2008 / 2009

At the beginning of last year, the PTI hosted a meeting at which the heads of ‘turnaround’ schools explained to the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how they had raised achievement at their schools, how they had sustained their success and what they had learned from the experience. This was the start of the PTI’s What Works in Schools programme which aims to offer a radical critique of current educational thinking and to identify and analyse not only those elements in teaching which make for successful schools but also the principal factors that stand in the way of achieving success.

The PTI held a seminar in December, to which they invited a group of successful secondary state school heads to explain what made their schools work so well and how their successes could be replicated. The general view was that success depended on having leaders with the confidence to use their freedom in pursuit of academic and pastoral excellence, and the courage to shake off what one of the heads called ‘the cold hand of conformity and compliance’.

The heads were in agreement that their biggest obstacles were having to address a stream of new central initiatives that do not seem to be informed by any coherent underpinning philosophy; an over-emphasis on targets; and an over-prescriptive accountability.

A report of the conclusions of the day is being published on the 19th May 2009 and is available by clicking here.  A copy has been sent to the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

Contact: Sheila Thompson or Rachel Spedding on 0207 591 9610 (sheilat@blj.co.uk or rachels@blj.co.uk)