Steplab and Challenge Partners unite to boost school improvement

Steplab is a professional learning platform that provides schools with everything needed to systematically improve teaching and learning.

Challenge Partners enables collaboration between schools and trusts to combine wisdom to reduce educational inequality and enhance the life chances of children.

Partners of Challenge Partners can access a 10% discount on a Steplab subscription. To find out more, simply book a demo.

To launch this exciting partnership, we spoke with trust leaders at OAK Multi Academy Trust and Lime Academy Trust. Leaders at OAK and Lime explore how their partnerships with both Steplab and Challenge Partners are positively impacting school performance and supporting their continuous and sustainable improvement.

By Andrew Wilson (CEO), Craig Brown (Director of Education) and Helen Lisseman (Teaching and Learning Lead). 

“Challenge Partners and Steplab are our two most valued partners in improving our schools and in the trust’s drive to be great. They offer the most impactful CPD by miles because of the collaborative and engaging approach both take - it involves everyone at all levels.”

OAK is a trust of five schools - one secondary and four primaries - serving diverse school communities across Leicester and Leicestershire. Andrew is a member of Challenge Partners’ Education Advisory Group and Overdale Infant and Junior Schools are a proud Steplab Coaching Hub.

OAK’s five schools have strong outcomes and are all rated Good. They’re now working towards all their schools being great - doing the right things to ensure the communities they serve have access to the best possible education. Andrew describes Steplab and Challenge Partners as key engines to support this strategic development.

Steplab is the trust’s main Teaching and Learning improvement aid. Traditional whole school professional development, with PowerPoints in the hall, has been replaced with a personalised coaching offer which supports teachers, across multiple schools, to embed effective habits and techniques. Andrew notes that external partners have recognised the positive impact of instructional coaching on teaching quality. Critically, it is valued by colleagues across OAK’s schools. Overdale Infant’s most recent Ofsted report stated:

“The school provides high quality professional development to staff. Leaders’ personalised coaching at every opportunity ensures that staff implement the curriculum well. Staff model clear steps of manageable content to pupils effectively.”

Recognising the importance of having objective and open reviews, OAK were also keen for all schools to have an additional external verification of their work via Challenge Partners, to supplement the trust’s internal quality assurance support. Schools have welcomed and embraced the reviews by and with Challenge Partners; they’ve learned from both going out to other schools to see different practices and from having the challenge of peers visiting their schools. The process is helping the trust make the next steps to greatness. 

Craig especially appreciates how the “Even Better Ifs” that schools get from the Challenge Partners review process are crafted collaboratively with leaders over a two-day period and emerge from different leaders spending quality 1:1 time observing and looking at every aspect of a school’s work, especially for disadvantaged students. Having other leaders - be it Heads or CEOs - from other organisations helps the trust to focus on continuous improvement and supports leaders at OAK to see the wood from the trees.

As with Challenge Partners, Craig highlights how Steplab enables a similar process in the classroom. At OAK, coaching is a universal offer and is underpinned by professional growth. That’s why, on launching their coaching programme, they started with their most effective teachers. Teaching may be excellent, but Steplab supports conversations with teachers that celebrate the strengths of their lessons before supporting them to elevate their practice even further. 

Andrew highlighted how both Steplab and Challenge Partners enable engagement with all colleagues at all levels across schools - engaging them in both their own professional development and the school’s improvement. And if colleagues are engaged, they’re more inclined to be involved and support this commitment to excellence.

By Rachel Holland (Director of Education), Lee Dobson (School Improvement Lead), Andy Buffham (Headteacher), Ellie Gibson (Headteacher) and Deboragh Bowles-Crown (Headteacher). 

“Challenge Partners and Steplab provide our leaders and teachers with tangible, realistic next steps that help our schools to get sustainably better.”

Lime is a multi academy trust of nine schools - four primaries and five special schools - serving communities in London, Luton and Peterborough. The trust’s schools serve areas of significant disadvantage, with Pupil Premium eligibility well above the national average. 

Rachel identifies the collaborative nature of the trust as the reason behind their decision to partner with Steplab and Challenge Partners, who she views as having collaboration at the heart of their approaches. 

Lime considers the peer reviews undertaken through Challenge Partners as incredibly valuable for getting an external view of a school’s work and offering leaders the opportunity to visit other schools and bring back the valuable things they’ve seen elsewhere to support their own improvement journey. Similarly, peer support is at the heart of their Steplab model by helping build an open door culture of staff dropping-in on one another and learning from each other. 

For Lime, partnerships with Steplab and Challenge Partners enable their leaders and teachers to really celebrate the progress they are making to improve. One Headteacher commented that “you can get really bogged down in the day-to-dayness of everything that happens and not feel like you’re ever moving forward.” But recognised that Steplab and Challenge Partners offer tangible, realistic next steps that aren’t judgemental and don’t feel like a huge undertaking. Both partners support a narrative of continuous improvement underpinned by a non-judemental and supportive culture.

Lime also appreciates the shared language between Challenge Partners and Steplab which is premised on supportiveness and growth. Both begin with a focus on what went well and celebratory shout-outs, before moving to focus on highly specific and granular next steps. 

Andy sees real synergies between Challenge Partners’ identification of What Went Wells and Even Better Ifs and Steplab’s celebratory shout-outs and the provision of a relevant next granular step to support teacher improvement. 

Because of the celebratory and supportive approach taken, staff and leaders welcome regular visitors from internal and external peers - be it to their school or classroom.

The trust also value how context specific both partners can be. Reviews by Challenge Partners are shaped by the school and its current needs and improvement priorities. With Steplab, leaders can identify the most relevant and highest leverage technique to be examined through a whole-group PD session and implemented through regular drop-ins to ensure PD is focused on context-specific needs.

Trusts choose to partner with both Challenge Partners and Steplab because of the synergies between the organisations: the promotion of collaboration, celebration of strengths, and the provision of granular and clear improvement objectives, which helps trusts and their schools to get sustainably better.

Partners of Challenge Partners can access a 10% discount on a Steplab subscription. To find out more, simply book a demo.