INTELLIGENT ACCOUNTABILITY!

Do we really believe that headteachers, teachers and schools will only do their job properly if they are constantly criticised, tightly directed and carefully monitored? Do we really believe that a significant and increasing minority of headteachers, teachers and schools are performing so poorly that they need to be identified, publicly shamed and removed from their roles? OR do we really believe that headteachers, teachers and schools are generally well intentioned and professional in their work, but that they need to have continuous challenge, support and guidance about what they are doing?

We live in an educational landscape where bullying, criticism, command and control, fear and mistrust have become commonplace. We are in danger of losing the things that are at the heart of strong and effective learning organisations... excellence, ownership, trust, openness, honesty, involvement, engagement, professional responsibility, learning, initiative, communication, feedback, networking and teamwork. We have created a monster and with the increasing demise of strong and effective support structures within local authorities and the expansion of academies and chains where accountability and community has become blurred we are in danger of demoralising the whole profession. We need to stand back, think and reflect about what we want from our schools and the education system in this country and at the end of that reflection we will realise that what we all need is intelligent accountability. Sitting alongside learning leadership and beautiful systems intelligent accountability...

• preserves, enhances and develops trust, openness and honesty.
• develops ownership and involves colleagues in the process of school improvement and development.
• supports professional responsibility, learning and initiative and networks best practice.
• engages passionate commitment to a relentless and uncompromising drive for improvement.
• encourages deep, worthwhile responses rather than shallow surface window dressing.
• recognises and compensates for the severe limitations of our ability to capture educational quality in simplistic performance indicators.
• provides effective feedback that challenges underperformance and promotes insight into how outcomes can be improved.
• supports good decision making about what we should celebrate, what we should challenge and what we should change.