School Improvement is brought about through teams of staff working effectively together. Any team's effectiveness is evident in its shared values, the sense of trust between team members, their willingness to take risks and their sharp ability to learn from mistakes.

Successful schools unlock the potential in all staff. Leaders are evident at all levels of the organisation and learning is embedded in all the schools' work.

Within this learning culture, improvement occurs through:

• a careful analysis of strengths and limitations,
• the ability to take effective action, and
• the willingness to evaluate the impact of actions decisively.

Much of school improvement is hindered because the 'conditions' for improvement are not present. The culture or ethos of the school is not as conducive to change or development as it might be. Recognising and addressing this vital element will unlock the door to improvement at the appropriate pace and with the buy-in of staff and stakeholders.

Wessex Education Ltd has teamed up with Howard Associates Ltd to distil practical experience of working on change and development in education and business.

This service uses tried and tested organisation development methods to analyse schools' current ethos and culture and their likely impact on improvement plans and strategies.

We help you to apply well established business practices to an educational setting. There are standard questionnaires, one to one interviews with key leaders and managers and focus group discussions.

The information is carefully analysed and benchmarked against the optimum requirements for successful improvement. The result is that leaders and managers are in a good position to set about cultural reorientation to maximise organisational performance.

How do you know if your institution is ready?

When it comes to educational standards, you can check them with a full and thorough inspection. To evaluate management procedures you can carry out an audit. These measures will tell you where you are at the time and what issues need to be addressed. But underpinning these important areas is another, less tangible, factor: the culture of the organisation.

'Culture' is important because it it affects how people work. It is also fundamentally about how people feel about what they do and it can impact severely on the success or limitations of improvement initiatives. But it's also nearly invisible, so doing something about it can appear difficult. Get the culture right and the climate for improvement benefits.

HSo however strong the management appears to be and however good current educational performance is, it's also important to have the right culture.

The real agenda for educational improvement is cultural change.

For example: on the surface, people may be achieving good results, the school may be receiving sound inspection reports and on the surface the school itself may appear to be a good learning environment for pupils.

But by talking frankly with all stakeholder groups (staff, parents, pupils, inspectors), and by looking in details at management styles and basic HR human resource indicators it can transpire that, despite the apparent picture, the school is simply not prepared for future growth and development.

How we can help

We help to prepare the business for its future goals by advising on improvements in management activity, structures and systems and by telling you how 'healthy' your organisation is - it's morale, its sense of wellbeing, its culture.

Case Study

Tanglin Schools Trust in Singapore was experiencing a considerable period of change as a new CEO was being appointed. At the same time, the commercial environment for education was highly competitive. There was a need to prepare the school for further growth and expansion in the region, whilst improving its already very good educational performance and reputation.

We ran a local culture survey, involving all senior managers and staff, and identified the limitations that would affect these ambitious plans. We also identified clear cut strengths that could be used as strong foundations for change.

The result of our work was the creation of a range of business models for the trust that would provide the structure that would best support growth and improvement.

Also, by involving staff in our culture work, we encouraged a positive change in team spirit, confidence and motivation.

We followed up by working with the Trust on key commercial appointments to prepare the business for its challenges and opportunities.