New Relationship with Schools (NRwS)

What is it?
NRwS was launched in 35 Local Education Authorities (LEAs), and their schools in September 2005, with plans to roll out to all LEAs and schools in the following eighteen months.

At the centre of NRwS is a programme of school self-evaluation and peer review. A school will work with a School Improvement Partner (SIP) who will either be a serving Headteacher or someone with similar direct experience of school management and school improvement strategies. Discussion will centre on the school's priorities and  targets and the support needed to achieve these aims. NRwS aims to streamline the demands made of Headteachers, reducing bureaucracy, while ensuring improvement programmes are reengineered to focus more sharply on individual school needs.

NRwS reflects the LSC's own approach already in place to quality, planning and funding in colleges of further education: principally self-evaluation, agreed plans and simplification of funding arrangements in order to focus on the young person and reduce bureaucracy.

How does it affect me and my school?
Under NRwS, LEAs appoint a School Improvement Partner (SIP) to each school and simplified improvement funding will be linked to this process. The SIP's analysis of a school will be rooted in data, and will be used to improve quality, working with the LEA and LSC.