Ganging up on the problem, not each other

Sean Harris Director of PLACE, Tees Valley Education and John Smith Director of Partnerships, Royal Grammar School Newcastle

With increasingly stretched budgets, education leaders must think entrepreneurially and seek solutions beyond education to tackle inequality. Effective solutions emerge when schools and community organisations collaborate. Arguably, there is a lack of specific training around the tools needed to sustain and scale these.

Network is net-worth

Strong partnerships are built on respect, not power imbalances or purely transactional relationships. From the outset, bring key stakeholders together in a spirit of humility and collaboration to share their challenges, priorities and expertise. School leaders and educators can adopt several practical approaches to foster effective partnerships:

• Identifying common goals: Ensuring all partners align on a shared vision prevents fragmented efforts and promotes cohesive, strategic action.

• Leveraging diverse strengths: Each organisation or individual brings unique resources, expertise and perspectives. Recognising and utilising these strengths enhances the partnership’s impact.

• Maintaining open communication: Transparency, regular meetings and active listening help build trust and ensure accountability.

Measure what matters

Once goals are set, the focus must shift to impact measurement. Schools can learn from the charity sector, where the Theory of Change (ToC) guides strategic planning by linking activities to measurable outcomes. Though complex, its core principle is clear: define impact from the start. Partnerships can work collaboratively to set measurable goals, track results, and adapt. Evaluations must include both data and softer metrics, like pupil insights and parental feedback, relying solely on numerical data, such as participation numbers, risks missing the true impact of activities on the lives of pupils. You can read more about ToC being used in school contexts in our new book, Tackling Poverty and Disadvantage in Schools.

Sustain and scale

For a partnership to create long-term, meaningful change, careful governance of resources is crucial. Sustainable impact requires resource flow proportionate to the scale of the programme. A pitfall is relying too heavily on a single passionate leader or teacher. While leadership is valuable, even the best programmes can falter if key individuals leave or shift focus.

To mitigate this risk, embed frameworks and governance structures early on. This need not be overly complex; an initial advisory board can evolve into a more structured system over time.

No egos, no silos…

Effective collaborations prioritise collective impact over competition. Rather than duplicating efforts, identify and partner with organisations that share your goals. Tees Valley Education chose not to make

their PLACE project (see the article in The Edword, Autumn 2024) a charity, but instead strengthened local initiatives by collaborating. This approach, also embraced by RGS, includes working with groups and other schools across the region to bring about change and attend roundtables where we actively share insights, resources and best practices collaboratively. We also make a point of working with national organisations to influence policy and practice, such as the Fair Education Alliance, SHINE and the Chartered College of Teaching. It is said that it takes a village to raise a child. We believe it takes

effective partnerships to drive systemic change. Educational inequality cannot be solved by education alone.

Sean Harris Director of PLACE, Tees Valley Education

Sean Harris is a doctoral researcher with Teesside University investigating poverty and educational inequality in schools. He is also Director of PLACE (People, Learning and Community Engagement) at Tees Valley Education, an all-through Multi-Academy Trust serving communities in the North East of England.

John Smith Director of Partnerships, Royal Grammar School Newcastle

John is the Director of Partnerships at the Royal Grammar School (RGS). He has been teaching for over 20 years. John has grown the partnerships programme exponentially; it now regularly reaches children from 100 schools across 50 projects each year. John sits on the board for ONE Multi-Academy Trust and the National Maths and Physics SCITT.