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External accountability of collaborative arrangements; a case study of a Multi Academy Trust in England

Ehren, MCM; Godfrey, D; (2017) External accountability of collaborative arrangements; a case study of a Multi Academy Trust in England. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability 10.1007/s11092-017-9267-z. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

This paper explores the impact of external accountability on four mechanisms of network-internal quality control and the properties of (mandated) inter-organizational networks. An explorative case study approach examines the external accountability of a newly established educational network (MAT) and how schools and the Trust are held accountable by the English Inspectorate of Education, Ofsted and the Department for Education (DfE), through Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs). Analysis of documents and interviews were used to reconstruct a sequence of events over a period of five and a half years. Our findings indicate that the combination of accountability activities led to more centralized control over, and monitoring of curriculum, assessment and school improvement. This was accompanied by a pause in the growth of the Trust and the establishment of a regional structure of school collaboration. As accountability is particularly organized around individual school performance (through Ofsted inspections), this limited development of internal mechanisms of quality control around network-level outcomes. A short-term focus dominated the allocation of resources to schools in special measures or with an upcoming inspection visit. In the discussion, an alternative model is presented for network-level accountability and a set of indicators for effective accountability of collaborative arrangements.

Type: Article
Title: External accountability of collaborative arrangements; a case study of a Multi Academy Trust in England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1007/s11092-017-9267-z
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11092-017-9267-z
Language: English
Additional information: Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Keywords: Accountability, School networks, Inspections, School improvement, Multi-Academy Trusts
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Learning and Leadership
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1575186
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