About Schools Partnership Programme

Our vision

To build a sustainable, self-improving, school-led system, in which partnerships of schools share responsibility for both their own improvements and those of others.

Our wealth of experience – both in the UK and globally – has shown that effective school-to-school collaboration takes time and care to develop.

Schools need to develop capabilities with purpose and rigour.

We can help facilitate success, helping you to ensure that precious resources are used as efficiently and effectively as possible and we can help facilitate success.

Experience the benefits

Builds skill in peer review, coaching, non-judgmental enquiry and creating a culture of feedback in schools.
Strengthens the degree of challenge and support within and between schools. Focusing on change in practice and improvement.
Builds the capacity and capability of school clusters to lead their own improvement.

Get in touch to find out how SPP can support you!

Research shows that schools improve faster and more effectively by working together.

Underpinned by research and principles that guide continuous development and delivery.

Empowering teachers and leaders, collaborating honestly, without fear or judgement in their trusted partnerships.

Creating inclusive professional learning networks where all children and professionals can thrive.

EEF's Evaluation of SPP

Between January 2018 and December 2021, Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) conducted an evaluation of Schools Partnership Programme involving a total of 422 primary schools.

This project is one of the largest research evaluations on the effectiveness of peer review and collaboration on school partnerships, leaders, staff and pupils.

Here's what they found:

Builds trust

Teachers and leaders reported that SPP has a positive impact at partnership, leadership and teacher level, including increased ownership of partnership and school improvement aims and the deepening of trust.

Develops skills

Strong evidence on leadership development, through the acquisition of important evaluation and reviewing skills, and the social learning elements of peer review.

Empowers staff

The Improvement Champion (IC) role helps develop teachers, middle and senior leaders in collaborative school improvement. The improvement champions’ training gives a methodology, the skills and tools to lead an improvement process.

Forges strong partnerships

SPP develops stronger partnerships, sharing and transparency, and clearer structures to work towards shared improvement objectives.

Provides ownership

The IC coaching model used in improvement workshops leads to a greater sense of ownership of the change process by teachers and leaders.

Supports disadvantaged schools

The many benefits of SPP were more keenly found in schools with higher levels of deprivation and these benefits were perceived as significantly greater in SPP than matched schools.

The full report is available to download from the EEF website, use the button below to find the report.

EEF's evaluation report

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Implementation

There are three key phases (which take approximately one year each to complete). These are designed to build the skills of peer review and culture change, to develop a mature partnership or local system.

Phase 1: Build - developing senior leaders

Phase One - allows partnerships of schools to experience the process of identifying, analysing and addressing areas of school improvement within each setting in an open, honest, objective group environment, and adopt joint-practice and accountability.

Our SPP Associates provide the programme of training and support that our partnerships need, to begin to build around the SPP framework.

All programme resources and support materials, including the SPP enquiry questions, are made immediately available to all SPP schools from the start of the programme.

Phase One - allows partnerships of schools to experience the process of identifying, analysing and addressing areas of school improvement within each setting in an open, honest, objective group environment, and adopt joint-practice and accountability.

Our SPP Associates provide the programme of training and support that our partnerships need, to begin to build around the SPP framework.

All programme resources and support materials, including the SPP enquiry questions, are made immediately available to all SPP schools from the start of the programme.

Phase 2: Embed - building capacity

Phase two - provides schools with the opportunity to:

reflect on the outcomes of applying this framework, to date
further develop their capabilities, embedding peer review into their school improvement systems and making mutual support and collaboration part of their everyday practice
benefit from an established support network and draw on their own experience/that of the wider SPP community, with bespoke training and support available through their SPP Associate.
Build further capacity and improvement, led and sustained by the partnership, as they continue to sharpen their skills through focused, rigorous peer review.

Phase 3: Sustain - maturing and taking ownership locally

Phase three - partnerships take ownership of their own collaborative journey.

All schools who have completed the SPP programme can continue to access materials and stay up to date with colleagues who are practicing peer review nationally.

This focus on sustainability is to:

help partnerships to enhance their effectiveness
strengthen the national peer review community
invite those who are particularly skilled in peer review to become Delivery Partners with the SPP core team.

Our impact

As an evidence-informed and impact-driven school improvement programme, it is important that we measure our success and the benefits that we bring to schools.

Here are some examples below:

Liz Robinson, Headteacher, Southwark Teaching School Alliance

Liz Robinson, former Headteacher, Southwark Teaching School Alliance, now CEO at Big Education

"It’s actually peers doing it for each other."

Focus-Trust - Learning Together, Making the Difference

Helen Rowland, CEO, Focus Trust

“It's enhanced our culture of collective efficacy where we work together on the things that matter to improve outcomes for all.”

Focus-Trust - Learning Together, Making the Difference

Victoria Saville, Principal, Fieldhead Primary Academy

"Four years later on, I'm a real advocate."

Birstall Primary Academy

Nadia Hannam, Principal, Birstall Primary Academy

"It's not a process that's punitive, where people feel like it's being done to them."

Inclusion focus

We have helped drive school improvement at a local level right through to international level, by collaboratively working with you to understand your specific school challenges.

The versatility of SPP means we can effectively implement our programme to help to cover a range of challenges, including inclusion.

136 schools took part in the Kent County Council (KCC) Inclusion Leadership Programme which SPP delivered in partnership with LLSE & Nasen.

KCC commissioned the programme to focus on a very specific line of enquiry focusing on Inclusion.

Here are the impacts identified by the participants:

Partnership

SPP provided greater honesty and openness for the partnerships, creating more support through shared understanding, resources and good practice.

Leadership

At leadership level, they found SPP brought a higher value of self-evaluation and more robust reflection on their school.

Staff

Throughout the schools, staff felt empowered as they had gained more direction, support and strategies.

Pupils

The impact at each level resulted in students being more engaged, spending more time in lessons and having their learning needs met, which lead to better outcomes.

We have also worked with the NAHT (National Association of Headteachers) in England to contribute to two recent publications:

The Principles of Effective School-to-School Peer Review

Improving Schools