David Godfrey

Introduction: This article looks at organizational resilience (OR) through the analysis of a sub-set of data gained from an independent and embedded mixed methods implementation and process evaluation (IPE) of the Schools Partnership Program (SPP) implemented over 3 years (2018–2021) and funded by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) in England. We describe ways in which SPP ‘learning map’ addresses the (i) anticipation, (ii) coping and (iii) adaptation stages and the extent to which SPP helped building organizational resilience. Taking this theoretical framework as a foundation is a novelty, as despite OR has become prominent in the academic literature apart from a few exceptions there is a dearth of international research examining OR within the school sector.Methods: A sample of 422 primary schools that took part in SPP (treatment schools) and their comparisons are analyzed applying the organizational capability-based framework. Drawing on SPP empirical data from numerous data collection strategies (interviews, surveys, shadowing school reviews and improvement workshops), the extent to which schools’ resilience capacities were improved is analyzed.Results: Our findings suggest that SPP supported the development of OR in SPP primary schools. Despite facing several challenging external factors (student deprivation, the COVID disruption, changes to the external accountability framework and competing demands of other partner organizations) and internal factors (teacher attrition, need to developing leaders, upgrade pedagogical skills and encourage student subgroups who were underperforming) SPP schools exert (1) knowledge building through training, the review process, professional dialogue, learning from each other, as well as receiving and giving feedback. Regarding (2) resource availability, schools used SPP as a scaffold to build improvised strategies to access and mobilize shared human and physical resources; (3) social resources were built in the SPP through social capital, sharing of knowledge, enhancing a shared vision and trust. Finally, (4) SPP promoted lateral power dynamics driven by professional learning and accountability.Discussion: Overall, the paper extends the understanding of school peer review approaches for school improvement and adds to the OR international literature by presenting features that extend it toward building system resilience.

Background. Although it is often assumed that the COVID-19 crisis led to increased teacher collaboration, there is a scarcity of empirical studies in this area. Aims. This research aims to investigate the impact of the pandemic on teacher collaboration in six public high schools in the Metropolitan Region of Chile over a two-year period (2020-2021). Methods. A qualitative methodology was employed, utilizing a multiple case study design, with a focus on conducting individual semi-structured interviews. Principals and teachers from the six high schools were interviewed three times, resulting in a total of 146 interviews. Results. I) The crisis resulted in three distinct moments: emergency responses, remote working, and adapted face-to-face modes that affected collaborative work. II) Three shared tasks emerged: remote teaching, addressing emerging student needs (prioritizing learning), and renewing teaching approaches on which teachers focused their professional collaboration. III) Two key factors, namely social capital and a pre-existing culture of collaboration, as well as effective school leadership, played a mediating role in the varied responses observed among the high schools. Conclusions. Although the crisis initially contributed to increased teacher collaboration across all the high schools examined, this collaboration often diminished as the school year progressed and returned to a more normal state, without extending over time. Only a few high schools were able to sustain the progress made and implement changes in their institutional and pedagogical management, as well as in their teaching working conditions. These changes facilitated a successful transition to face-to-face teaching. The key factor to understand the difference between the high schools lay in organizational learning, which can be defined as the schools’ capacity to convert crises into opportunities for transformation, specifically through collaboration among teachers.

This article presents findings from the implementation of a pilot study of a professional development model, Schools Inquiring and Learning with Peers (SILP) in Chile. SILP includes a network learning setting involving a cluster of three schools supported by university partners that conduct peer reviews and a school learning setting involving school teams in conversations to mobilise new leadership for learning practices. The notions of joint practice development and multivoicedness in professional conversations are the essence of these processes. Data produced through the review process, understood as voices, enabled participants to incorporate the perspectives, conceptual horizon, and intentions of administrators, students, and teachers who need to collaborate for teaching to produce learning. Across schools we observed common learning as well as important differences. These differences show that by taking an active role in making sense of their participation in a professional development programme, learners achieve outcomes that may be much more meaningful than what program designers prescribed. As facilitators we learned with participants about their specific contexts, expanding the affordances they and we envisioned for the use of new tools that became available through their participation in SILP.

School peer reviews are increasingly part of the evaluation and school improvement landscape for school leaders and teachers in a number of countries. This article describes the growth of peer review, particularly in England, and its emergence elsewhere (for example, Australia, across Europe and in Chile). While these approaches provide a useful form of professional and moral accountability, this article identifies ways in which they could go further to empower practitioners through the use of an enquiry approach, combining formal academic knowledge with practitioner knowledge and school-based data. The term collaborative peer enquiry (CPE) is suggested as a way to explore this potential. The article sets out a typology of action research as a form of professional learning (type 1), practical philosophy (type 2) or as a form of critical social science (type 3). Four examples are given of different peer review models, two of them CPE approaches, and these are analysed using the above typology. A distinction is made between some peer review models that mimic external inspections and err towards self-policing, and others that encourage open enquiry and learning. In particular, the CPE models show the potential as forms of type 2 and type 3 action research. The role of peer review and CPE in the accountability system, in leadership development, and challenges for these models are explored in the discussion.