Education Case Studies

Creating and sustaining a high performance school culture can be a huge challenge in schools. Even more so if it involves bringing schools together to form a new learning organisation. Sir Craig Tunstall, Executive Principal of Gipsy Hill Federation and Mayflower Federation of primary schools, worked with his school community to move low performing schools to outstanding. He shared his learnings with participants in the Building Practice Excellence International Conference 2016, as part of the Bastow Institute for Educational Leadership’s Creating a High Performance Learning Culture course.

Peer observation and feedback were key elements in his strategy for improvement. These strategies were essential to improving learning and teaching. Processes were established which were transparent and became embedded over time, based on a collaborative culture where there was genuine trust and respect.

Building collective responsibility, with every teacher having the highest expectation for every student, is a non-negotiable. Craig has put in place the necessary structures to enable teachers to regularly meet during the school day to share their skills and challenge each other to continually strive for improvement.

Read the full case study here.

Prudence (Prue) Barnes-Kemp is an Australian-trained teacher and now Executive Head Teacher of the Opossum Federation in the UK, overseeing four primary schools. Prue shared her experience and insights into high performance learning culture in schools as a keynote speaker at the Building Practice Excellence International Conference 2016, part of the Creating a High Performance Learning Culture course. The course is developed and delivered by Cambridge Education for the Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership.

Prue led a number of schools from low performing to ‘outstanding’, as assessed by Ofsted – the Office for Standards and Education in the UK. Prue led schools which were socially disadvantaged and where the high majority of students did not speak English as their first language. Working with her staff and community, these students now consistently achieve outstanding results in reading, writing and mathematics.

Emotionally intelligent leadership is a key ingredient necessary to build trust and create a positive learning environment for students, according to Prue. Developing a sense of moral and social and challenging and extending knowledge are all important parts of being a leader.

School leaders also have an essential role to play in enabling quality professional learning for teachers, to develop a deep understanding of the needs of their students and equip them with the tools and skills needed to help every student to learn.

Read the full case study here.