I’ve always had a huge interest in Apple. Not just the products, though I have pre-ordered and queued more than I should admit, but how the company thinks. Apple’s famous ad campaign encapsulated this: Think different.
Whenever I listened to the late Steve Jobs, I noticed a habit. He would rarely try to solve the problem in front of him. He often rejected the problem as it had been framed, then ask a different question altogether.
The questions we choose as leaders shape what we notice, what we measure, where we invest time and money, and what we are prepared to live with. Some questions keep us slowly improving what already exists. Others open the door to something new.
The iPod example
Before the iPod, digital music was messy. Many companies were simply asking how they could make better MP3 players. That invited predictable answers such as more storage, better battery life, nicer screen, a few extra buttons.
Jobs reframed it. His question was closer to; how do we make finding, buying and listening to music effortless? Once you see it that way, the solution cannot be just a device. It must be a system. iPod plus iTunes. Simple syncing. A legal way to download music. The product became the whole journey from wanting a song, to listening to it, with no faff and no barriers. It was all about the user experience.
Education has its own questions
In education, we have questions that seem almost permanent. Attendance is one of them.
We often frame it as; how do we improve attendance? There is nothing wrong with the intent, but it can pull us towards familiar actions. Tighten systems. Track harder. Escalate earlier. Refine letters. Increase penalties. Add some rewards. These are all vital tools, but alone they could narrow our focus until attendance becomes mostly a management challenge.
Now consider the reframe; how do we make schools places that children want to be at every day?
That question changes what we look for. It makes us think about pupil experience. It puts relationships, culture, classrooms and belonging at the centre. It shifts the focus from getting children in, to building a place worth coming to.
And it leads to different decisions. If our problem is attendance, we generally invest heavily in systems, processes and escalation. If our problem is desire to be there, we ask different questions. Do children feel known? Do they feel like they matter? Do lessons feel purposeful? Are routines calm and predictable? Do families feel welcomed?
Reframing becomes a decision tool. As leaders, when we plan, we are rarely choosing between something good or bad. We are choosing between sensible options. Do we grow the attendance team or strengthen coaching around classroom consistencies? Do we put more into monitoring or invest in relational practice? Do we implement a better tracking system or go deeper on transition and belonging? The question we are addressing influences which choices feel right.
Lead indicators
Attendance percentage is a lag indicator. It tells us what has already happened. The same applies to suspensions, exclusions and EHE. They matter, but they are late signals.
If we reframe around desire to attend, we can choose lead indicators that sit closer to daily experience. Do pupils say at least one adult knows them well? Do they feel they can be themselves? Do lessons feel calm? Can they ask for help? Do they feel their voice matters? Do families feel listened to?
We should not simply dismiss these as ‘fluffy’ measures. They are early signs of whether the conditions for attendance are strengthening or weakening, and they help point us to practical actions.
Plymouth example
This is exactly why, in our Plymouth Place-Based Strategy, we have co-developed a Belonging Framework and why we are excited about launching The Engagement Platform (TEP) across the whole city. TEP will help us reframe. If we are serious about asking better questions, we must listen differently. TEP will allow us to hear children’s experiences at scale. It will help us spot patterns early, before they show up in attendance data. We can respond to what children are telling us in real time, supporting true early intervention.
A small challenge to end with
Write your problem as a question, exactly as you normally say it. Ask what human experience sits behind it, then rewrite the question to reflect that. Identify a small number of lead indicators and take practical action that moves those measures in the right direction. Reframing won’t take the problem away. But it might give you a better starting point and open different choices.
Perhaps it is time that we too ‘Think different’.
- Rob Williams is Director of Education at the Ted Wragg Trust, and lead for the Plymouth Place-Based Partnership.
- Read Reframing the problem: Part two
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