Adrian Whiteley, Headteacher of The Mosslands School spoke to us about the school’s experience with Challenge Partners, including the Quality Assurance Review and local Hub collaboration.
Located in Merseyside, The Mosslands School is an all-boys 11-18 comprehensive school . They are new to Challenge Partners, having joined our partnership for the 2023/24 academic year.
Why did you choose to Join Challenge Partners?
We joined Challenge Partners, as it was recommended to us by colleagues who have been part of the partnership before.
We had recently stopped working with local schools after a programme called ‘Through the Lens’, which was a similar premise to Challenge Partners, was discontinued, and we were looking for something to fill the void. We’ve always thought that sharing best practice, looking into other schools and opening our doors for other people to come in, is the best way to get really good support and learn.
The school was inspected in 2021 and was moved down from ‘Good’ to ‘Requires Improvement’, which I believe was the right judgement at the time and we see Challenge Partners as a way of learning from best practice, observing and opening our doors and making ourselves better.
Why did you choose the Quality Assurance Review?
We chose the Quality Assurance Review as we needed a thermometer to test against our own self evaluations, as we all think that we’re good at self evaluating and all spend a lot of time investing in quality assurance and reflecting on what we do.
But having an objective set of people who are not local to the school and can see the school objectively because they come from different contexts from across the country was really important to us, as that’s what we get when we get inspected. So, I used it as a way to triangulate what I was finding and thinking about where the school was to see if it married up to what external people thought.
What was your QAR experience like?
The review was a really supportive experience. I thought the Lead Reviewer was really professional and a great communicator. They contacted me well in advance so we could share information before he arrived and ensure the day went smoothly.
We had a great team reviewing us, a team from right across the country, including London, the South West and the Midlands, so a great mix of people with a range of experience. I think we had one person for whom it was their first review and the lead reviewer supported them really well. They brought everyone together, the activities were really well thought through and my senior team really learned a lot from it.
I wanted to get as much feedback from as many sources as possible. We did focus on some of the areas that we agreed on but they were similar to the areas I would expect an inspection team to come from, so we looked heavily at the EBacc, we didn’t particularly look at the vocational elements of the curriculum that we have here, with most of the focus on key stage 4.
Overall it was really helpful as we’ve gone back to self-reflect and asked some of the questions that we hadn’t asked ourselves, that were asked by the review team.
Have there been any actions that you have taken as a direct result of the Quality Assurance Review's findings?
Yes, quite a lot, although the review was broadly positive and aligned in some ways with what we had done in our own quality assurance and self-evaluation, what we have done is taken some of the ways that they structured their lines of inquiry and have integrated that into how we have structured our self-evaluation. So it has changed our self-review process as a direct result of the questions and reflections that we did as a group with the reviewing team and lead reviewer.
What's been the impact on your staff's CPD, both from your own schools QAR experience and from visiting fellow schools as part of a review team?
Actually, although we learned a lot from having the review, most of the learning for my Senior Leadership Team is from when they’ve gone out and reviewed other schools. My whole team (team of 6) have all gone out to do reviews and completed the training and it's working with other colleagues, in other settings, in a professional manner that makes them better at asking questions and gives them a more objective view.
I have a relatively new team, with a mixture of experience in my SLT, including 3 new Deputy Headteachers, and an opportunity to work with people who are their peers in a separate setting, is a really powerful learning experience. I think they’ve come back stronger and more confident which is very important.
Have you and or your staff adopted anything into your own practice since going out on Quality Assurance Reviews in other schools?
Of course, that’s why this broader partnership is so important as you do see little nuggets that you decide to adopt. One of the things is a CPD model which we’ve brought in, it meant changing our school day to make sure that we can have a whole staff CPD session every week - that’s something that we saw and we thought that we’re definitely going to implement. It took us just a couple of months to implement and it made a real difference as it has allowed people to really focus on school priorities.
Is there anything further that you would like to say in regards to the Quality Assurance Review?
Other than to say that in my experience both being reviewed and as a reviewer that it’s been really professional and supportive. I think that if people are ever doubting if it's going to be as supportive as Challenge Partners says it's going to be then I would reassure them that it’s a very supportive process. It’s not confrontational or negative in any way.
It really asks challenging questions, but it's the way in which the challenge is posed. Challenge is a really good vehicle for learning, if we don’t get challenged we don't learn. My experience in being reviewed is that it gave some really challenging questions, but it also gave me time to reflect and answer them. It wasn't a challenge to undermine or to criticise, it was a challenge for me to think deeply about and I would say similarly when I was out on review, and when my staff went out on review.
As a member of Challenge Partners’ Aspire Hub, do you work with them closely and access much of their activity throughout the year?
Yes, we’ve got a really close working relationship although it is still developing as we’re relatively new members who have only been part of Challenge Partners since September. We’ve already got strands of work that we’re working on together which I think is really healthy. It’s a diverse group of schools, with schools from Manchester and Liverpool as well as rural schools included, so it is a nice mix.
We thank Adrian Whiteley for taking the time to talk to us. If you are a partner with Challenge Partners and would like to share your story, contact partnershipsteam@challengepartners.org and we would love to talk to you!