Schools wishing to take a 'whole school approach' to address complex issues need to systematically engage in collaborative strategic planning. They will need a process to integrate all their activities into a coherent plan and to monitor and evaluate their progress. The school development/improvement plan serves as a reference document which guides school activities and facilitates monitoring and self-evaluation. As a strategic plan, it should clearly and simply set out the school’s priorities, the main measures it will take to raise standards, resources needed, and the key outcomes and targets it intends to achieve within a specific timeframe.
 

School planning is not just a task for those in the school community, but should also involve the input and perspectives of all relevant stakeholders in a participatory process focused on the school’s future. Stakeholders include public authorities (as appropriate depending on the national context); parents, families and community groups; external partners, for example, social care and support services; and, of course, members of the school community, including the learners. Openness and transparency of these processes is of utmost importance. In some countries, public authorities may provide guidelines and principles for school planning.
 

External evaluation may also support school improvement, e.g. by offering advice on best practice and coaching schools in planning and evaluation. The main purpose is not to compare schools in a 'league table', but to highlight successful change and development processes within schools while reflecting the diversity of activities for which schools are responsible and the different contexts in which they operate.
 

Find out more:

• OECD, Synergies for Better Learning: An International Perspective on Evaluation and Assessment, OECD, Paris, 2013.
• State Institute for School and Media Berlin-Brandenburg, Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, the Arts and Culture, Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education, ‘Educational Monitoring, Comparative Studies, and Innovation From evidence-based governance to practice’, OECD/CERI regional seminar for the German-speaking countries in Potsdam (Germany), September 25 to 28, 2007
   

Additional reading:

• Macbeath, J., et al., Self-evaluation in European Schools: A story of change, Routledge, London and New York, 2000.

Effective school leaders promote collaborative cultures. Schools need dedicated, value-led, competent and highly motivated school leaders who can encourage reflective practice and foster dialogue and cooperation among all school actors and with other stakeholders. They ensure a supportive environment for teachers, where teacher-teacher learning, time for feedback and reflection, and networking within and between schools is encouraged. They also play an essential role in providing opportunities for practice-oriented initial teacher education and research-based continuous professional development.
 

School leaders should be able to share authority by distributing leadership roles within the school. In a 'distributed leadership' model, leadership, teaching and non-teaching staff, learners, as well as parents and families are encouraged to take on leading roles in a particular area of expertise, to assume responsibility and individually or as part of a group, to take initiative. Opportunities for more flexible working relationships are created. This may require developing institutional structures: creating new procedures and working arrangements (such as formal and informal committees, teams, working groups, etc.); organising time and allocating resources to enable collaborative working and testing of innovative ideas etc.
 

Successful initiatives in Member States feature collaborative leadership structures. This may include giving some members of the staff roles as middle managers/coordinators and as well as allowing flexibility for the formation of teaching teams. Past initiatives have also shown that it is important to have the appropriate selection of support staff (experts, mentors, coaches) who can guide the process of change and support school heads and teachers as appropriate.
 

In introducing a new school culture, there are some challenges to consider regarding human resources management. This may include, for example, convincing school staff of the benefits of collaboration, creating diverse teams of teaching and non-teaching staff, and ensuring sustainability of collaborative work.
 

Find out more:

• Network on School Leadership (EPNoSL): online platform with case studies on good practices in the field of school leadership policy in Europe
• OECD (2014), “Chapter 3: School Leadership” in The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) – 2013 Results, OECD, Paris, 2014, pp. 55-83.

Cooperation within education systems can take different forms – from networking to more formalised clustering of schools. 'Networking' includes teachers and other school staff coming together to discuss ideas and share good practices on certain topics, or reciprocal sharing of resources to benefit the individual schools and communities. 'Clustering' is usually a more formal grouping of a number of schools in the same city or local region, with joint vision and development processes as well as decision-making. Representatives from schools come together to share resources or work on larger initiatives together that contribute to schools and the region as a whole.
 

Based on successful initiatives in Members States, this way of working has been shown to have excellent benefits for:

• easing transitions between educational levels (e.g. from early childhood education and care to primary, from primary to secondary, including vocational education and  training);
• the continuity of learner support across schools/region and throughout a pupil's education;
• the provision of learner support (e.g. multidisciplinary teams able to take a variety of approaches but in a coordinated way);
• parental involvement; and,
• teacher training and, in particular, continuous professional development of teachers (CPD).

All of the above can help to prevent early school leaving.
 

Experience from Member States shows that cooperation among schools is easier to achieve if it involves and is supported by local and national authorities, as appropriate, according to national circumstances.

Even in centralised systems, local authorities can provide additional support to help deal with family-related and social problems that result in young people leaving school early, for example through outreach efforts to target learners outside of the school environment. National authorities can assist by encouraging and enabling this regional/local cooperation and by allocating funding for initiatives. National and local education departments are also well placed to liaise with other government departments and services to ensure alignment of policies which address early school leaving.
 

An example of clustering of schools: Portugal
In Portugal, a major reorganisation of the school system aimed to address geographical discrepancies both in rural areas (where many schools are small and isolated) and in towns (were schools are often overcrowded). The reorganisation was to improve upon results of PISA 2000 and to address issues that contribute to high levels of pupil drop-out. The re-organisation led to the introduction of a network of ‘school clusters’ that bring together several schools (of different levels – from early childhood education and care to secondary) in a single educational project and under one main school leader. A typical cluster may consist of 5 to 10 pre-school units and primary schools feeding into lower secondary schools and a single higher secondary school. There are currently 811 clusters and non-group secondary schools in operation.

European Commission, Working Group Schools Policy, Early school leaving Country focus workshop: School governance and collaborative practices, Portugal, 11-14 November 2014.

Find out more:

• Bennet, B., A. Daughtrey, and A. Wieder, Collaboration: Closing the Effective Teaching Gap, Center for Teaching Quality, Carrboro, North Carolina, 2009.
• MacNeil, J., School- and Cluster-based Teacher Professional Development: Bringing Teacher Learning to the Schools, Working Paper #1, US AID, Washington, D.C., 2004.

Additional reading:

• Lock, A., Clustering together to advance school improvement: working together in peer support with an external colleague: Full Report, National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services, Nottingham, UK, 2011.