How a focus on what trusts can do, and stop doing, can make all the difference for school improvement
Effective school improvement relies on a disciplined focus on what matters most.
But schools are ‘noisy’ with competing priorities and leaders are faced with the challenge to reduce this noise and make room for what will make the most difference in improving their schools. As such, there is an increasing emphasis on ‘de-implementation’: the idea that schools must do less in order to achieve more.
For de-implementation to be successful, we need to find a ‘north star’ to guide our decision-making. This paper explores why many of the most successful trusts have identified professional development as the most powerful lever for school improvement and how prioritising professional development can act as a guiding north star for de-implementation.
