Recent research has shown that England remains one of the most unequal societies in the developed world (e.g. Hills et al. 2010). In education, this inequality has particular consequences for those children most vulnerable in society. Children with special needs, from impoverished backgrounds, and from particular social class and ethnic groups often do particularly poorly in secondary schools in England. This study reported on in this paper examined teachers' collaborative working practices relating to the needs of vulnerable learners in 7 state secondary schools in an ethnically mixed English city with wide disparity between areas of wealth and poverty. The research questions were: • Does collaborative teacher activity lead to an emphasis on student collaboration? • What is the effect of collaborative activity for vulnerable learners? • What effect does the culture of the school have on collaboration and the attainment of vulnerable pupils? The theoretical and empirical rationale for this study was founded on a body of work that suggests that developing school improvement structures that support teachers working collaboratively benefits student learning and, conversely, that teacher isolation is linked with poor student performance (e.g. Daly et al. 2009; Daniels 1997; Lomas et al. 2011) In order to describe the informal structures of collaboration for supporting vulnerable students' learning and wellbeing, we collected Social Network Analysis (SNA) (Moolenaar 2012) data through an on-line questionnaire to more than 700 professionals working in the 7 schools. Staff were asked about their demographic characteristics, the school climate, and the frequency and impact of collaboration with other colleagues. Data were also collected from semi-structured interviews with key members of staff. A key individual-level measure that derives from SNA is the degree of centrality (Carolan 2013). In this study, this indicator reflected the extent to which each educator was nominated by his/her peers as someone they go to for advice on supporting vulnerable students. School variables were retrieved from public administrative databases. The study concluded that schools with collaborative networks that extend beyond departmental silos are more effective in supporting vulnerable learners' attainment and wellbeing. This paper also reports on a second phase that examines in detail the teaching practices of all teachers of vulnerable learners in one school and asks the question: To what extent are teachers who are highly central to the collaboration networks of their schools more likely to show teaching practices associated with teacher effectiveness than less networked educators?

Borgatti, S.P., Everett, M.G. & Freeman, L.C. (2002) Ucinet for Windows: Software for Social Network Analysis. Harvard, MA: Analytic Technologies. Carolan, B.V. (2013) Social network analysis and education: Theory, methods & applications. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Daly, A., Moolenaar, N., Bolivar, J. & Burke, P. (2010) Relationships in reform: the role of teachers’ social networks. Journal of Educational Administration, 48(3), 359-391. Daniels, H. (1997) Teacher support teams for special educational needs : evaluating a teacher-focussed support scheme. Educational Studies, 23(1), 5-23. Hills, J., M. Brewer, S. P., Jenkins, R., Lister, R., Lupton, S., Machin, C., Mills, T., Modood, T., Rees T. & Riddell, S. 2010. An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK: Report of the National Equality Panel. London: Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, London School of Economics and Political Science. Lomos, C., Hofman, R. H., & Bosker, R. J. (2011). Professional communities and student achievement–a meta-analysis. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 22(2), 121-148. Moolenaar, N (2012) A Social Network Perspective on Teacher Collaboration in Schools: Theory, Methodology, and Applications. American Journal of Education, 119(1), 7-39.