Education Improvement Partnership (Formerly Excellence
Clusters)/Behaviour Improvement Programme
Introduction
In the late 90s the government introduced the Excellence in
Cities programme as part of a strategy to provide a high level of
support to city schools serving areas of high levels of
deprivation. The focus of the programme was to raise standards,
improve attendance and address behaviour, this was to be achieved
through additional resources, cross phase partnerships and
collaborative working within communities.
In 2001 the programme was extended to include other areas of the
country under the banner of "Excellence Clusters". Drawing on what
was successful in EiC a centrally devised model was rolled out
across the country in five phases with the same foci as for EiCs
but with the opportunity for selected schools to identify a local
“strand” to which part of the resource allocated to the programme
could be directed.
Lincolnshire was part of the phased roll out (2003), the DfES
identified secondary schools in three distinct geographic areas
based in the indices of multiple deprivation. Further secondary
schools were identified by the LEA along with feeder primaries, in
total 46 schools were originally identified for the programme
because of standards issues or because they were judged to be high
performing in so far as having overcome local barriers to success.
While the locations were based around Boston, Grantham and Spalding
the actual schools were widely spread, including a majority that
served small rural communities or towns.
The Behaviour Improvement Programme was introduced in 2002 as part
of a national behaviour strategy which included the introduction of
the B&A consultancy strand to the KS3 strategy. Lincolnshire
joined the final phase of BiP in April 2005. BiP is an extension of
Excellence Clusters with schools from within the cluster being
identified for inclusion into the programme based on an audit of
behaviour and attendance and the capacity of each school to take on
a further challenging project.
As a key element of BiP funding there is a requirement that each
BiP cluster develops a Full Service Extended School; the purpose
being to provide/facilitate a range of services, activities and
opportunities to the school, the community and the community of
schools in partnership with other agencies and service
providers.
In 2005 the Education Improvement Partnership Prospectus was
launched by the DfES. The concept of the Education
Improvement Partnerships (EIPs) is to give some unity and sharper
purpose to the idea of collaboration in the education service to
stimulate the expansion of high quality collaboration, the
rationalisation of partnership activity where appropriate and the
devolution of responsibilities and resources from local authorities
to groups of schools and other partners. In response to this
prospectus the Excellence Clusters and BIP agreed in April 2006 to
move to EIP status through a single strategic plan. In total
there are 45 schools which form the Education Improvement
Partnership.
Paul Snook
Principal School Improvement Adviser - Strategic
Projects
01522 553273
psnook@cfbt.com