Cocentra’s approach to school improvement – the Foundations

Our “One School™” approach to school improvement has been developed from research into:

• The characteristics of effective schools
• How the human brain learns and the most conducive conditions to support teaching and learning
• The nature of the school cultures that are best able to respond to and sustain change.

This has been set against a view that all organisations need to seek the optimum balance of enablers to achieve the maximum balanced results i.e. the foundation of the EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) Excellence Model.

From this research we have established the following set of foundations that underpin our approach to school improvement:

1. Schools as Organisations for Learning
2. The Challenge of Change
3. Schools as Learning Organisations
4. More on Cocentra’s approach

If you would like to discuss our “One School™” approach further please contact jacqui@cocentra.com

Alternatively, please call 0845 009 4010 and ask to talk to Jacqui or order a Cocentra brochure.

1. Schools as Organisations for Learning

• Schools are social organisations whose purpose is to bring about development in the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes of learners
• The learning process is an essentially social activity whose effectiveness depends on the quality and consistency of the relationships that exist between teachers and learners
• The most important resource a school has is its staff and their relationship with learners
• Learning will be at its best where learners:

1. Are valued and respected as individuals by their teachers and fellow learners
2. Have confidence and self-esteem
3. Are free of fear
4. Have confidence in their teachers
5. Are appropriately challenged and supported in the learning process
6. Have the confidence to try things and make mistakes
7. Are given personal praise when they succeed and constructive feedback when they fall short.

• Learning will be at its best where teachers:

1. Are valued and respected as individuals by their colleagues and by learners
2. Have confidence and self-esteem
3. Are free of fear
4. Are committed to the achievement of all the learners in their care
5. Have high expectations of the potential of all learners to achieve
6. Have high professional competence
7. Continually strive to improve their professional practice.

• Learning will falter, or not occur at all, if any of the above are not in place.

2. The Challenge of Change

• Schools are faced with a sustained, and seemingly endless, period of social, economic, technological and legislative change
• As the world changes there is a continual need for schools to take on new ideas and innovations, to make sense of them and make them work at the local level. Approaches and methods that were successful in the past are made redundant by changing circumstances and expectations
• The most crucial issue facing all schools is to respond to this challenge of change whilst maintaining continual improvement in pupils’ achievement
• There are considerable uncertainties attached to change and there is no route map that sets out the most effective responses to future circumstances
• In such situations only those schools which are creative, flexible, adaptive and productive will excel.

3. Schools as Learning Organisations

• To excel as organisations for learning, in an environment of continual change, schools need to develop as ‘learning organisations’
• Learning organisations are organisations where ‘people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together…” Peter Senge (1990)
• For this to happen, schools need to ‘discover how to tap peoples’ commitment and capacity to learn at all levels’ Peter Senge (1990)
• The contribution of every member of staff is essential to a school’s efficiency and effectiveness
• To make highly effective contributions it is necessary that staff know, understand and are totally committed to supporting the school’s aspirations
• To excel, schools need to ensure that every member of staff, regardless of their responsibilities, knows, understands and is totally committed to supporting the school’s aspirations
• To excel, schools need to ensure that every member of staff, regardless of their responsibilities, is performing at their optimum level
• In periods of rapid and sustained change it is necessary to continually enhance and extend the professional capabilities of all staff to ensure that they can continue to meet the demands and expectations placed upon them
• No member of staff, or group of staff, has a monopoly of good ideas on how the school might be improved in response to the demands placed upon it
• In periods of rapid and sustained change it is necessary for schools to continually review the efficiency and effectiveness of their organisation in the light of the external demands and expectations that set the context for their work
• It is the role of the school leadership to create the organisational culture, structures, systems and procedures that will foster the school’s development as a learning organisation.

For more information about Cocentra’s approach to School Improvement please visit:

• Learning Organisations
• Leadership and School Culture
• Schools as Inter-Related Systems
• Key Links