The School Challenge and Improvement Division (SCID) of the Department for Children, Schools and Families is responsible for the development and delivery of policies and programmes which: transform schools in challenging circumstances; prevent school failure; where necessary tackle failing and underperforming schools; and promote improvements in pupil achievement to narrow attainment gaps. 

The team works collaboratively with a range of partners, including the Primary and Secondary National Strategies, local authorities and other stakeholders. A range of support is available to help schools and local authorities raise standards, including programmes run by the Strategies. 

There is strong evidence that successful approaches to school improvement focus on strengthening school leadership, improving teaching standards, working in collaboration with other schools, and engaging parents and the community. These principles underpin our school improvement programmes.

The school improvement part of the site is divided into three parts. Schools facing Challenging Circumstances (SFCC) has many good practices which have been developed and promoted to provide additional support for these schools. There is information on managing pupil mobility, investors in people, managing pupil performance data, middle manager training and the trainee heads scheme.  

Schools Causing Concern (SCC) gives details of the current legislative framework for local authorites and we have full details of the new statutory guidance that was published on 16 May 2007.

Partnerships build on the collaborative work done in connection with the Leadership Incentive Grant (LIG) and Excellence in Cities initiatives.

Full details of local authority and school target setting is available at www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/ts/

Details of the City Challenge initiatives in London, Greater Manchester and the Black Country are available at www.dcsf.gov.uk/citychallenge/

Last updated 17 May 2008

Published September 2002