Keeping in Touch (KIT) with SIPs: September 2008

The forthcoming term is the period of greatest activity for SIPs. With the 2008 results now available it is a time when significant re-evaluation of progress of the school can take place, and in most cases updating of School Evaluation Forms (SEFs) will need to be undertaken. The packed schedule also includes the headteacher performance management round and also target setting for 2010.

After the complete revision of the target-setting guidance last year there will be more modest adjustments to the work needed in this area for this year. Your local authority (LA) will ensure you receive a thorough briefing on this new guidance. SIPs will know what an important aspect of the school improvement cycle future target setting is, as it is within each school’s targets that its ambition is manifest. It is here that you make such an important contribution. Our evaluations have shown that, although this can be a challenging aspect of the job of the SIP it is also very successful, with headteachers reporting the high levels of both support and challenge they receive from their SIPs. This is resulting increasingly in schools setting more ambitious targets overall, and, from our discussions with headteachers, it is resulting in greater ownership of those targets. In the final analysis, for targets to work they must have meaning and not just be a number.

In terms of the process, there is a huge amount of good practice in LAs. In many LAs it is clear good practice (from a SIP’s point of view) to ensure not only that targets set by the school are recorded against the benchmarks used by the LA (usually RAISEonline benchmarks or FFTD) but also whether or not the targets the school has set are appropriately ambitious. If the school sets targets that the SIP believes are ambitious, but are below the benchmarks set by the LA, then critically SIPs must ensure that the factors which have been taken into account that show the targets are ambitious are clearly recorded in the report to the LA.

Adrian Percival

National Director School Improvement