Learning From Experience: Schools commissioning by local authorities
Using Learning
From Experience: Schools commissioning by local authorities (the
guide);
Full details of how to get the most from this guide, and its complementary
resources, are available below.
Effective schools commissioning focuses on putting the needs of children, young people and their families at the heart of the school system by designing the organisation and services around their needs.
Local authorities have a long history of planning school places to meet demographic need, and of supporting and challenging schools. But the landscape has changed. With the Education and Inspections Act 2006 now in place, local authorities are expected to be powerful champions of parents and pupils; the emphasis is now on commissioning rather than directly providing education.
During 2007-08, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) funded 16 local authorities from around the country to explore a wide variety of schools commissioning activities, such as engaging with parents about a new school, and planning for the new responsibilities for 16 to 18 provision.
Learning From Experience: Schools commissioning by local authorities, published in July 2008, is largely based on their experiences, drawing out the lessons they learned along the way. It also draws on learning from a small number of other associated projects. The guide is designed for local authorities to help them in their role as strategic commissioners of school places and school services. It is not a definitive guide to good practice, of which there will be much around the country. Neither does it tell local authorities exactly how to commission or what must be done. But it does pass on the benefit of experience, mostly from the Pathfinders, and shares ideas.
Using Learning From Experience: Schools commissioning by local authorities
The guide itself consists of summaries of each Pathfinder project, short case studies they have provided, and references to tools and materials that the Pathfinder authorities have produced to share with others.
A range of complementary resources, including full versions of the Pathfinders' project reports, are also available. These have been grouped by subject-area, under each of the four stages of the Schools Commissioning Cycle (as explained in the guide) as follows:
There are also links to resources which are mentioned in the Annexes to the guide, which you can access here:
To get the most from the Pathfinders' experiences, we recommend that you read Learning From Experience: Schools commissioning by local authorities first to enable you to more easily identify which complementary resources are most relevant to your circumstances.
This page was last updated on 30 July 2008
