Item 11 Appendix 1
West Dunbartonshire Council · 28 May 2025
Back to Educational Services Committee — 28 May 2025 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
Page 1
1 National Thematic Inspection: Local authority approaches to supporting school improvement Summarised Findings Local Authority West Dunbartonshire Council Lead inspector David McKellar In September/ October 2024, a team of inspectors from Education Scotland visited West Dunbartonshire Council. During our visit, we talked to senior leaders, local authority officers, parents/carers, headteachers, teachers, representatives from professional associations and elected members. Purpose and themes The purpose of the visit was to gather evidence about how West Dunbartonshire Council supports school improvement, with a focus on how they support schools to improve the quality of education through: • the implementation of effective improvement planning and standards and quality reporting • self- evaluation and quality assurance • professional learning • universal and targeted support and challenge Context of the local authority The population of West Dunbartonshire largely lives in urban geographical areas to the west and north of Glasgow. Seventy one percent of children and young people in primary and secondary schools live within deciles 1-2 of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD). Approximately 47% of children in primary and 50% of young people in secondary have been assessed as requiring additional support with their learning. The average attendance in 2022/2023 was 88.4%. The national average is 90.2%. Across West Dunbartonshire there are five secondary schools, 32 primary schools, seven special schools, and four schools with a special unit. There are 29 Early Learning and Childcare Centres. The Chief Education Officer leads a team of four Senior Education Officers and a Principal Psychologist. Appendix 1
Page 2
2 Theme 1 - How do local authorities support schools to improve the quality of education through implementing effective improvement planning and standards and quality reporting? • How clear and effective is the local authority’s arrangements and advice to schools on self-evaluation, improvement planning and standards and quality reporting? • How does the local authority ensure that schools’ self-evaluation is accurate, rigorous and robust, based on reliable and comprehensive data and information? • In what ways does the local authority promote collaboration with all stakeholders, especially learners, as essential to effective self-evaluation and identification of priorities? • What is the role of central teams in providing critical feedback to school leaders on the quality/robustness of their self-evaluation and school improvement planning processes? • To what extent does the local authority use the data from individual school or cluster improvement plans and standards and quality reports, to direct their officers’ work? West Dunbartonshire local authority provides clear and effective guidance and advice to school leaders on self-evaluation, improvement planning and standards and quality reporting. The local authority has established clear service outcomes and expectations. These help school leaders develop consistent standards in school improvement planning. They demonstrate through improvement planning the connection between school priorities and local and national priorities. Officers have worked well with school leaders to develop the West Dunbartonshire Council Improvement Framework. The framework sets out successfully the education authority’s expectations on self-evaluation, quality assurance and improvement. An Excellence and Equity Board, which includes officers in central teams and school leaders, provides governance to school leaders. School leaders shared that the framework and governance has been valuable in helping them maintain a focus on improvement within the context of their school community. Furthermore, the strong partnership between officers and schools, combined with the work of the Excellence and Equity Board, helps school leaders meet the standards and expectations outlined by the framework. The local authority’s revised approach to improvement planning is viewed as a particular success by headteachers and teachers. School leaders plan for improvement over a three-year cycle. Each year, they identify priorities as areas to ‘engage, embed, evaluate or extend.’ The emphasis on planning for improvement has a clear focus on identifying the intended outcomes for school leaders, teachers, learners, families and communities. School leaders report that this helps their staff teams to focus more on the impact of planned professional learning and development work. School leaders report that they feel empowered to streamline improvement priorities to focus on a few areas and do these well. Across the last two academic sessions, the local authority has revised its approach to quality assurance and monitoring outcomes. This is linked closely to building capacity for improvement and resilience across the system. The local authority prioritised time for officers to present to schools about the refreshed approaches. These were delivered through service-wide forums and other meetings. This work ensured that the refreshed approaches were understood by all at school level. School leaders shared that this helped them enhance and improve approaches to quality assurance and school improvement planning.
Page 3
3 Local authority officers have developed a new and user-friendly approach to reporting on standards and quality, using interactive technology rather than a document-based approach. Headteachers report that this more dynamic and inclusive reporting style has been welcomed by parents, staff and learners. They gave many examples of teachers and learners contributing to the standards and quality report through videos, podcasts and photographs. As a result, whole school communities are now actively engaged in school improvement planning processes. They are involved in identifying and celebrating successes and highlighting next steps. Headteachers and staff in schools report that this new approach is helping to develop a clear cycle of improvement planning and reporting on standards. The local authority prioritises developing school leader and staff capacity to use data effectively to improve outcomes for children and young people. This includes appointing ‘data leads’ who support schools to interpret and use data. Officers meet school leaders regularly across the school year to discuss what data and information is telling them about school performance and how well the school is improving. For example, an officer from a central team tracks school level attendance data across the year. They expect school leaders to analyse school level data each month with an agreed focus group or cohort. Examples of focus groups and cohorts include those with additional support needs; less than 80% attendance, free school meals entitlement, and care experienced children. This regular focus on attendance is helping school leaders to identify where improvement is required and why. Now that they have this rich data, school leaders working in partnership with officers aim to improve attendance for groups and individual children and young people. Officers undertake regular visits to schools which have clear and agreed purposes. They use visits to focus directly on school improvement using appropriate self-evaluation, data and other information. School leaders report that these visits support them very well to ensure improvement priorities are manageable, accurate and relevant to the school’s needs. School leaders are enthusiastic about the opportunities to frequently engage in professional discussion with officers. They agree that senior education officers are effective in providing support, challenge and guidance on how they plan for improvement. School leaders feel confident to approach officers when they identify a potential area that requires specific focus. School leaders work well in partnership with parent bodies to agree strategic priorities and operational priorities for their school community. Of the Parent Council chairs that contributed to focus groups, all shared that they find school leaders consistently inclusive and responsive to challenge provided by Parent Councils. They all agreed that senior education officers, including the Chief Education Officer, welcome discussions around school performance. They see this as a very positive aspect of the work of the local authority. Officers play a crucial role in ensuring school leaders receive timeous feedback on the quality and robustness of their self-evaluation and improvement planning process. They have agreed times across the school year where officers meet with school leaders to quality assure standards and quality reports. Officers work with
Page 4
4 school leaders to ensure they have time to prepare for meetings. Officers and school leaders work effectively to analyse progress being made towards outcomes in improvement plans. Where officers identify areas that require improvement or more focus, they agree with headteachers how this can take place with support from the local authority. They ensure that this follows agreed processes as outlined in the West Dunbartonshire Council Improvement Framework. The local authority has an established proportionate model of improvement using data to inform central support to schools. Very recently, (2023/2024), this was relaunched as ‘The Pathways Model’. This model supports officers and schools agree the level of support a school will receive each session. Officers provide all schools with a ‘core’ offer of support across the school year. This includes 4 in- person visits, sharing of school data, support and challenge. Schools that are performing well remain on this pathway. Schools that require some support on agreed identified areas but continue to perform well overall, may move to the ‘enhanced’ pathway. Although in the early stages of application, ‘The Pathways Model’ has been welcomed by school leaders. They see this as a positive and transparent approach to using self-evaluation data and information to bring about meaningful improvement in schools. They appreciate the collaborative approach and feel strongly that they benefit professionally from participating in peer review visits. Enhanced Scrutiny, Collaborative Action (ESCA) visits are ‘deep dives’ into one of the core quality indicators from ‘How Good is Our School? 4th edition’. School leaders identify an area for focused attention. A team of education officers and school leaders from other schools visit the school for one day. They provide an objective view and critical feedback on the school’s own self-evaluation. School leaders often choose an area of practice that they feel needs further development. They report that the supportive, but robust, dialogue is extremely helpful in deciding next steps for improvement and identifying areas that require focussed attention. Examples of areas of practice that school leaders have chosen for an ESCA include: safeguarding, additional support needs (ASN) provision, moderation of Curriculum for Excellence levels, use of data to inform improvement, the quality of learning environments, and the use of Pupil Equity Fund (PEF) to close the poverty-related attainment gap. All schools undergo a validated self-evaluation (VSE) visit every three years. A team of officers and school leaders carry out a range of evaluative activities, such as lesson observations, meetings with focus groups, and scrutinising data. These three-day visits cover the same quality indicators that HM Inspectors evaluate and grade during school inspections. The visiting VSE team aims to validate the school’s own self-evaluation of their performance. Theme 2: How do local authorities support schools to improve the quality of education through self-evaluation and quality assurance? • What methods does the local authority use to evaluate school performance (review the quality of education) for example, gathering evidence from stakeholders, review/validated self-evaluation visits, attainment analysis)? How effective are these methods? How often does this take place?
Page 5
5 • To what extent do officers carry out regular and rigorous evaluation of the quality of school provision? How is this work quality assured? • How does the local authority evaluate the quality of learning, teaching and assessment? • How clear and effective is the advice and support for schools on approaches to self-evaluation and their quality assurance? How effectively does the local authority moderate this at strategic and school levels? • How does the local authority identify and share effective practice through quality assurance? Is this making a difference across the authority? The local authority uses a range of effective methods to evaluate school performance. These approaches sit firmly within West Dunbartonshire Council’s Improvement Framework. The first of two strands in the improvement framework, ‘Quality Assurance and Monitoring Outcomes’ expects officers to regularly monitor standards and expectations in each school. As a result, officers provide schools with a consistent and purposeful approach to evaluating school performance. For example, all schools receive regular feedback on standards and quality support, feedback on its school improvement plans and in person meetings to ensure schools are meeting the expected standards set out by the local authority. Officers protect time for school leaders across the year. This protected time is valued highly by school leaders who shared that being given the time to reflect properly improves the quality of improvement and attainment meetings. The local authority has a range of effective approaches which ensure school’s self-evaluation is accurate, rigorous and robust based on reliable and comprehensive data and information. Through the range of approaches used by the local authority to engage with school leaders and staff, there is a well-developed culture of support, challenge and professional regard across all sectors. This ensures that the use of data and information is strong and comprehensive. The work of officers is quality assured through the local authority Improvement Board. This provides senior education officers and the Chief Education Officer with assurance that reports to elected members accurately reflect the work and impact of education. The local authority evaluates the impact of the Improvement Framework annually. It refreshes its approaches to evaluate the quality of education provided in each of its schools. Officers and school leaders work very closely to regularly and frequently review and use data and information. Officers analyse data, refer to school improvement plans, standards and quality reports and quality indicator evaluations, self-evaluation or inspection reports. They use this to agree how much support is required beyond ‘core’ supports. They then work with school leaders to agree what level of support is required within the Local Authority ‘Pathways Model’ of support. These ‘pathways’ are known locally as ‘core,’ ‘enhanced’ and ‘supported improvement’ models. Each pathway has a focus on monitoring and improving outcomes for children and young people. Local Authority ‘pathways’ are regarded as a positive step for school empowerment as school leaders are able to use their self-evaluation evidence to determine which pathway they should be on. Officers support schools with identifying the correct pathway. School leaders use clear and transparent criteria
Page 6
6 to ensure that the pathway agreed matches the level of support required by the school. School leaders are working more effectively in gathering the right data and information at the right time. They are well supported by officers to gather data across the year. This fits in well with the timings of education officer visits. School leaders shared that it is having a positive impact on self-evaluation and early identification of areas of strength and areas that require improvement. They feel that this is supporting them and their education officer to be more responsive to improvement and adapt school improvement plans accordingly. School leaders speak highly of the ‘milestone planning approach.’ They gave examples of how milestone planning, and the regular quality assurance helps them ensure progression towards intended outcomes remains on track. Officers, along with a partner headteacher, use data and information to have robust conversations with school leaders. These conversations are framed and structured well within Broad General Education Attainment Reviews and Senior Phase Attainment Reviews. During these reviews, school leaders and officers identify areas that have evidence of strong performance and areas that are a cause for concern. Where appropriate, schools and officers agree areas around attainment that require more focused attention. Officers ensure that focused attention support meetings do not solely rely on schools’ own interim Attainment of Curriculum for Excellence Levels (ACEL). They sample children and young people’s work and observe learning. They use the samples of work to moderate the school’s ACEL data and to provide assurance that data is robust. Thereafter, school leaders have to demonstrate clearly how they aim to improve attainment outcomes for children and young people in the school. School leaders shared that they feel the use of data for self-evaluation and quality assurance is as strong as it has ever been in their school, across the learning community and across the local authority. The local authority has a strong commitment to supporting peer school leaders to contribute to its collaborative improvement approaches. School leaders maintain a high profile across all aspects of the improvement work undertaken by the local authority. For example, the local authority provides each school with a validated self-evaluation (VSE) visit on a three-year rolling programme. They use information provided from VSEs, along with recent inspection evidence, school self-evaluation information, the quality and standards report, and a range of data. This helps them build up and sustain a thorough knowledge of each school. Peer school leaders join the VSE team visiting a school. Additionally, this approach is helping them develop their own approaches to self-evaluation and quality assurance for their own school. Overall, the VSE approach is impacting positively on the identification of improvement priorities across the local authority. This approach is strengthening school level reporting on outcomes for children, young people and families. Professional association representatives spoke highly of the importance the local authority places on knowing its schools well. For example, professional association representatives are working with officers to improve reporting on incidents in schools. They are working toward developing a new health and safety
Page 7
7 reporting format that aims to provide accurate data and information to the local authority. They feel this exemplifies the commitment of the local authority to improve working conditions for school staff and increase wellbeing at work. They are confident that any areas identified will be acted upon by the local authority and used to improve behaviour and relationships in schools for learners and staff which will lead to improved outcomes. Theme 3: How do local authorities support schools to improve the quality of education through professional learning? • What professional learning does the local authority currently provide to support school improvement? • What is the impact of this on developing the skills and knowledge of school leaders and staff on school improvement? • What support systems (e.g., mentoring, networks of practice, peer support groups, cluster support) are available for school leaders and staff? How are these approaches improving school performance and outcomes for learners? • To what extent do senior leaders have opportunities to support improvement beyond their own establishment? What difference is this making? • How effectively does the local authority utilise Associate Assessors (if applicable) to support school improvement across establishments. • Does the local authority’s professional learning strategy draw on support from national organisations? The local authority’s approach to professional learning is founded on an embedded culture of collaboration and has a clear focus on capacity-building. Officers in the authority’s Professional Learning Team are responsible for the development of a professional learning programme. The programme covers a blend of professional learning opportunities for staff at all levels in schools, including support and ancillary staff. Professional learning opportunities include short and long-term courses, mentoring and coaching opportunities, buddying/shadowing arrangements, and an extensive range of networks and forums. The Professional Learning Team ensures that the professional learning on offer is aligned fully to national and local priorities. They consult headteachers and staff at all levels regularly on the content and delivery methods that are most successful. They make changes to the programme as a result of the feedback they receive. Headteachers and teachers feel strongly that the local authority provides a very helpful programme of professional learning that is of high quality and helps them to drive forward improvements in their schools. The authority’s model of professional learning is based firmly on the Education Scotland National Model. It supports staff to identify, participate in and reflect on the impact of professional learning on themselves as learners, and importantly on the children, young people and families they work with. In recent years, the local authority has invested in long-term professional learning for teachers, with a focus on improving learning, teaching and assessment in
Page 8
8 classrooms. School leaders speak very highly of the quality of this professional learning, and state that take-up amongst teachers is high. One example is ‘Improving Our Classrooms’ (IOC), a year-long General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) accredited programme for class teachers in primary, secondary and ASN schools. Teachers and school leaders state that their participation in this programme is improving staff’s confidence and ability in using data and self-evaluation for improvement. They are confident that is helping to raise attainment, improve the quality of the curriculum and ensure a better consistency of learning and teaching across departments and schools. Staff appreciate the in-person and webinar approaches to delivery and opportunities to work with colleagues in different local authorities. This type of highly effective professional learning aligns very well with the outward-looking approach of the local authority as a whole. Almost all West Dunbartonshire primary school teachers are engaged in the ‘Visible Learning + Improvement Programme.’ This three-year programme, developed by Professor John Hattie, is based on international research from over 96,000 studies into what works best in schools to accelerate learning and achievement. Primary headteachers state that their staff’s engagement in this high-quality training is leading to consistently better learning and teaching across schools. In adopting this approach, the local authority is improving its understanding of what practice works well in meeting learners’ needs within its schools. This is part of its planning to reduce the impact of the changes to Strategic Equity Funding. The authority has a well-developed Leadership Pathways model that provides a continuum of leadership and learning opportunities for all school and early years staff. The Professional Learning Team liaises with officers, school leaders, teachers, practitioners and support staff to ensure that the content and delivery style of the Leadership Pathways meets the needs of schools and communities. The Leadership Pathways model is based on the principles of the Education Scotland National Model of Professional Learning, which promotes the undertaking of a wide range of high-quality, sustained professional learning experiences. The pathway is based on GTCS Professional Standards, the Framework for Education Leadership and for early years staff, Scottish Social Services Council National Occupational Standards and the national Step into Leadership programme. The authority provides a range of worthwhile leadership opportunities for unpromoted teachers in schools, such as data leads, champions, and ambassadors. Officers support teachers to undertake each of these roles through training, monthly forums, networks and communities of practice. For example, the authority’s data officer is responsible for leading a new and innovative digital literacy professional learning programme for unpromoted teachers. Each school has a nominated teacher who will act as a ‘data lead’ for two years. They each receive training and ongoing support from the data officer to build their skills and confidence in analysing a wide range of school and authority-wide data. They meet termly to share practice and build their knowledge and skills in using data to improve outcomes for learners. In their second year as ‘data lead,’ they will
Page 9
9 mentor another colleague in their school to take on the role. In this way, over time increasing numbers of teachers will benefit from in-depth training in using and analysing data. This provides staff with valuable opportunities to develop leadership skills and helps school leaders with planning for continuity of knowledge and experience within schools, as teachers move on. Teachers who are current ‘data leads’ speak with enthusiasm and passion about their leadership roles. They feel strongly that their more focused use of data is improving learning and teaching, and in particular, how they plan to meet the needs of all learners. They appreciate the opportunities to work collaboratively and share their expertise in their own schools, and more widely across the authority. The local authority uses the expertise of Associate Assessors (AA) in planned and effective ways. For example, AAs support headteacher colleagues who are new in post, or new to the authority. They provide support to headteacher colleagues in ensuring accurate and robust self-evaluation, using their national perspective of standards. They also provide practical support and guidance for school leaders, whose schools may be due for inspection. School leaders are open to support and challenge from colleagues. This is achieved through the local authority approach to involving school leaders in the Improvement Framework activity for example Attainment Reviews, VSE, ESCA. School leaders report that the positive and supportive culture within the local authority allows for high-quality and robust professional dialogue during quality assurance visits. They value this form of very well-established peer-to-peer support and feel confident to provide critical feedback and challenge to one another. This is enhancing the strategic leadership capacity within the local authority. It also contributes to the positive and tangible ethos of collective responsibility of all for West Dunbartonshire’s children and young people. Theme 4: How do local authorities deliver universal support and challenge for all schools, and/or targeted support for specific schools to improve the quality of education? • What is the universal offer of support and challenge for all schools? • How does the local authority use the data from individual school or cluster improvement plans and standards and quality reports, to provide targeted support? • What measures are used to identify the need for targeted support? • Is there targeted support for specific schools? What might that look like? (examples?) What action is taken if a review of a school concludes that a school is not performing satisfactorily and requires targeted support? • What support systems (for example: mentoring, networks of practice, peer support groups) are available for school leaders and staff? • What is the role of central staff in facilitating/contributing to collaborative approaches, which improve school performance and outcomes for learners?
Page 10
10 The local authority has a clear programme of universal and targeted support and challenge for its schools. The ‘Pathways’ model is a key part of the Improvement Framework. It was introduced in academic session 2023/2024. All schools and early years establishments are allocated to a pathway based on capacity for improvement, performance data and contextual local knowledge. The three pathways are: • Core – universal offer for schools that do not require additional support, • Enhanced – additional support for a specific purpose, such as a school due to be inspected, or where a new headteacher has been appointed, School leaders that evaluate an aspect of their practice as ‘satisfactory’ in their standards and quality report will be allocated to this pathway, • Supported - supported improvement model where a school requires extra help to secure improvement. Schools on this pathway are identified through evaluations of ‘satisfactory’ or below in standards and quality reports; VSEs; local contextual information; and following external inspections where weaknesses in provision are identified. Schools on the core pathway receive a quality assurance visit at least once each term from a local authority officer or senior officer. Each visit has a clear focus on improvement. This includes: • monitoring standards and expectations - standards and quality validation visits, • Broad General Education and Senior Phase attainment reviews , • impact reviews – focus on learning, teaching and assessment, • PEF reviews. Schools on the enhanced pathway receive the same four core visits across the year, and extra, focused support as part of the local authority improvement framework. Associate Assessors and peer headteachers often help to provide this additional support and guidance through coaching and mentoring. Schools on the supported pathway receive additional scrutiny and extra support to help school leaders and staff to secure improvements. This targeted support may include: • a co-produced action plan setting clear objectives and timescales for required improvement, • allocated officers to support improvement in each identified aspect of practice, • leadership support by allocating a peer headteacher as a mentor and critical friend, • ongoing support from the link officer to boost the school leadership team’s capacity to drive change and improvement, • support from the central team to plan a collegiate in-service programme for staff, focused on improving areas of identified weakness, and • the link officer monitors progress and provides weekly updates to senior education officers. Headteachers and senior leaders are very positive about the pathways model of support and challenge. They feel it is transparent and proportionate. They state
Page 11
11 that the ethos and approach is supportive and helpful, promoting honest and open dialogue between school leaders and officers about strengths and challenges. They feel that the core and enhanced scrutiny helps to sharpen their focus on their own school improvement journey. 5. Any other relevant information All focus groups stated that they were concerned about current and future financial implications of a reducing budget for schools and the local authority. Common areas identified by focus groups and in questionnaire comments related to how a reducing budget impacts on: • ICT infrastructure, • school and local authority capacity to meet the needs of a growing number of children and young people with additional support needs (ASN), • staffing levels, and • the need to ensure they are appropriate to levels of need, and curriculum delivery. Across a number of focus groups there was: • concern surrounding ringfencing of teacher numbers, particularly for local authorities with reducing pupil numbers. Other challenges identified by the local authority during the visit include: • with limited resources, headteachers feel that they are at, or reaching, capacity regarding how they meet needs effectively. ASN trajectory in the local authority is of concern. This raises concerns about reducing attainment gaps for cohorts of children and young people, • high levels of poverty in the council area, which is above national averages, resulting on strain on services who are not fully able to provide support for children and families, and • concern regarding the loss of the Regional Improvement Collaborative after developing positive collaborative working. 6. Effective practice worth sharing • Innovative approaches to improvement planning and standards and quality reporting that actively involve whole school communities. • The governance of school improvement through the Excellence and Equity Board and the Improvement Board. The education authority’s approaches to building capacity and leadership across school staff teams, for example, peer reviews in VSE and ESCA visits, coaching and mentoring, lead roles for non-promoted teachers.
Page 12
12