Understanding where your school is on its improvement journey

As teachers we have a single purpose that drives everything that we do – to ensure that our students get the best possible education. We became teachers because we love what we do and have a genuine care for the students in our care.

Every school should be on a constant journey of improvement to achieve this purpose. This is as true for transition schools who need rapid improvement, as it is for those seeking to maintain the high quality of education that they already deliver.

To deliver excellent education and continue to improve, leaders must understand where their school is on their improvement journey.

Ofsted, as the body responsible for the standards of education in England, reports on the quality of provision and validates the leaders’ judgments whilst highlighting areas for improvement. A recent Watchsted report shows that just 1.45% of primary schools, and 2.3% of secondary schools, are “Outstanding”.

This is something that Amanda Spielmen, Head of Ofsted, expects to decrease drastically as ministers push for a rise in standards to compensate for the months of learning lost to the pandemic.

In its most recent Ofsted inspection, Mossbourne Community Academy (MCA), has been rated as outstanding and confirmed its position as one of the highest performing inner-city schools in England.

The inspection report confirmed that the academy has been able to maintain its “Outstanding” Ofsted rating year on year by relentlessly focusing on improving teaching and learning.

The report also states that the academy’s leadership team is constantly striving to develop their teachers’ practice so that students receive an exceptional provision.

An essential tool that leaders have consistently been using is the ProgressTeaching platform. The teaching improvement platform enables leaders to have an accurate understanding of the quality of teaching teachers are delivering.

ProgressTeaching enables leaders to identify trends, make improvements, and evaluate their impact. Ofsted said that middle and senior leaders at Mossbourne Community Academy use sophisticated systems such as ProgressTeaching to:

• Aggregate and evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches to teaching
• Effectively assess the implementation of the curriculum through individual lesson observations and subject curriculum implementation checks
• Support and monitor the develop of ECT across the school – looking for trends and planning effective CPD
• Assess the strengths and development points of T&L across the school, within a department or across a year group and plan effective CPD at school, department and individual level
• Draw together evidence of the implementation of the curriculum from multiple sources:
  • Pupils
  • Work Scrutiny
  • Lesson Visits
• Assess if CPD is being implemented effectively
• Communicate impactfully with parents
• Manage teacher workload by making data collection simple and effective (the ProgressTeaching platform does the data checking)
• Assess implementation against impact for internal and national assessments

ProgressTeaching is a platform that is used across all four of the Mossbourne Federation academies. All of them are rated as “Good” or “Outstanding”. This has been made possible by effectively implementing ProgressTeaching.

For example, Mossbourne Parkside Academy, a primary school rated as ‘Requires improvement’, has been able to secure its first ‘Good’ rating in its history, by methodically implementing the  ProgressTeaching platform.

The platform enables teachers across the federation to have instant access to their lesson observation feedback notes and comments. This empowers them to take control of their development and decide what actions to take to secure long and short-term improvements.

As high performing professionals, it gives them a clear picture of their own strengths and areas for development.

The ProgressTeaching platform also enables a number of schools and trusts across the country to improve their practice and guide their improvement journey. An example of this incredible impact can be read in our case study: Woodlands School – A continuous journey of improving teaching.

ProgressTeaching has enabled Woodlands School to rapidly improve the quality of provision from “Special measures” to “Good” in terms of their Ofsted ratings.

Nicola White, Assistant Head at Woodlands School said:

“Thanks to the ProgressTeaching platform, time is used much more effectively and we can monitor how we’re improving and developing our teachers across a broader range of areas.”

ProgressTeaching is the only teaching improvement software that enables leaders to use live actionable data to effectively monitor and improve the quality of teaching and learning.

It is a centralised platform used by thousands of teachers to access and manage:

• Observation information and CPD plans
• Student progress data and strategies
• Parent communications