’s work and the growth of professional accountability.

‘The work Ealing is doing is really influencing schools and it feels much more collaborative … there is increased professional pride.’

‘There is a growing sense that school leaders see they are educators of all, not just the children in their own school.’

Interviews with Ealing Learning Cluster Leads, Autumn 2024

We remarked throughout the project on the strength of the tools and processes adopted and the commitment of the ELP team to grip the “high maintenance nature of supporting a system”, with a continual need to induct and train new leaders to keep the model invigorated. ELP has been featured in an article in the Times Educational Supplement (February 2025) that concluded:

‘Ultimately, building a locality-based ecosystem that binds us all to a collective purpose takes extensive commitment, but it has the potential to be a highly cost-effective way of working with considerable rewards for all involved.’

*Presentation about the pilot work in Ealing at the LocalEd 2025 conference in January 2025*

In Surrey, the Schools Alliance for Excellence (SAfE) established a key priority of ‘educational equity’ that provided important context to the self-evaluation work for stronger inclusive practices. 170 schools have been using SAfE’s Surrey Inclusion Framework, made available through the digital platform Evaluate My School. For the project, SAfE played a crucial role in making the links between schools and the provider of Evaluate My School. The project would not have been established without the focus from SAfE on inclusion and targeting the performance in Surrey of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. SAfE was able to build on one of its existing programmes (Supporting Continuous Inclusion) and had the flexibility to connect this to the use of the digital self-evaluation tool.

SAfE was able to draw in additional and flexible capacity to lead the work of two pilot groups, and this was a good example of its ability to respond to needs, work credibly with schools, and devote capacity to develop new initiatives. The approach to self-evaluation using the digital framework and supporting schools to work in clusters to develop responses to some of the issues identified was captured in guidance and case study material by SAfE to support the work of other schools.

Another feature of the pilot in Surrey has been to help schools shine a light on an area of challenge and an aspect that has lacked focus in the existing accountability systems. The Surrey Inclusion Framework has enabled schools to reflect honestly on their inclusive practice and provision for specific groups of pupils. The Framework asked questions about the impact for pupil groups, processes for reviewing and monitoring support, and relationships and engagements with pupils’ families.

*Presentation about the pilot work in Surrey at the LocalEd 2025 conference in January 2025*

Isos Partnership model of engagement

A summary of Isos Partnership’s method of engagement with local areas

We would highlight the benefits for the project of working in a structured and collaborative way as part of a community of practice. Partnership leads talked about the significant opportunities in being able to share and learn from each other, both in terms of the organisation of their projects and also the content of their work. The key elements of how we worked with area teams were:

structured routines of one-to-one check-ins with each area team individually every four to six weeks to explore what was going well, how we could unblock barriers to progress, and problem-solve and explore project issues in more depth;
bringing all four areas together every six to eight weeks to share their learning with each other and build a community of practice;
annual national conferences to hear from other pilots and share emerging learning; and
undertaking the work with the values of being inclusive and collaborative; applying appropriate rigour, consistency, and responsiveness to learn from the pilots; and at the same time, aiming to build the collective relationships between the areas so they could engage each other outside of the routine discussions.

‘It was important that the mentor team in Christine Gilbert, and the Isos Team of Simon Day, Simon Rea and Ben Bryant had people who were able to bring authority and national best practice to the discussions.’ (Jonathan Crossley-Holland, Conference Report January 2025)

The importance of the role of the local education partnership in leading and managing the work

I have mentioned already the important role played by four local education partnerships in these projects. Each partnership is different in its organisation, legal status, and relationship with its relevant local authority. However they were crucial in working credibly with schools, providing flexible capacity to support new strands of work, and signalling both the vision and educational benefits. This was evident in numerous ways throughout the projects when we saw partnership leaders step in to give direction and clarity at key points; the schools trusted the leadership of the local partnership enough to let this happen. Leadership was also important in leading the debate on specific issues: for example, all four partnerships welcomed the notion of developing accountability as a force for professional good, and leaders continued to raise the importance of pupil and parental voice. In terms of basic organisation, the partnerships made things happen in ways that individual schools would find hard to do alongside their day-to-day workloads. For our partnerships, their ongoing positive, innovative, and flexible relationships with schools enabled them to undertake the project work in a way that could not have been achieved by others.

These points speak more widely to the opportunities and benefits of working locally as part of a local education partnership and the principles that often underpin effective local partnerships.

PrINCIPLES TO SUPPORT LOCAL COLLABORATIVE WORKING

A clear and compelling vision for the future, rooted in the locality but also able to support the national agenda for change.
A local context that provides the impetus for the partnership – and evidence that the partnership has the ability to respond to specific local challenges.
A focus on strengthening the connections between schools to make a difference to the lives of children and young people in the local area.
A local culture of trust and transparency, with a belief that local collaboration can provide benefits.
A core collaborative group of key champions and individuals (school leaders and others), with the trust and high social capital to make it happen, working with shared values about the power of collaborative endeavour.
Wider engagement from a broader group of school leaders.
The funding and capacity to develop the partnership structures and communications with schools.

Source – Isos report 2018 for LGA on conditions for the development of effective local school improvement systems (pp18-26), updated.

As we have seen through these projects working alongside these four local areas and their local education partnerships, there are a range of benefits to working in this way:

opportunities for local system leadership and the chance for serving school leaders to step into system leader roles working with peers and their local authority;
increasing the speed of learning and sharing of resources in order to enable more schools to benefit from the work;
the ability of a local education partnership to develop an engaging and collaborative local culture that supports peer learning and development;
the chance for a range of local players to work together and focus on ‘place’: to find local solutions to local challenges, with the education partnership as the convenor; and
helping to mitigate the risks of the current fragmented system and taking the opportunities provided by a new administration to focus on locality and local partnerships focussed on local priorities.

At the end of January 2025, we held a conference in London to celebrate the work of these four local areas, as well as five local areas that tested other aspects of locality-based approaches to education. The presentations given by all the local areas can be read here. The formal evaluation report from the University of Nottingham on the programme can be found here, and the further information about all of the projects can be found on the LocalEd website.