VIEWS & OPINION
Failure can be the bedrock of learning
Comment by IAN ARMITAGE, chairman, SGOSS – Governors for Schools
Making savings in an adverse climate
Comment by IAN NAIRN,
Director, C-Learning
Recently the UK was shocked to discover that the NHS was under threat from a global cyber attack. It affected 40 NHS trusts in England, 11 health boards and the ambulance service in Scotland. Operations were cancelled causing chaos for staff and misery for patients. These problems could have been avoided if only they had kept their software up to date. It is a risk that’s easy to identify and include in a risk register. Yet the use of a standard risk management register - a first line tool for identifying and managing risks - did not work. Fortunately, our schools do not appear to have been affected. Only a tiny number of the 10,000 member schools of The Key (
https://schoolleaders.thekeysupport.com/) – the national information service for school leaders – were in touch with questions about IT security in the days following the attack.
In an effort to support school improvement and manage risks schools must comply with between 60 and 80 statutory requirements. But the question remains; why do we fail to manage risks even when we think we comply with regulations and recommendations? A good answer can be found in Matthew Syed’s excellent book; “Black Book Thinking” in which he says, “Success can only happen when we confront our mistakes”. He contrasts healthcare and the legal professions with aviation. In our healthcare system more people die from mistakes made by doctors and hospitals than from traffic accidents. Aviation, on the other hand, “has created an astonishingly good safety record because mistakes are learned from, rather than concealed”. So how can we translate this into school governance? Syed suggests that we need to redefine failure, or rather to change our attitude to it, so that we can see it as a learning experience.
In practice, this means “creating systems and cultures that enable organisations to learn from errors, rather than being threatened by them.”
Systems which track risks and compliance with actions to monitor, mitigate and improve processes, clearly address the awareness problem. Moreover, providing they are used, they help build the right culture because every item includes an element of reporting, review, analysis, initiatives to improve. This is the basis on which the aviation industry - an inherently dangerous activity - has been so successful in setting high standards of safety.
In every organisation that I work with we have used a set of dials that ensure that every critical factor to the success of the organisation is captured and studied.
I have found that the standard risk register that schools use (often based on an Excel spreadsheet) will probably fall far short of what a leadership team and a board needs because of accountability issues. It is often unclear how recently the data has been updated, by whom and whether it has been checked and approved.
Lasting improvement and good risk management does not happen unless risks are owned and the culture of the school embraces learning from every experience.
We need to create the right culture, and this, I believe starts with the need to redefine failure as the bedrock of learning. Only when we own up to our errors can we move forward.
14
www.education-today.co.uk
News of education cuts have dominated the headlines for months and were an important feature in all parties' manifestos in the recent election. The Education Policy Institute think tank said the Tory manifesto plans implied, “a reduction in per pupil funding in real terms of around 7% between 2015-16 and 2021-22” and cuts of about 3% over the course of the next parliament. If schools are to survive cuts, they will need to take a close and highly strategic look at where savings can be made. The decisions will be difficult for many schools but there is one area where savings can be made without cutting teachers' posts. In a recent survey “IT as a service from build to consume”, McKinsey & Company announced that ‘the cloud debate is over’ and that businesses are now moving a material proportion of their IT workload to off-premise cloud environments, with cost often perceived as the key driver of this shift.
Wise head teachers are already looking into the possibilities of moving to the Cloud and the good news is that there is evidence that it is not only cheaper, but has many other benefits too. Commenting on his school’s adoption of the Cloud, Des O'Connor, IT Coordinator, Handcross Park, said, “Since the introduction of Chromebooks and G Suite for Education - a set of intelligent apps including Gmail, Docs, Drive and Calendar - we have been able to make big savings in many different areas. We have significantly reduced the cost of software licensing and printing as well as freed up teaching space by removing dedicated 'IT Suites'." The Cloud has enormous potential for teachers and schools to do things differently. Cloud storage is almost limitless and the next generation will look back in wonder at the days when people were restricted to only a couple hundred MBs.
Running costs are also lower. Pete Rafferty, Head of Digital Learning, Green Park Primary School, Maghull, said, “We’ve been using Chromebooks and G Suite for five years now. Apart from the cost of purchase which is very low in comparison to the available alternatives, an improved WiFi system which was needed anyway and internet access, there has been very little additional cost in terms of administration and upkeep. The impact on teaching and learning across the school has been significant and widely recognised, particularly in relation to developing the quality of writing across the curriculum."
Guy Shearer, Head of IT and Data for MAT sponsor, David Ross Education Trust, has found that the Cloud has changed thinking and practice: “Getting the most out of limited resources means rethinking how you do things rather than just keeping the old system going for another year and investing the little you have left at the end for improvement. Rethinking systems and making best use of the cloud frees up funds and helps you think bigger and better about how you address problems.”
Over the next few months, forward-looking schools will move to the Cloud and take advantage of lower costs, improved students engagement and better results. Significant savings are there for the taking.
July/August 2017
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