Multi-academy trust leaders are natural architects of change.
Whether their schools are dealing with the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, supporting disadvantaged families or closing gaps which have widened during the pandemic, the focus is on finding solutions.
At a time of big challenges like these, do the solutions need to be big too? Not necessarily. In fact, I believe it’s the small but winnable goals which make the greatest difference.
When it comes to driving long-term, sustainable change, the best way forward is to do a bit less – but a bit more often – instead of trying to solve everything in one go. This little-by-little approach, known as marginal gains, can be applied to many areas of school improvement.
It’s the small, purposeful steps towards change which make the biggest difference to pupil outcomes.
One item at the top of most trusts’ agendas is teacher recruitment and retention. And with teachers leaving the profession in their thousands according to the official census data on the school workforce, keeping good teachers has never been more important.
School improvement relies on the continuity of teaching, but at times of uncertainty, school staff can find the prospect of large-scale changes overwhelming. The danger is that if teachers fear their school or trust is trying to change too much too quickly, they might decide to leave.
To address this, some schools are focusing their professional development on helping teachers improve their own individual practice in smaller, more measured and attainable steps.
This might mean moving away from the traditional high stakes INSET days and replacing them with smaller, more frequent sessions where teachers can share best practice with colleagues in their school or trust.
Hearing about a teacher’s experience with their Year 5 writing project, or how a maths teacher helped a disengaged group of Year 9 students understand a new concept seems a far better way to strengthen the link between professional development content and practical classroom application.
Teachers can take on learning in manageable chunks and apply it gradually in a way that suits their pupils rather than making wholescale changes to their teaching all in one go.
There are times when there’s a more urgent need for rapid school improvement, for instance when a school in difficulties joins a MAT. In these situations, trust leaders really need their school staff to be fully on board with any changes.
One of the risks of rushing through major initiatives is that teaching staff may not feel they are part of the thinking behind the improvements. There’s also a danger staff might not even recognise the need for improvement.
That’s why it’s so important to get teachers buy-in to positive
change.
When trusts focus on marginal gains, they can support staff and help them become completely involved in their school’s improvement journey without feeling crushed by the weight of expectation to turn everything round immediately.
Small steps lead to big changes, and most importantly lasting changes. If trust leaders set realistic goals, staff are much more likely to engage with them and make them happen.
One of the key features of teacher CPD is the lesson observation which, in an ideal world, should be a positive and supportive element of any teacher’s development. However, lesson observations can put teachers under pressure to make big changes to their teaching practice.
All too often, a teacher finds themselves trying to tick all the boxes in a lesson which is being observed, in order to meet a one-size-fits-all evaluation of what a good or outstanding lesson should look like.
In trying to achieve the impossible, teachers can become stressed, and this has an impact on the pupils too. The classroom atmosphere can be uncomfortable and nobody learns anything.
However, if teachers have the opportunity to self-reflect on one aspect of a lesson, guided by a more expert colleague, they can see where they can improve their practice. That might be by assessing whether a reading task went well for a particular group of students, or by reviewing a video recording of a warm-up session to see how well it helped the children prepare.
Self-reflection activities like these help teachers see where they, as individuals, can improve their practice. By taking small steps towards positive change, teachers maintain their authentic voice and their individual style, but the improvements they make are long-lasting, not flash-in-the-pan.
People go into the teaching profession because they want to help children fulfil their potential and have the opportunity for a bright future. Because they want to succeed, teachers naturally strive to find ways to become better at their job lesson by lesson, day by day.
That’s why teachers do best when they are trusted to identify and work on those small but important improvements rather than sticking to a rigid CPD framework with a big bang approach to change.
Positive change can come from those incremental improvements which really matter on a daily basis in the classroom. What was the light-bulb moment which sparked an interest in coding for a Year 8 student? How did the new seating plan help some of the quieter students find their voice?
When teachers share these experiences, that’s when real progress happens.
Trusts and schools which adopt the marginal gains approach will achieve lasting change. And in doing so they create a culture where teachers feel valued and have the confidence to teach using their individual style and flair within a structure which supports and guides them.
It’s the small, purposeful steps towards change which make
the biggest difference to pupil outcomes.
The CST Blog welcomes perspectives from a diverse range of guest contributors. The opinions expressed in blogs are the views of the author(s), and should not be read as CST guidance or CST’s position.
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