5A:How to achieve success in leadership and management

Effective leadership is critical to effective learning. FE is the largest provider of Skills for Life and, in inspection terms, the most successful. However, there are still concerns about how far FE leaders are making a positive difference for Skills for Life learners. In 2003/04, 8 per cent of Ofsted-inspected colleges were judged to have outstanding leadership and management. Yet only 4 per cent had outstanding literacy and numeracy provision, and only 5 per cent had outstanding ESOL provision. Foundation programmes were judged to have the highest proportion of unsatisfactory and poor teaching. Skills for Life has been an area of rapid growth and management capacity has been stretched. However, a growing number of colleges are showing how it can be done and what it takes to build success. There are colleges working in challenging environments which have, nevertheless, been judged outstanding both as Skills for Life providers and in their leadership and management.

What issues do leadership teams need to address?

In November 2003, Ofsted and the ALI published a joint review [PDF] of literacy, numeracy and language. A number of concerns raised in this report were relevant to FE management, including:

• failure to allocate clear responsibility for Skills for Life provision
• weak initial and diagnostic assessment
• poor use of assessment outcomes to plan learning
• unclear targets for learners
• ineffective progress reviews
• weak links to vocational curricula
• underdeveloped teachers
• poor quality assurance
• inconsistent standards and little sharing of best practice
• insufficient measurement of learner outcomes.

What are the priorities for improvement?

The messages from the joint review reflect those in two later publications, Why Colleges Succeed [PDF] and Why Colleges Fail [PDF] (Ofsted, November 2004). In particular, all three carry messages about the need for:

• absolute clarity about what needs to be done
• effective strategies to improve teaching and learning
• rigorous quality assurance and a focus on learner outcomes.

These are probably the three areas that are most essential to leading improvement of the Skills for Life offer. Ten priorities for successful planning, management of learning and quality improvement are suggested below.

Clarity about what needs to be done

Clarity about what needs to be done means:

• planning and partnership arrangements that ensure the college has sound information about the range of local needs including skills gaps for local employers
• comprehensive systems of initial assessment that give a full and clear picture of Skills for Life needs among all the college’s learners
• an assessment of how Skills for Life fits with the college mission and of how effective Skills for Life practice can help the college realise its strategic goals
• a structure that identifies a strong senior lead for all parts of the college’s Skills for Life work including discrete and community-based literacy, numeracy and language, embedded literacy, numeracy and language, key skills and additional learning support
• a thorough evaluation of current practice across all areas of Skills for Life to identify what works well and what needs to improve
• a Skills for Life strategy that sets out what the college wants to achieve, prioritises areas for development, says exactly what will happen, and when, and how progress will be measured
• an audit of the language and number skills that underpin success in vocational programmes and other substantial areas of the college’s offer
• clear Skills for Life targets and development priorities for each area of learning
• a review of whole-college systems and processes to ensure that these are working to support the Skills for Life strategy and that, for example, accommodation and human resources plans do support Skills for Life objectives
• up-to-date knowledge of national and regional developments, the range of resources available to support institutional development, new initiatives and emerging priorities.

Effective strategies to improve teaching and learning

Effective strategies to improve teaching and learning are likely to include:

• imaginative approaches to recruiting and training up new Skills for Life staff and a strategy for growing your own
• a continuing professional development (CPD) plan to:
  • raise awareness of Skills for Life issues among all staff teams
  • enable all those delivering learning to recognise language and number skill needs
  • support teachers across the curriculum to embed the development of these skills
  • qualify and continuously update specialist teachers
• structured opportunities for skill sharing across literacy, numeracy, ESOL and key skills teams to build on the range of expertise and experience available
• a shared framework for each stage of the learning process: initial assessment, target-setting, progress reviews and recording achievement
• shared tools and clear guidance for each stage of the learning process including initial and diagnostic assessment, target-setting and progress reviews
• partnership planning and ongoing liaison with vocational teams to ensure Skills for Life learning is relevant and skill development is embedded
• flexible delivery models that are designed to fit the particular needs of different areas of learning and groups of learners
• opportunities for ongoing evaluation and feedback to teachers such as mentoring or peer observation
• well-defined systems for formal assessment of teaching and learning, through lesson observation and internal inspection, that highlight the need for an effective response to language and number skill needs
• a commitment to accredit all learners through qualifications that meet individual needs and to evaluate all delivery models against these learner outcomes.

Rigorous quality assurance

Rigorous quality assurance is likely to include:

• agreed standards and a clear learner entitlement shared across all parts of the Skills for Life offer
• performance indicators that measure progress towards Skills for Life strategic objectives
• challenging Skills for Life targets for each curriculum area and for the college as a whole
• data systems that enable everyone involved in Skills for Life activities to check regularly what progress is being made and to act to remove any barriers to progress
• a lesson observation programme that evaluates the identification of and response to language and number skill needs across the college
• practice audits that check on key learning processes, such as diagnostic assessment or progress reviews, and ensure that standards are high and consistent
• learner feedback arrangements that enable all Skills for Life learners to contribute their experience
• a self-assessment process that requires staff and teams in all areas of learning to evaluate their response to Skills for Life learner needs and their contribution to the Skills for Life targets
• a teacher appraisal system that supports individuals to assess and strengthen their response to learners’ Skills for Life needs
• a well-resourced CPD programme that prepares staff to gain specialist qualifications, meet new strategic priorities and deliver planned improvements.

Managing the scope of Skills for Life provision

The Skills for Life strategy should have prompted colleges to redefine their structures and procedures. The scope of the Skills for Life offer is much wider than the basic skills offer of the past. A coherent and effective leadership response needs absolute clarity about the scope of the Skills for Life offer and its impact across the college’s provision. This needs to inform:

• strategic and programme planning
• target-setting
• resourcing
• professional development
• management information systems
• quality monitoring and performance review
• development and improvement planning.

In particular, all colleges will need to review their management arrangements to ensure coherence across discrete and embedded literacy, numeracy and ESOL, key skills and additional learning support. The simplest and most effective solution is a single senior post with responsibility for this area of the college’s work. Where there is more than one line of management involved, there needs to be a clear framework for coherence in planning, delivery and evaluation. The management arrangements also need to take account of other areas of provision, such as Entry to Employment (E2E), where language and number skill development – and accreditation – are fundamental.

Colleges need to conduct an audit of the areas of work that make up the college’s Skills for Life offer. The audit should look at the way diverse provision is resourced and taught, as well as examining learner outcomes and team performance for this area. There may be wide discrepancies in resourcing and in performance. Managers need to pull all this together to ensure a coherent response to challenging targets.

Clarity in the management of literacy, numeracy and ESOL needs to be backed by the following principles.

• The governing body is well informed about the college’s Skills for Life strategy and its progress towards the Skills for Life targets. The governing body could include a Skills for Life champion or a governor with a particular watching brief.
• The college’s commitment to meeting the language and number needs of its learners is well known and clearly understood by all staff.
• The college has a strong commitment and strategy for reaching potential learners in the wider community and for improving literacy, numeracy and language skills in the local workforce.
• The senior management team champions the college’s Skills for Life strategy and integrates Skills for Life targets into all planning, resourcing and performance review processes.
• Curriculum managers recognise the contribution of language and number skills development to learner success and they take joint ownership of the Skills for Life targets.
• Teams responsible for teaching literacy, numeracy and ESOL provision or for offering support in this area are trained, resourced and supported to provide effective learning and to help make continuous improvements in this provision.

In successful provision, all members of staff know and own the targets they are expected to achieve. Staff benefit from accurate, timely and accessible information about performance against target. Best practice allows each member of staff to call up current participation, retention and achievement data from their desktop. Data are provided at programme, curriculum area and college levels. Managers are supported by the active involvement of teaching teams in data checking. Regular performance review meetings are used to examine progress against the targets. Any mismatch between programmes or areas of provision are investigated promptly. The outcome of any review feeds into self-assessment, further training and improvement planning.