NLE programme: leadership support for struggling schools

Tags: Headteacher | Leadership Skills | School Improvement | School Leadership & Management

The NLE programme, which provides additional leadership to schools in difficulty, is now in its second year. Crispin Andrews meets an NLE headteacher and discusses the role his school is playing

A headteacher known locally for his exploits with the guitar and on the re-enacted battlefields of the English civil war, as well as his excellent track record as both a teacher and a school leader, now has another role.

Andy George – who in his spare time plays in a local rock band and is a member of the Sealed Knot society – has been a national leader of education (NLE) since last summer. His school Wendover Junior also received the news that they too had been named a National Support School at the beginning of the summer break. It meant a few days up at the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) in Nottingham for Andy during the holidays but this was a small price to pay for the prestigious and influential role that both he and his staff will be asked to play over the coming years.

‘My own function outside of this school will increase over the next few terms and in particular when my deputy returns from secondment at a nearby school,’ says Andy who has been headteacher at Wendover since 2004. ‘Already there have been requests from other schools for advice and assistance and one school has sent some of its staff in to chat informally with our teachers about how we do things here.’

The role of the NLEs
National leaders of education use their success and professionalism as school leaders, along with that of the staff within their National Support School (NSS), to provide additional leadership capacity in struggling schools or those who face challenging circumstances. This includes those in special measures and schools that may be in transition towards closure, amalgamation, federation or academy status. NLEs also have access to government ministers to advise on education policy, and have responsibility for helping to grow the next generation of NLEs and support schools. Many of the schools involved in the scheme last year have already seen improvements in exam results at both the support and client schools and Andy George hopes that it will be a two-way learning process with staff at all the schools involved benefiting from the opportunity to access new ideas.

It is the responsibility of local authorities to decide on the local deployment of the first tranche of NLEs and their NSS staff. This open-ended system allows arrangements to suit the needs of each school facing difficulties. However, the following features will be common to all circumstances:

• NLEs will provide additional leadership capacity and NSS staff will provide advice, guidance, support and challenge as appropriate.
• The prime focus of the work of NLEs and NSSs is to assist the client school in making significant progress in emerging from an Ofsted category – or in avoiding going into one.
• NLEs will be employed through contract to the local authority (although they may come from a neighbouring local authority). Individualised protocols setting out lines of communication, levels of accountability and confidentiality will be clarified at the outset and made explicit in the light of the unique circumstances faced by the client school.

Toby Salt, the NCSL’s strategic director of school leadership development said: ‘This fantastic programme delivers quick, tangible results to pupils, and provides local authorities with an additional resource to call upon in their commitment to raising standards in schools. The programme also builds a forum in which excellent school leadership can develop, allowing heads and their schools to gain unprecedented experience, and share their practice.’

As part of the second phase of the project, Andy George is one of 60 headteachers to be appointed by the NCSL starting last September, bringing the overall total to 125 NLEs across the country. He was chosen to be an NLE because of an outstanding Ofsted report, his own past experience of working with and for struggling schools and more recently as a new head’s mentor. An NCSL assessor judged that the strength of school staff, policies and procedures at his own school was sufficient to cope with the absence of the headteacher or other senior staff for a period of time. Andy George says: ‘When someone is out or off sick other staff just fill in for them. At the moment we have two teachers filling in for the deputy and another two teachers looking after the former leadership responsibilities of the first two.’

He adds, ‘Being involved in NSS/NLE will give people opportunities to develop their own leadership skills that they wouldn’t otherwise get and as a school we will be developing our own leadership capacity all the time.’

Although it is early days, Wendover are already working with two local schools – one in which Andy George is helping an established headteacher raise standards by acting primarily as a sounding board and another where newly appointed literacy and drama advanced skills teacher Darryl Slade is assisting with the implementation of the new framework for literacy. There is scope for greater, more prolonged involvement as a National Leader of Education can act as an executive head, become head of a federation of schools or even take over at a struggling school for a short period of time.

Andy George explains that often it will just be a case of advising the incumbent headteacher over certain issues and problems that arise. ‘You could be working with a new head in a coaching capacity or simply giving some advice on issues such as school buildings – who to call at  the local authority, which systems to go through – things that an experienced head who has been through the process before would know about. I might have a certain policy or job description myself or if not, know who has locally. It just saves the client school having to spend time making their own.’

One of the areas Wendover has excelled in over the last few years has been in the development of its learning environment. During his three and a half years as headteacher Andy has overseen the adding of a new drama studio and ICT facilities, a new playground and a ‘peace garden’ where children can relax and think about their learning and other issues of importance to them. The staffroom originally catered for only eight people so it has been revamped to allow all 40 members of staff to use it.

‘The learning environment is crucial – get that right and you have a place where pupils and staff feel comfortable to give of their best,’ Andy George says.

Advice for the future
So, what other pearls of wisdom will Andy George be dishing out to headteachers over the coming months? ‘More often than not it depends on the situation that a school is in and thinking of the best way of dealing with whatever issues are most pressing while at the same time establishing a vision of where you want to get to and how you want to get there,’ he says. In all of this Andy stresses the need for a strong staff team. ‘It’s essential to have the right people in place if you want to achieve anything positive: staff who fit together as a team but who also bring their own individual strengths and unique talents into the mix. People who are passionate about what they are doing, but who are still willing to learn, improve and progress. People who are keen to take responsibility, share ideas and look for opportunities for personal and professional advancement. You have to invest in people like this and grow your own leadership structure from within,’ he insists.

As a school leader Andy George believes it is important to be decisive, establish priorities and then be creative in pursuing them, even when things are not always straightforward. ‘We realised that our English and drama specialist deserved to get AST status – such was the quality of his work in these areas – and even though the local authority did not have the funding to do this, we decided to fund it ourselves through the school budget.’

During his 15 years in education Andy George has worked in a wide variety of social, economic and educational contexts and has experience of successfully working as a classroom teacher, a subject coordinator, a middle leader and eventually a senior leader and a headteacher. However, he is keen not to rest on his laurels and always looking to pick up new ideas, particularly relating to his newest role. He says, ‘The training at the NCSL in Nottingham was really useful as it gave us a chance to network with headteachers who had already been in the NLE role for a year. You gained some useful insights into the practicalities of the role and the pitfalls associated with working with colleagues in struggling schools.’

He continues, ‘It’s important to stress that it is not our job to highlight the weaknesses of others, neither are we saying that we have all the answers here – but we have been successful and effective, have a strong team and are available to help and advise others when they need it.’

Crispin Andrews is a teacher and freelance writer

This article first appeared in Primary Headship - Feb 2008

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