If you've read anything we've written on education recently - our Learning Futures publications, or our 10 ideas about 21st century education, for example, you'll know that we are all about schools connecting with their communities. We have some great stories about schools doing this in our 10 schools for the 21st century.
If you aren't convinced by what we've written then you'll definitely be convinced by this new book and will understand what leadership is required to ensure schools are successful in this approach. Written by Denis Mongon, who also happens to be one of our Senior Associates (we're quick to recruit people this good at what they do) the book is also co-authored by Charles Leadbeater. In this book Denis and Charles Leadbeater, a leading authority on innovation and creativity, describe how some schools enhance pupil attainment by creating strong and mutually beneficial alliances with their neighbourhood communities.
As schools become increasingly autonomous, pressure increases on how best to lead individual school communities, while relating this to the geographical community and the community of children’s service providers a school serves. The golden thread in this book is an exploration of leadership which does not compromise on achievement or attainment and repeatedly incubates a sense of community: communities of learners, communities of practice, communities of providers and communities of place.
This book is a timely contribution to the debate about the purpose and structure of schooling in England and internationally. It draws deeply upon the work of ten schools and centres. These alliances helped to raise the academic attainment of pupils and also improve a much wider range of outcomes for children and young people. In turn, the school's resources were deployed to encourage community growth or regeneration.
This book will help leaders from schools, local authorities, policy-makers and third sector services to understand the benefits that can result from a positive interaction with local communities. The challenges shown in the case studies are internationally recognizable.
Denis is running a seminar on May 10th from 5-7pm at the Institute of Education that focuses on this book, as well as a second book High Leverage Leadership co-authored with Christopher Chapman. It promises to be an enlightening experience for anyone interested in education and we highly recommend attending.
Book for this seminar here
Buy a copy of this book here
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