NLE Fellowship Commission

The Innovation Challenge

There are a great many education leaders who often do not get the opportunity to share their ideas and influence education policy. The National Leader of Education (NLE) Fellowship Commission Programme was set up by National College for School Leadership (NCSL) to provide a group of exceptional leaders with the chance to meet with ministers and senior policy makers to voice their views and suggestions on how to tackle complex issues faced by the education system.

Our Approach

NCSL (now called the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children's Services) selected a cohort of National Leaders of Education who are highly successful Headteachers who lead and support education beyond their own school (through leading a federation or through supporting a struggling school for example).

From these, around 15 were selected in 2008 to address a policy challenge requiring a synthesis of their practice knowledge with research and other expert perspectives. The challenge that was selected was 'how can the school system develop the most effective numbers of trust/federations/chains and what would be the associated accountability framework?'.

The Innovation Unit, with its partner organisation, Bridge, designed and delivered an intensive support programme to achieve this. A blend of expert witnesses, research exhibits, and interactive sessions culminated on 26th March 2009 with a presentation of their ideas to Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

Outcomes

Subsequently, a major recommendation of the Commission was adopted within the Government White Paper (Your child, your schools, our future DCSF June 2009). It proposed that federations - led wherever possible by accredited NLEs - should both proliferate and form a key part of the strategy to turn around schools which were chronically failing.

Project contacts

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