We finished for the Christmas holidays today. I have a few things to do next week as I’m leading our INSET day on literacy on the 3rd January. Nonetheless, I’ve got most of the two weeks available to spend with the family.

One of the things that was mentioned in the end of term speech from the headteacher today was the RESPECT committee. This has come from a group of staff at all levels co-ordinating a cohesive system for managing achievement and behaviour. We now have such a system, and for the first time in my career (in any school) we are somewhere close to the ratio of 4:1 (praise: sanction) and have these recorded. All the praise is communicated with parents as routine.

The system is not that important. I’m sure many schools have achievement and behaviour management processes that are very effective. What is crucial is the method of developing these systems.

I thought of this blog as I remembered the post I wrote on Open Space Technology almost a year ago. It was in a big Open Space Technology (OST) session that the RESPECT committee was launched. The model of OST, on reflection, is replicated in the manner in which the committee worked.

Each member of staff on the committee had a number of colleagues they were representing. Colleagues from the office, colleagues from the teaching staff, colleagues from SLT, from middle leaders, from Student Progress Leaders and so on were all represented. Sub-committees ensured that all staff had their say at Respect Committee meetings. Some staff (on the committee) who were previously sceptical at behaviour management that went beyond being increasingly severe with punishments were invited to go and see Bill Rogers and came back enthused. All staff on the committee read (both of) the Steer reports, and the level of debate was very high. All colleagues gave up their own time to work very hard on trying to establish a consensus on the committee.

The concluding system was launched as a trial last April, and then feedback was received by the committee. This was amended and relaunched in September. Previously sceptical colleagues were invited to deliver “Learning and Teaching” Seminars to staff, who attended on a voluntary basis. Many of Bill Rogers ideas and techniques were therefore shared across the school.

We’ve had a term. The system needs tweaking, but it’s working, and working really well. My reflection is that it wouldn’t be working at all without the process that the school went through. This is what we mean when we talk about needing staff to “buy in” – this process. To short-cut this process is sometimes necessary, but I need to remember that taking such a short cut does not result in the same result.

I also realise that great schools have great systems – that are used.

I was telling my headteacher at lunch today about a book I bought this weekend - “The Decision Book – Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking” by Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschappeler. I bought it after seeing it on Doug Belshaw’s blog (which I have referred to half a dozen times through this blog; no link here because it’s down at the moment). Anyway, the book; it’s very accessible and not trying to be too academic.

Anyway, rather than just recommend it, I said I would send out a few of the ideas whenever I read them to our SLT.

The first one reminded me of something that had me lost when I first became an Assistant Headteacher. It was about 6 years ago, in a previous school, and I was told “you must develop the ability to think strategically”. I remember that I kept thinking about chess.

The first one – that pretty much defines strategic thinking – is the Eisenhower matrix. I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never thought about it like this. First, some background (from the book): it comes from the US President Dwight Eisenhower, who said that the most important decisions are rarely the most urgent ones.

He was also a master of time management.

The Eisenhower matrix says that whatever the job that lands on your desk, begin by breaking it down according to the Eisenhower model. This is a graph and on the vertical axis is “Importance”, while on the horizontal axis is “Urgent” (if I could upload an attachment I’d show you). After placing the job, decide on how to proceed. The theory is that the bottom left of the matrix are jobs that lack importance and lack urgency – you should do these later. The bottom right are jobs that lack importance, but are urgent – you should delegate these tasks. The top right are the jobs that are urgent and important – you should do these now. Finally, the top left are the jobs that have high importance, but lack urgency. You should plan when to do these.

We often focus too strongly on the urgent and important field (the top right), ie the things we must do immediately. Ask yourself though:

When will I deal with the things that are important, but not urgent? When will I take the time to deal with important tasks before they become urgent?

This is the field for strategic long-term decisions. Planning to do the top left of the matrix.

It’s also a really start to a good answer for people who ask you what ‘being more strategic’ means, or if, like me, you had no idea what being strategic, educationally, actually meant.

Another method of organising your time better that sounds really simple and obvious comes from Warren Buffett. It comes from making a list of everything you want to get done today. Begin at the top (not at the easiest, as most people do) and do not move on to item two (a lot harder than you might think) until you have completed it. When a task is completed, cross it off.

“Better late than never, but never late is better“

In less than a week, we’re going to trial Open Space Technology at my school. This highly participative process, used all around the world, means that I can’t control what comes up. Colleagues can start, recruit to, attend, and develop plans from workshops of their own choosing. It means that the content can’t be predicted.

I’m privately quite worried that it might be an opportunity just to bash SLT, or whinge about behaviour. And I can’t control it (that this worries me is a criticism of me, rather than of my colleagues or anyone else). However, one of the things Ken Robinson points out is that though making mistakes (or I guess, risk-taking) is not essential for creativity, being willing to is. So there’s the potential for the best thing I’ve ever organised at any school.

Anyway, I’ve invited parents, governors (most are coming), all staff, and I’m going to invite students. It’s being facilitated by someone I have the utmost respect for, and hence it won’t be the organisation that causes it to fail (I don’t really think it will fail at all).

I have themed this day, and the follow up activities I hope to write about, as How do we develop and express our passion for learning? and I have deliberately not really told colleagues or anyone much about how the day will work. I hope to write more about it here in approximately a week.

My invitation says (this is the parents’ one, but they’re all similar):

“We need to evolve a new appreciation of the importance of nurturing human talent along with an understanding of how talent expresses itself differently in different people.” Sir Ken Robinson.

I am writing to invite you to an event on our Professional Development day on 31st January 2010 to explore your Learning and Passion at Rush Croft. I think there is a lot of untapped talent in and around our school. With the pressure we have to be better than our competitors and continually improve, we should start by recognising and tapping into the diversity of natural ability and this talent we have. By encouraging our whole community to think about and connect with the things they are good at and truly love to do; we will all reap the benefits.

My arriving at this question came from consideration of some of the discussions I’ve had informally with some of the most passionate practitioners I’ve ever met (many of whom work or learn at Rush Croft). I know that teachers, students and parents have great ideas about how to make things better for our students, but on many occasions these suggestions haven’t been put into action because we haven’t had an event to explore their thinking. Some of the things I’ve considered or heard colleagues, parents and students consider over the past few months are:

• How can students have the chance to recognise and pursue the things they love to do?
• How can we share our experiences to make us better? How do we show off our interests and abilities?
• What does “fulfilment” mean and how does talent express itself?
• How can every person be inspired to grow creatively in their own way?
• What conditions will make talent flourish or fade?
• How can we ensure the Rush Croft curriculum is the best in the world for our students?
• Are we preparing students for the flexibility of the 21st century well enough?
• How open are we to change?
• What other questions might we want to ask and answer in order to become the best?

I don’t believe that any one person has the answer to any of these (and hence, the answer to how we can be the best), but I do think the answers exist within our staff, governors, parents and students. I want to give us the time and space to explore issues that continually come up in discussions around school, and hence plan to make things better.

Structure:

We will use Open Space Technology for us to explore the pieces of the answers that we have within ourselves. This will take place at Rush Croft Sports College.

Open Space Technology is a highly participatory process which has been successfully employed in multiple situations all over the world. That is all I will say about it at this time.

You do not need to prepare extensively for this event. It will be facilitated by professionals with experience of Open Space Technology in other fields. Please just bring your experience and knowledge, your expertise and your willingness to participate, and most of all bring your passion for learning and for Rush Croft and our students.

In attending, the following will have occurred:

1) Every issue of concern to anybody will be raised, if they took responsibility for raising it.
2) All issues will receive full discussion, to the extent desired.
3) A full report of issues will be in the hands of the participants (if possible the same day).
4) Priorities will be set and action plans will be made.
5) And YOU will have taken part in making it happen.

The timings will be:

Time Event
8.45 What is Open Space Technology?
9.15 Session One
10.45 Session Two
12.15 Lunch
1.15 Action Planning
2.45 Reporting Back
3.20 Close (we are welcome to continue, but this will be the formal close)

Breaks will be taken whenever participants wish. Lunch will be provided.

Please join us to help us explore answers to questions, old and new, to any and all of the issues you may wish to raise or take some action on.

If you would like to attend this event, please contact Mr Lock

In preparation, and to calm my nerves, I’m going to an Open Space Technology event on Saturday. Looking forward to it!

I picked this up from Doug Belshaw’s blog, which I’ve read in various forms for a few years.

I was going to send this to all of SLT, but thought some might receive it better than others – and then couldn’t decide who to send it to. There is an important message within it, to me, on not shirking confrontation. I think this is something I’ve learned as a Senior Leader, but am still in the process of managing to do. I do think that, unlike five years ago when I became a senior leader, being “liked” is far far less important to me. And though I claim that the students have always been at the centre of whatever decisions I make, the reduced emphasis on “being liked” (particularly by colleagues) has meant that I feel like I’m performing better for them.

I think I am going to send this to SLT though –

“9) Consensus is Overrated
Twenty percent of people will be against anything. When you realize this, you avoid compromising what really should be done because you stop watering things down. If you always try to reach consensus, you are being led by the 20 percent. ”

I think this needs to apply more in my school, but I don’t want to write about why publically! It’s nothing to do with the other school leaders, but more to do with how I want to (more often) deal with one or two or the “staff-room mouthpieces”.

Our school signed up to a trial of Twitter, but then the people offering the trial have been tardy about it. So I’ve started a trial. No-one is following yet, and my experience of using Twitter is to discuss baseball and education with other people interested in baseball and education.

Hence, I’m not really sure what I’m hoping we’ll get out of Twitter. I get the feeling that the students and their parents have all got into Facebook recently, just while people my age have migrated onto Twitter. Maybe the students and parents will get into Twitter, use it to relay messages and gain information, and so on.

And maybe not. I’m just going to look to see if any other schools are on Twitter and what sort of things they tweet.

And I need to get it unblocked from the school network.

So the week before half term, which I’ve just about got through, and our OFSTED inspection! It’s a little under three years since the last one.

Well our school inspection report isn’t up on the OFSTED site yet, so it might be a little strange to write too much detail about the actual specific outcomes. Suffice to say it was very satisfactory, and the school has many many good features and some outstanding ones.

I’ve changed my mind about accountability as I’ve grown more experienced. I now do think it’s a good thing. I still can’t reconcile that with how OFSTED judge schools, nor the intense pressure that schools feel when being inspected.

This was the third inspection in my career, and by far the most stressful. It appeared to me to be more difficult for the inspectors as well. They seemed to be expected to interrogate the swathes of data that is held on the school (such as via RAISE ONLINE, or Fisher Family Trust targets, or whatever), plus interview all the senior staff, many teachers, a load of students and so on to secure judgements on all the outcomes, and they had to sift through the evidence we provided them with, PLUS they had to observe lots of lessons.

I think we were expecting something like 40-50 observations. In actual fact we barely had more than 20.

So this is what I remember about the process:

The first shock was that the phone call came on Monday. We were expecting it on a Friday, for an inspection the following Wednesday, but it arrived on the Monday. I had had a particularly tiring weekend, having driven 150 miles to my nephew’s first birthday on the Sunday (and back), and I’d run 10.56 miles on the Saturday as part of my marathon training. I had also gone out on the Saturday night with a friend from university. So at about 9.30, when the head phoned my office and said “we’re on for Wednesday” I was not only surprised, but fearful. I phoned my partner, to prepare her for the worst.

I can’t really remember Monday well. What did I do? I know that I taught a lesson, to Year 8. I think it was alright. I did a quick check to see that the students knew what National Curriculum levels they were working at, and what they should do to improve. I intended to do some marking. I met with one of our middle leaders to try to ascertain that we were clear on our story (we weren’t making it up, I mean that we were clear as in accurate) about the projection of future results, and how they were due to go. And I liaised with consultants to get them in for the Tuesday to check lesson planning. Ensuring students, staff and parents had copies of the OFSTED questionnaire to fill in.

I think a lot of the day, and much of the evening, was spent trying to organised the inspectors. Who were they going to interview? What information did they need in advance? Was the head ready for the phone call (a lengthy one with the lead inspector the next day at 9am)? Were staff clear as to what was expected (to be fair, the school has been awash with accountability measures for a while now, so they couldn’t be more aware!)? and so on and so forth. I think I left school about 9.30pm, and got a couple of hours sleep. I didn’t eat much. Actually, I had some Indian food in our SLT meeting.

The next day, Tuesday, was manic. It was the day before the inspection. I seemed to spend all day ensuring others were organised; that all the “extra” stuff that was needed. I don’t object to that; it is exactly what I expect given my role. It was just a bit weird planning my lessons at about 11pm on the Tuesday; ensuring I had all the data I needed for the meetings I was involved in (one on attainment, one on Leadership of Learning and Teaching) and the evidence to back up assertions I knew were true about my school.

I didn’t eat, nor sleep at home. I have never before experienced how stress can shed one’s appetite. Actually, that’s not quite true – I have seen it happen with a couple of friends and with one work colleague, but never to me. I probably did “sleep” but it was for single-digit numbers of minutes at a time. I left for work at 5am, and was actually waiting for the caretaker to let me in on Wednesday morning.

The inspection itself was smooth-ish. Weirdly, the students didn’t “step up” at all. I remember in our last inspection, you could have been forgiven for believing we were at Eton – the students seemed to have the attitude of “I can criticise my school, but don’t you dare be coming into my school and having a go at it” (much like an attitude one might have with a sibling). This time, they didn’t blink. I suspect this is because our school has welcomed and accessed extensive support from consultants, plus colleagues are very comfortable with people walking into lessons with no notice – moreso than in any other school I’ve worked in. So “inspectors” are increasingly nothing new to students, and I genuinely don’t feel like students behaved any differently. Of course, with the consequences of a poor inspection being so severe for a school – with it’s marketing, it’s reputation and the potential interventions to a school with “notice to improve” or “special measures”, staff were on edge, but all the staff worked as hard as anyone can have expected. No, scrap that, they worked harder than can reasonably have been expected. My interview was “hard” but I felt I was able to say what I wanted to, and I was pleased that when I couldn’t answer two of the lead inspectors questions, he asked me to go and get the answers and evidence and come back to him (which I did). I also observed a lesson with the lead inspector – our judgements agreed, though the teacher I observed I know is a much better teacher when relaxed (and when they have had sleep!!).

Wednesday night – again I didn’t sleep, though I remember I was mildly more relaxed than on the Tuesday. Actually, I think I did sleep between about 2am and 4am. I went to school with a headache. By about lunchtime, I’d had another interview, and had also muscled in on the head’s interview with a Quality Assurance member of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate – basically there to Quality Assure the inspection. I managed to have my say about how the current OFSTED framework discourages me enormously from intending to become a Head Teacher. He was very good actually. I have some respect for the way he spoke about education and I could see a level of integrity about young people and outcomes that I think my colleagues might say appears absent in some OFSTED inspectors.

When I was doing the lunch queue, knowing we could no longer affect the outcome, I felt relief. I think all staff did. I had a non-contact period the next lesson, and I don’t even remember what I did. I think I had a chat with some of my colleagues, and assisted with a student who wasn’t behaving appropriately in a Spanish lesson, but I don’t remember much else.

The judgements were pretty much spot on. The inspection team, I think, really did capture our school. I felt very pleased with the outcomes because I thought they were fair. Not generous, but not punative. Fair. I think the inspection framework – the tight criteria that the inspectors have to apply to schools – is unfair. Attainment (I mean raw attainment not contextualised for the students you take in or the area the school is situated in) is given too high a priority and leads the inspection too much. In balance, the other aspects of Every Child Matters are seen, and do contribute to the final report.

I also felt pleased because I saw the real team effort that the school put in. Though there are things we have been told by OFSTED we need to do, in fact we already know these, and we pretty much told the inspection team what they were.

I was also pleased for the head teacher, who (obviously) took the lead role in writing the school’s Self Evaluation Form. The lead inspector said it was the first evaluation form he had seen to really engage with the new OFSTED framework, and as a result the Head got a lot of praise. She works hard for the school, and deserves that! The judgements in the Self Evaluation Form were largely accurate, though we underscored ourselves in several areas.

Overall, well I’m pleased it’s over. I slept a lot on the Thursday night, and when I taught my Year 11 class on the Friday (last lesson) they told me that most staff hadn’t really planned decent lessons. This was one time not to make a big deal out of that. Because the Head was at a meeting the next day, I had the pleasure of reading the headline scores to the staff early the next day, which was nice as well.

I’m half tempted to train as an OFSTED inspector, mainly for the benefits it would give the school. But I really don’t know I could be a part of imparting the stress that an OFSTED inspection inflicts on a school.

After our OFSTED inspection was, typically, foisted upon us this week – it is literally the most stressful week of my career every time, and I’m convinced each time it’s been worse than the last, I have spent the weekend doing nothing. My marathon training is on hold until tomorrow. I haven’t touched any work. I haven’t really followed the football. I did complete my column for the Non-League Paper, but aside from that, I’ve done very little.

So today I took a trip to the Newsagent and bought some papers. I was reading the Observer, and I came across this article by Dr. Anthony Seldon.

I’m a fan of Seldon, largely since I saw him talk at a conference on teaching happiness in Belfast a while ago. I didn’t dismiss his ideas immediately because he is Tony Blair’s biographer or the Head of a private school. And I was glad I gave him a chance. Anyway, you can read more about that in the link above.

When I read the title, and there was a longer article in the Observer printed version discussing it, I thought “my word, we’ve just changed the curriculum at Key Stage 3, we’re trying to develop students’ Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills, and we’re making good progress, and now we need another change in direction?” Of course I believe in a constant debate on education – that’s why I have this blog and it’s a part of what interests me about education generally, but that’s not what I presumed that the article was going to be about.

So if you’re reading this, you’ve probably read the article by now, and if you’re like me, you’re thinking “what’s the big deal?”, because I read it and thought “there is nothing new there”. And there isn’t. It did still annoy me though.

Because it says, flippantly, that “the national curriculum has become more prescriptive”. While I accept this is true (and I fear for Australia, where it seems they are siding towards establishing a National Curriculum based on ours in the UK). It has become more prescriptive since the 1976. But that hasn’t been a uniform progression. There have been a lot of changes and developments since then. And actually, I think it’s recently become less prescriptive. And I also believe that’s as a result of a recent debate!

And seriously, league tables? Isn’t that debate lost? The teaching unions, including the Head Teachers’ union, can claim some credit for the undermining of SATs over the last few years that has led to their scrapping at Key Stage Three, but the whole accountability regime (I mean OFSTED) is predicated on attainment, and comparing a school’s attainment to National Standards. I’m not saying that’s all we’re accountable for, but it’s importance has recently been magnified (in the new OFSTED Evaluation schedule – on the OFSTED website something now I’ve been through the most recent version of OFSTED I recommend any Head or Senior Leader actually study and use to complete their SEF). Seldon seems to be saying what teachers were saying when I joined the profession. So we’ve moved largely, and wrongly towards teaching students to pass exams, but Seldon seems to be saying that’s very recent. It’s not, by any stretch.

I do think that we need to combine the ongoing developments in the curriculum – moving towards developing students’ skills for the 21st century and their over-arching understanding of concepts rather than delivering a load of content – with a refocus on what we as a society think is important. If we want to develop students’ skills, then lets stop the arbitrary measurement of schools and of individuals on a written exam. Seldon says this, but I think that in a commentary in a national newspaper he missed a key opportunity to link some of the more promising developments in our curriculum with the archaic method of measuring students’ education and schools’ effectiveness.

My friend Joe sent me an article by Malcolm Gladwell , who I believe is better known for a book called The Tipping Point, that has been on my “I will read this” list since the reflective practice project that started this blog. I read the article in a bit more detail last night and basically it suggests that you can’t tell if teachers are going to be any good until you get them in the classroom, plus there are no other measures that can really tell you if someone will be good. It compares this to trying to decide if someone will be a successful NFL quarterback.

I think that good teachers have to work hard; after that, I’m not sure what the magic is. They certainly can train to be better; sometimes a lot better. But it’s true that some people will never be good teachers, the same as some people are very quickly very good teachers.

Anyway, I was responding to the article and a response (that I don’t have permission to publish) from Joe’s Dad, who used to be a headteacher, and my response was as follows:

“I don’t know about Hanushek’s figures saying there is a year’s difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher. That seems to ignore the fact that most of what students learn is outside the classroom, and ignores the difference between ages. It also suggests that students’ “amount of learning”  (and that in itself is a problematic term) can be measured by material. Nonetheless, the point made on the second page reinforces something I really believe – that teachers get too many chances to get it right while students get too few (usually one).

I like the “x walked over to the powerpoint and while waiting for it to boot up, the classroom descended into chaos”. That’s exactly what I’d expect of a teacher unprepared for a lesson AND not able to adapt to the situation. In fact, I think not being prepared is the primary reason for any behaviour problems.

I think Gladwell oversimplifies and overcomplicates what it takes to get students learning. Oversimplifies in that it’s not just about techniques that engage students in their world (though this is one of a ‘box of tricks’ – and I don’t think being a teacher is about having a box of tricks either) and overcomplicates in that it’s not necessary to allow students to learn in their world – the reference to the student leaning in sounds like he should have been allowed to, but this doesn’t mean that any behaviour is ok as long as students are inquisitive/ learning (I’m aware this could provoke controversy – I might write a longer blog post on this because it does invite the question “Why?”). There is an element of socialisation that goes with schooling (the debate about whether there should be or not is another one) and that includes how to behave (I’m not here talking of poor behaviour) and one’s position in social settings, including in a classroom.

The reference to individualised feedback is nothing new – what they are praising, on about the fifth page, is formative assessment. This has been rebadged as an initiative called “Assessment for Learning” in the last ten years and is based on the work of Dylan Wiliam and Paul Black from Kings College London. “Assessment for Learning” is a useful term to me because it immediately invokes comparisons with “Assessment of Learning” (summative assessment) which is only useful is we use it formatively or if we want to compare students, institutions, or otherwise.

I really like the reference to stopping the chain of poor behaviour before it starts. Very usually this is about engagement of the learners, so your lesson is more interesting than anything else. How to get this is of course the holy grail (and I recognise the contradiction between this and what I referred to earlier where I said that not all behaviour is ok!)

Gladwell also shoots down a straw man regarding the IQ tests for quarterbacks – no-one believes that makes a difference any more in any sphere (do they?)

Meanwhile, one might remark that financial advisors are a poor model to look at (this was written at the end of 2008 when the global economic crisis was, relatively speaking, in its infancy) given the last eighteen months or so. I do think we as a profession recruit too easily. I mean we recruit graduates with the requisite qualifications too easily, whereas a better probationary scheme than the hoops people have to jump through at present would be far more desireable. I also think financial advisors are good at what they are employed to do in their world (it’s their being successful that partly led to the economic crisis) – aside from those expected to have a macro and long term view. Last night, while I was working on my school’s Self Evaluation Form, my partner was watching an old episode of The West Wing; somewhere towards the end of the first series, where Sam Seaborn said, in a rant to a woman he was trying to date, that teachers should be paid highly, treasured, valued and so on. I think we need to make teaching attractive again, financially, by status, and so on – but this also means that it has to not just accept anyone. We need to weed people out when they can’t make it very fast!

I also don’t think that the article says that teachers are born and not made. I think there is a balance here – there are teachers (or more usually trainee teachers) who are new in their careers who have no chance of being good teachers, and we do want rid of them. There are, of course, a great many who become good via a combination of experience and training. And there are those who seem to be ‘good’ by whatever measure very very early in their careers (usually not in the first two years, which is why “Teach First”* is such a stupid idea). But I do think poor teachers can be identified early.

What the article fails to point out is that they are usually identified by those they teach, and their lives, at least in the schools I have taught in, are horrific. They leave, and often leave early. This is a slightly flippant point, but if you’re not a good teacher, it’s often the clients that let you know and the clients that do something about it.

I wouldn’t mind us throwing open the gates to the teaching profession, but to become more selective of teachers once they have started teaching, which is what I think Gladwell is also suggesting.

I wrote this while reading it, so I might change my view on the start of what I wrote by now, but I’ve got to get on with some work. Hence it might seem a little muddled.

Last, if you said to me “what does it make to be a good teacher?” the answer is that I don’t know. But if I had to pinpoint one thing that all good teachers have, it’s a work ethic. I do not believe you can be a good teacher unless you work hard. There is no guarantee that hard work will make someone be a good teacher, but there is a guarantee that without it, they won’t be”

* I’ve worked with some very good, hard working teachers from Teach First. This is more an expression of disappointment that most of them don’t stay in teaching, when I know they are potentially going to be outstanding teachers with a few more years experience.

This won’t be a very controversial post. I haven’t met a teacher who is uncritically supportive of OFSTED in its current form. But then, in my career, I’ve never met a teacher who is uncritically supportive of OFSTED in any form since its inception. I remember everyone would blame Chris Woodhead, and I think now people just can’t understand how the school is judged and it’s just unfair.

Perhaps this is because in my career I’ve worked in schools that have served what are sometimes termed “challenging circumstances”, and it seems that the accountability framework is not “fair” to those schools. And that is the case at the moment. There appears to be an unrelenting focus on national standards, and things like Contextual Value Added are no longer given any importance, or certainly not any significant importance. So some of my colleagues are quick to point out that such schools are disadvantaged by reference to national standards.

I should point out, at this stage, that most of my colleagues, despite the impression of some of the unions, are not opposed to a framework of accountability, nor “tough questions”, but they are opposed to a regime that seems to change its mind about priorities often, and works with a significant fear factor attached.

I know that some of my colleagues, probably while I type, are engaged in activities to satisfy OFSTED (we are due an inspection any minute) rather than what they think is best for the students. I can’t ignore OFSTED, but the challenge for leadership at my school is how to marry to will to satisfy OFSTED combined with what we genuinely feel is best for the students we serve. And there is no question that this is a fine balancing act. I want to monitor and hold accountable every adult in my school, but sometimes I have to hold back, because I (and we as a leadership team) know where the issues are, where the successes are, and where we need to focus on, and yet we feel some pressure to monitor more.

It is important for us to remember that monitoring colleagues performance more doesn’t mean an improvement in performance. In fact, it can mean the opposite, and so we need to address the issues, repeat and spread the good practice, and ensure all our students are provided with the best we can deliver. It’s a bit of a “ditto” with the tracking of student progress (something very in vogue now because of the focus on standards that OFSTED brings with them); there’s no point if you don’t intervene with the information.

So this has become a bit vague and waffly, but I think what I’m saying is that we need to review our accountability regime very closely. I think I welcome the move (that I think is going to happen – everything is pointing that way) that the School Improvement Partner takes on a significant part of the role of OFSTED inspections, and I think that while school leaders face the challenge of marrying accountability with development of outstanding 21st century practice, risk taking, developing a curriculum we can be proud of in this technological and uncertain world, in short what is best for our students… while school leaders need to marry accountability for public money with what is best for our students, surely the country’s leaders could similarly marry the need for accountability for public money that is spent on inspecting (rather than intervening) with what is best for the country’s students, and have that as their priority.

For now, I’m going to make sure our paperwork (the school’s self evaluation form: over 60 pages), is up to date, and my colleagues will spend a number of hours jumping through hoops, but I’ll try to ensure they are jumping through hoops that also reflect our students’ needs.

LECT Study Trip to Australia, August 2009

Introduction/ Aims:

I have seen a large number of Australian teachers teach in the UK in several schools I have worked in. A generalised impression would be that colleagues who have trained in Australia seem to be more naturally able to plan lessons taking into account individual students learning styles. Anecdotally, being a part of colleagues planning together at Rush Croft, I have seen colleagues trained in Australia talk about the individuals in their class and the reason for certain activities.

So my interest has been piqued about how learning styles are integrated into teacher training and professional development in Australia.

Though Barbara Prashnig lectures in New Zealand, the proximity (at least in my head) of these two countries, coupled with the truism that they share a first language led me to believe that Learning Styles (Prashnig’s forte) are a focus in schools in Australia and Brisbane, and getting underneath this was a real aim.

I therefore wanted to try to uncover how leadership in schools in Brisbane encourages and embeds innovative teaching for all learners.

In addition, in the context of recent apologies to aboriginal natives in Australia from the Australian Prime Minister, I wanted to look at how this is played out on the ground, and its resonance with our own recent developments around Community Cohesion. Waltham Forest schools have embraced Community Cohesion as a concept, but talking to colleagues would suggest that this is played out in different schools in different ways. I think this is a strength, but wanted to uncover how similar initiatives are evolving under a different political, social and (to some extent) economic situation and establish what we can learn in Waltham Forest.

Finally, in my career I have found that the highest quality of professional development I have experienced has been when I have had the opportunity to have extensive conversations about pedagogy, leadership and the fabric of schooling with fellow professionals, and though we were flying to the other side of the world, I was anticipating a high degree of stimulating collaborative professional conversations and practice. In all of the above, my focus was on leadership and the impact or potential impact of leadership.

The Trip:

I will not try to outline all of the activities, but the ones that had most bearing on my practice back at home. This section will act as a part-commentary on those activities.

Upon being greeted by our hosts (the Queeensland Independent Education Union) in Brisbane, it was clear that the itinerary for the week was predominantly religious schools. In fact, seven out of the eight schools we were to visit were religious schools where a significant section of the school population (or in some cases, virtually all of the school population) were paying school fees (and in some cases very hefty school fees. Like many of my colleagues, I have only worked in state schools in the UK and the notion of “free education” is one that is established in my psyche – I cannot imagine working in a school that charges fees; I cannot imagine working in an Independent School, let alone an overtly religious one!

My first impression, therefore, was that there was unlikely to be very much that I felt I could learn from these schools. In fact, I felt very disappointed even prior to the first school visit, as my perception (as an outsider in every sense) of both religious schools and independent schools is that they are a world apart (let alone half a world away) from the experience of the students in the school I teach in.

The first school we visited, St Paul’s School in Woodridge, is a Primary school in a less affluent area of Queensland. A large proportion (though not a majority) of students are on subsidised or free places. I remember being inspired by the head teacher, who was intensely proud of both her school, and of her students. The identity project that she showed us; students taking part in a photography project related to themselves in their surroundings, was of the highest quality, and represented for me a very significant development of an understanding of the self and others.

St Paul’s is a Catholic school, and we could see overt religious symbols and instruction to pray in every classroom and at regular intervals. However it was not this that dominated the discussion. The discussion at St Paul’s was dominated by how to get the community involved in the school, and furthermore the schools efforts over the past few years, and ongoing efforts and plans, to place itself at the centre of its community in Woodridge. This was a value communicated by every member of staff we spoke to, backed (albeit modestly) financially and was integral to the schools planning processes. The head teacher could speak ably and with passion about how this value, or community, family (in a broad sense) and catholic values had turned the school into one that was achieving.

Following this visit, I was less reluctant to visit schools that were overt religious schools as I felt I had experienced a school that was ‘working’, and I could see how it reinforced our own priorities around developing ourselves at Rush Croft as a school integral to the local community.

Our discussion that evening were dominated by our collective and personal changing perception of religious schools per se. Some members of the group were not as reluctant as I was to visit denominational schools, but it is fair to say that we were not as closed towards those schools as we had been.

The following day the visit to St ThomasMore College in Sunnybank was as inspiring as the visit to St Paul’s. In many ways, STMC felt to me like the secondary equivalent of St Paul’s. The highlight of this school was the students. This seems like a drab statement that actually says nothing, but the students were as passionate and articulate as the head teacher. They believed in their school, had a genuine say in how it was, and could talk at length about the improvements. It is fair to say that all the schools we visited had a great deal more space than our schools in Waltham Forest, but it is also fair to say that this should not be used as an excuse not to be inspired by what we saw in Queensland. STMC takes student voice seriously, not because they have to (and in many ways, I have seen and even been a part of taking student voice seriously “because we’re ticking a box”) but because it is a genuine lever for school improvement.

The biggest comparison between the two schools was the presence, in everything that was said, of the school’s values. The students spoke of catholic values and of how they dictated the school’s priorities, and it was inspiring to see that these values were shared by students and staff.

I have no doubt that the “best” (for want of a better word) students were picked, but even that notwithstanding, I found the students engaging young people who were clearly prepared to leave their mark on the outside world, and that’s what I’m in education for. This introduced another theme of the week, which was that in Queensland there didn’t seem to be anything like the same level of pressure regarding exam results and testing. Indeed, there are no mandatory tests at all in Queensland (even at school leaving age) and though it may be changing (and to be fair, the colleagues we met across the state were split as to whether it was a good idea), there was no artificial standardisation across states, nor is there a national curriculum (something that is definitely changing, and something that is a shame, in my opinion).

In the afternoon of Tuesday 4^th August, we visited Lourdes Hill College in Hawthorne, a girls secondary school in an affluent area with perhaps the best views of any school in the world. Situated on the Brisbane river, this boasted some of the best facilities (and examination results) of any school in Queensland (and a price to match) including the Sailing lessons on the actual river. The recent building works were unbelievable, the plans amazing, and the whole experience a little surreal. Though I was amazed by the school, and once again the passion of the staff and the level of articulation of the students there, I found it hard to take anything different away from the school. This is not to do it a disservice though, because what I did take away was the real focus on values. I also noticed that it was the third school that mentioned the apology to the Aboriginal people, though despite my original aims I didn’t talk at length about the impact of this nor enquire what the school was actually doing at length. It was becoming clear, though, that there were several layers to the values that we were seeing. The element of Teamwork, that Lourdes Hill took very seriously, wasn’t just present in every discussion, but was present in every classroom, and there was a big competition board for teams to compare performance each week. This was very well resourced financially and students took it seriously. But additionally, there were values of Australian schools displayed in every school. Asking about this, I established that this is compulsory, but it did strike me that it was more than a display; colleagues in the schools actually believed in these values and they did dictate practice. I wondered if it is possible to – on such a macro level – establish that kind of buy-in across another whole country (and I don’t think it’s been done with Community Cohesion – yet!), and wondered if it even had been.

Anyway, Lourdes Hill illustrated the values particular to the school, particular to the Catholic schools collectively, and particular to Queensland and Australia – three different levels. Values were becoming a big part of the trip and dominated our discussions that evening. I think it’s fair to say that the majority of colleagues from Waltham Forest didn’t share the Catholic values that were being promoted, but the idea of collective values being behind everything we do in school was a very positive one.

St Peter’s Lutheran College in Indooroopilly was the most spectacular school we saw in Queensland. We literally had to be bussed about the campus – there were three major sports facilities and it felt like a well resourced university. As one would expect, it had a price tag to match, but by now I felt that there was something we could get out of every school, and in particular something we could contribute to every school. Without wishing to be disparaging, this was the one school where I did feel that there was some contributions we could make, particularly with regard to curriculum, but it felt like we were being “sold” to. We were not able to speak to any students at all, and though the facilities were impressive, and the impact of values very evident, it was not clear how the college got around it’s sheer size. It is several schools within a school, so there is a level of personalised provision, but it felt very very, well, big.

The main impact of St Peter’s on me was to start thinking about the impact that marketing can have. Having studied Economics, I’m always aware that it appears that a system with a large degree of marketing and advertising always seems to me to be particularly inefficient. But I started to think of marketing not just as us selling ourselves, but selling our students achievements; of selling them their achievements. This was something I continued to ponder later in the visit when we went to St Paul’s school (not related to the school in Woodridge).

Our visits to primary schools Our Lady of the Rosary in Kenmore and St Edward the Confessor in Daisy Hill were stimulating, but by now much of the discussion had been shaped. The impact of “values” and shared values was becoming prevalent. We had a number of conversations about what we felt our values are. I spoke about sport, and the essential characteristics of teamwork, competition, fair play and so on, and I also spoke about fun and the primacy of learning. I genuinely can’t say that I feel those values are shared either with the entire school community or with the community outside of school. I cannot claim that at my school we have done enough work on establishing core, shared values.

At Yeronga High school, the only state school we visited, we saw what I would consider a far more comprehensive intake than previously. The Deputy Head that showed us round spoke about the integration of students of Vietnamese, African and Australian descent (and other ethnicities) and the work they had done for this. I did, however, find it very difficult to get around the feeling that there were excessively low aspirations at the school. I am not a fan of this phrase – it’s associated with OFSTED in the United Kingdom, and I reject most of it’s usage, but I heard “these type of students” referred to a lot. It was also noticeable that for its mixed intake, there were no multi-racial groups of friends mixing amongst the students and the answers to questions about this were very evasive. I spoke to a colleague of mine and we agreed that in the UK we would have called it complacent, but said that this perhaps reflects the difference between multiculturalism as an established political movement in the United Kingdom, and as an emerging one in Australia. I was disappointed with the visit but encouraged by our work in the United Kingdom, and particularly in Waltham Forest.

In many ways the final visit, to St Pauls, an all through 3-19 school, could have the most written about it, but I don’t feel the need to. It is a school which charges large fees, has a significant marketing budget but not a very good recent past. The new headteacher, of approximately 2 years, had been a headteacher in a different state and was, in his words “disgusted” by the money spent on management facilities and things the students would never see. But you could see his disgust more in his actions. He didn’t just speak with passion about his plans and pride about the schools achievements, but “walked the talk” when speaking to students and with the things he had done (study/ life skills sessions for groups of students were going on that very day). He said that he had interviews for a Director of Learning and Teaching (which is co-incidentally, my role in my school) and wanted to know what he should be looking for, because he recognised his limitations. He had built a Senior Leadership Team he trusted, and delegated to appropriately but with expectation, and the students told us how the vision he had was making them proud, once again, of their school. St Pauls was a real eye-opener for leadership, and the effect of a good leader having vision, being student centred, and working very very hard.

Conclusions:

I didn’t answer the questions I set out to, but I didn’t care, because the trip was a success with what I was bringing back. The conclusions are as follows:

Primary conclusions:

1. At my school, and in Waltham Forest, we need to look deeply in our communities; the communities that we serve, at our core values. All the schools in Australia had this. They knew their core values. They were printed everywhere but they lived and breathed them, and as a result, they were values that dictated everything that happens in the school.

2. We need to do the same thing – looking at other school with fresh eyes, in our own schools in Waltham Forest. There is so much to learn that I wasn’t expecting.

Secondary conclusions:

There were other noticeable things that I think we can use at Rush Croft, in Waltham Forest, or in the UK:

House system at Lourdes Hill. The houses students are in is big, brash, publicised everywhere, and really used to develop a team ethos

Name badges: All staff had professional name badges. Not lanyards, but metal name tags and this made it easy to have conversations with those colleagues. Professional conversations. I have come to the conclusion that dress is important in schools in the UK, or rather that professional dress is important for staff, but the name badges were a small thing that I think can have a big impact.

Bags outside: Bags were not a problem in classrooms as students were expected to leave them outside the door. This meant nothing valuable was ever in them, plus they didn’t get in the way of learning

Unions: The Queensland Unions and the Education authority seemed to have a far more grown up relationship than in the UK. In particular the relationship between the unions and individual schools was mutually beneficial and something I think unions here should look at.

Exams: The exams system in the UK is flawed. Queensland is going to go the same way and shouldn’t. I’m not devoting space to this here because it won’t happen, but I wanted to mention it.

Impact:

The largest impact of the journey on me personally has been in the rewriting of the Learning and Teaching policy at Rush Croft. I have established, with my colleagues, an expectation of consistency and purpose, and more importantly, am establishing that the policy should actually lead the practice, rather than be stuck in a folder somewhere.

It will come as no surprise to anyone reading this report that the work on values is planned. I don’t know how it will happen yet but we plan to revisit our core values, and to ensure that they reflect the values held by our students, our parents, our staff and our local community. We further wish to establish that this will lead everything in our Learning and Teaching policy. This has already been the subject of a number of discussions at our Senior Leadership Team and Middle Leader Forums. A logical next step will be that all our policies, procedures, and more importantly practice come from these shared values. My understanding of the need for vision to synthesise the core values of a community of thousands of people is developed keenly, most effectively by the illustration of the leadership of the Headteacher at St Paul’s, and I saw the type of headteacher I wish to become.

Finally, the unseen (and largely unwritten about here) conversations with colleagues every evening, on the travel bus, over meals, and walking to get coffee has had a far greater impact than it’s possible to measure, and it’s only when making a contribution at a meeting, talking to the young people at my school, or working with colleagues and students that I see something that has come from my trip to Queensland. I can’t measure that, because it’s often forgotten, but it has to be mentioned, and it has already led to a very significant increase in collaboration between myself and others in Waltham Forest schools, and the intention to formalise this further