In this series of 10 short blogs – which will issue in rapid succession – I will consider in turn the top themes that have emerged from 50 interviews with teachers, leaders, policy-makers, academics and other from across and beyond the English FE system. Each blog will end with a question which I hope will generate debate on LinkedIn, where the blogs are signposted.
The core question considered has been “what might be the features of a self-improving FE system?” Interviewees have also considered the key features of the FE system as it stands, and what is holding it back from being self-improving.
The second most popular theme that my 50+ interviewees have mentioned as being vital to consider when designing a Self-Improving System is the role of inspection or scrutiny, and how it is placed on the accountability/support spectrum.
There have been two main dimensions at play in people’s thinking: firstly, what the relationship should be between scrutiny mechanisms and improvement mechanisms; and secondly, where these functions are best situated in terms of being “inside” or “outside” of the system.
The picture is complex, but can be summarised in a table like this:
| External | Most people are here, wanting some scrutiny role for Ofsted, but usually a reduced one | Some people are here, wanting Ofsted to play an active role in improvement |
| Internal | Some people are here, wanting a peer-review-based QA system of scrutiny | Most people are here, wanting improvement to be led from within, by teachers and leaders working collaboratively |
| Scrutiny | Improvement |
Importantly, one thing everyone agreed on no matter where they sat in this matrix was that there should be close collaboration between the scrutiny mechanism and the improvement mechanism. They wanted a joined up system in which the findings of inspection flowed smoothly into access to improvement support, so that improvement activity was informed by and aligned with the insights produced by the scrutiny activity.
To make this concrete, in the current system that might mean that when Ofsted and/or the FEC took a view on a provider, that judgement could then be plugged straight in by the provider to the ETF’s menu of support, so it would get targeted help to address the issues identified by the inspection/review.
It is not at all clear to me that this is the best vision for a self-improving system. There are two reasons I am sceptical. Firstly, it seems to perpetuate an infantilised model of education where those who do it [i.e. providers] are still dictated to (to some extent) by those who opine on it [i.e. inspectors / advisors]. Secondly, it seems to be predicated on a deficit model where improvement is all about “fixing” things that are “broken” or “missing” or “need upgrading”.
The literature on self-improving systems suggests that this is not how they work. Indeed it suggests that a system where decision-makers are constantly reacting to feedback loops giving them backward-looking data about the system’s outputs generally leads to instability, over-steering, fluctuations and short-termism. It also leads to “whack-a-mole” where leaders are always trying to address the latest issue that has been drawn to their attention, and powerfully shapes a mindset that looks backwards and inwards.
Self-improving systems on the other hand, while they do rely on good data feedback loops, have a mindset that looks forwards and outwards. They focus on (as one ex-military interviewee of mine put it) “shaping the environment to make it as easy to succeed as possible”.
Improvement activity on this model would focus on the big underlying factors that contribute to system success, not on a shopping list of fixes handed to you by the latest inspector, advisor or colleague who spent 3 or 4 days in your organisation.
Question: Should improvement be coupled more closely with inspection?
David Russell
Executive in Residence at Oxford Saïd Business School
Education and Training Foundation