Lessons from 'odds-beating' schools: understanding how schools serving disadvantaged areas achieve good outcomes

In recent decades, affluent countries world-wide have sought to improve the quality of their schools. But despite some gains, the poorest learners, living in the poorest areas, are still doing systematically least well (OECD 2017). In England, policymakers have started to think about these spatial concentrations of poor outcomes as 'cold spots'. With reference to schooling, the Department for Education (DfE) and National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) have defined these as areas with the highest levels of disadvantage, where schools face the most challenging circumstances, and where additional supports are needed to improve schools and children's lives (DfE and NCTL 2018). Recent efforts to "grow support in cold spot areas" have included the creation of Teaching Schools, defined as "strong schools led by strong leaders that work with others to provide highquality training, development and support" (DfE and NCTL, 2018).

Distinctively, this approach seeks to harness the expertise of schools which Campbell-Wilcox (2017) terms 'odds-beating' - i.e. consistently achieving good outcomes, through equitable practices, in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Given Ofsted's concerns that some schools are securing improvements by exacerbating inequalities through excluding the most disadvantaged learners, learning from schools which appear more equitable is especially important. In response, this study seeks to learn more about how schools which appear 'odds-beating' succeed, and to use this knowledge to inform Teaching Schools' work. Specifically, it will explore how these schools: understand disadvantages in their local contexts and student populations; respond to these in practice; and what it is about the nature of their response that supports their success.

Simply, little research has sought to understand schools which appear odds-beating as whole, complex, contextualised, multi-faceted organisations, and in sufficient detail to explore the potential transferability of their approaches - in whole or in part. This may leave Teaching Schools with few reference points beyond their own practices, and constrained by the limitations inherent in these, when thinking about what schools in cold spots can do to improve. Explicitly addressing these issues, this study has been co-designed with St Patrick's Teaching School, which is committed to developing high-quality research-informed support, and led by a DfE-appointed National Leader of Education. It will ask three overarching questions:

1. How do schools which appear odds-beating understand disadvantage in their local contexts and student populations?
2. How do they respond to this?
3. What is it about the nature of their response that supports their success?

The CASE student will work closely with the CASE partner to establish the triad. Like St Patrick's, the two additional schools must:
1. serve a disadvantaged area and student population reflecting local disadvantage
2. have sustained student progress and achievement at or above national averages
3. demonstrate equitable practices in admissions and exclusions.