Page 10 - ELG1601 Aug-Sep Issue 439

Page iv ELrankings 2016

ELT takes the London Challenge
obody sets out to run
a bad school, they just
‘Ndon’t know what good
looks like.’ This oft-quoted and
probably anecdotal line about and, above all, permanent staff of Melanie Butler applies a state-school improvement maxim to
education is attributed to Profes- teachers and administrators. Estab-
sor Tim Brighouse, guiding light lished just over five years ago and English language teaching and finds that it works there too
of the London Challenge, one dedicated from the start to shar-
of the most successful school ing ideas and experience in every
improvement programmes ever facet of ELT from management to had overtaken Embassy in the
undertaken in Britain. administration, its members soon Still on top form at forty years old league tables.
Cited in government research dominated the EL Gazette Centre Membership of Eaquals, which
as one of the most important fac- of Excellence rankings. increasingly looks like a family
tors in turning state schools in Well they would, wouldn’t they? of chains with some independ-
the UK capital from among the Or so a cynic might think. After all, ents, seems to have some of the
worst performing in the country they are precisely the kind of estab- same impact in spreading good
to the best performing in just lishments which tend to do well practice. Eaquals membership
under a decade, the programme anyway. As our analysis on page ix is highly correlated with British
developed a number of principles of this supplement shows, private Council ranking, as we showed in
which could equally be applied language schools which have been our March issue, and after a year
to language centres: co-operation in operation for more than 25 years or two of membership chains
between schools is better than outperform both the younger inde- begin to rise up the table.
competition, so set up families pendents and the chain schools. The It is Eaqual’s founder school,
of schools with similar profiles evidence is that the TEN members’ Eurocentres, that exemplifies
and encourage them to work with creative combination of close co- the third principle of the London
each other; find out what works operation and even closer rivalry Challenge: monitor progress. Not
and don’t quash it – spread it; has reduced the performance dif- only was this Swiss-based not-for-
and monitor progress for schools, ferences between them, as judged Courtesy English in Chester profit organisation integral to the
teachers and students. by inspection results. When they creation of the Common Euro-
All of this may sound like a first established the association pean Framework of Reference
plethora of politically correct around half the members scored in for Languages, its commitment to
platitudes – but, perhaps surpris- the top 10 per cent, with the low- assessing progress on every step
ingly, it ties in with the practices est scoring well below average. In Students at English in Chester, a founder member of The English Network (TEN), of the student journey has become
of many of the UK language this year’s ranking, spread across celebrate the school’s 40th anniversary. Such long-establishing independent an industry benchmark. The Euro-
centres which score most highly the next five pages, nine out of the centres are the top performers in the private language school sector. centres method of benchmarking,
on British Council inspections. ten are in the top 10 per cent, with perfected by Dr Brian North, is
Take the idea of setting up fami- the lowest-ranking school just two also practitioner-led – based on
lies of schools. This seems to me points behind. less fast than families of schools, led principle of ‘Find out what seem to combine a healthy com- scientific surveys of best practice.
to be exemplified by The English If it works for TEN, then while schools that left a family to works and don’t quash it.’ petitive spirit with strong school It is precisely using this methodol-
Network (TEN), an association surely it should work for a chain? join an academy chain tended to The secret seems to lie in the role leaders who firmly see their school ogy that Eurocentres has risen to
of ten schools all with a similar Not necessarily. The analysis actually go backwards. of principals balancing the needs of as part of a bigger entity. The become the top-performing chain,
profile: well-established, indepen- from the London Challenge Why? One reason may be that an individual school with the needs whoops of glee from one St Giles and it is the most consistent in our
dently owned (i.e. not members showed that members of acad- chains have a tendency to imple- of the group, and co-operation with principal on hearing his school Centres of Excellence rankings.
of a chain) and with a strong emy chains, essentially groups ment change from the top down, the competition. The best-perform- was now the best-performing in Professor Tim Brighouse
academic reputation and team of state schools run by a single rather than from the bottom up, ing chains, such as St Giles and the chain were exceeded only by would not, I think, have been the
of highly qualified, experienced management structure, improved contrary to the practitioner- Language Studies International, his cheers on hearing that the chain slightest bit surprised. n

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