INNOVATION IN THE CONTEXT OF
THE EDUCATION REFORM EFFORT
IN ENGLAND
Valerie Hannon
Director, The Innovation Unit
1
The reform programme….
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Pedagogy
Curriculum
Leadership
Structural change
School failure
Learning environments
Early years ed/care expansion
…this is centre-led innovation
2
Some initiating questions …
1. How is good practice to be spread
systematically across the system?
2. How do you get bottom-up systemic change:
practitioner-led innovation?
3. How do you move from ‘good/best practice’ –
sharing current knowledge – to ‘next practice’
– orchestrating new ways of working?
3
“There is a lot of research focused on best
practice, but I focus on Next Practice. Next
Practice by definition has three problems: firstly
it is future-oriented; secondly, no single
institution or company is an exemplar of
everything that you think will happen; and third,
next practice is about amplifying weak signals,
connecting the dots.
Next Practice is disciplined imagination.”
CK Prahalad,
University of Michigan
2004
4
Why Next Practice?
Good / best practice asks: what is working?
Next Practice asks what could work – more powerfully?
Addresses pressing national issues
5
Next Practice - what’s that?
• Next practice is keenly aware of conventional good practice
• Understands the strengths and limitations of current practice
• Aspires to move to a new level
And this new level may:
1. disrupt,
2. evolve, or
3. revolutionise
current practice
At its boldest it is a fundamental reconceptualisation of what went before.
6
7
8
9
10
The ‘diamond of design’
enquire
G
E
N
E
R
A
T
E
prototype
11
Next Practice Innovation Model
System-Level Reflection &
Intervention
•Analysing
Need
•Scanning the
Horizon
•Mobilisation
•Generating
Creative
Options
IU
ROLE
Stimulating
Ideas for
Next
Practice
Field
Trials
Local Level Action
System Learning
•Supporting
the
management
of change
•Exploiting
knowledge
management
techniques
•Brokering
relationships
& alliances
•Creating
communities
of practice
•Invoking
‘Power to
Innovate’
Incubating
12
Next
Practice
in
Action
•Utilising &
synthesising,
evaluation &
research
•Facilitating
incorporation in
National
Agencies’
programmes
and policy
Accelerating
Our offer to selected Field Trials
Access to a wider ideas
pool
Obstacle removal
(e.g. Power to Innovate)
Creative space
(to incubate ideas)
Safer space (to legitimate
experimentation)
Access to practice of
interest
Our
Offer
Gateway to DfES Teams
Resourcing to support the
change and development
process
Co-design of evaluation
Confidence and moral
support
Social capital and
connection (between
schools and beyond)
Next Practitioners:
 Able and informed
 Learners seeking to build on the best
 Know what ‘good’ is: its strengths and limitations and have
the will to take this to a new level
 Direct thinking and action on addressing serious,
contemporary problems
 Want to take risks in partnership with others to achieve
breakthrough
14
The criteria for Field Trials
Embody ideas that are radically different from current practice
Address a pressing local and national need
Are likely significantly to enhance outcomes for young people
Are driven by practitioners already working at the edge of current
practice
Have key stakeholders prepared for the scale of change involved
with capacity both to implement this and to handle its consequences
Are willing to co-design enquiry and evaluation arrangements, and
contribute to the learning of the wider system
15
The ’06-’08 Next Practice Programme
•
System Leadership (17 field trials commenced)
•
Innovative use of resources for personalisation
(16 field trial sites recently selected)
•
Beyond workforce reform – using the whole
Community (creative events just completed)
•
Parental / carer engagement (emerging project)
The role of the IU
 identifies practitioners poised to make more than incremental
improvement
 makes assessments of potential for the creation of public
value: in this instance, specifically, the achievement of the 5
outcomes for more children including the raising of standards
 acts to remove, where possible, inhibitors
 creates the conditions to enable faster “bringing of ideas to
market”;
 legitimates experimentation
 shares risk
 brokers external facilitation and change management skills
 engages in partnership with other key agencies for whom the
particular content area is core business, to ensure maximum
knowledge flow
17