Date:
22nd March 2022
Your Name:Â Â
Lucy Stephens
Position:Â
Director
Solution Name:Â
The New School – in-action new school solution
Legal Structure:
Charity/ private school
Main Funding Source:
Corporate venture philanthropy has funded the majority of the first two years of the school. We have further commitment for some of Year 3, whilst we work with major donors, foundations, and the local authority to build our longer term 3-6 year financial sustainability plan. The aim is to integrate The New School as an offer within local authorities, creating a statutory funded school model, but offering an innovative solution to education in the process.Â
Phase(s) of Education:
4-16Â
Number of Students:Â
72 children (90 in September).
22 staff membersÂ
Purposes of Education supported:Â
Theory of change: Young people leave us with a strong sense of personal agency. We define agency as – they have a sense of purpose and goals, and all the skills and competencies (academic and social and emotional) to achieve those goals.
Independent evaluation by the University of Nottingham currently shows the biggest change is in improving wellbeing in young people, and also the wellbeing of the family. Cost benefit analysis shows £2.20 of benefit for every £1 of cost (taking a mid-range value).
Solution Description:
The aim of The New School is to develop and showcase in-action a new publicly fundable model of education that builds young people’s learning, wellbeing, agency and identity. Taking the outcomes of the model, and understanding the benefits and costs associated with this, we can replicate this solution in other areas of the UK to understand the potential positive impact on the education system and the lives of young people.
Solution Origin:
Lucy is the Founder and Director of The New School. I spent a number of years researching what a school model of education could look like when it is structured in a way that values relationship, equity and inclusion. Our education system today categorises this educational model as ‘alternative’, making most settings private, and therefore cost prohibitive; often excluding the young people most advantaged by this relational model. With a growing mental health crisis in the UK, I’m interested in what we can learn from The New School - a non-fee-paying alternative educational model in action – as well as the broader social and emotional outcomes that are generated, in order to challenge the current educational narrative in the UK and better support teachers and young people.
Potential for systemic impact (EXCLUDING Equity)?
Adoption by local authorities as another offer in the system - shifting the focus on LA spend and liberating finance to support innovation/solution testing within the system. Giving commissioners a model/the data to execute change and transform effectively.
A robust educational model - the ingredients of which can be replicated in different areas, with a broader outcomes and accountability framework that measures social and emotional outcomes (not just standardised test scores) pushing schools to innovate.
A robust SROI that can be used as a comparison tool and social impact tool, making a financial argument for a broader set of outcomes, and that can be used as a tool to evaluate different solutions in the systemÂ
Other schools adopting a theory of change/ outcome focused offer, to test innovative solutions within the education system.
A different approach to accountability within the system - holding schools accountable to their theory of change/ self-chosen outcomes/ SROI data, not OFSTED?
Does the solution improve Equity? How?Â
The education model design has been underpinned by sociological academic research, drawing particularly on Nancy Fraser’s theory of social justice. Our outcomes - self-efficacy, self-esteem, educational engagement and life satisfaction, enable children to leave The New School better equipped with the essential skills and knowledge needed for success in a rapidly changing global future, able to fulfil their potential in meaningful ways. Young people have confidence and belief in themselves, access to social capital and raised aspirations supporting them to seek and secure more enriching future opportunities and enabling them to lead happy and fulfilling lives. The overall impact for young people is the creation of an equitable model for education, which empowers and represents them in the world, generating positive wellbeing through access to material resources and improved quality of life.Â
Barriers to adoption relating to Accountability Rules and Funding Formulae:
We have had to develop ‘outside’ the system as the current accountability framework skews school models towards the same outcomes. We are working on an innovative funding route back into the system, to unlock innovation, but it’s a financial challenge. Â
The success of this approach for enabling young people to access tertiary education relies on support from the wider education and employment community to recognise the strength in key competencies and skills over traditional grading methods.Â
We assume that a potential tension between an alternative education model and the objectives of many parents, teachers and the wider community for young people to be obtaining multiple, high grades in national exams can be managed.Â
We assume school funding could be tied to outcomes measurement of our choosing and that we can continue to develop robust and meaningful ways of routinely measuring key outcome areas.Â
Other barriers to adoption:
Solutions in the form of action research are not easy to adopt. It’s much easier to test solutions that are randomised control trials, that can be ‘tacked on’ to the existing system.
Sustaining funding from philanthropic/foundation sources whilst we’re building a sustainable statutory route to funding is a big challenge, and we need funders to have a risk profile similar to that seen in Edtech.