UK benchmarking

There seem to be so many people talking about school benchmarking in the USA, but not so much in the UK. I have a feeling that it would be a good idea to have some sort of meet-up to start setting the agenda in this area – in order to make sure the focus stays on collaboration, sharing, and mixed data sources, instead of competition, league-tables, and a results-only blinkered view.

I think that a decent system of benchmarking in different areas such as finance, staffing, pupil satisfaction, results, teacher satisfaction, leadership, governance, etc. would start some fantastic conversations between schools, encourage sharing of good practice, and foster a culture of reflection, review and collaboration.

Do you think this would be a good idea? Or does a forum like this already exist?

Resources I’ve found for benchmarking so far:

• Benchmarking for School Improvement (Kelly, Southampton, 2001)
• Tips for improvement planning and benchmarking (from UseTheKey)
• Book :The High-Performing School: Benchmarking the 10 Indicators of Effectiveness
• Energy and Carbon emission benchmarking from the Carbon Trust
• School financial benchmarking from TeacherNet
• DfE School spending tables

I’m also aware of some other large organisations looking in to this area. What have you heard about?