Leading system redesign – 4: Innovation networks in action

Every organisation will have to learn how to innovate – and every innovation can be organised as a systematic process and should be organised as such. Peter Drucker, 1993

The argument in SSAT’s previous pamphlets – Leading system redesign 1–3 – is that much educational innovation will be school-led: that is, designed, tested, implemented, and distributed by schools, often working in networks of innovation.

“Leading system redesign – Innovation networks in action” by Professor David Hargreaves provides guidance on how innovation might be conducted. For some time, the approach to this task within the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust has differed markedly from the conventional model of research and development (R&D) in education, where research has been led and conducted by the academic community in faculties of education in universities. Though some of this research has been useful to schools, much conventional educational R&D fails in its purposes. This is because the basic R&D model is faulty. To indicate our change of direction we have inverted R&D to D&R – development drives research, not the other way around.

This pamphlet is designed to help schools undertake the effective innovation that is a striking feature of system redesign. Redesigners are by definition innovators. Yet few teachers, if any, have any serious training in the art and science of innovation. And of course, most students also know little about innovation. Yet it is clear that in system redesign students as well as staff are involved in innovation, often because the innovation is co-constructed. In what ways and with what success do they conduct innovation? Could they do it better? Illustrations of lessons learnt from innovating schools are drawn from the D&R networks on personalising learning established by SSAT.