Local authority approaches to supporting school improvement: Main findings and summary messages
This summary highlights the overarching strengths and areas for further improvement. More detail is contained in the subsequent sections of the report.
Supporting effective improvement planning, and standards and quality reporting
All local authorities provide guidance for self-evaluation, improvement planning, and standards and quality reporting, often using standard templates, exemplars, and timelines. This is most effective when local authorities’ strategic frameworks align school improvement approaches with broader visions for quality improvement in education.
In a few local authorities, more work is needed to ensure rigorous evaluation and alignment between local authority and school priorities. Most authorities equip headteachers with a range of useful data (e.g. on attendance and attainment) for self-evaluation and benchmarking. A majority of local authorities should moderate the work of central teams to ensure consistent quality. Some school leaders perceive inequity in the support levels they receive.
In most authorities, headteachers are engaged in worthwhile processes to collaborate and share practice, often within clusters. They help to improve quality assurance and self-evaluation approaches. For many authorities, a next step is to fully evaluate the impact of cluster improvement initiatives.
Most authorities analyse school self-evaluation and improvement planning processes to inform local priorities, professional learning needs, and to identify targeted support for individual schools. Across authorities, school leaders, including middle leaders, need more support with evaluative writing and evidence-based self-evaluation. For a minority of authorities, challenges exist in demonstrating how self-evaluation informs broader strategic decisions.
In a few authorities, collaborative governance structures help some headteachers shape local policies and enhance partnerships. This is practice worthy of sharing more widely.
Most authorities actively involve their key stakeholders in aspects of improving policy and planning. Hybrid engagement methods developed during the pandemic continue in many areas, while some forums are being reinstated.
Budget cuts and fiscal challenges are a shared concern among all local authorities and school leaders.
Supporting schools to improve the quality of education through self-evaluation and quality assurance
Most local authorities have well established and well understood systems in place to evaluate and monitor the performance and quality of education in schools, but they are not always effective. The majority of authorities should continue to develop robust ways to evaluate the effectiveness of their school improvement strategies. A minority of local authorities need to moderate more closely the input of central teams to ensure consistency of approach.
A few local authorities have identified the need to strengthen their systems and approaches to evaluating school performance. This is important to ensure that local authority leaders and officers have an accurate overview of the strengths and areas for improvement across their schools. This will help to ensure there is equitable, targeted support for those schools that need to improve, and that effective practice can be shared more widely.
In a minority of local authorities, strategic approaches are demonstrably improving attainment and standards in learning, teaching, and assessment in primary schools, but much less so in secondary schools. In most authorities, there is a need to revisit the principles of self-evaluation for improvement, so that this is well understood by school leaders and staff at all levels, particularly in secondary schools.
A few local authorities have developed an effective system leadership approach across their schools. Many more local authorities are working towards this. Where this approach is effective, school leaders and their staff teams provide robust challenge and support to one another. They collaborate and share practice and feel empowered to lead and drive educational change. Building capacity within school teams in using robust, data-driven self-evaluation, strengthened by peer moderation, can help all local authorities to continue to raise standards and produce better outcomes for all children and young people, despite diminishing budgets and numbers of officers in central teams.
Supporting schools to improve the quality of education through professional learning
All local authorities provide a programme of universally accessible professional learning opportunities for leaders and staff in schools. In a few local authorities, the variability in uptake and engagement in professional learning across schools should be addressed.
Most local authorities have well-established or improving professional learning strategies in place. These professional learning programmes are comprehensive and well-informed by national policy, and school and local priorities. Central teams use the expertise available from national organisations and a range of partners to enhance their professional learning offer. This includes, in a few authorities, the strong contribution being made by Educational Psychological Services teams.
Almost all local authorities actively encourage and promote the sharing of effective practice among schools and build opportunities for this into meetings and networks. Collaborative working, based on positive relationships and mutual trust, is central to developing the skills and knowledge of staff at all levels. Staff engagement in network groups is customary practice in almost all local authorities.
Most local authorities provide well established leadership learning programmes for current and aspiring school leaders. This includes national leadership programmes and locally developed offers. Local authority leaders use this strategy increasingly effectively to improve their ability to recruit and retain school leaders from within their own workforce. Across Scotland, there is a need to continue to develop high-quality leadership learning approaches, focused on self-evaluation, for middle leaders.
A quarter of local authorities need to develop more rigorous and consistent approaches to evaluating the impact of their professional learning strategies. This should include monitoring the effectiveness of professional learning on improving the quality of learning and teaching and raising attainment, particularly in the secondary sector.
In rural local authorities, geographical context and financial pressures make staff engagement in a broad range of professional learning activities challenging. Central teams and staff in schools welcome and devise creative digital solutions to address these barriers. Teachers of Gàidhlig contribute significantly to the work of central teams in a few local authorities. They often have enhanced roles for Gàidhlig Medium Education, beyond their own school.
Delivering universal support and challenge for all schools, and/or targeted support for specific schools to improve the quality of education
All local authorities have a framework in place to support improvement in their schools. In most local authorities, these frameworks are clear, well-established, and embedded in practice.
A few local authorities have recently reviewed their frameworks to make improvements or are in the process of doing so.
Almost all local authorities have effective systems and processes in place to identify and organise appropriate levels of support and challenge to individual schools.
Most local authorities provide clear advice and strong support to all schools to help them make improvements. In a few local authorities, these processes lack the rigour and consistency to secure improvement.
Local authority officers play a key role in the monitoring of school performance, identifying risk and supporting change and improvement.
Most local authorities have an accurate understanding of the individual performance of all schools.
Almost all local authorities use an evidence-based approach to identify schools that require targeted support.
In the majority of local authorities, these approaches are well-established and effective. A few local authorities recognise the need to increase the robustness of the procedures they use to identify schools requiring targeted support.
In around half of local authorities, schools receiving targeted or intensive support have clear action plans against which progress can be robustly measured. This is a common area for further development across local authorities.
Local authorities with a high number of rural, remote and island schools face significant challenges in maintaining regular, in-person contact between all schools and central officers.
