School Improvement

NLEs are outstanding headteachers who, together with the staff in their National Support School (NSS) or Teaching School, use their skills and experience to support schools in challenging circumstances. In addition to leading their own schools, NLEs work to increase the leadership capacity of other schools to help raise standards. 

NLEs can be deployed in a number of ways and each deployment can be tailored to suit the needs of the school receiving support. NLEs are expected to support schools in the most challenging circumstances such as those in an Ofsted category, facing closure or amalgamation or falling below the floor standards.

You should contact an NLE if you want to improve performance at your school. They will meet with the headteacher and senior staff from your school to discuss the challenges you face and what help is needed. Their work will be tailored in partnership with you.

They can get involved in different ways, including:

• working with your school alongside their staff
• working with your school on their own
• their staff working with your school under their initial direction

NLGs are highly effective chairs of governors who use their skills and experience to provide coaching and mentoring support to another chair of governors to improve school and academy performance.

You should contact an NLG if you want to improve the leadership and performance of your school’s governing body.

Examples of deployments:

• mentoring of chair and/or members of the school’s governing body
• external reviews of governance (NLGs who have completed National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) training)
• chair or membership of an interim executive board
• chair or leadership role of governing body of school/multi-academy trust where the school has been identified as needing urgent additional governance capacity
• helping to draw up action plans to improve governance
• independent and advice, and supporting panel work
• preparation for Ofsted
• supporting strategic planning: vision, values, strategic priorities.

An External Review of Governance looks at how well your school’s governing body is working. An external system leader or governance professional works with the governing body, headteacher and clerk to improve the performance of your governing body.

Ofsted will sometimes recommend that a school has a review. In this case, the purpose of the review is to enable a school to move from a rating of ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ to at least ‘good’.

The review is offered as support to improve and develop governance, and not as an additional inspection. It will help your governing body identify priorities for improvement, and provide support on what steps to take.

It aims to help your governing body to:

• be more skilled, focused and effective
• be more aware of the freedoms that it has to work in different ways
• be clear in its vision for the school or academy and how, together with the school leadership team, it can achieve this
• be confident that it has a clear delineation of roles and responsibilities
• have the right number of skilled and committed governors to meet the needs of the school or academy
• hold school leaders to account for improving outcomes for all pupils, including those who are disadvantaged
• be clear about how it ensures that its young people are well prepared to be responsible citizens in Britain

Local Leaders of Governance are locally designated and support the work of National Leaders of Governance.  They may be involved in deployments working alongside an NLG, or on a separate individual piece of work.  LLGs will undertake similar activities to NLGs. 

LLEs are successful Headteachers who work alongside other school leaders to drive forward improvements and build capacity to ensure that improvements can be sustained.  The role of the LLE is to work outside their own school, providing support to another headteacher and their school with the aim of school improvement.

The role is flexible and based on context and may involve:

• coaching and supporting a new Headteacher who would benefit from assistance in the transition period to maintain momentum in their school’s improvement
• offering peer challenge and support to a Headteacher to ensure impact in school improvement strategies
• conducting a diagnostic assessment to gain understanding of the extent of a school needs
• providing focused support to a school identified through the inspection framework as ‘requires improvement’ or vulnerable to under-performance

Kyra Local Leaders of Education will also support a governing body with conducting Headteacher Performance Management. 

SLEs are experienced middle or senior leaders with a specialism (for example, mathematics, ITT, behaviour).  The role is about developing other leaders so that they have the skills to lead their own teams and improve practice in their own schools.  You should consider utilising an SLE if you want to improve the leadership in a specific subject or specialist area in your school.

SLEs can provide one-to-one or group support. Their work could involve a variety of activities, such as:

• data analysis
• coaching
• facilitating and training
• joint action planning

A pupil premium review looks at how a school is spending its pupil premium funding. As a reviewer, system leaders will work with you to improve your school’s pupil premium strategy so the funding is spent on approaches shown to be effective in improving the achievement of disadvantaged pupils. They will carry out a focused review of your school’s current provision and work with you to put in place an improved strategy, including planned spend, on specific evidence-based approaches.

Reviewers have a track record in making a difference with disadvantaged pupils. These system leaders are responsible for the delivery of an effective review, and will usually hold an initial discussion with the headteacher of the commissioning school. Beyond this, reviewers may deploy other members of their leadership team with expertise in this area, including middle leaders and SLEs, to lead aspects of the review.