Momentum and capacity: A story and a proposition for school improvement support

Leading schools is exhausting and never more so when rapid changes are needed and the external climate is uncertain. In this post, I want to share a very personal experience of the challenges this very situation presented for me as a headteacher between 2019 and 2023.

The story begins with a wrenching inspection experience that we did not see coming as we should. A downgrading that felt degrading of the headteacher I had been but, at the same time, offered a pathway to the headteacher I could become. Caught on the cusp of a switch in inspection schedule and caught on the horns of the inspectorates focus on reviewing the status of previously outstanding schools, we fell short and had to make concerted improvements.

The wider context – a gloomy forest

This is not a new or particularly unique story. In SSAT’s recent review of research into headteacher retention, the same issues came up time and again. Headteachers, especially those in high accountability systems such as ours, wrestle with enacting rapid fire policy shifts from government whilst having to keep a close eye on a myriad of accountability measures. Inspections and exam outcomes stand tallest in this gloomy forest but balancing budgets and meeting the authentic accountability needs of our stakeholders are growing in height. Mission creep is a familiar concern for school leaders, although ‘creep’ rather underestimates its pace.

In the survey inspired by these research findings, there was more confirmation that leading the improvement efforts of schools is a tough gig, especially in the post- or late-pandemic world. 87% of respondents agreed that the complexity of leading schools is increasing, but 34% said they had little or no preparation for the role. A ‘sink or swim’ approach seems relatively normal but means that more and more feel that they are sinking. Interestingly, 83% of respondents said that they had at some point had to completely rethink their approach to headship but almost half believed that incessant and unreasonable challenges were getting in the way.

Kickstarting change – grasping the nettle, alone

As headteacher of a stand-alone academy, I had a huge amount of latitude to make sweeping changes to our practice in light of our inspection outcomes. And boy did we grasp the nettle in doing so. We also had the support and goodwill of our colleagues, who had more than enough love for their school community to get on board with the changes that were proposed. As a result, we got off to a great start in the first half of the 2019/20 academic year. Those who know and remember the experience of realignment in the service of improving things for school pupils and staff will appreciate just how enervating change can be. We were on fire.

But there was one thing missing from the equation. Throughout this kickstarting of institutional transformation, nobody outside of our school community was anywhere to be seen. The collapse of local authority funding had hollowed out school improvement services beyond the statutory requirements. We were the only school in our trust and so there was no central team to provide a helping hand. Other, informal and loosely affiliated networks were fine for moral support and for specific programmes, but lacked a sustained offer for supporting schools like ours. None of which seemed to matter at the time because capacity wasn’t felt to be an issue.

Stalled momentum and curtailed capacity – lockdown blues

And, dear reader, you know what happened next. In March 2020 all of that momentum and all of that capacity disappeared in the face of two things. First came the iterative lockdowns, re-openings, bubbles and contact tracing, alongside a myriad of confusing and ever-changing guidance (or lack of guidance) around face masks, isolation rules, examination alternatives, and so on and so on. Second came the fascinating evolution in changes for the people going through all these things, be they colleagues, children or families. From the ‘blitz spirit’ just before lockdown to the ‘build a better world’ aspirations coming out of lockdown, all the way through to the combative, defensive, weary and frightened moments that ensued.

Momentum and capacity. Two of the most vital ingredients of any form of improvement, but particularly valuable and necessary for the ‘turning ship’ of organisational change. Keeping on keeping on felt like it absorbed every waking thought in those days and yet, soon enough, the accountability machine began getting itself back into gear. This was, to my mind, fair enough but the missed opportunity to pour significant resources into educational pandemic recovery efforts (leading to the resignation of Kevan Collins) was far from being fair enough.

A happy ending – relief over joy

It was in this period that I really came to appreciate the importance of what had been lost, a coherent and joined-up approach to school improvement services. In the decade prior to this we had manage to sustain momentum and capacity as if we were a perpetual motion machine. But, of course, perpetual motion machines are an impossibility. Friction will always out and an external source of energy will always be necessary. Education in the peak pandemic period provided friction such as I had never experienced before. Improving our school to meet the exacting standards of our relentless accountability system became incredibly difficult. The impact it had on every member of our school community was profound and often deeply felt.

But we got there in the end, in January 2023 after almost four years of gruelling effort. A happy ending but one that smelled more of relief than the joy it should have occasioned. It was at that stage that I decided, as the kids say, to ‘tap out’ through pure exhaustion. I had intended to give another five or more years to the role and to retire from the post. The world had other ideas and here I am, supporting school leaders with their endeavours by striving to find ways to assist them in maintaining momentum and creating capacity. The times may have changed since the start of the pandemic, but it is far from fully certain that they have begun to improve.

Assisting school leaders – maintaining momentum and creating capacity

All of which is to explain the motive behind this blogpost, which is to outline the reasons why we have developed a new programme for school leaders and governance professionals. The Sunday-best name is Aiding and Supporting Strategic Improvement for School Transformation but we like to call it ASSIST for brevity’s sake. Both names are, however, important as we want to make this offer for the purpose of transformation and to recognise that help and assistance are often hard to come by in doing so. You can find details of the programme here but the key detail is that it is designed to provide sustained support for schools over time. The focus is in helping school leaders to find that joy in improving their offer for stakeholders by offering a boost to their momentum and capacity for making necessary and impactful changes to provision.

SSAT’s ASSIST programme is entirely customisable for schools so that the support is tailored to your contextual needs whilst, at the same time, being cognisant of the wider expectations within which school leaders work their magic. For that reason, we would strongly advise that you book a call with us to talk about how our new programme could help you and your team.