School peer review is a model of school evaluation that is carried out by school leaders or other school practitioners, of whole schools, parts of schools (such as departments, curriculum areas or year groups) or aspects of practice. This model of school evaluation has gained prominence as part of evaluation and school improvement across Europe, Australia, Chile (Godfrey, 2020) following the OECD’s recommendation for a greater use of peer learning among schools to develop capacity for self-evaluation and improvement (OECD, 2013). Interest in English education sector towards school peer review intensified with the Coalition government’s 2010 White Paper ‘The Importance of Teaching’. In light of this official document, both the Department of Education and OFSTED strongly encouraged schools to become part of a network, arguing that isolation of schools is the main factor in underperformance (Matthews and Ehren, 2017).

Although school peer review is not a statutory national policy in England, it has now been entrenched in the English school system. To date, various local authorities, groups of schools, and organizations designed, trialled, and implemented this form of school evaluation in England. Each model follows an agreed procedure; though some practices and purposes of peer review may differ, i.e. providing training to reviewers, having a lead reviewer for quality assuring team review, rejecting the role of review as ‘mock’ inspection or assuming, subscription fee, reporting the end product, frequency of visit (see more in Devon Teaching School Partnership, National Association of Headteachers Instead peer-reviews, Challenge Partner’s Quality Assurance model). In the most general sense, peer schools visit other schools and spend some time in each other’s context to review practice, share their expertise, recommend strategies for development, and challenge each other. School to school peer review is seen by its designers and advocates as a tool for achieving continuous improvement towards and a self-improving school system.

Further to the interest in the school sector, the Labour Party in 2015 and 2019 elections vowed for a nationwide school-led peer review improvement programme to replace Ofsted. Christine Gilbert (2012), who was Head of Ofsted from 2006 to 2011, in her think-pieces ‘Towards a self-improving system: the role of school accountability’ proposed a system which has school improvement networks at a regional level, ensuring that robust arrangements for peer review were in place for member schools. In a similar speech, Sean Harford, reflecting on Ofsted's work and the future of education inspection in 2015, shared his prediction for the inspectorate-supported peer reviews which ‘moderate judgements and assess the robustness of peer-review arrangements – making sure they weren’t just cosy fireside chats between colleagues.’.

Aligned with the political agenda and Ofsted prediction, a research study suggested peer review by schools deserves to be recognized and encouraged more explicitly through national policy because it promises to reduce the frequency of Ofsted inspection, securing greater value for money for the DfE and reducing the burden of inspections (Matthews and Headon, 2015). On the other hand, Ozsezer-Kurnuc (2020), while recognising its benefits to schools’ improvement strategies and senior leaders’ professional development and its contribution to school quality assurance, questioned the consequences of performing it as a national policy and noted the need for further research.

This study aimed to explore expert views on the future of school to school peer review. The significance of the study is to describe and develop practical advice from various experts with in-depth experience of working in the school evaluation field and to support decision-makers in their efforts to improve accountability systems.

To ascertain the views of educational experts on school to school peer review as a driver of school improvement, this study employed interviews with ‘experts’ (Harvey, 2010), using purposive sampling (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2007). 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted in person, by telephone or Skype, depending on the participant preference. Some strategies were developed to address challenges that might stem from expert interviews. The core characteristic of ‘expertise’ adopted to identify ‘experts’ was based on ‘knowledge’ and ‘experience’ rather than ‘status’ and ‘position’ (Van Audenhove, 2017). Therefore, the participants who had in-depth expertise as ‘designers’, ‘implementers’, ‘researchers’ or ‘commentators’ on school evaluation processes were deemed ‘expert’. Their expertise was thus related to their roles as policymakers, policy advisers, HMIs and Ofsted inspectors, local authority officers, academics, researchers, as well as experienced school practitioners working in leadership positions. For instance, a participant is currently working as a policymaker to ‘design’ inspection policies, but the same participants also took various role as a headteacher, Director of a local authority, Ofsted inspector, Scottish HMI inspector to ‘implement’ evaluation policies. Another participant is a frequent contributor to the national press as ‘commentator’ in England and publish papers as a ‘researcher’, also works as an HMI, Chair of governors and a National Leader of Governance to ‘implement’ evaluation policies. This research followed Braun and Clarke's (2006) recommended approach to data analysis. The researcher transcribed the interviews verbatim and then familiarised herself with data through repeated reading and writing analytic memos. The analyses continued organising data and generating initial codes using NVivo-12. Initial codes were re-focused at the broader level of themes. This step involved sorting the different codes into potential themes and collating all the relevant coded data extracts within the identified themes. These themes were used to analyse and interpret the data: ‘improvement, cost, power, trust and professionalism’.

The study aimed to explore the expert views on the future of peer review by schools. This research reveals that experts differ in recognising such a mechanism through national policies depending on how they construct the driver of improvement. In brief, the experts who suggested such a mechanism should be fused in the current accountability system as a systematic form of evaluation argued that quality is an internal issue and effective driver of improvement should be internal process based on trusting professionals. The argument here is that schools can be the ‘owner’ of quality improvement through the support and challenges that come from their peers, and that this takes place in a non-threatening high-trust environment. While these experts suggested increasing the power of local authorities, they foresaw a role for an independent body (i.e. Ofsted), i.e. providing benchmark or quality assurance of peer review practice. On the other hand, the experts who disagreed with the idea of employing peer review by schools as a systematic form of evaluation saw the power of the inspectorate as the main driver of school improvement. These experts argued that the equal power relationship between peers restrict calling for genuine improvement because in such a relationship, no one has the authority to challenge others. These experts questioned the sustainability in the long term of such mechanisms, concerning independence, consistency, objectivity and resource issues. These experts suggested benefiting from such mechanism through voluntary partnership networks instead of implementing as a national policy. This study concludes that whether experts recognise school to school peer review as a national policy differ how they construct the driver of improvement. Therefore, this study suggests that senior decision-makers consider what might be the most effective school improvement mechanism aligned with their aims and design the evaluation system accordingly.

Gilbert, C. (2012). Towards a Self-improving System: The role of school accountability. Nottingham: National College of School Leadership. Godfrey, D. (2020). From peer review to collaborative peer enquiry: Action research for school improvement and leadership development. London Review of Education, 18(3), 373-389. Matthews, P., and Berwick, G. (2013). Teaching schools: first among equals? Nottingham: National College for Teaching and Leadership. Matthews, P. and Ehren, M.C.M (2017). Accountability and improvement in self-improving school systems. In: P. Earley, P., and T. Greany (Ed.) School leadership and education system reform. Bloomsbury Publishing, 44-56. Matthews, P., and Headon, M. (2015). Multiple Gains: An independent evaluation of Challenge Partners’ peer reviews of schools. London: UCL-Institute of Education, Trentham Press. Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3 (2). pp. 77-101. ISSN 1478-0887 Ozsezer-Kurnuc, S. (unpublished). A case study: ‘Rigorous’ School to school peer review. In British Educational Research Association Conference. Van Audenhove L., (2017). Expert and Elite Interviews in Social Science. Available at:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317185080_Expert_and_Elite_Interviews_in_the_Social_Sciences [23.04.2018].