The government will use a new RAG rating intervention model to target support to schools that need it, with turnaround leaders wanted to commission the help – and draw up new “local area priorities”.
Department for Education officials have announced further details today of how their regional improvement for standards and excellence (RISE) teams will work (formerly known as regional improvement teams).
The teams – which will decide which schools need support and commission the help – will start to be rolled out in January. Government is recruiting school leaders to work with civil servants in the new teams.
The government has set out new thresholds for intervention, which will be based on Ofsted report cards.
But it will be the RISE teams who decide which support schools get, before they commission bodies like trusts or local authorities to provide help.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has said the teams will ensure schools and trusts work “together to drive high and rising standards across the board”.
“For too long, support for school improvement has been fragmented and complex. I want to change that.”
Here’s all you need to know…
1. Civil servants and school leader advisers to make up RISE teams
Let’s start with who will make up the teams.
The RISE teams will comprise officials *currently working* within the DfE’s regions group (so civil servants), and a “small number” of advisers seconded in from schools, councils and trusts.
Schools Week understands that DfE will not appoint extra civil servants to move into the roles. But from today, it will begin advertising for advisers.
DfE expects to employ up to three full-time equivalents working about two days a week to each of the nine regional groups. This will equate to “four to six actual people” per area.
They – or the organisations they will be seconded from – will be paid £600 a day for their time. This is the rate used for the department’s trust and school improvement scheme.
Matthew Stevenson, deputy director for the southwest, said advisers will have “recent experience of school improvement or system leadership”.
Regions group director general John Edwards added they will have “demonstrated that they can improve schools and have worked across their areas and elsewhere to provide system leadership”.
But he said: “We know that there are lots of demands on such people’s time… and that we shouldn’t be taking everyone out of their schools and roles at this critical time.
“So we’re adopting a flexible approach as we appoint advisers, including part-time appointments, and utilising the knowledge, skills and relationships of people who may have recently retired as well.”
2. New intervention model – and RISE teams decide which category schools are in
The RISE teams will “sit within a new framework of support an intervention”, government documents state.
This will be broken down into “three tiers” of improvement support: universal help, targeted support, and intervention. On a slide shown to leaders today (see below), this was RAG rated as green, amber and red, respectively.
The level of support required will be based on Ofsted’s new report cards, which will be introduced in September 2025.
But crucially, it will be the RISE teams that decide which category of support schools fall in to (not Ofsted).
It’s not clear exactly *how* the teams will decide which schools fall in which category, with specific measures on eligibility being worked through. But further details were shared during the webinar.
3. Universal support: For schools with ‘minimal issues’
Universal support will be offered where a report card identifies:
- Minimal issues and strong leadership/school improvement capacity
- Well-performing schools that can support wider system
For these schools RISE teams, which will answer to regions group, will be charged with signposting all the support available to leaders, including hubs, training, financial support and professional development.
In these cases, schools will be expected to “self-identify” from Ofsted report cards areas of improvement. The teams will also “promote the sharing of good practice and networking” between trusts and councils.
4. Targeted support: For schools with ‘singular or several issues’ (and LAs back in the picture)
This is where it starts to get a bit messier.
Schools will get “targeted support” if a report card identifies “singular or several issues needing specific, more intensive support, which have leadership capacity to improve”.
Another example is where report cards identify “schools requiring immediate support outside of inspections”.
Southwest regional director Lucy Livings said that as “report cards [are] being developed [we] will also be developing the criteria” – so things could become clearer.
For these schools, RISE teams will work with leaders to develop a “bespoke” improvement package. This will be provided over 12 to 24 months by an organisation, commissioned by the teams, like a “MAT, federation or LA partnership”.
This “marks a break” from the previous initiatives and “is a way forward that’s collaborative and focused on support”, Livings added.
DfE thinks only a “small number of schools” will need such targeted help.
But Stevenson said: “We think the support will be irresistible. I think if a school ultimately refuses to have support, then we would need to consider what further action would need to be taken in that situation, but we think that would be very unlikely.”
However, Sir David Carter, the former national schools commissioner, said the plans “really feel a bit unthought out. It’s as if the approach is to recreate how local authorities used to attempt intervention, but on a huge scale.”
5. Intervention: For schools needing ‘emergency support’
RISE teams will not automatically have a role in providing support for schools requiring intervention – who Ofsted will identify.
However, they may “potentially, in the short term, provide emerging support to a school pending intervention”.
An “even smaller number of schools, fewer probably than we’ve been working with before, will continue to need structural intervention”, Livings added.
6. And in the interim: ‘vulnerable’ schools will get support
The support teams are due to start in January, but Ofsted report cards won’t be introduced until September. So what happens in the interim?
Livings said the teams will “start working with a smaller number of schools, of those that we deem most vulnerable at the moment, based on both the current judgments and the data that’s available. But from September, it will be the report card that will be the main criteria.”
7. RISE teams *won’t* provide the support
The early days under regional directors – when they were called regional school commissioners – blurred the lines between commissioning and providing school improvement support themselves.
In 2018, the government stepped in to stop RSCs sending education advisers into schools – over concerns they were operating as a shadow Ofsted.
Since then, regional academy teams solely commission support when schools fall into trouble.
Stevenson said today the RISE teams “will not provide support directly, but will commission strong organisations” who will “create a bespoke package of support”.
Explaining the process, he added: “So if a school becomes eligible for support, the process would start with our RISE teams reaching out to the responsible body, be that the trust or the local authority, as well as the diocese, if applicable, to discuss the challenges that school currently faces, as well as its existing plans for improvement”.
“Our advisors, with our teams, would then appoint a supporting organisation to work with the school to do that further joint diagnosis, to further co-construct a plan with the school to really make sure that school has exactly the support it needs and exactly the expertise it needs over that period of time.
“And then obviously all parties, not least the responsible body itself, would then want to monitor the progress of that support going forward.”
8. And who will pay?
This isn’t quite clear yet, and we’ve asked for clarification. But Livings said that, in terms of the targeted support that is commissioned by RISE teams, that would be “a funded element of support”.
She added: “There could be a traded services part of that, it will [need] to be worked through, but that’s the separate part where there is going to be some money connected to it.”
9. New ‘local area priorities’, too
Another “objective” of the RISE teams will be that “every part of the country has a coherent set of local area priorities”.
The teams will work with local authorities, dioceses and mayoral combined authorities to draw up priorities, to be set out in the Autumn.
This will allow “local partners to work collaboratively to solve issues affecting children in their communities”.
Livings said the priorities will “relate not just to education, but also to the wider services affecting children and young people, including SEND and children’s social care”.
10. Will take until April 2026 for all schools to get ‘targeted’ support
The government has set out a timeline for its plans…
This week: Government will start advertising for advisers to join RISE teams
January, 2025: The first advisers will be appointed, as part of a “test-and-learn approach”.
They will begin by providing targeted support to “a very small number [of schools], perhaps about 30 nationally”, Stevenson said.
April, 2025: More advisors appointed, with teams to start providing the “universal support” offer
September, 2025: New inspection framework and school report cards will start.
Stevenson said these will “really help schools to identify both their strengths and areas of development, and not only for what support they might need, but also what support they might be able to give others, too”.
Local area priorities will also be communicated this term.
April, 2026: All RISE schools needing “targeted support” will have got this. An early evaluation of the scheme will also have been completed.
