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.
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