Why schools need to network

The networking of State primary and secondary schools into colleges was formally set up in Malta on February 1, 2008. Maltese educational leaders are becoming aware that collaboration and networking between schools within the college set-up necessitate new organisational arrangements in schools that challenge past practices and notions of school leadership.

Under the influence of the State school networking reform in Malta, educational leaders are willing and committed to share in an atmosphere of trust, respect and support while they engage actively in decision-making. They realise that effective collaboration leads to personal and professional benefit and a sustained improvement for their college, schools and staff.

Networking provides school leaders with a number of advantages. It provides them with the opportunity to interact more with other leaders outside their school building. Such interaction has been found to be a characteristic of effective school leaders as it helps them learn from each other.

It promotes dissemination of best practice and capacity-building in schools, and enhance the professional development of their heads and teachers. It enhances their access to resources, ideas, technical assistance and community support. These tangible resources can help school leaders to innovate, adapt and improve their performance. They enable school leaders to build contacts with like-minded educators.

Interactions help to generate greater knowledge of possible ways to respond to new policies and requirements. Involvement in collaborative projects provides school leaders with renewed energy, professional interest, confidence to try out new ideas and take risks and contributes to their self-affirmation.

School networks may also help reform, restructure and change the culture of educational organisations and systems. The inability to foster commitment and creativity in workplaces is leading to the challenging of long-established bureaucratic and hierarchical structures in various types of organisations including schools, where bureaucracy and experimentation has hardly permitted any attempts to develop them into sites of professional inquiry and reflective practice.

Networks help schools face and support change, and deal with ambitious and complex issues. They have led to more integration between schools, encouraging them to offer each other complementary expertise and experience. By pooling resources, networks allow for economies of scale both in financial and staffing terms.

Networks can range in complexity and formality of working arrangements. They illustrate five different levels at which networking can take place and the following are examples of best practice at each state college:

• At its most basic level, a network could bring teachers together to work on a common curriculum purpose and to share best practice. Research shows that when schools work together there is a positive impact on student learning.

Gozo College kindergarten assistants collaborate and co-operate together on a multi-lingual and multi-cultural project for the benefit of all kindergarten pupils. The college also networks with other kindergarten assistants from the Gozitan private schools.

Another example of such a network is found in San Ġorġ Preca College. Primary teachers from all schools within this college are collaborating on a project to generate activity materials for pupils of mixed abilities. They are sharing their experience, best practice and methods used in their teaching and learning in all curricular areas, leading to standardisation of all primary schools' half-yearly tests, and a publication of best practices for teachers. A similar initiative for secondary school teachers will be introduced in the near future.

• At a higher level, schools could join together to enhance teaching, learning and student performance. For example, St Nicolas College has organised quality circle time for all Year 3 primary teachers in collaboration with the YPU. Another example is St Clare College's mission statement, which reflects the college's plans, relationships, commitments and standards.

Meanwhile, Maria Regina College has embarked on a year-long project across Year 5 pupils to create a challenging environment that encourages creativity through a multi-disciplinary process. This initiative involves the drama teacher, school headteachers, all Year 5 primary teachers, and students from secondary schools who will be helping out at the final event at the end of the project. There are also plans to collaboration with local bookshops and supermarkets to promote stories written by children.

• Networks could bring together different stakeholders to implement specific policies on a local and possibly national level.

A classic example is the collaboration and co-operation between the Ministry of Education's Directorate for Educational Services, Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education and all 10 state colleges to provide professional training and development on effective teaching and learning for all state, church and private primary school teachers.

Other important stakeholders are the Let Me Learn centre at the University of Malta, the Malta Union of Teachers, Church and sector educational authorities.

• Groups of networks, both within and outside education, can join forces to improve social justice and inclusion within the system.

An example of such a network is found at St Margaret College where an inclusion unit is run by a team of three assistant headteachers led by an assistant head who administers a leadership role in the college behaviour support team.

The unit runs two pilot nurture groups in two primary schools for pupils from Kindergarten 1 to Year 2. The nurture group staff is supporting the college's primary schools to develop good behaviour strategies.

The unit also manages a number of learning support zones within the college to ensure that secondary schoolchildren with challenging behaviour are gradually reintegrated into the mainstream through a progress individual learning programme that can have a variety of components, from out-of-class support to special attention in the mainstream class.

The unit co-operates with a number of agencies outside the college, including Fejda, Appoġġ, YMCA, Young People's Unit, Aċċess, Dar St Jean Antide, Department of Social Security services, the Directorate for Educational Services and the Probation service.

• Groups of networks could act specifically as agents for system renewal and transformation. St Theresa College is near to reaching an agreement with the Institute of Tourism Studies (ITS), Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association and Employment and Training Cor-poration to provide fifth formers a structured training programme, including hands-on and monitored work experience over a period of seven months.

This initiative will not only lower the age at which students may be eligible for such education, hand-on training and work experience (until now it is provided at post-secondary level), but will lead to certification approved by the Malta Quali-fications Council and accreditation for a number of modules of the foundation course at ITS.

Other examples are found in two other colleges, namely St Benedict's College and St Ignatius College, which have individually developed a good network of guidance and counselling team providing educational, preventive and support services to students both at primary and secondary schools within their colleges.

Collaboration and co-operation is cultivated between the college counsellor and all school headteachers, guidance teachers from secondary schools, and all primary school teachers.

Mr Fabri is principal, St Theresa College.