Education Support Case Study A: School Improvement Only Works Through Relationships
Think About Learning has always worked closely with vulnerable schools. There is never just one reason why the school is vulnerable. A combination of factors will contribute to why the school has been judged as vulnerable, but a significant positive, without exception, is the will of the team to make improvements. This was especially true in the following case study.
How successful the support is, centres around the positive, honest relationships between the school team and the adviser. The adviser needs to become part of the team and communicate appropriate levels of empathy and understanding. This will allow the adviser to make recommendations that come from the same motivation as the school. This case study underlines the importance of building relationships when working in school improvement.
On entering the school, it was clear that an energy existed within the leadership team. The energy was tangible and centred around the desire to get provision right for the children. Understanding what motivates the team is always the most important piece of information to collect, closely followed by identifying the factors that are posing challenges. Fact-finding needs to be completed respectfully and safely. I never launch straight into data or observations before I have had the chance to build relationships with the team.
In this instance, the Head and the English Lead were my contact points so we set about sharing goals, roles and processes. The school had already begun a Raising Attainment Plan (RAP) so we were keen to echo this process for our key area: English. The TDA have published many packages to support a change process; from one of those packages, we adopted swim-lane planning. To populate the actions, we agreed that we would use a priority matrix, and to ensure we did this with the team rather than to the team we used the GOALS – ROLES – PROCESSES – RELATIONSHIPS hierarchy (Berkhard) to ensure that the whole process was built around ‘no surprises.’
Once we’d agreed how we were going to work, we were then able to begin collecting information through hard data analysis, soft data analysis (observations, book looks etc) and begin understanding the reality and targeting next steps. We successfully set up a swim-lane plan, we linked the plan to the school RAP, we prioritised actions and resourced with further teaching and learning processes, we organised all actions around a plan-do-review cycle and linked all this to the monitoring and assessment cycle.
From this point onwards, the subject leader was able to take control of the process. The hierarchy allowed us to shift responsibility from the adviser to the subject leader very quickly. The subject leader, who was already extremely capable and accountable, was empowered by the authority the process provided. They now had equal measures of accountability, capability and authority: the key components of a highly effective leader.
Progress could now happen and it would be swift as the processes were so clear. All colleagues understood the process, the timeframe and the cycle. This allowed the subject leader to communicate the improvement to all staff. ‘Buy-in’ was high. Colleagues knew the process. They knew that they would be monitored, they expected to be held to account but, crucially, had played a part in developing the criteria that would hold them to account.
As a result, the school is now a highly successful learning community. Results are good and still improving. Last academic year, the local authority recognised the impact of the support and the focused work of the leadership team. The local authority wants the school to aim for ‘outstanding’.
Most significantly, the children are flourishing, which was what drove the team from the start.
The school now share their practice with other schools, ensuring they are constantly reflecting on their practice and moving forward. The subject leader is now the Deputy Head. The impact of working safely, fairly and fully in partnership with a school is clearly visible. School improvement only works through relationships.
Education Support Case Study B: Using Coaching Features
In recent years, Think About Learning has supported colleagues with writing moderation and developing robust writing teaching sequences. This case study, outlines how the success of this type of support has centred around coaching features.
There are many ways to describe the key features of coaching. Coaching practices are always developing. To establish a context for this case study, the key features of coaching are taken from the G.R.O.W. model and the later developed RE-GROW model first published by John Whitmore in his book, Coaching for Performance (1992).
The G.R.O.W. Model is an acronym, standing for (G)oals, (R)eality, (O)ptions and (W)ill, highlighting the four key steps in the implementation of the G.R.O.W. Model. By working through these four stages, the G.R.O.W. Model raises an individual’s awareness and understanding of:
- their own aspirations;
- their current situation and beliefs;
- the possibilities and resources open to them; and
- the actions they want to take to achieve their personal and professional goals.
This study is set in a school where the leadership team wanted to follow up their findings from monitoring events and improve the teaching and learning of writing. The G.R.O.W. model was used to inspire the organisation and delivery of the subsequent support sessions.
It all began with a meeting.
Understanding the guiding principles of the school and the vision of the senior leadership team is key if the aim of the support is broad e.g. improve writing across the whole school.As an adviser, it is important to become part of the senior leadership team to a point. It is important to understand the processes that are at play and how these processes influence the teaching and learning of – in this instance – writing. There can be very minor routines such as ‘Big Write Friday’ that can have a significant impact on how a teaching sequence is delivered.
In this school, the processes were well developed but there was a desire to ensure that there was a consistent approach, that the language for learning was consistent and that the amount and quality of writing in books was consistently good. This was the G (goal). Not a personal goal particularly but a team aspiration. The meeting actually allowed the adviser to work through G.R.O.W. before the support began: the content of the meeting not only revealed the goal but shared current situations (R), allow time to share possible resources (O) and even give the adviser time to reflect and share personal goals link to the support plan (W). The meeting was over but the adviser and the leadership team had a much deeper awareness, a shared responsibility and both the adviser and the school could then be proactive.
It continued with delivery of the support: a series of planning surgeries with teachers from each phase.
Collaboration was fundamental to the success of the surgeries. The leadership team ensured that all members of each phase were released to take part in the session and there was also a member of SLT present. This made the support costly but the impact of working collaboratively would make sure it was money well spent.
The decision to include members of SLT was a significant one. Often, colleagues feel exposed when members of SLT are present – particularly if, like this school, it is a larger school. This can often have a negative impact as colleagues don’t feel free to share their weaknesses or issues and the support then struggles to maintain coaching features. In this school, the SLT presence was accepted and provided a mechanism to help develop consistency and allowed the support to build capacity: training messages remained intact; things were less likely to be forgotten; we had the necessary authority to make small decisions about how to proceed.
The planning surgeries were run using the G.R.O.W. four step process.
- GOAL: Agree the goal and share the big picture: the planning principles, the language for learning, the monitoring cycle. Share key questions: ‘How likely is it that you’ll be able to carry out agreed changes?’ ‘What needs to happen to support you in making these changes?’
- REALITY: Share current successes and challenges – sharing realities.
- OPTIONS: prioritise strategies to take forward and model a teaching sequence in context.
- WILL: return to the goal and review using the shared question stems.
It is important to note that the G.R.O.W. process wasn’t explicit in itself, just as it wasn’t explicit when meeting the leadership team, but it inspired the organisation of each session: the agreeing of goals, the questioning, the choosing of options for the teaching sequence and the review was explicit. The support used the features of the four-step process.
It concluded. Colleagues are now running and – more importantly – developing the teaching sequence further, to help improve outcomes and tackle questions arising from monitoring events. The school has continued to use the surgery approach to build capacity and, when delivering surgeries, I continue to use G.R.O.W. features to organise the sessions. The results continue to be really positive. There are good levels of ‘buy-in’ and teachers feel empowered. The G.R.O.W. features are centred around key questions. Using these carefully structured questions, promotes a deeper awareness, responsibility and encourages proactive responses. If a school wants to continue to improve, it needs a team who have all these attributes. Using coaching features to support energies the team. An energetic team are much more likely to carry out actions.