Item 08 Appendix A
West Dunbartonshire Council · 27 November 2024
Back to Educational Services Committee — 27 November 2024 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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West Dunbartonshire Report Collaborative Improvement - September 2024 Introduction - What is collaborative improvement? The aim of Collaborative Improvement is to share what works well at a local authority level and to support improvement in areas of local authority activity that have been identified as in need of further development. Collaborative Improvement aims to promote partnership working to ensure that we achieve sustainable improvements for all children and young people, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds. It is consistent with the national goal of achieving excellence and equity. Collaborative Improvement can also help to promote increased consistency of outcomes for learners. At the centre of this approach is working in genuine partnership with colleagues from within and outwith the local authority and welcoming the contributions from officers of ADES – the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland and officers and His Majesty's Inspectors of Education from Education Scotland. An area is identified by the local authority through self-evaluation processes and in consultation with the group. Thereafter, a range of activities are planned and implemented resulting in key information being gathered on what’s working well, what could benefit from improvement followed by outlining the next steps that will be taken. The Education Reform Joint Agreement published in June 2018 set out clearly that ‘achieving the national vision of excellence and equity cannot be achieved by one part of the system alone: all partners must work together in a collegiate and collaborative way, keeping the interests of children and young people front and centre’. One of the key principles set out in the Joint Agreement is that ‘effective system-wide improvement requires strong leadership, collaborative working and clarity of purpose at all layers of the system – school, local, regional and national.’ Collaborative Improvement works well towards this aim. Rationale Over the last two years we have been working on our own in-house developed ‘6 Competencies for Learning’ framework which has good traction in the primary sector, whilst over this time our secondary schools have been working with Skills Development Scotland on the development of Metaskills in the Senior Phase. We have seen a combination of uptake of individual establishment level approaches to skills development in the Broad General Education in early secondary, but we know this is an area that would benefit from further analysis and a more coordinated, consistent approach. Despite many endeavours, there is still too much of a focus on delivering courses and qualifications in the Senior Phase, and we know we have work to do ensuring our young people know their strengths and abilities, not just being able to list their qualifications. Appendix A
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In our local context this really matters, as we see a 5% downwards shift between our initial and follow-up leaver destinations. A huge contributor to that are socio-economic factors - the impact of poverty on our young people cannot be overstated - young people need to be better aware of the financial support on offer to them beyond school, and more aware of the likely costs and impact of further study. Surveys of those that changed destinations also tell us that young people need to be better at articulating their skills, and have a better understanding of what destinations are like to live and breathe, prior to commencing them. Should they decide to change their destination, having an understanding of how to make that change, what skills and strengths they have to offer, and the challenges the new destination will bring are paramount to sustained success. Attainment in our schools is good, as each year we are usually above the national average at each level except Advanced Higher, but attendance is a challenge for us. Post-pandemic, the impact of multiple factors on mental health and wellbeing has hit our young people hard. This is also set in the context of national change following the publication of national reviews. We know from our discussions that our young people are looking for greater alignment between secondary school and life beyond. Undertaking a Collaborative Improvement activity in this area will give us the input we require to make change in this area, whilst we await national change. Any change we make in the future is set within an improvement agenda we are already committed to - locally, we’re working with our schools to explore a common timetable in the Senior Phase, and look at how we make greater use of technology in the breadth of courses on offer. Equity is our driving force making such changes. Partnership working is key to make this happen. Fundamentally, this is all about the needs of our young people, who we owe it to, to get it right. Planning and Process The collaboration was organised over a two-day period which took place on Tuesday the 24th and Wednesday 25th of September 2024. Preparatory work involved senior officers linking with ADES and Education Scotland to agree the key question at the heart of the collaborative improvement along with the supplementary questions that would help support exploration of the key question. The team consisted of 3 representatives from ADES, 3 representatives from Education Scotland and 3 members of the Central Team including the Senior Education Officer, Education Officer - Senior Phase, and Education Support Officer - Senior Phase. The scope of this collaborative improvement was focused on our work to make the learning and teaching of skills more explicit in our schools. Whilst a coordinated approach has been taken over the last two years to the development of the WDC 6Cs, the approach to skills development in our secondary schools has not been unified, allowing our secondary schools scope to explore possibilities in this area first before a coordinated approach is developed and adopted. The process involved three key phases as follows:-
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Pre: Scoping, exploring the area of focus and gathering information. During: Collaborative improvement activities resulting from the priority area/s identified. These included presentation of associated data, team discussion / reflection sessions and focus groups / professional dialogue with key stakeholders across primary, secondary and partners, most crucially including learners themselves. Recording sheets from each discussion session and focus group were collated live during the visit, and used in real time to inform feedback. Post: Feedback, further analysis and next steps identified. Key Question As the focus for our Collaborative Inquiry, we chose the following: “How do we improve skills transition between the Broad General Education and the Senior Phase?” It is further supported by four supplementary questions. Supplementary Questions 1. To what extent is West Dunbartonshire Council’s ‘6Cs’ Skills Progression Framework evident in the Broad General Education S1 - 3 learning & teaching? 2. To what extent is Skills Development Scotland Metaskills Framework evident in the Senior Phase learning & teaching? 3. How aligned are the WDC 6Cs and SDS Metaskills frameworks? 4. How do we leverage the national catalyst for change in secondary skills transition? Key Findings What’s Going Well There is clear passion and enthusiasm to get this right for learners, practitioners and the wider impact on community and employability. Those involved display an infectious energy about wanting to get it right. Stakeholders have a clear sense of agency, empowered to drive change. There is evidence of the opportunity for collaboration amongst practitioners, which would benefit from further growth. Partnership is seen and evidenced as a key approach to delivering improvement. Partners have well established working practices.
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The West Dunbartonshire Council 6 Competencies for Learning framework shows demonstrable impact in the Broad General Education in the primary sector in helping young people and practitioners develop approaches to skills acquisition and development. Primary practitioners are able to articulate the rationale for skills development impacting on destinations more than their colleagues in secondary. Whilst it was identified that there are multiple approaches and frameworks in place, the question was posed “Is there a need for a common language?” Perhaps clarity is the goal, not necessarily an alignment exercise. Across stakeholder groups, it was clear that there is high value placed in skills in primary, lesser value in secondary Broad General Education, virtually none in the Senior Phase, yet lots of value with partners. The question was posed during the visit ‘Is this a direct consequence of a narrow focus on attainment in the Senior Phase?’ Where learning takes place in a more practical environment there is clear evidence of how explicit skills development is for young people. There is great opportunity to build on the Local Learning Community model - ensuring that establishments serving a local area are united in their approach to skills development, and that it is a shared development objective. Through a well developed longer term transition project, the benefits being realised in primary could spread to BGE in early secondary. Education Leaders recognised the importance of the need for change and demonstrated a solutions focused approach to getting it right. Work was underway to address the traditional nature of timetables in schools. They understood that this was around developing the curriculum and fundamentally about approaches to learning and teaching. Areas for Improvement As young people progress through school, they become less articulate about the development of their skills. More could be done to help young people track the development of their skills throughout their time in school, preparing for what comes next. Culturally in the Senior Phase, skills development is seen as an extra - what seems to matter most is attainment. More could be done to make the development of skills more explicit in learning and teaching in the Senior Phase. There was a recognition that WDC had prioritised professional learning for staff as an important vehicle for school improvement. This was valued by staff. While the breadth of the professional learning offer was a strength, there was also the potential for confusion / overlap of approaches - Visible Learning, Deep Learning, CIRCLE, Improving Our Classrooms (IOC) etc. Clarity could be provided to practitioners on how multiple frameworks or CLPL models can each reach the same goal.
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Whilst the WDC 6Cs provides a common framework and language, there is still fragmentation across establishments in skills development. Work should continue to embed WDC 6Cs, and utilise this as a collaborative opportunity for Local Learning Community development. Further work could be done to dig deeper in the destination data and ensure that practitioners are aware of what the data is showing, and how this could be addressed in their practice. It was clear when practitioners get together, they are bursting to share practice, experience and ideas for future work. More could be done to facilitate this further, making it easy for all practitioners to access. Supporting Depute Head Teachers in Secondary to look at approaches to learning and teaching, and how this is shared across establishments. Look for more ways to provide work-based learning, making learning live in real life contexts. Next Steps ● Build on the successful foundation of WDC 6Cs to strengthen transition across sectors, and further exemplify shared terminology and language around skills development to improve consistency. ● Develop further a shared understanding that the progression of skills is core to a curriculum that ensures the development of the four Curriculum for Excellence capacities of all our learners. ● Utilise the Local Learning Community model to develop coordinated approaches to skills development across a local area. ● Develop approaches to capturing skills development so that young people can show and be proud of their progress over time ● Explore opportunities to share further the professional learning taking place in schools. Conclusion Regarding this model itself, the Collaborative Improvement was a very worthwhile and positive experience. The benefit of thinking through an area of challenge with partners is considerable, with an ethos of supporting self-reflection and improvement at its heart. It has strengthened our own self-evaluation processes and provided us with clear direction in our continuous improvement for the benefit of our young people. As to the matter in hand, we started our Collaborative Improvement with the focus that transition of skills development was our area of developmental need. We sought to explore whether greater alignment of frameworks was required, and how to leverage the national change agenda. Reflecting now, it’s clear that the matter is more fundamental - how do we build progression of skills within the core business of learning and teaching 3-18? Making this more explicit for our young people, and utilising a mechanism for them to capture their progression will help us achieve our stated intention of helping young people identify and develop their skills, strengths and talents. Encouraging our practitioners to collaborate and
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share, and build shared improvement priorities across Local Learning Communities will be the vehicle to achieve this.