The Networked School Leader

How to Improve Teaching and Student Outcomes using Learning Networks

Chris Brown

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781838677213
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Leadership in Education

As accountability increases while budgets decrease, a growing number of school leaders and policy-makers are turning their attention to Professional Learning Networks (PLNs) as a way of improving education and student outcomes in schools and across school systems. Although PLNs can have real benefits for teachers and students, a number of underpinning conditions need to be in place to ensure these networks have real impact. Key amongst these conditions is effective leadership. The role of school leaders is crucial to ensure that there is meaningful participation by their teachers in network activity and that this participation makes a difference within teachers' 'home' schools. In this timely book Chris Brown addresses the knowledge gap about how school leaders can effectively develop, support, and sustain PLNs within and across schools, drawing on two key case studies from England and Germany. Evidence-based, accessible, and engaging, with key takeaways for practitioners in every chapter, The Networked School Leader is crucial reading for school leaders, system leaders and education researchers working close-to-practice.

1

The Current Context for Professional Learning Networks

Chapter Summary

This opening chapter explores why there has been an increasing focus on networks in education. It begins with a brief look at the role of networks in society more generally, drawing on the work of Zygmunt Bauman, a leading social theorist. But fear not, there is no deep sociological treatise lying in wait here. Rather this is done simply because it is useful to understand how the trends currently affecting education are actually not much different from what is happening elsewhere. Narrowing in on Professional Learning Networks (PLNs) specifically, I then look at why PLNs are thought to be capable of delivering educational improvements, both within and across schools. Finally, I outline some of the key factors that will determine whether PLNs are able deliver such improvements or fail in the attempt.

Networks in General

Before looking at schools and education systems, it is useful to briefly consider how networks, generally, are now both shaping and being shaped by society. To do so, I draw on the work of leading social theorist Zygmunt Bauman. In his seminal book, Liquid Modernity, Bauman argues that the challenges of the modern age, both in terms of their sources and their impacts, have a ‘global’ nature to them. The idea of wicked problems, for instance, describes those issues which are difficult to solve due to their multiple and often contradictory elements.¹ Examples of such issues include human-led climate change, poverty and disparities in the distribution of wealth, the rising volume of uprooted and displaced people, and the transformation of work and employment via various technologies such as artificial intelligence and automation. The global nature of such problems means that individual governments or institutions cannot, when acting alone, hope to tackle them.²

At the same time, Bauman argues that a feature of the modern age is constant change and the continuous replacement of the old with the new: ‘change is the only permanence, and uncertainty the only certainty’.³ The aim and expectation of this change is the ongoing pursuit of improvement. To achieve improvement, structures and systems are regularly dismantled and replaced with new ways of working in order to secure better results. Recent casualties of this process have been the social institutions that have typically provided social cohesion; for example, specific layers of government, trade unions, the church as well as the provision of universal services such as health. In their place stand deregulation, privatisation and the onus on individual agency over collective approaches; albeit with the expectation that individuals should use their agency to learn from the best practices of others.

It is clear, however, that what is and what can be learnt by individuals is enabled or constrained by the networks we are immersed in.⁴ Strong networks between individuals therefore lead to more potent opportunities to learn. Networks also provide a means through which collaborative coordinated action can be pursued in order to tackle challenging issues. Any shift in power from institutions or layers of government to individuals must therefore go hand in hand with approaches that enable people to collaborate with one another, in order to secure changes at the meso and macro levels.⁵ This is because, without mechanisms that enable people to work together in strong networks, it becomes less and less likely that the wicked problems of the world will be adequately addressed.

Networks in Education

Education – here broadly defined as the collection of institutions (ministries of education, local educational authorities, teacher training institutions, schools, colleges, universities, etc.) whose primary role is to provide education to children and young people⁶ – has also been affected by these more general societal trends.⁷ A network in ‘education’ is generally considered to represent a ‘group or system of interconnected people and organizations whose aims and purposes include the improvement of learning and aspects of well-being known to affect learning’.⁸ The current, and increasingly more intense focus on networks in education has been driven by a number of interconnected and pervasive issues.⁹ For example, the need to provide effective schooling in an age of austerity, which puts pressure on the staff, resource and infrastructure that can be afforded; ensuring each child is holistically supported and that all children actualise their potential and are able to enter society as competent, responsible citizens, irrespective of background and situation; preparing the students of today to be the workforce of tomorrow, when the nature of the work they will be doing and the skills required to do it are uncertain and constantly evolving; likewise, it is the need to ensure teachers have the skills and knowledge to adapt to fast-changing social- and economic-related educational imperatives.^10,11,12,13

The main focus of this book is networks as centred around schools. With this in mind – as with Bauman's notion of the liquid modern age – the ‘wicked’ nature of these issues means that tackling them effectively is often a very great challenge for individual schools to undertake by themselves.¹⁴ Schools, along with other partners, therefore need to be working smarter together rather than harder alone, to both learn with and support one another.¹⁵ In this light, the noted aims and purposes of education networks in a general sense include:

• Facilitating a more willing distribution of professional knowledge. In other words, networks can be used to foster knowledge sharing, collaboration and practice development across schools. This can be especially useful in plugging ‘structural holes’ by providing access to the expertise that is not available in individual schools.¹⁶
• The development of context-specific strategies for improvement. ¹⁷ For instance, networks might have a focus on addressing challenging circumstances and/or persistent issues of inequity and underperformance. This includes ensuring all students, irrespective of background, gain the minimum skills necessary to function in today's society.¹⁸ Other focus areas can include students' transition from school to work, or current concerns such as childhood obesity, children's well-being and children's mental health.¹⁹
• Facilitating schools and others to share resources more efficiently than they might previously have done, or to achieve economies of scale or reductions in risk from resource pooling.²⁰ For example, austerity-driven funding cuts are now frequently resulting in schools and community agencies collaborating in order to meet common educational challenges more efficiently and effectively.²¹ Here the provision of extended educational and social services in low-income communities can serve as an approach for addressing complex educational challenges through the strategic use of a limited set of educational resource, such as money and time.

Examples of networks designed to meet such aims can be found in Box 1.1.

Box 1.1

Examples of Education Networks.

Examples of education networks and their aims include:

• Challenge Partners: represents a growing network of more than 430 primary, secondary and special schools and alternative provision settings in England. Founded some 20 years ago, the aim of the network is to tackle educational inequality and improve the life chances of children, especially those in disadvantaged areas. Challenge Partner schools are organised into local ‘hubs’. These work together to secure improvements in relation to shared priorities. Hubs also link up with others across the country in order to facilitate wider knowledge sharing between schools.
• The Knowledge Network for Applied Education Research (KNAER): an initiative between the Ontario Ministry of Education, the University of Toronto and Western University designed to mobilise research and knowledge in order to improve educational practices and student outcomes. KNAER supports the Ministry’s vision of Achieving Excellence, through four thematic networks: mathematics, student well-being, equity and Indigenous education. The aim of the networks is to connect schools and universities in order to: (1) support the use of evidenceinformed practices for mathematics instruction in order to improve student attainment; (2) break down the barriers to educational excellence for children and youth from marginalised groups; (3) promote wellness and mental health in education; and (4) support indigenous education.
• The One Square Kilometre of Education network in Berlin: seeks to marry the efforts of local educational stakeholder organisations in an educational ‘alliance’. The members of the network assume joint responsibility for the learning of all children and young people in the area, to ensure that no child is ‘lost’. As well as schools, the network also includes urban planning and development agencies, health agencies, and other local associations. The premise behind the network is that no single institution – or indeed person – can alone solve the complex task of closing the educational gap for children and young people. Furthermore, what is required is an educational support chain within a selected community: in this case, a continuous chain of support extending over a 10-year period, in which children and young people are accompanied through different school levels.

At the same time, changes to educational structures have seen the dismantling of old ways of working and the introduction of new approaches with an individualised focus. Although this is occurring in education systems worldwide, England, which has experienced a recent and sharp decline in the support role offered to schools from both the top and middle tiers of government, provides an exemplar case of such trends.^22,23 In particular, central government policy-makers in England, having lost faith in the postwar ‘trust and altruism’ model of public service delivery, in which Local Education Authorities ran schools with minimal central oversight, have now devolved multiple decision-making powers and resources to schools. Included in this process of devolution is the responsibility for teacher development, in the belief that this will improve quality and increase innovation.²⁴

To support schools in making best use of their newly found autonomy, the 2010 Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government's Education White Paper The Importance of Teaching, highlighted the need for, and role of, inter-school collaborative networks. For instance, within the white paper it is stated that: ‘along with our best schools, we will encourage strong and experienced sponsors to play a leadership role in driving the improvement of the whole school system, including through leading more formal federations and chains’.²⁵ The commitment established in The Importance of Teaching has been described elsewhere as the move towards a ‘self-improving school system’.²⁶ Put simply, ‘self-improvement’ means that individual schools now have greater responsibility for their own improvement; that schools are expected to learn from each other so that effective practice spreads; and that schools and school leaders should extend their reach to support other schools in improving.²⁷ Successful self-improvement clearly depends on the existence of strong networks, which foster the sharing of effective practice. Other policy commitments and levers that have accompanied and support the process of self-improvement in England, as well as those which impact on the potential for network formation and sustainability, can be found in Chapter 5 (and in Chapter 7, where I also explore the situation for Germany). The notion of self-improvement stretches far beyond England and Germany, of course, and the recognition that networks and networking might represent an effective approach to educational improvement is evident in a tranche of countries including the United States, Canada, Finland, Singapore, Scotland, Belgium, Spain, India, Northern Ireland and Malta.²⁸

It is suggested that the realisation of self-improvement will actually emerge from establishing ‘cultures of professional reflection, enquiry and learning within and across schools, [centred] on teaching and student learning’.²⁹ In light of this, it is worth reflecting that networks are also viewed as instrumental to how teachers can and should develop professionally. More than ever, it is recognised that teachers must be ‘active agents of their own growth’.³⁰ To actualise professional growth, teachers need to learn: teachers developing is not enough, rather teachers must be knowledgeable, possess practical expertise and have the wherewithal to change their behaviours in order to get different results – they must become professional learners.³¹ Adult learning results from effective collaboration with others. But since the school as a unit is too small in scale and too isolated in nature to provide rich professional learning environment for teachers,³² successful professional learning activities will typically involve three key principles: teachers collaborating between schools; teachers collaborating over time and teachers collaborating with external partners.³³ Thus, achieving the learning culture required by the notion of self-improvement requires networks of teachers who come together (with other key partners) to learn and to share their knowledge with others. Since not every teacher in a school can collaboratively learn with every other teacher in a network of other schools, the most efficient formation of networks will comprise small numbers of teachers who learn on behalf of others. Therefore, while described as the self-improving school system, the process of improvement leading to system level change must necessarily come from small numbers of networked teachers (along with other stakeholders) engaged with addressing key issues of teaching and learning and able to lead processes of knowledge mobilisation and change within their school.

Professional Learning Networks

It is the twin recognition that teachers need to continually learn and share this learning, and that small num...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraphs
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Charts
• List of Tables and Boxes
• List of Pictures
• Abbreviations
• About the Author
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1. The Current Context for Professional Learning Networks
• 2. The Labyrinth
• 3. Connecting PLN Learning with What Happens in Schools
• 4. How Can We Learn from PLNs in Germany and England?
• 5. Research Learning Networks in England: What Do Teachers and School Leaders Say?
• 6. Research Learning Networks in England: Exploring Social Networks, Cultures of Trust and Innovation
• 7. Pess Networks in Germany: Hearing the Voices of Teachers and School Leaders
• 8. Pess Networks in Germany: Examining the Use and Value of Networked Learning
• 9. Conquering the Labyrinth: Lessons Learned from Cases in England and Germany
• Notes
• References
• Index