Raising Attainment Plan (RAP) Management Guide

The RAP drives improvement against school priorities and is informed by the school’s self-evaluation and the work of the National Challenge Adviser (NCA) or school improvement partner (SIP). It is not merely a statement of intent but an instrument that drives school improvement. Progress towards targets is monitored and evaluated frequently. A RAP is most suitable for use in schools where the overwhelming priority is to raise attainment and/or achievement of pupils, but the approach can be used by any school needing to improve the quality and impact of planning The RAP is expected to be the school’s single improvement plan.

The RAP:

provides a detailed, time-limited map that translates priorities into action
aligns the work of the school (and any external support) around the agreed priorities and maintains a sharp focus on these
identifies clear lines of accountability for actions and outcomes and supports all stakeholders in understanding their responsibilities linked to the agreed priorities.

To see one school’s perspective on engaging with the National Challenge, access the National Challenge DVD clip ‘Establishing the partnership’ on the RAP management guide homepage.

Quality standards

A high-quality and effective RAP:

is monitored and evaluated directly against pupil progress
is challenging and achievable
is a means of communicating planned actions and expected outcomes to the whole school community

ensures that the work of the school and any external support is clearly focused upon the same, agreed, set of priorities
translates priorities into actions quickly, and maintains a sharp focus on these
has clear and precisely dated milestones for progress that are set out in a way that facilitates monitoring and evaluation, which should be carried out no less frequently than fortnightly by the RAP Management Group (RMG) and with the NCA or SIP at least every halfterm
identifies clear lines of accountability, ensuring there is one named person identified as accountable for each action
is informed by all available and relevant data
creates a sense of urgency for achieving progress
is accessible to and understood by all staff.

Exemplification

As well as providing strategic direction, the RAP is a tactical, short-term plan and has a particular focus on increasing the number of pupils who achieve five or more higher-grade GCSEs, including English and mathematics. However, the aim is not simply to target Year 11 through a series of short-term tactical interventions (although

2 of 20 The National Strategies  Secondary

Raising Attainment Plan (RAP) management guide

there is a place for this each year); rather its focus is on sustainable improvement, which means that the plan’s priorities will affect all year groups in the school.

The RAP supports the school’s drive to:

meet and exceed national targets for 5+ A*–C, including English and mathematics, and to progress in English and mathematics
ensure that its systems and processes will sustain improvements, raising attainment of all pupils and ensuring that those who have been underachieving make accelerated progress
ensure that all activity is concentrated on agreed success criteria and its measurement includes that of pupil progress
produce a balance between the short-term needs of those young people very close to their GCSE examinations and longer-term strategic actions to build capacity and to ensure that improvements are sustainable and impact across the whole school population.

Step 1 – The RAP: target setting and position statement

Each school’s RAP will be entirely distinctive and customised on the basis of the self-evaluation and subsequent analysis of needs based on:

distance to travel to targets and where applicable rise above floor
recent pace and trajectory of improvement
capacity to deliver within a specified timeframe.

Drawing upon all available data and the self-evaluation form (SEF) the headteacher, supported by the SIP or NCA:

sets ambitious whole-school targets in relation to national expectations based upon prior attainment and taking into account accelerated progress from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 4
identifies the small number of key priorities for improvement that are likely to produce maximum leverage on standards
sets out a high-level statement of the actions that the school will take to address these priorities and the support it is intending to use. This is the RAP position statement and its purpose is to:

make a clear statement to the whole school, identifying that priorities have been established which involve all school staff and what it intends to do about these

clearly communicate the school’s current situation and the distance it needs to travel.

An example template for a RAP position statement is in Appendix 1.

Step 2 – The RAP Management Group

The RMG is set up as the key group holding corporate responsibility for the initial implementation and subsequent monitoring of the RAP, ensuring it is on track.

4 of 20 The National Strategies  Secondary

Raising Attainment Plan (RAP) management guide

Indeed, the RAP itself should be a live document that is constantly updated to

account for changing circumstances. In order to be effective the RMG must be flexible and not constrained by procedure. Specifically, you might expect the RMG to take responsibility for:

monitoring the implementation of the RAP at very short intervals (at least every two weeks) to ensure it is progressing as expected and on time or to take corrective action where it is not. This has a consequence for the way in which the plan is set out, in that there must be milestones that can be monitored at this frequency;
identifying key groups of pupils to be monitored using a mechanism such as the Venn analysis tool1;
acting as or identifying members of staff to be progress leaders or mentors2 for the specific pupil progress groups (PPG)3 identified through Venn analysis and to track and report on their progress at six-weekly intervals;
establishing targets for groups and individual pupils.

All National Challenge schools have a RMG in order to ensure that the RAP keeps on track. Membership of the RMG includes the headteacher, core subject leaders and a selection of other staff members. It is good practice for the NCA or SIP to attend when possible. The core task of this group is to ensure delivery of the priorities identified according to the timescale set out within the RAP.

Detailed support and guidance on how to select and induct the RMG can be found in continuing professional development (CPD) session 1 at the end of this document.

1. The Venn analysis tool (see Stronger Management Systems, Element 6) can be used as a simple and effective means of identifying pupil groups and establishing RAP activities related to the key priorities.

2. Progress leaders or mentors have oversight of the progress and development of all pupils within one or more of eight progress groups identified through the Venn analysis, pupils in each group may well be distributed across several classes or teaching groups. Progress leaders could be senior or middle leaders or other skilled staff, schools will vary in who they choose, see Step 4 in this management guide.

3.Pupil progress groups are the eight groups of pupils identified through the Venn analysis tool as underperforming in one or more key area with regards to the Key Stage 4 floor target.

Step 3 – Writing the RAP

The headteacher, NCA or SIP and other members of the senior leadership team (SLT) should construct the full RAP. The implementation of the RAP is closely monitored at short intervals by the RMG, and outcomes from the monitoring processes are evaluated at the half-termly RAP review meetings led by the headteacher and involving the NCA.

For the headteacher’s and NCA’s perspective on writing the RAP, access the National Challenge DVD The Raising Attainment Planon the RAP management guide homepage.

While setting out an ambitious agenda for improvement and change in the RAP, it is essential to keep in mind the demands that such activity places on key members of staff. Steps need to be taken from the outset to reduce other activities that are not leading to improvement or that are now redundant so that staff capacity can be released. In short, it is essential that the entire energy of the school is directed towards raising attainment. This may well mean some difficult decisions or indeed some difficult conversations with some external stakeholders. It is important to ask the following questions:

are actions, including monitoring and evaluation, manageable for senior staff in the given timeframe?

has the impact of load on individuals and the effects of taking teachers out of classrooms for professional development been taken into account, particularly with respect to implementation of ‘rarely cover’ from September 2009.

Essential features of an effective RAP

In order to be successful, the RAP development will be guided by the quality standards set out above and include the essential features outlined below.

The extracts in each section below are taken from the exemplar RAP priorities given in Appendix 2 at the end of this document. Exemplars below refer to a RAP written under the following headings:

Objective / Actions / Date / Responsible / Milestones / Outcomes / Monitoring/
Evaluation / Resources / Status

The aim of this document is to show how RAPs should be written in order to meet the quality standards. Most sections have an example that does not meet the standards, followed by a revision that conforms to the standards. The intention is not to assert that the headings above are the only way of setting out a RAP or that they necessarily appear in that order – although clearly objectives and actions come at the beginning.

Appendix 2 contains the RAP which has been used for this exemplification. For illustrative purposes a single objective has been provided for each priority. In a complete RAP it is likely that each priority would be addressed by several objectives.

Objective

What are the specific improvements needed in order to address the overall priorities identified?

The key word here is ‘specific’.The following objectives just express an intention of improving planning, with no indication of the specific improvement thatis required:

Objective
Improve quality of lessons across the school
Objective
Develop Assessment for Learning (AfL) across the school

It is important that all parties are clear from the outset about the specific objectives, rather than just a vague idea of improvement. The following objectives provide a much more detailed picture:

4 of 20 The National Strategies  Secondary

Raising Attainment Plan (RAP) management guide

Objective
Improve consistency and quality of lesson planning and deliver more active and engaging lessons to provide higher-quality personalised learning for all pupils
Objective
Evaluate current level of skills in AfL, and develop consistent planning for and application of approaches in AfL to provide high-quality personalised learning for all pupils across the school

Actions

What needs to be done:

have all key actions that need to be taken to achieve the objective and increase the pace of improvement and change been identified?
are actions in clearly defined, small steps?
will the actions lead to recognisable outcomes (for example, improving pupil learning and progression)?

Set alongside the actions there should be elements of CPD or related support from external partners that are required to ensure that the staff can successfully carry out the specified actions. To facilitate increased pace and close monitoring, it is essential that actions are broken down into a number of short, manageable and measurable steps required to achieve each objective.

The main weaknesses in the Actions section of RAPs are a lack of detail, particularly by omitting the steps to be taken, and insufficient links between actions and outcomes. The following appeared in a RAP as actions for a target to improve the numeracy of middle-range boys:

Actions
Adviser to deliver staff training for the department
Staff implement training

6 of 20 The National Strategies  Secondary

Raising Attainment Plan (RAP) management guide

This exemplar provides a more detailed account:

Actions
1.1.1 CPD provided for all staff to establish and communicate characteristics of a good lesson and a good lesson plan (National Strategies Stronger Management Systems Element 7)
1.1.2 Common approach for orderly start to all lessons established and instigated

1.1.3 Common lesson planning pro forma made available on intranet and used by all staff
1.1.4Staff peer learning triads set up for all staff
1.1.5 Staff triads work together weekly to share and apply a wider range of teaching strategies in lessons using TLSS materials (Pedagogy and Practice Pack), with a particular focus on questioning and group work

Personnel/responsibility

Who will carry out the action (who is responsible for ensuring the action takes place and who else is involved)? Within the plan this section should make it clear who is to be held to account (and by whom) for the successful completion of the identified action.

In plans which lack detail this column often looks like this:

Responsibility
SMT
Consultant
All staff

The approach above leaves the situation open to confusion as to exactly who is responsible and therefore who is also accountable for the action to be completed. Presumably the school has more than one member of SMT and the LA more than one consultant.

8 of 20 The National Strategies  Secondary

Raising Attainment Plan (RAP) management guide

The plan needs to identify the specific staff involved and to make their responsibilities clear so there can be no confusion as to who is responsible for each action:

Responsibility
Sally Hardcastle (SH) – DH, CPD coordinator
Graham Taylor (GT) – DH
GT – DH
Andy Houseman (AH)

Date

When will the action take place? This should be a specific date within a short timeframe, for example ‘23 April’ not ‘April’ or ‘spring term’. Key questions to ask when setting timescales include:

are timescales realistic but still communicating urgency?
is the overall timeline for execution of the plan clear?

Dates in RAPs should include short-term Milestones (see below). In the RAP priority that has been written for this exemplar, milestones have a separate column. However, they can be incorporated into the date column if there is a need to save space across the page. The issue is not one of layout, but whether the plan is aligned to the quality standards by breaking down timescales into smaller steps for monitoring purposes.

Timescales must be clear and precise, which the following are not:

Date
Ongoing
Spring term
February

In priority 2 they are specific, realistic and sequential, and the timescales are still precisely linked to dates:

12/01
14/02
13/03
w/b 23/01
29/01–24/03

Milestones

Any action that will take a long time should be broken down into a series of smaller actions, each of which could be achieved within a week or two, thus creating a series of milestones that can be monitored.

Are key dates specifically identified for monitoring, evaluating and subsequently reporting on activity and progress? Do they follow the correct sequence in time?

The use of milestones is an essential feature of an effective RAP. Without a clear account of the succession of short timescales needed to implement the actions,an RAP will not be an effective tool for change and the RMG will find difficulties with their monitoring role. The main issue with RAPs is not that milestones are badly written, it is that they are not included at all. Not all actions have milestones, but they should be used when appropriate.

Milestones
Evident in 70% of observed lessons by 21/10
100% of observed lessons by 18/12

They can also be used to make clear when meetings and consultations should take place:

Milestones
Twilights 25/09–18/10–14/11– 12/12

Outcomes

What will success look like when the action has been successfully completed? This is particularly important for evaluation as it should provide a focus on whether or not the action has produced the desired outcome, not whether the action has been completed or the extent to which the action has been completed. For example, if writing schemes of work for Year 9 is the action, then the outcome is not simply that they are written, but rather that they are completed to the required standard and, more importantly, are having an impact on classroom practice.

The National Strategies  Secondary 10 of 21

Raising Attainment Plan (RAP) management guide

The most frequent style seen in RAPs is ‘Action to do, action done’. This is not good enough; the impact on pupils’ learning or improvement in systems and processes must be evident in outcomes. Many actions can be completed without changing anything for the pupils and their learning, so what is the point?