The Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) programme was conceived with a compelling moral purpose: to raise standards for all children and to ensure that no school remains “stuck” without the support needed to improve.
The ambition is laudable. Yet even from the early design phase, the plan lacked sufficient understanding of the way that the schooling system has evolved and the role of “responsible bodies”.
The early evidence from the interim process evaluation reveals a set of structural cultural, and operational challenges that risk undermining the programme’s potential.
Challenges with RISE
The Department for Education really needs to do better with its research programme. We are increasingly seeing “process” evaluations that appear to be scoped on the basis of participant feedback, with no reference to quality, impact or outcomes.
And yet we can learn lessons from this interim process report.
When viewed through a system lens, these operational challenges illuminate deeper issues about how improvement is understood, enacted and supported across England’s diverse education landscape.
1. A programme built on good intentions but hampered by system design
The evaluation makes it clear that many stakeholders - headteachers, responsible bodies, RISE advisers and supporting organisations - began with broadly positive expectations. Most saw the potential for RISE to offer a more collaborative, peer‑led model of improvement. Yet optimism alone cannot compensate for weaknesses in programme architecture.
RISE’s design relies heavily on a sequence of tightly defined processes: identification, diagnosis, matching, planning, approval and monitoring.
In theory, this creates clarity. In practice, the evaluation shows that these processes were often rushed, inconsistently communicated and constrained. And there is no underlying theory of improvement or, indeed, theory of change.
2. Compliance pressures and compressed timescales
One of the most striking findings from the evaluation is the pressure created by short timescales.
Schools, advisers and supporting organisations all reported that deadlines for diagnosis, matching and plan development were extremely tight. This compressed pace had several consequences:
- Quality risks: supporting organisations and responsible bodies felt that the speed required to produce school improvement plans risked compromising their quality.
- Relationship strain: trust‑building - essential for any improvement partnership - was curtailed by the need to “get the plan done”.
- Operational overload: advisers struggled with IT systems and communication channels that were not yet fit for purpose, slowing their ability to respond and support effectively.
These issues reflect a deeper systemic problem: improvement cannot be accelerated simply by imposing deadlines. Sustainable change requires time for diagnosis, dialogue and co‑construction.
It also requires clarity about who is ultimately responsible for improvement.
3. A muddle about who is responsible for improvement
RISE places significant responsibility on RISE advisers to diagnose need, broker support and monitor progress.
Many advisers were praised for their credibility and relational approach.
Yet what is clear is that there is a fundamental muddle with the design of the RISE programme - it fails to clearly understand the role of the responsible body and, at its worst, assumes that the responsible body function has been passed to the supporting organisation or its agent.
4. Mismatch between system diversity and programme uniformity
The evaluation highlights the diversity of schools in the RISE programme: primary, secondary, special, academies, maintained schools and those in varying states of challenge.
Yet the programme’s processes often assume a uniform organisational model. For example:
- Some schools were matched with supporting organisations that lacked insight into contextual challenges.
- Responsible bodies and leaders reported mixed experiences of the matching process, with some feeling their preferences were overlooked.
- Supporting organisations noted that guidance was sometimes late, unclear or changed at short notice.
This points to a structural tension: a national programme attempting to operate through standardised processes in a system characterised by deep contextual variation.
5. Limited capacity and an underdeveloped theory of improvement
Supporting organisations were generally confident in their ability to support schools. Yet they also raised concerns about sector‑level capacity as the programme scales.
The evaluation warns that without careful monitoring, the system may struggle to provide enough high‑quality supporting organisations for future cohorts.
This is a critical insight. Improvement is not simply a matter of matching schools to organisations; it requires sustained professional capital, long‑term capability building and a system‑wide infrastructure for learning.
In fact, what is needed is a system where all schools are in a trust with the capacity to improve the group of schools over time in a sustainable and effective way.
What should happen now?
RISE is part of a regulatory approach to the school system in England. We should not pretend that it is something different. RISE could have its place in a wider regulatory strategy.
I have been arguing for a regulatory strategy for nearly a decade now, across successive governments. We will continue to confuse and conflate responsibilities and accountabilities in our system until such time as we have a regulatory strategy that is focused not on compliance regimes but on how we prevent harms and build system capacity.
All regulators talk in terms of a regulatory toolkit - a range and scale of things that can be done in response to issues and problems.
RISE could have its proper place in a regulatory toolkit, with “nudge” and peer support for improvement at one end, and intervention (and, in the most extreme cases, termination) at the other.
With the government now moving forward on trust inspection, and with increasing mission creep in the RISE programme, it is now essential that we build this regulatory strategy together.
Leora Cruddas is chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts
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