David Bailey FCCT, 23 April 2025

In the last 12 years working in school improvement, I've heard the phrase 'rapid school improvement' many, many times. It is a phrase that has been said by governors, head teachers and other senior colleagues.

Whenever I hear the phrase, I consider three questions:

1. Is 'Rapid School Improvement' possible?

2. Is 'Rapid School Improvement' ethical?

3. Is 'Rapid School Improvement' desirable?

These three questions are an extension of 'Can we? Should we?' questions I used for many years when teaching ethical considerations in the advancement of science.

Is 'Rapid School Improvement' possible?

It is possible to take a school that is 'underperforming' (i.e. low academic performance) and increase its performance. It is also possible to do this in a relatively short timeframe, say a couple of years. A common approach is to focus on improving performance measures, often very narrow, and have significant resources put towards them. For example, in a secondary school you can:

1. Help your teachers teach better - this can be done with an extensive training programme, however it is often done by increasing the monitoring and the stakes around apparently less effective teaching.

2. Focus your most effective teachers on later years (e.g. year 10 and 11) - and consequently withdraw them from teaching as much in years 7-9.

3. Run extensive after-school and holiday time revision clubs and activities for year 11 pupils to increase the amount of teaching time - and consequently remove the capacity to develop teaching in earlier years.

4. Ensure teachers spend extensive time setting and marking exam questions for pupils in exam years - and consequently limit the amount of time for considering pupils in earlier years.

5. Exclude children who are uncooperative relatively rapidly, removing them from your roll - these children will be taken up by the 'system', either moving to another school, an alternative provision or some other arrangement overseen by the local authority - the school will perform better, but only because those children are no longer part of it.

6. Discourage or remove 'underperforming' children from your roll in other ways - e.g. discouraging children who have complex SEND (albeit still suitable for mainstream school) from attending your school as other schools might meet their needs better; encouraging children to become 'electively home educated' as it is in their best interests - the school will perform better, but only because those children are no longer part of it.

By focusing everyone's attention on the children who are in the older year groups, they get a lot of extra time and effort - at the expense of the children in younger year groups. By removing challenging children, the school is left with children more likely to make progress and the school's performance will improve more rapidly.

So yes, it is possible to increase outcomes for older year groups in the short term. However, I'd be really worried about the future performance of children in the younger year groups at this point. Apart from teacher training, none of these strategies described tackle the underlying issues in the school.

Is 'Rapid School Improvement' ethical?

While it might be possible to increase the performance of a school in the short term, the next consideration is whether the behaviours described are ethical.

Taking each of the points above:

1. Helping your teachers teach better - this can be ethical if it involves training, coaching and support. However, drawing conclusions from observations about the effectiveness of teaching has limited validity and if this is associated with high stakes for the teacher, it is likely to contribute to teachers leaving the school and/or profession. If teachers leave the profession, this reduces the experience pool of teachers available to schools across the country. This is at the least ethically questionable.

2. Focus your most effective teachers on later years (e.g. year 10 and 11) - this could be ethical if the focus is not reducing the capacity to help earlier year groups. In the (unlikely) event that teachers are not working near to capacity, then this would be ethically acceptable. However, if supporting some children more at the expense of others isn't ethical, unless it is from an equity perspective of helping those who are not being helped by their home circumstances etc.

3. Run extensive after-school and holiday time revision clubs and activities for year 11 pupils to increase the amount of teaching time - is a similar argument to point 2 above.

4. Ensure teachers spend extensive time setting and marking exam questions for pupils in exam years - is a similar argument to point 2 above.

5. Exclude children who are uncooperative relatively rapidly, removing them from your roll - unless the reasons for exclusion are extremely serious, exclusion as a first resort is unethical. Taking children out of education increases risks of not achieving qualifications, offending and other adverse life chances. There may be cases where exclusion is the only answer but given the likely adverse on the child and society as a whole, this should be a last resort.

6. Discourage or remove 'underperforming' children from your roll in other ways - this is off-rolling and is therefore unethical.

There are significant ethical concerns about 'Rapid School Improvement' and it is very hard, if not impossible, to act ethically when carrying this out.

Is 'Rapid School Improvement' desirable?

While it may be possible to improve a school quickly, it comes back to 'Can we? Should we?'. The answer to 'Can we?' is yes.

Hill et al. (2016) discuss their findings from researching turnaround in UK schools. They caution 'Don’t use a super head. Many academies parachuted in a “super head” from a successful school to turn themselves around. Although this had a positive short-term impact, it didn’t create the right foundations for sustainable long-term improvement.' They also point out the costs incurred in putting things right 'The new head spent up to $2 million cleaning up the mess created by diverting attention, resources, and teaching capability from other age groups and subjects.'

The answer to 'Should we?' from an ethical and financial perspective appears to be no. Given the significant ethical and financial considerations around 'Rapid School Improvement', it seems clear that it is not desirable. Any actions taken by school leaders that are not in the interests of all children in the school or wider society at large should be questioned by those responsible for overseeing those decisions, typically strategic leaders, governors and/or trustees.

The good news is that sustainable school improvement, like that advocated by EnlightenEd Leadership, is possible and comes without these ethical challenges. It focuses on getting the structures right in school, which ultimately facilitate effective teaching. That leads to sustainable improvements in outcomes and life chances for all children. Crucially, it also does it as rapidly as possible, whilst remaining sustainable.

It is important that those responsible for governance and strategic leadership understand that while it is possible to improve a school rapidly, it isn't necessarily desirable, nor sustainable. It takes time, requires patience and investment.

References:

Hill, A., Mellon, L., Goddard, J. & Laker, B. (2016) How to turn around a failing school. Harvard Business Review