Culture – Teach Solutions

School Leaders: Cultivate, Don’t Innovate

A post addressing the need for leaders to go out and visit other schools. To find best practice and bring it back to their setting instead of feeling the burden of finding new solutions to old problems.

Imagine you were working in the private sector, for a mobile phone company say. Let’s also say you measure success by how much money you make. If you had two options then, one where you unashamedly steal (with no adverse or legal consequences) all the best bits from Google, Samsung and iPhone and the other where you start from scratch and take a punt on something completely new and untested, which would you choose?

This question has an obvious answer but also due to copyright laws and patents etc. can only ever be hypothetical in the private sector.

Success in the private sector is driven by innovation. New ideas. Things that make you stand out. Something sparkly that will pull customers in. This thinking, this idealisation of being unique, seems to exist in the education sector. But should it? Can we apply the same thinking in the scenario above to the education sector?

The issue with innovation

However you measure success in education (whether it’s by results, pastoral, extra-curricular opportunities…), there are likely a dozen schools who are already doing this incredibly well and much better than you are. That’s no disrespect to your setting, it’s just likely given how many schools there are that, at least a handful, who are doing what you want to do, but better. They have already solved your problem.

There are no laws against copying an educational approach. Schools don’t patent their approach to teaching. Headteachers don’t erect walls around their schools away from the prying eyes of visitors. So why doesn’t this happen? Why don’t people just choose to visit those that are doing what they want to achieve already and implement the same thing in their own setting?

Inevitably, some tweaks, maybe some superficial changes, will be necessary to ensuring the way of working fits into a school’s unique setting but as long as the active ingredients remain, it should still be effective.

It’s hard not to think that ego plays a role in preventing this from happening. That leaders have the desire to devise their own way of doing something and won’t employ any strategy that’s used elsewhere but that can’t be the full answer. Many a time I’ve heard advice be directly given to schools to find innovative approaches to their problems. These schools aren’t top of their class and their problems aren’t unique. So why innovate? Why not send leaders out into the world to cultivate instead? To find the best of what’s out there and then use their skill and expertise to make the thing work in their own setting.

We work in such an open and giving sector, I’m yet to encounter a school that, given the opportunity, won’t open its doors to other teachers to help them out. So why doesn’t this happen more? Whatever the reason (my current theory is just that a private sector mindset has just seeped too far into the world of education) it is hurting the children we have all set out to serve.

The challenge of cultivation

Leaders in schools should see it as their job, and be empowered to, go out and cultivate the best of what is it out there. Their efforts should be spent personalising it to their setting, devising an adequate implementation strategy and then sustaining it. That is hard enough. They shouldn’t be expected, or encouraged, to find a novel solution to problems that people have already solved. They shouldn’t be wasting their time on innovation.

This still won’t be easy. It is hard to do the above. It is also hard to visit a place demonstrating best practice, getting the outcomes that you seek, and for one to decode what the active ingredients are. It is so easy to walk away with a superficial takeaway which is easy to implement but ultimately ineffective by itself (see the dangers of that here).

A plea

The next time you have a problem to solve in a school. Like a really big problem. How to increase attendance? How to increase results? How to decrease suspensions?… Don’t feel like you need to find a new solution. Go out and visit places, see what works, and then think about how you can take this tried and tested process and make it a success in your setting.

School leaders should be encouraged to cultivate the best of what is out there, they shouldn’t be wasting time needlessly trying to innovate. There is no shame in that and, ultimately, the children we serve will benefit.

Do You Know Where Your Holes Are?

Ever wondered why ancient buildings are so beautiful and strong that not only are they are still around today, but they can also still create such awe and wonder? “We don’t make ‘em like we used to”, hey. To find out why this is the case, we will travel back to WWII.

When planes were sent over in the war effort their damage was analysed upon their return. This was to see where reinforcement should be placed in order to better protect them from enemy fire.

Analysis of all the places planes are being shot at, like in the image on the left, would let engineers know where to add extra armour. The aim here was to ensure more planes returned home than previously. Armour was added to the red areas, since this is where the data suggested the enemy guns were hitting, and planes were sent out again. Unfortunately, it had little impact.

Enter Abraham Wald. He was a Jewish Hungarian, who, when antisemitism rose in Europe, moved to America. When the war broke out, he was at hand to aid to Allied effort. Like so many unsung heroes of WWII, he was a mathematician. He said that if we only look at the bullet holes of the planes that have survived then we are leaving out a crucial set of data, those that did not.

Whilst it would be impractical to go and find the planes that had been shot down, perhaps we could infer this information from the survivors. If we look again at the image of the plane and realise that these are the bullet patterns of the planes that have returned, it suddenly isn’t a big leap to say that the armour should go where the red dots aren’t. It is likely the planes are being shot everywhere but, since we can’t see any planes that have been shot in certain areas, this is more likely due to shots there being devastating to the plane, rather than that area being missed.

This is an example of survivorship bias – only looking at the data of those that have “survived” to inform your decisions. This is also the reason why it can appear that all ancient buildings are strong and awe-inspiring; the reality is those that weren’t have either collapsed because they weren’t sturdy or have been demolished because they weren’t impressive. There is little choice but for the ancient buildings that are around today to be strong and beautiful, they wouldn’t be here otherwise.

What does this have to do with education?

It is not uncommon to see in the public domain, people deriding the use of explicit methods of teaching. Phonics and fronted adverbials are common targets here.

An author (as all the people above are), criticising how reading is taught in schools is another example of survivorship bias. They think that, understandably, they managed to flourish without needing these methods so therefore it isn’t needed for anybody. What they are omitting from their data is the thousands of pupils (more likely than not, disadvantaged pupils) who left the education system the same year as them with little to no literacy. This explicit teaching is not for the few who survived, it is for those who otherwise wouldn’t.

“Since the introduction of the phonics screening check in 2012, the percentage of Year 1 pupils meeting the expected standard in reading has risen from 58% to 82%, with 92% of children achieving this standard by Year 2.” DfE

What about teachers? Do we carry this bias around with us and how might it present itself? If you’re teaching in a school the chances are you have a degree, for that, you probably did pretty well at school. Whatever your background, you most likely found ways to navigate the system. This can lead to assumptions about all learners. It can lead to assuming that others don’t need certain structures put in place because you survived without them. It can lead to people deriding, not explicit ways of teaching vocabulary, but explicit ways of teaching anything.

If you’ve successfully navigated school and are now a teacher, you might ask:

Why do I need to explicitly teach learners how to revise?

Why do I need to teach self-regulation?

Why do I need to use routines in my lesson?

…after all, I survived without them.

If you’ve successfully navigated being a teacher, and are now leading teacher in some way you might ask:

Why do we need these frameworks and policies?

Why do I need to show others how to explicitly teach/plan?

Why do I need to share my tips for teaching?

Why do I need to line manage people so explicitly?

…after all, I survived without them.

It’s important when systemising processes and making things more explicit that we do not take agency away from individuals and that our plan, in the long run, is for them to be successful independently of us. Our aim is to produce a cohort of staff and students who don’t just survive but thrive in the education system. To do this though, we need to look beyond the success stories, the top sets, the high fliers, and think about those that might be struggling and what extra armour needs putting in place to ensure they succeed too. After all, a bit of extra protection, if you don’t need it, does no harm.

Summary

It is important to know that in many ways, you are a survivor. This is something to be celebrated but also something to be acutely aware of. As a teacher, you likely need to give many students more explicit help then you ever received yourself. As a leader, you likely need to give many teachers more explicit help than you ever received yourself. Remember, this isn’t for those people who are going to be fine otherwise (though they are likely to benefit too), it is to ensure that no matter what, when you work or learn at a great school, you have just as much chance of succeeding as anybody else. In short, make sure you know where your holes are, or perhaps more aptly, where they aren’t.

I’m always interested in what people make of this so please feel free to comment with thoughts, questions or incomplete musings. Follow this or my Twitter account Teach_Solutions for similar content in the future. Also, check out the rest of this site, there’s some good stuff knocking about the place.

Teaching: A Lonely Team Sport?

Is education a team effort or an amalgamation of solo endeavours? Whilst it can very much feel like the latter, done right, it has to be a collaborative mission, albeit an often lonely one. This post explores ways we might be able to make teachers feel part of a team.

Is education a team effort or an amalgamation of solo endeavours? Whilst it can very much feel like the latter, done right, it can and should be a collaborative experience, albeit an often lonely one.

In this post I’m going to ramble for a bit about my past then highlight 3 areas I think schools should be united on: behaviour, curriculum, and teaching & learning. I will also highlights ways in which teachers can be more aware of what is happening in others teachers’ classrooms so they know they are part of a team and not a soloist.

My Shameful Past

When I started teaching I didn’t see it as a team effort. I thought of my lessons as existing in isolation from everyone else’s. I would try my best to get through my day, teaching how I wanted, dealing with behaviour any way I could and embedding (or not) my own routines with my class. As long as I got through my lessons, through whatever means, I felt that I was doing my job well.

My favourite technique for managing behaviour was the “last 3 game”; this was borrowed from my old science teacher and wasn’t implemented in any other classroom. The rules were that the last 3 students to speak out of turn in the classroom would receive a detention. Names would go up on the board once the “game” began and then, once the 4th person spoke, their name would be added and the 1st removed. It worked wonders for controlling behaviour but I was only thinking of the consequences of this within the walls of my classroom.

I would also teach using methods and approaches I felt were best regardless of what they had already learnt. FOIL became the grid method, BIDMAS became order of operations, SOHCAHTOA went in the bin.

Great Schools

In my defence, it’s not that I was deliberately ignoring any school-wide practices, it’s just that there weren’t many. Thankfully, this seems to be changing. The best schools aren’t built with the flexibility to cater to every teacher’s whim. They are built with the students in mind; knowing that there are some things that, if consistent, will be of huge benefit to them. They are also built with ready-made systems that don’t require new or struggling staff to think of their own ways of managing behaviour whilst being flexible enough for experienced staff to still shine.

Your Autonomy Isn’t More Important Than Their Learning

Any good school leader is trying their best to create a team. Yes, we each have our own specialisms, which team doesn’t? But without a team pulling in the same direction there is no chance of a school being as effective as it otherwise could be. If you are looking for a profession where you have complete autonomy AND make the most positive impact you can on the lives of young-people, teaching is not for you.

The teachers in a great school are part of a team. They’ve learnt the same set-plays, have the same philosophy and look out for one another. The difficulty is that teaching is so often done in isolation of any of your teammates that it can too often feel isolating and those set-plays can quickly collapse with the fear of you being the only person trying to implement them.

Some (Brief) Practicalities

Let’s explore some of the ideas that should be coordinated across a school and look at ways you can make all staff feel like they are part of a team.

Curriculum

WHAT: The models students are taught, the ways they structure essays, the mnemonics used… needs to be uniform across a subject (or across multiple subjects if possible).

WHY: Without this, students will not be building on knowledge as effectively or efficiently as they should be.

HOW: Having the HoD create a document which contains this standardised ways of working should ensure all the team know about this. Ensuring that centralised lesson resources use these processes helps with consistency too.

SHARING: Joint book looks, co-planning and lesson drop-ins are all things which can be done to help staff know they are not the only ones delivering content in this particular way.

Behaviour Routines

WHAT: Habits of attention, rewards, sanctions etc should all be standardised. Not just the systems that are used but also what a student has to do to be recognised (positively or negatively).

WHY: Students deserve consistency. Not only will it make them feel safe and secure, by not having the goal posts move every lesson will help embed the positive behaviours you want to see them exhibit.

HOW: Getting into the minutiae about this is vital. School-wide training should involve various scenarios with a chance to script and practise responses. Staff should have the chance to clarify anything that needs clarifying and work on personalising the necessary responses to their own turns of phrase and personalities.

SHARING: If certain habits (hands up for silence, clicking for approval…) are to be used with students they they should be used with staff too. This can help foster a sense of team and also act as a constant reminder to staff of what is expected of them.

Lesson Structure

WHAT: The raw parts of a lesson, the beginning, middle and end of it, can be centralised with a common language and purpose behind each stage.

WHY: By having a “default” lesson structure, CPD can be tailored, lessons can feel safe and the excitement and passion can come from the content, rather than any novelties in the lesson itself. Also, teachers are not time-rich enough to produce an incredible and bespoke lesson for every hour that they teach, ensuring that base lessons are of a high-quality is vital.

HOW: Senior leaders should agree on a lesson structure which HoDs can then personalise. This should be shared with all staff in a department alongside the necessary training needed to produce a great lesson that fits this format

SHARING: Co-planning, sharing resources and lesson drop-ins are great ways to ensure that staff know this is happening everywhere.

Summary

As well as considering what systems you want to unify as a school you should also consider how you are going to make sure staff are aware that it is happening, with fidelity, in every other classroom too. Teachers spend so long with students, it can be easy to forget they are part of a team working for each child. Without cohesion and consistency amongst that team, we are letting the child down.