EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Tony
McAleavy
from the CfBT
Education Trust
discusses his research into
the lessons that schools
can learn from non-
educational organisations
about what makes them
successful
HE LAST 30 years have been a time
T
of rapid change alongside ongoing
calls for further reform in public
education across the developed world.
At the same time, new ideas have
been shared and exchanged between
countries at an unprecedented rate.
For all the feverish activity, one of the clearest
outcomes has been the lack of any measurable impact.
In education, as in law and medicine, there are very
High
few absolute truths and simple cures. While many
reforms may contain some valid ideas at their core,
implementation strategies have been less than reliable.
Studies show that the effects from reforms only
come when teachers and administrators in individual
schools actively engage with the ideas and practices,
and are full partners in the creation of an improved
school. Just as there never were “teacher-proof texts”,
there are no “school-proof reforms”.
For more than 20 years, researchers have been Reliability
looking at one particular effort to generate sustainable
reform.
The long-term “High Reliability Schools” (HRS)
project, carried out by researchers for the CfBT
Education Trust, has examined what lessons schools
can learn from non-educational organisations about
what makes them successful. It involves work with
12 secondary schools in Wales to change the way
they operate and track the impact on actual academic
results.
Schools
The key researchers who developed this approach
were Professors Sam Stringfield, David Reynolds and
Eugene C Shaffer. The work is based on studies of the
way in which non-educational organisations ensure
they avoid failure.
Some organisations, such as air traffic control Almost all of the schools purchased a university- The HRS school with the least gain had gained more Prof Reynolds believes that the substantial rise
towers, continuously run the risk of disastrous and based system of storing and reporting initial intake and than the national average during those years (8.7 versus in academic achievement within the HRS project is
unacceptable failure. Other examples of organisations eventual GCSE scores. The system made it relatively 8.3 per cent nationally), and five schools made gains the clearest evidence to date that substantial change-
needing extremely high reliability can be found in easy for school personnel to compute a “value-added” that more than doubled the national average gain. bearing reform of secondary schools is possible.
electric power grids, nuclear power stations, and measure. At the end of the intervention phase, the HRS project The most important factors in the success of the
medical environments. All faculties and administrations committed to had produced substantial gains in the percentages of programme were considered to be:
High reliability organisations, or HROs, share a regularly review their organisation and processes students succeeding on the end-of-secondary-schooling • A school-wide focus on a finite set of goals.
number of characteristics. They come about when: to create widely understood, time-saving “standard tests. • The relentless gathering and use of data of all
• Both the larger society and the professionals operating procedures”, and to identify and intervene in The researchers, led by Prof Reynolds, have types and Getting the data in the hands of all persons
involved come to believe that failure of the school-wide fashions with their pupils who appeared to continued to track progress and the changes were seen involved in the education of each student: the head,
organisation to achieve its key goals would be be at risk of failure. to be sustained. Between 2000 and 2005, the percentage the department heads, the teachers, and the
disastrous. A focus on teacher effects/peer observations of Welsh students nationally obtaining five-plus A* to students.
• Organisational reliability requires a clear and finite began immediately. This included both professional Cs had risen to 52.2 per cent, a rise of 3.2. • Giving schools existing “good practice” from the
set of goals. development time to learn core aspects of the teacher By contrast, the 12 HRS schools, that served, on academic literature, and also helping schools to
• There is an ongoing alertness to surprises or effectiveness research field and for observation in average, relatively deprived catchments areas, had 55 develop relatively high quality data systems.
lapses, and small failures in key systems are classes within and among schools. per cent of their students with five-plus A* to Cs, a • From the beginning, the HRS project built on
monitored closely because they can lead to major When the assessment of incoming 11-year-old rise of 6.8. a combination of technical, scholarly knowledge of
problems. HROs and various “effectiveness” literatures,
• They actively sustain initiatives that encourage together in equal partnership with local
all concerned to identify flaws in standard operating
procedures, and reward the flaw finders.
• The prioritise CPD, training and retraining, and
rigorous performance evaluation.
The HRO rules
‘
In education, as in law and medicine, there
educators’ knowledge of and skill in working
within local educational contexts. The HRS
are very few absolute truths and simple cures.
principles and programme may have been
a catalyst, but the skill and commitment of local
educators produced the outcomes. The HRS project
While many reforms may contain some valid ideas
was co-constructed from beginning to end.
The 12 schools involved in testing out the principles of • Working with and through multiple levels in the
HROs agreed to follow a set of particular rules.
All of the schools were to focus on two to four very
at their core, implementation strategies have
education environment. This included focusing
upon the classroom and the middle management
ambitious goals. One goal had to be a substantial five-
year rise in the percentage of students obtaining five or been less than reliable
tier of schools in addition to a focus at the
conventional school level.
more A* to Cs at GCSE. A second had to be improved • Building capacity at school site level to continue
attendance. Each school was free to choose up to two educational development after the formal end of the
additional HRS goals. students at some of the schools indicated that many of Since the beginning
The headteachers would lead the efforts and the the students were entering secondary school
heads and faculties implemented the HRS programme
’
of the HRS project, nine of the project.
more than 12 HRS schools had risen more on the national tests
two years behind in reading, an immediate effort was than had the nation as a whole.
Conclusion
school-wide from the start of the project. launched to co-ordinate the secondary school’s literacy The HRS project raises the possibility that the problem
All schools and departments within schools programmes with those of the feeder primary schools.
What have we learnt?
was not the ideas for reform, but the reliability of
would agree to share successes and failures, and thus A part-time “HRS driver” was immediately The premise of the HRS project was that by working implementation.
create learning communities across schools and local appointed by the local authority to formally co-ordinate with schools to heighten the reliability of school Studies are now needed of different promising ideas
authorities. Each school and department would commit activities among the district’s schools. The effect was to functioning and reform, it would be possible to improve and programmes which are then implemented through
to studying “best practice”, both from the international have HRS continuously “on the radar” at each school exam results. The idea was that it would be possible HRS principles.
research bases and within and without the HRS schools and in most departments of all schools. for a group of researchers, working together with local Finally, the HRS project suggests the need for more
in England and Wales. educators, to co-construct highly reliable schools. proactive, long-term, follow-up studies. The goals of
The researchers and the administrators of each
Results
The results shown here over the four and nine-year education for students are not short term and gains by a
school would support the faculties in becoming Over the initial four-year period of the project, the 12 changes in school processes and increases in the GCSE school need to be sustained if they are to contribute to
uniquely “data-rich”. Students would be given short HRS schools raised their average percentage of students scores of students support the principle that this is the overall educational environment. SecEd
tests as they entered the schools, and age/grade-level obtaining five or more A* to C grades at GCSE to 48.1 possible.
teams of teachers would meet and discuss how best to per cent, a gain of 14.5 per cent. This rate of gain was There are few, or perhaps even no, prior examples • Tony McAleavy is CfBT Education Trust’s director of
address each student’s needs and how to maximise each fully 75 per cent more rapid than the national average of achievement-enhancing secondary school reform education. Visit www.cfbt.com/evidenceforeducation
student’s chances of academic success. increases over the same period. across a number of schools.
SecEd • September 24 2009 15
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