Inquiry on trust-led school improvement

The Confederation of School Trusts brought together diverse school trusts with a broad range of education experts to explore the theory and practice of improvement within school trusts. The inquiry has now concluded, with the launch of the School Improvement Hub website and a new conceptual model for school improvement.

The School Improvement Hub

CST has launched the School Improvement Hub website to bring together case studies of best practice work across groups of schools.

The site will also feature research and evidence from other school systems around the world that can help inform practice in the UK, in collaboration with the ImpactEd Group.

The launch comes alongside publication of a new conceptual model of trust-led school improvement. The model features three inseparable and intertwined strands - curate clear goals, build capability and capacity, and implement improvement initiatives – that together form a ‘triple helix’ that make up the DNA of school improvement work.

The model helps illustrate the complex and interdependent considerations involved in school improvement, and aims to make it easier for trust and school leaders to talk with a common language about the types of work they are doing.

The model does not tell trusts what to improve within schools, but instead outlines the key aspects of how a school improvement process, strategy or model is enacted within a trust. The model also includes the concept of "de-implementation" - ensuring that trusts focus on what works and removing what doesn’t to help protect staff workload.

About the inquiry

The Inquiry on Trust-led School Improvement was launched in March 2023 and sought to to answer four key questions to help trusts deliver constantly improving education for their pupils:

How can trusts gain assurance about the quality of their work and capacity to improve?
What are the common goals of trust improvement?
Which practices do trusts mobilise towards these goals?
What are the implications of the above for building sector capacity and capability?

The inquiry reviewed and built upon existing evaluative tools, with an aim to create additional resources focused on how to improve trusts.

The inquiry panel drew on expertise from a range of school trusts, of different sizes, geographies and operating models, as well as experts in education evidence from other organisations.

The inquiry was chaired by CST Deputy Chief Executive Steve Rollett.

Announcing the inquiry, Steve said: "We believe developing the professional capacity to improve trusts and schools is the responsibility of the sector itself, which should be supported but not prescribed by government.

"School trusts have already made a massive difference to the lives of thousands of children and there is some great work going on across the sector to do even more. This inquiry is about understanding what works and why, and how that can be applied so that everyone benefits.

"If all children did as well as pupils in the best school trusts, Key Stage 2 performance would be 14 percentage points higher nationally. The inquiry will seek to better understand how we can work together to make that ambition a reality."

"We don’t believe there is a single model of how to run or improve trusts, but we do think there is more we can collectively know about trust improvement, with insight into concrete practices and approaches. This inquiry will not be the last word on how trusts improve but we hope it will make a significant contribution and be of benefit to the sector.”