One of my favourite researchED presentations was a session where Tom Sherrington worked through the process of how, as a headteacher at the time, he had used a specific piece of research to inform decisions on their school’s reading strategy. I’m a big fan of using stuff that’s already out there as a starting point. There’s no point trying to come up with something completely new when the chances are someone’s already done it, tried it out and presented it in a lovely evidence-informed bundle with a pretty graphic. Having briefly mentioned at a Research School event last week how I was supporting our SLT/MLT to used different evidence based resources to develop our school’s common principles for teaching and learning, I thought others might like to see how this worked in practice – so here we go.
The task
In my capacity as school Research Lead and trust Development Lead, I was invited to support our SLT and MLT as they developed their principles for classroom practice ahead of our February INSET. Their starting point was the autumn QA process (observations and book looks as far as I know) and they wanted to establish a set of ‘non-negotiables’. Things like the use of learning objectives and marking systems were talked about (nothing crazy or new) and the term ‘non-negotiables’ was used as a sort of place holder in lieu of a better term as there was recognition from the start that this shouldn’t be something that restricted colleagues, particularly where subjects work in different ways.
Aside from being curious to see what had come out of the QA, it was interesting to see how each of the leaders prioritised different needs – some from personal preference, others from their specific key stage needs. I’m naturally a bit of a Devil’s advocate in these situations (I swear people thing I just disagree with everything but I promise I don’t!) so I wanted to try and get them to think about whether the features they perceived as being signs of an effective classroom really were that and really dig into their rationale. Using the example of ‘learning objectives on the board’, we unpicked what it was about that that was actually supporting learning and how the same can be achieved in all lessons (including practical subjects that may not use a board all the time) with a more general principle.
The inspiration
After our Trust Improvement Partner discussed using the SEND Code of Practice and features of quality first teaching to help set out the principles I went straight to the woman who knows, Rachel Rossiter, and asked what she thought we should be looking at. Her suggestion was to take the Education Endowment Foundation guidance report ‘Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools’ and look at the recommendations around QFT in recommendation 3. Then we could look at Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction and explore how the EEF guidance and Rosenshine marry up. Once we’d done this, we could explore what this looks like in our own school with our needs, and think about our areas for improvement.
This is exactly what I needed. Having something to frame the discussion made it much easier to focus on core priorities and stopped the question being ‘Out of everything in the whole world, what are our priorities?’ and became about how we can reflect on what we do in line with an evidence base. The other thing that became apparent was that, talking through the QA notes, all the things that had been identified for improvement were already on the list of positive things that were happening. This was now a process of identifying our ‘golden threads’ and promoting these for more consistency rather than looking at the more negative things and telling people to change their practice completely.
Building on these ideas and the links to evidence, I mapped everything we’d got so far with some other documents to try and draw out common elements to form the principles. In the end I had the QA categories identified by one of our MLT, the EEF SEND guidance, Rosenshine’s Principles (handily grouped by Tom Sherrington), the collated QA comments, and, as it seemed useful to find some alignment with early career learning, and links to the teacher standards and the new NPQ frameworks, I included the areas of focus from the Early Career Framework. I put everything together in one happy table (here as a pdf) to support the final principles.
The principles
- Respect for relationships, behaviour and the environment
- Learning intentions are clear, shared and understood by pupils
- Lessons are well sequenced
- Use of appropriate scaffolding to promote independence
- Assessment and feedback are used to promote pupil progress
They aren’t designed to be anything new, just recognising our best practice and offering an opportunity to re-focus on what we do well. This should support current colleagues but also act as a clear vision for prospective and future colleagues.
The principles are intentionally broad as we felt it is important that they are achievable in all lessons. When anyone walks into one of our classrooms these principles should be enacted even though that will look differently across the school. So, for example, ‘learning intentions are clear, shared and understood by pupils’ might still be seen through the use of learning objectives, but it might be through feedback, review previous material, questioning or sharing examples. ‘Assessment and feedback are used to promote pupil progress’ might be through marking books but instead of having a fixed expectation for marking, it recognises the different ways we assess and feedback to pupils, including in lessons that don’t use exercise books.
The INSET
As part of our end-of-half-term INSET the principles and guiding rationale were introduced to colleagues. In key stage team bubbles (2,. 3 and 4) colleagues were given time to discuss the teaching and learning common principles and look at what’s working well and areas for development. We made the full documents that had informed the development process available, alongside a selection of supporting evidence, ahead of the INSET with the intention that these would be available for people to access in support of their discussions but also remain available as we embed the principles and seek to improve our practice.
I’m looking forward to seeing how each key stage captured their discussions from the day and I hope that they found it valuable to unpick their practice in line with the evidence base. From my experience of the group I was in and a brief conversation (distanced, obvs) with a colleague from another key stage, I think different groups found different levels of value in the process. Reflecting on that, I wonder if the task was perhaps too wide for some people or maybe not explained clearly. I think it’s easy to look at principles like this and feel that you’re already doing it and don’t need to improve anything, so by keeping an eye on professional autonomy there’s also a balance to find with how much guidance to give to exploring the ‘why’ something works in order to improve.
The use of evidence to frame the decision-making provided much needed clarity for leaders with different experience and views. The principles may change and be refined, particularly in light of the feedback from colleagues following the INSET day, however one of the benefits of sharing the evidence more widely is that decisions can be pinned more easily to that and not to individual leaders’ opinion – if there’s something we disagree with, it’s the research we can argue with, not the leaders.
I’m hoping that one thing the feedback gives us is a really good direction for professional development priorities for the future and we can begin to develop a common language around teaching and learning that all colleagues feel are relevant to their practice.
References
Education Endowment Foundation Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools Guidance Report – https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/tools/guidance-reports/special-educational-needs-disabilities/
High quality teaching for pupils with SEND (additional resources) – https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Publications/Send/EEF_High_Quality_Teaching_for_Pupils_with_SEND.pdf
Principles of Instruction: Research-based strategies that all teachers should know (Barak Rosenshine) – https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Rosenshine.pdf
Early Career Framework – Policy Paper – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-career-framework
Impression That I Get 