NPQML: Leading Teaching Module About this module · NPQML: Leading Teaching Module About this module “The more leaders focus their relationships, their work, and their learning

NPQML: Leading Teaching Module

About this module “The more leaders focus their relationships, their work, and their learning on the core business of teaching and learning, the greater will be their influence on student outcomes.”

---Robinson, 2011, p15

Introduction This module will provide you with the knowledge and strategies you need to give you the confidence to play an active role in the leadership of teaching and pupil progress and achievement in your school or academy. In particular, it will help you develop your understanding of the components of team leadership. This module demonstrates the range of team leadership behaviours and skills that are necessary to secure consistently outstanding teaching that results in sustainable improvement. It contains a balance of information, opportunities to reflect on your practice and activities to help you analyse the status of teaching and learning in your school.

There are three main elements, focusing on:

• the importance of teaching and securing consistency

• understanding outstanding teaching

• leading teaching and sustained improvement Many of the topics covered in this module are also examined in the module leading an effective team.

In many ways, closing achievement gaps is the pivotal issue for all leaders in schools, irrespective of the phase or size of their school or their personal status. In Ofsted’s terms, "The most important role of teaching is to promote learning so as to raise pupils’ achievement", and the most important role of leadership is to enable that teaching.

This module focuses on how to build a shared understanding of the principles that underpin effective teaching and learning, and the key leadership strategies that leaders can use to influence the quality of learning in schools. It has a strong focus on closing the gap.

The purpose of the module Through this module, participants will learn how to develop, improve and sustain high-quality teaching within a team. They will also know and understand the importance of using data and identifying strategies for closing the gaps in attainment. This module focuses on how to build a shared understanding of – and commitment to – the principles that underpin effective teaching and learning. Using research and other evidence, leaders will develop key leadership strategies to influence the quality of teaching and learning in their team. The module has a strong focus on the importance of closing attainment gaps and will enable participants to develop their vision for improving and sustaining high-quality teaching to improve pupil progress and outcomes.

What leaders will know on successful completion of the module On completion of this module, participants will have learned:

• principles, models and practice of effective teaching and learning

• how to identify outstanding teaching and learning

• leadership strategies to influence and improve the quality of teaching

• leadership and management strategies for achieving high standards of pupil behaviour

• how to analyse and use performance data

• how to achieve and maintain high-quality subject specialism within the team


What leaders will be able to do on successful completion of the module On completion of this module, participants will know how to:

• articulate their vision for ensuring all pupils achieve their potential

• use evidence to achieve the best learning outcomes for all pupils

• manage and use performance data to close gaps in attainment

• model outstanding teaching and lead by example

• monitor and evaluate classroom practice to identify strengths and areas for improvement

• provide effective feedback to team members that is focused on teaching and learning

• coach and develop colleagues to ensure continuous and sustained improvement

Who is it for? This is a module for all those leading or aspiring to lead teams within their organisation to improve teaching and learning.

This is an essential module for Level 1.

What will be covered? The module has three main elements, focusing on: • the importance of teaching and securing consistency • understanding outstanding teaching • leading teaching and sustained improvement In particular, the module content will cover: • moral purpose • principles into practice • closing the gap • strategies for closing the gap • using and analysing data • understanding effective teaching and learning • behaviour, outstanding lessons and subject specialism • leading teaching and learning

Resources to support you

Online resources

There are a range of resources available to support you through this module. These include:

• thinkpiece

• core text of the module

• activities to engage with the text and to extend and deepen your learning in and beyond the school

• opinion pieces that challenge thinking and provide another perspective

• accounts of practice that illustrate how principles are played out in real life in a range of school contexts

• case studies that to give you a point of reference to integrate and in so doing deepen your understanding of leadership


Opinion pieces

• John West-Burnham: Curriculum policy and middle leadership

• Gregg Wallace: Leading the teaching of reading

• David Jones: What is the importance of subject specialism?

• Keith Lloyd: Understanding and using data

Case studies

• Improving the quality of teaching in a secondary school

• Improving the quality of teaching in a primary school

• Closing the gap: case study of a middle leader

Thinkpiece

• The importance of teaching and securing consistency

Accounts of practice: General

• What makes a good lesson?

Accounts of practice: Primary

• Sonia Hayward: Understanding what outstanding teaching and learning look like

• Michelle Boyce: Using data in a primary school to close the gap in achievement

• Tony Walsop: Behaviour management

Accounts of practice: Secondary

• Mark Perry: Moral purpose

• Steve Hinshelwood: Understanding what outstanding teaching and learning look like

• Sarah Lockyer: Behaviour management

Accounts of practice: Secondary

• Katrina Patterson: Understanding what outstanding teaching and learning look like

• Katrina Patterson: Using data in a secondary school to close the gap in achievement

Accounts of Practice: Special schools • Jo Field: Understanding what outstanding teaching and learning look like

• Laura Wyatt: Values and moral purpose in school leadership

• Amanda Cowen: Implementing a curriculum initiative

Accounts of practice: Academy

• Nick Murray: Ensuring consistently high-quality teaching and learning


Accounts of practice: Sixth form

• Richard Middlebrook: The importance of subject knowledge

• Rebekah Grycuk: Subject specialism

References • Robinson V M J (2011), Student-centered leadership, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass © National

College for School Leadership

Opinion pieces In this module, there are four opinion pieces, focusing on:

• key implications for middle leaders of the current Ofsted framework and the new curriculum

• subject knowledge for teaching reading

• understanding and using data (in Section 3)

• subject specialism (in Section 4)

Opinion piece 1: Curriculum policy and middle leadership

This opinion piece has taken extracts from speeches made by the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove MP and Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, and used the ideas they have set out as the basis for reflecting on the implications for the role of middle leaders.

Curriculum policy and middle leadership

by John West-Burnham, Professor of Educational Leadership at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham

The quality of the curriculum and its relationship with effective teaching and learning are at the heart of the work of every middle leader, whatever their specific role might be. Since the mid-1970s, the curriculum has been a matter of political and public debate as much as professional expertise. There has never been a consensus on what a curriculum should or could include, and this is perhaps inevitable given how important the curriculum is and how many different ways there are of translating it into the daily lives of pupils and teachers. In many ways middle leaders are pivotal to this debate because they are central to ensuring that the political and social aspirations for the curriculum are turned into consistently high-quality practice in schools. This is not just about the day-to-day routines of schools for Michael Gove, but also about pupils as citizens in an open and participatory society, who:

"... needed to have learned lessons from history, studied the examples of great men from the past, developed robust reasoning skills, had a grounding in ethics, learned to appreciate the importance of art and music, architectural and natural beauty."

---Gove, 24 November 2011

He goes on to offer one perspective of the prevailing model of the curriculum and how it is assessed:

"The present system – curriculum, examination methods and teaching practices combined – is ineffective in producing skills or knowledge, breadth or depth. It drills students to write formulaic essays on causation and mechanically ‘evaluate’ miscellaneous texts for ‘reliability’. And it’s boring." ---ibid For the Secretary of State, the changes that he envisages for the curriculum are not just about shuffling subjects but something much more fundamental that echoes the tight loose approach to leadership and management (Peters and Waterman, 1982). Some aspects of the curriculum will be tightly prescribed, while others will be at the discretion of schools, as is the case for academies now.


This allows for some national consistency and some school contextualisation and has the potential to allow schools to develop a curriculum that is appropriate for their pupils, responsive to the needs of the wider community and that allows for the knowledge and expertise of teachers. "The new National Curriculum is an exercise in intellectual liberation, not an attempt to prescribe every moment of the school day. We must revive a crucial distinction between the National Curriculum and the School Curriculum. The purpose of the National Curriculum is to set out the essential knowledge that children need to advance in core subjects." ---Gove, 29 June 2011

This might be described as the non-negotiable aspect of the curriculum – ‘a relentless focus on the basics’. This is reflected in the stress on literacy and numeracy in the primary school and on the English baccalaureate as the foundation for secondary school performance. However, a significant element of the curriculum, and how it is taught, will not be subject to direct prescription:

"We then want to liberate teachers to decide on pedagogy – how those core subjects should be taught – and also to decide on what other subjects, or activities, should make up the whole-school curriculum... The National Curriculum should provide a foundation of knowledge."

---ibid

From this perspective, schools and their leaders (and middle leaders in particular) will have significant responsibility both for what is taught and how it is taught. This points to middle leaders having greater responsibility for the development of their subject and how it should be taught. This could lead to all schools enjoying autonomy very similar to that of academies in terms of the content and presentation of the curriculum.

The implications of this for middle leaders have been made very clear by Sir Michael Wilshaw, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of schools (HMCI):

"But – and I want to emphasise this – Ofsted inspectors will not arrive with a preferred teaching style or model lesson.

Lessons, of course, should be planned, but not in an overcomplicated or formulaic way. A crowded lesson plan is as bad as a crowded curriculum. We don’t want to see a wide variety of teaching strategies unless they have coherence or purpose.

If an inspector walks into a classroom and all the pupils are working on an extended task for the whole time the inspector is there, then that’s fine. If the teacher is reading a play with the class and they are all engaged, that’s fine too. Inspectors will want to see evidence that pupils are making good progress, but we’re not going to be prescriptive about lesson structure."

---Wilshaw, 16 June 2012

The potential implications for middle leaders might include:

• no official teaching style or model lesson

• clarity about what constitutes an outstanding lesson

• clear, straightforward lesson plans

• coherent teaching strategies that have an explicit purpose

• teaching strategies that secure pupil engagement

• evidence that pupils are making progress • openness to collaborative working across the school and between schools. These implications point to a very real agenda for middle leaders. There is a clear aspiration in this approach and it is underpinned by a commitment from HMCI:

"Ofsted will support the head who makes it his or her central task to lead the improvement of teaching and learning – monitoring what’s happening in the classroom and providing strong professional development to improve practice."

---ibid


This quotation in turn raises real issues for the nature of the work of middle leaders, in particular:

• an absolute focus on improving teaching and learning

• monitoring of classroom practice

• leadership of the implementation of behaviour management strategies

• CPD focused on improving practice

• initiation and support of development through collaboration and alliances Another significant implication of the approach being taken by the Secretary of State is the potential for innovation. Middle leaders will have opportunities to explore alternative approaches to both the content and delivery of the curriculum. A key area of potential development is the application of IT in teaching and assessment:

“First, technology has the potential to disseminate learning much more widely than ever before. Subjects, classes and concepts that were previously limited to a privileged few are now freely available to any child or adult with an internet connection, all over the world. Second, just as technology raises profound questions about how we learn, it also prompts us to think about how we teach. Games and interactive software can help pupils acquire complicated skills and rigorous knowledge in an engaging and enjoyable way. Adaptive software has the ability to recognise and respond to different abilities, personalising teaching for every pupil. With the expert help of a teacher, students can progress at different rates through lessons calibrated to stretch them just the right amount. Third, technology brings unprecedented opportunities for assessment. Teachers can now support pupils’ learning by assessing their progress in a much more sophisticated way, and sharing assessments with pupils and parents. Each pupil’s strengths and weaknesses can be closely monitored without stigmatising those who are struggling or embarrassing those are streaking ahead. ”

---Gove, 11 January 2012

The Secretary of State has made it clear that from now on there is an expectation that schools will focus on computer science and programming in particular. The challenge is to make the curriculum intellectually challenging and relevant to a rapidly changing world.

What emerges from this brief review is that the status quo is not an option for middle leaders. On the one hand there is the imperative to focus on getting the basics absolutely right and making teaching and learning central to every aspect of middle leadership. On the other hand, there is the potential for the greatest freedom in terms of innovation and creativity for a generation.

Activity

Now that you have read the opinion piece 'Curriculum policy and middle leadership', consider the following questions. • 01. From reading this opinion piece, what do you think are the implications for middle leaders,

and for you as a middle leader?

• 02. If middle leaders have significant responsibility for what is taught and how it is taught, what does this mean in terms of a middle leader’s subject knowledge and that of her team? What does this mean for you and your team?

• 03. The opinion piece emphasises a greater freedom in terms of innovation and creativity

while getting the basics ‘absolutely’ right. What do you think will be the key leadership challenges for a middle leader in achieving this balance? How do you think these could be addressed?

Opinion piece 2: Leading the teaching of reading Being able to read is fundamental to pupils so that they are able to access the curriculum. This has implications for teachers in the secondary school as well as teachers in primary schools. With the drive for the teaching of phonics has implications for middle leaders in leading improvements in teaching and learning in order to close the gap in achievement. The purpose of this opinion piece is to explore those implications in order to stimulate and challenge thinking.


Leading the teaching of reading

by Greg Wallace, Executive Principal, Best Start Federation, Hackney

In this opinion piece, Greg Wallace, Executive Principal of the Best Start Federation, Hackney, talks about his own journey as a teacher of reading. He looks at the importance of a systematic approach to the teaching of reading and talks about the impact that the teaching of phonics has had on the success Woodberry Down Community Primary School, the lead school in the Federation.

Being able to read is fundamental to all pupils being able to access the curriculum. This has implications for teachers in secondary schools as well as teachers in primary schools. It has particular implications for middle leaders in leading improvements in teaching and learning in order to close the gap in achievement. The following are requirements in the Teacher’s standards. A teacher must: • demonstrate an understanding of and take responsibility for promoting high standards of

literacy, articulacy and the correct use of standard English, whatever the teacher’s specialist subject

• if teaching early reading, demonstrate a clear understanding of systematic synthetic phonics This is reflected in the above opinion piece, as Greg states that as a middle leader, no matter what you are leading:

"...you have to know about the teaching of literacy – and you need to start with reading... you need to know what the best practice is in teaching reading."

Case study: Improving the quality of teaching in a secondary school

Overview There are three case studies in this module:

• improving the quality of teaching in a large community primary school

• improving the quality of teaching in a secondary school that converted to an academy in 2009

• closing the gap in a large inner-city primary school This case study focuses on an academy – it converted in 2009. The academy’s performance is significantly above average for students’ attainment and progress. Its latest Ofsted report paid credit to: “… the outstanding work of its leaders in achieving excellent outcomes for students through consistency in best practice.”

This case study demonstrates the role of a middle leader in improving the quality of teaching.

Improving the quality of teaching in a secondary school

Background This case study focuses on a large academy. The academy’s student population is largely White British with a small number from minority ethnic backgrounds. The proportion of students with special needs is below average. The school converted to an academy in 2009. The academy’s performance is significantly above average for student attainment and progress.


The academy’s most recent Ofsted report paid credit to:

"... the outstanding work of its leaders in... achieving excellent outcomes for students through consistency in best practice."

This case study demonstrates:

• the role of a middle leader in improving the quality of teaching

• strategies used to significantly increase the success rate for students taking the GCSE

English examination

• processes and procedures to support this move and how these were managed to ensure high levels of consistency in the nature and quality of teaching offered to students in English at Key Stage (KS) 4

• methods of supporting teachers to deliver high-quality teaching

• strategies to monitor the quality of teaching

• challenges faced in improving the quality of teaching

• key leadership qualities and behaviours that are central to this role and purpose Robert was appointed to the school as a newly qualified teacher (NQT) and was promoted to ‘fourth’ and thereafter acting ‘third’ in the department hierarchy, being appointed head of the English department in 2001. He was subsequently appointed associate assistant principal in the academy. He stepped down from this position because he felt it was compromising his ability to lead the English department.

Robert is also a specialist leader of education (SLE) and commented in his application:

"I have deliberately chosen to remain in subject leadership, rather than moving to a whole-school senior leadership role, because I have a clear vision of how my department could progress further and have a strong feeling that despite our outstanding results there is still more we can do to improve."

The principal of the academy, Peter, added his own thoughts:

"I spent a lot of time asking him to consider senior leadership positions but Robert, not through lack of ambition but through love of the subject, was happy being head of English."

Analysis of need Robert commented that when he started as head of English in 2001, the GCSE results of the department were 58 per cent of students achieving grades A*–C in English. In the first few years under his leadership, the department made progress but in 2005 the results plateaued at around 70 per cent of students achieving grades A*–C (Exhibit 1) Robert commented:

"Whatever we were doing had stopped working."

He added that with exactly the same teachers, the department had dropped a few percentage points. Exhibit 1: GCSE English Results, 2001 to 2007

Year %A*-C

Robert Appointed

2001 58

2002 62

2003 56

2004 65

2005 72

2006 67

2007 73

Start of strategy (change of exam board)


Robert came to the conclusion that the way forward was to change examination boards as he felt that the department had gone as far as it could with its current board. He was fortunate in that the local authority adviser had extensive experience of a different examination board and Robert could use his expertise to gain an in-depth understanding of the requirements of the new board.

"Having changed examination boards, Robert initiated an intensive work scrutiny to analyse student performance in English, appreciating that performance in examinations had a significant impact on their ability to progress to further and higher education and to secure employment."

Robert commented:

"We were teaching the students well in general terms but we didn’t have the insight into exactly what the exam wanted the students to do."

A particular focus of the English department, therefore, was to use student performance data to drive improvements in teaching and secure consistency in approach as well as satisfying the requirements of the examination board.

To further this aim, Robert requested details from the examination board on its exact requirements for higher grades. In this context he asked for specific help from the exam board. He also undertook a detailed and intensive analysis of student performance by requesting marked scripts from the board and, combining this with the intelligence that he gained from the Principal Examiner, isolated the requirements of a high grade answer. This research also aimed to isolate student misapprehensions which resulted in them getting lower marks.

An example of a script received from the board is shown in Exhibit 2 (see the full version of this case study at the link below).

It became clear from the marked scripts and the examiners’ mark schemes that students’ writing exhibited a range of common errors and writing that was judged ‘unsophisticated’ or ‘not lively’. Students’ work was also viewed as poorly structured with inadequately developed paragraphs.

Taking his analysis further, Robert initiated a written accuracy audit based on the five most common errors in students’ writing (Exhibit 3). This audit was issued to all students from Year 7 to Year 10. There was, he felt, a pressing need to identify these ‘first five’ errors, particularly as some were ingrained in students’ written and spoken grammar.

Students were asked to circle the correct answer in the written accuracy audit shown in Exhibit 4.

Exhibit 3: Five most common errors (the ‘first five’)

1 was/were

2 your/you’re

3 there/their/they’re

4 been/being

5 possessive apostrophe and its/it’s

Exhibit 4: Written accuracy audit covering the ‘first five’

Everyone (was/were) clapping. There (was/were) people everywhere. What (was/were) going on? (Was/Were) there something attracting attention down on the beach? (Was/Were) people running for a reason? There (was/were) noise coming from further down the promenade and people (was/were) gathering around a man who seemed to be attracting more people by the minute. As I got closer, I could see that all the fuss (was/were) for a magician who (was/were) performing the most amazing magic tricks. The crowd (was/were) amazed at the magician’s skill.


(Your/You’re) never going to make it to school on time if (your/you’re) alarm clock doesn’t go off. If (your/you’re) the sort of person who wants to do well at school, (your/you’re) going to have to put a lot of effort into (your/you’re) work. This means organising (your/you’re) homework and making sure you get (your/you’re) coursework in on time. (Your/You’re) work reflects how much effort (your/you’re)putting in and (your/you’re) sure to do well if you try hard.

(There/Their/They’re) was always one excuse or another in (there/their/they’re) planner. (There/Their/They’re) was the classic one about the dog eating (there/their/they’re) work, the one about (there/their/they’re) computer breaking and the one about (there/their/they’re) printer running out of ink. Students are all the same! (There/Their/They’re) useless at coming up with excuses. (There/Their/They’re) not able to come up with good reasons for not completing (there/their/they’re) work, which means (there/their/they’re) often in trouble.

It had (been/being) a great trip. I had (been/being) on holiday and just got home to England. Very few of my friends had (been/being) outside the UK before and they all wanted to know what it was like (been/being) part of a different culture. I had only (been/being) back for two minutes and already I had (been/being) asked the same question ten times: What was it like (been/being) away? I had told everyone about my experiences but the truth of the matter was that it was great (been/being) home. I liked (been/being) away, but I really missed my family and friends. (Been/Being) home was marvellous.

I didn’t know what to do. I had borrowed my (sisters/sister’s/sisters’) phone and had somehow managed to lose it. My (parents/parent’s/parents’) were going to kill me. My (dads/dad’s/dads’) view was that if anyone in my family lost anything, they would have to replace it and my (mums/mum’s/mums’) views were even more strict. I was sure to get into (loads/load’s/loads’) of trouble. I asked one of my (sisters/sister’s/sisters’) friends what I should do. She said I should tell my sister straight away but I didn’t dare. I had two older (brothers/brother’s/brothers’) so I asked them too. They both said that I should see if I could buy her a new one. My two (brothers/brother’s/brothers’) opinions were important to me and I (always/always’s/always’) did my best to act on what they said. I decided that I would tell my sister the truth and went (downstairs/downstair’s/downstairs’) to confess.

The academy’s success in focusing teachers’ efforts were achieved collaboratively by a sharing of teaching methods and common resources which were then discussed and a common approach agreed by the department.

These key errors as indicated in Exhibit 5, show the results of the audit. Later, the campaign proved so successful that significant numbers of students achieved a greater understanding of the correct usage of the first five. This enabled the academy to fix a benchmark and set targets for further improvement.

The process was scrutiny (exhibit 2), strategy (exhibit 5) audit (exhibit 4) delivery audit (exhibit 4) measurement of success (exhibit 6).

Exhibit 5: Written accuracy campaign policy document

Rationale

Now the significant gains in reading at GCSE level have largely been achieved, a strategy for raising attainment even further is needed. Work scrutiny has revealed that many students make the same high-frequency errors year on year and addressing this must be a high priority.

The scope of this campaign has been defined by the principle of selecting a limited range of well-defined literacy issues so we can ensure that all students make progress.

Key message

Everyone must be able to use the selected features of language accurately and reliably. It is not acceptable to make the same basic errors year after year.

Scope

The priority will be the “First Five” and these will be tackled in English lessons in Years 7 to 13.


Half-term Focus

Autumn 1 was/were

Autumn 2 your/you’re

Spring 1 there/their/they’re

Spring 2 been/being

Summer 1 possessive apostrophe and its/it’s

Summer 2 consolidation

Strategies: English lessons

First full week of each half term: starter activity every lesson based on that half term’s focus. The first lesson covers choosing and applying the right rules, flashcard quiz and all lessons have a 10-point test paragraph.

In the following weeks, one lesson a week has a starter activity based on the half term’s focus including a 10-point test.

Literacy mentors: Students who convince us that their understanding and application of the rules are sound will be appointed as Literacy Mentors. Those for whom this is true of all five focuses will be given the status of “First Five Mentors” and could be awarded a quality enamel lapel badge (eg with a “FF” motif) to wear on their blazers. Literacy Mentors could be involved in any of the following classroom strategies:

pair up with another Literacy Mentor to present a starter activity to the class on the half term’s focus

pair up with a student struggling to succeed to present a starter activity

use a seating plan that pairs Literacy Mentors with struggling students

Literacy Mentors to run 8am tutorial sessions supervised by a member of staff

Literacy Mentors could be called upon in lessons in other subjects to ensure students always have access to support

Recording

English department staff to have a dedicated First Five page in mark books

End of first week test and subsequent test results to be recorded

Students who reliably and consistently use each focus accurately in their own writing to be indicated

Information can be fed into the academy’s ‘four l’s’ tracking and intervention model for further intervention if necessary

Marking Policy

All English staff to identify all First Five errors in all marked work (circling in red or using a highlighter pen) with the letters “FF” in the margin

This would be done on an incremental basis, so during the first half term, only ‘was/were’ errors would be identified; during the second, ‘was/were’ and ‘your/you’re’, and so on

Ideally, this policy would extend to all departments Testing and Evaluation Testing in year 7 to Year 11 to be conducted in English lessons; Year 12 and Year 13 in Guidance.


Poster Campaign Poster campaign across whole site conveying the following:

It is not acceptable to make the same errors in writing year after year

Rule posters in corridors

Inaccurate writing conveys negative impressions (for example in exams, employment situations)

September Audit test of all First Five errors: results to be held centrally by English department. Letter to parents explaining the rationale behind the written accuracy campaign, giving students’ results and enclosing support materials for them to use with their child at home

July Audit test of all First Five errors and feedback from English staff identifying students who do/do not use correct First Five features reliably in their own writing

Exhibit 6: Results of the written accuracy campaign on the first five Written accuracy campaign: first five audit analysis Coverage

Notional number of students in years 7-10

Number completing both September and July audits

Percentage of students completing September and July audits

1,440 939 65.2%

Performance Only the 939 students who completed the audit tests in September and July are counted.

Indicator September July Change

Number of students achieving full marks (50)

29 (3.1%) 98 (10.4%) +69 (7.3 percentage point increase)

Number of students achieving 47+ marks

173 (18.4%) 314 (33.4%) +141 (15 percentage point increase)

Number of students showing improvement 629 (67.0%)

Number of students showing decline in performance 179 (19.1%)

Targets for first five 2011–12 • 100% coverage of audit test in Year 7 in both September and July • 20% with full marks • 50% with 47+ • 80% showing improvement

Towards a strategy document

Robert wanted to include the key principles of his approach in a strategy document which would embody a systematic attempt to eradicate these five errors from students’ writing in Year 7 to Year


10. The importance of the initiative was reinforced in a letter to parents on the significance of the campaign. Their child’s results from the audit were sent home together with support materials that parents could use to help their child at home. The teaching writing policy document (Exhibit 6) set out the strategy for all teachers in the department. The policy: aiming for consistency The English department consists of 20 teachers, 16 of whom are full-time English specialists. Some classes, therefore, are being taught by non-specialists or by two teachers. The policy document was designed to address this situation by aiming for a high level of consistency across all English classes.

The policy states that all English teachers will address the first five simultaneously at specific times of the year. Starter activities were specified for the first full week of each half-term, based on that half-term’s focus. The teaching strategy then went on to specify that the first lesson was to cover the application of the right rules, reinforced by a quiz and a 10-point test paragraph.

Robert was able to check that this activity was taking place as English department staff were asked to have a dedicated first five page in their mark books which would contain the results of the first five test. Additionally, Robert was able to examine students’ work to verify that the key errors were being identified by staff, who were putting ‘FF’ against the errors.

Benefits of the strategy

When asked to isolate the key features in his strategy, Robert highlighted the following:

• Audit testing showed the progress of the initiative and led to the setting of subsequent targets.

• Addressing the errors was systematic, supported by clear policies and conducted by every teacher in the English department.

• All students were getting the same messages about the five errors that were not acceptable. After a correct form had been taught and it was still in evidence in a student’s work, the error was highlighted with the message that to continue producing the error was not acceptable.

• All five errors were addressed at a specific time across all year groups.

• Students’ understanding of writing accuracy was tested once a week.

• Teachers’ mark books were sampled to see that they were setting and marking tests on the first five errors.

• Support materials, sample lessons and teaching materials were available on the academy’s network to ensure a completely consistent approach.

• Presentations as testing vehicles for teachers were available where students had to select the right answer. These were peer marked and followed by a test at the start of the next lesson.

• Each error was systematically revisited. • There was constant repetition for weaker students. • The department’s marking policy document made it crystal clear that production of the errors

being addressed would not be accepted. • There were agreed and standard ways of getting things right, for example, in teaching the

correct use of was/were. • Students received the same messages from all teachers of English.

Further measures to ensure consistency Having laid the foundation of his strategy, Robert outlined the support activities to ensure that teachers could enable the students to achieve their anticipated grades. A strategy that the academy highlighted as being particularly effective is what it calls ‘100 per cent time’. This intervention strategy is aimed at teachers and is designed so that teachers understood in detail what is required of them to ensure that 100 per cent of students are awarded GCSEs at grades A*–C. The intervention works in two ways: teachers could ask for a 100 per cent adviser to go into their lessons to discuss a teaching issue with them, or the adviser could go into classes to model a successful teaching strategy. Prior to 100 per cent time, the department operated informal teaching support coupled with lesson observation, but this was producing a strain on those who were asked, informally, for support.


Changing to 100 per cent time, the department is intentionally over-staffed to the extent that four post holders in the department are freed so that they are available to go in and support teachers when Year 10 and 11 English is being taught. The principal of the academy underlined the emphasis of 100 per cent time:

"In 100 per cent time, it’s about going into lessons and demonstrating and observing. It’s about ensuring that every member of staff understands what it is that children have to do to succeed."

The kind of support offered in 100 per cent time includes the 100 per cent adviser taking part of the lesson or in co-planning learning. Critical also to the success of this initiative is the feedback provided for teachers and the professional dialogue that is stimulated about teaching and its impact. This is particularly valuable, Robert feels, in modelling lessons for NQTs.

Robert is quick to point out that colleagues can request an adviser to model any aspect of teaching where they feel they need support. For example, one teacher asked for support on ways to teach persuasive writing.

The 100 per cent adviser with comprehensive student performance data, can also help with specific students. This could consist of clarifying advice for the teacher or in reinforcing the teacher’s messages to the class. Robert was quick to point out that this was not the same as student intervention or student withdrawal as the support was aimed firmly at supporting effective teaching and was directed at the teacher rather than students.

The 100 per cent advisers were selected because of their in-depth knowledge and proven track record of the English examination and what it requires for success. They are also aware of the common misapprehensions and mistakes that students make and are able to assist their colleagues in identifying and remedying these. Monitoring of the work of the 100 per cent advisers was ‘light touch’ as the advisers would discuss and negotiate with Robert their assignments for the week. This would include a discussion on the pressure points that would need to be addressed as a result of the intelligence gained from the advisers’ support activities.

As an indication of the nature of support offered and a measure of its effectiveness, Lucy, an NQT in the department, commented:

"My 100 per cent adviser comes into my lessons and for example I will take an examination question and send it in advance to her so she can look over it. I’ll teach a bit of the question and she’ll chip in with her top tips and what she does with her classes. 100 per cent time has been one of the biggest things that’s helped me this year. It’s where experienced teachers come in to share their expertise." Louise, a more experienced teacher in the department and a 100 per cent adviser herself, commented on the significant shift in culture that this represents. Implementing this initiative was not a substantial barrier but one, nevertheless, with which staff had to come to terms: "At first people were a little surprised when I was observing a lesson as a 100 per cent adviser and I chipped in. They didn’t quite get it that this was us [100 per cent advisers] being a team and I wasn’t judging them. It’s created an ethos where people are not precious that it’s their lesson and that any comments are not designed to undermine them." The major challenge of 100 per cent time is largely the high cost. Robert commented:

"We know that one period on our timetable costs £2,000 [per annum] so for me to have four hours’ support costs £8,000. If you add the time for all the department leaders, it equates to the cost of a teacher."

Peter added that even though 100 per cent time represented a significant cost its value had been clearly demonstrated.

Developing further awareness The department built on this core philosophy by having complementary methods to share and improve practice. Every Tuesday the academy holds a dedicated training slot called ‘learning and performance time’ which is devoted to either whole-academy developmental issues or department-led training. This training time was used by the department to reinforce the messages being conveyed by the 100 per cent advisers.


Robert also felt it to be a priority both to use English departmental meetings as an opportunity to share good practice and to release teachers to attend examination board in-service training (Inset). Using the expertise of exam personnel and local authority advisers, Robert commented that the Inset material provided by the examination board was excellent and that its demands on students were now crystal clear to the department. Robert further supported teachers in delivering the required lessons by making available to them an extensive collection of past examination papers with their associated mark schemes. He also collated sample answers for the past nine years so that teachers could become totally familiar with what is required of students and to develop their examination performance.

Statistical approach for teachers Robert’s strategy, so far, had focused on content and developing and supporting teaching approaches. His total strategy, however, encompasses sophisticated tracking and predictive systems to highlight students who need support and also to indicate the areas of the curriculum where this support is required. This level of tracking is also applied to teachers and their performance with their groups. Robert applies a statistical approach in allocating staff to groups. He explained: “I have a system whereby I look at the actual versus target residual and calculate the numbers of standard deviations from the mean for the whole cohort and based on that each member of staff gets a letter grade for those results. So that if you get an AA you are more than 1.5 standard deviations above the mean. And so I can pull up every member of staff’s record and see how successful they’ve been at delivering on or above the mean of the cohort. By cross-referencing the performance of the department as a whole against national standard [statistics] like Fischer Family Trust you can actually start to make national judgements. I share that [performance] with members of staff at the start of each year and obviously that can lead to some interesting conversations. Some members of staff will have As, Bs and Cs and those are the ones who will take the really crucial classes [where focused teaching is aimed at specific grade improvements like the C/D borderline.]”

Robert explained that his grading system for teachers was based on a given number of standard deviations from the mean:

• AA is considerably above average. AA = >1.5, A = +1 to 1.5.

• B is above average. B = + 0.5 to + 1.

• C is half a standard deviation below either side of the departmental mean. C = -0.5 to +0.5.

• D below average. D = -1 to -0.5, E = -1.5 to -1, EE < -1.5. Lucy verified that this process was informative rather than threatening:

"He gives you an A, B or C. It’s a nice way to look at how you’re performing that year against everybody else in the department... and you can do that because we are a high-performing department. He will never go public and tell anyone else what your grade was. That helps with any difficult conversation because it’s confidential."

Statistical approach for students The academy had established the practice of a three-year KS4 where all students take GCSE examinations at the end of Year 10.

Robert explained:

"I developed the model of the two-year plus one-year Key Stage 4, which allows the department to focus strongly on raising the attainment of students who do not make the required progress in the early part of the key stage."

Robert also commented on the advantages of entering Year 10 students for GCSE exams.


He made the point that early entry was not about finishing a course early but formed a valuable progress check. This was a means of securing either a unit result or qualification before other issues might intervene, such as disaffection or poor attendance which could affect the opportunity of a good result at the end of Year 11.

He added that students who made excellent progress (for example four levels of progress or more) by the end of Year 11 had the choice of continuing English to achieve an even higher grade, studying another subject such as English literature, or both.

More importantly, he added, a student who had already secured an A*–C pass in English but not in maths could use released English time to attend extra maths lessons (and vice versa). He emphasised that an A* –C pass in both subjects was the most important aim for students in terms of their life chances.

This policy, he explained, allowed a clear focus of resources in terms of the most appropriate staff and allocation of curriculum time for those students who had not yet performed to a satisfactory level.

The current format of the examination assisted the policy. In the current modular rules, for example, students had completed controlled assessment and the examination units so their final grade can be calculated internally by the end of Year 10, and this means the department knows the minimum grade they can achieve. To support progress in achieving examination grades and to focus on students who do not make the required progress, Robert established the academy’s ‘four Is’ tracking and intervention system:

Four Is tracking and intervention system • Information-gathering: we know the marks achieved by all students as soon as work is

marked. • Identify students: data management methods are used to select students for intervention. • Intervention: a range of strategies is used inside the classroom and out. • Impact: results are 84 per cent A*-C in 2010 against FFT type D target of 75 per cent. FFT D refers to Fischer Family Trust type D (the most exacting) data, as explained below. It should be noted that the academy aimed to exceed the achievements detailed in the top band of FFT data: • Type A – the same progress as similar pupils nationally (‘similar pupils’ here refers to pupils

with the same prior attainment, gender and month of birth) • Type B – the same progress as similar pupils in similar schools nationally (‘similar schools’

here refers to schools with similar levels of prior attainment and economic deprivation)

• Type C – the progress required for the local authority to meet its target

• Type D – the same progress as similar pupils in the top quartile of similar schools Robert commented that his tracking system allowed:

"... increasingly personalised progression routes through the English curriculum, where students develop English skills in different groupings at different times and for varying periods of time, matched to their needs."

It is made very clear to students how many marks they need for their targeted grades and what needs to be done to arrive at their targeted level of achievement.

Robert gave a presentation to English teachers of his on-track monitoring system which is spreadsheet based and is centred on the controlled assessment data that staff enter on the spreadsheet (see Exhibit 7 in the full version of this case study at the link below).

Based on each student’s average mark in these controlled assessments, a predicted level of performance is calculated (see Exhibit 8 in the full version of this case study). This is based on an average of marks already achieved. This data is used to give an indication of current students that if they continue in the same way will miss their target grade. This becomes a flag for teachers to focus their interventions and take action with these specified students.


The department’s prediction spreadsheets can also produce an anticipated mark which is converted into an examination grade. If sorted on this value, the spreadsheet (see Exhibit 9 in the full version of this case study) can identify both students on the C/D grade borderline, and those below this threshold for whom intervention and support are required.

The value of these performance spreadsheets was summarised as follows:

• The collation of results allowed Robert to record the progress of each set during the year and note improvements and to highlight which members of staff are having the most impact.

• Isolating students where particular support is needed and small-scale one-to-one tuition can improve understanding.

Use of data to increase student motivation In addition to collating data to inform intervention, Robert also collects information on students’ effort in class (see Exhibit 10 in the full version of this case study).

The departmental procedure is for every teacher to display this spreadsheet data on the class whiteboard so that students can appreciate their level of effort. This applies to Y11 only and key groups.

Robert explained the grading system which is a whole academy system:

• A high-achieving student would be graded E1 (E1 = excellent effort).

• A hard-working student would get an E2 (E2 = very good effort).

• A wake-up call is indicated by an E3 (E3 = doing the work but no special effort, E4 = not enough effort – the ‘wake up call’).

He commented on the practice of displaying this information to students: “So the students having this in front of them [it] made them see that if they don’t wake up [they are] not going to get their grade and their behaviour is having an effect on their grade. This use of the data to motivate students has worked really well.” Mention has already been made of the six-weekly reporting windows and the time given to teachers to improve student performance. This system is part of the academy’s overall monitoring and reporting system. Every half-term, parents receive a report about their child that covers: • level of effort

• attainment data

• homework or coursework completion information

• attendance data

• update on evidence of learning skills and targets The regular feedback system applies to students as well as parents. Lucy, the NQT in the department, noted that she was experiencing difficulties with her Year 11 class which she regarded as being “quite apathetic”.

In addition to support from her 100 per cent adviser, Robert makes it a priority to make himself available to staff to discuss issues of student engagement and performance. Lucy had gone to see him about her concerns with her Year 11 group:

"I went to see him and talked about the problems about getting them engaged. He gave me a checklist and asked me some key questions like: have you been marking their books at the end of every lesson? Have you been giving them effort grades? He went through this list of things and these tips which were like how to engage a Year 11 class. I found that marking their books at the end of every single lesson and giving them effort grades made a real difference."


What the strategy looks like in the classroom Robert insists on basic errors in writing being addressed at predetermined times with all year groups. This approach extends to detailed guidance (Exhibit 11) on how to deliver a standardised core approach that the academy requires from its English teachers in teaching writing. Mnemonics and maxims conceptualise the key points for students.

This level of detail captures the department’s approach of providing specific guidance on how to respond to a particular type of examination question.

Robert noted:

"We know the exam papers, we know what the pitfalls are and we can use those strategies to help students and staff deal with that."

Louise, a more experienced teacher in the department, commented on the value of this consistent and standardised approach:

"For me it’s been the clarity and the message that I’m giving the students and knowing what it is that they need to know."

Lucy added her own views on the standardised approach exemplified in Exhibit 11:

"Standardising the ways we teach has really helped me in the classroom because otherwise you’re just floundering whereas if you know where you are and you have the tools to get there [it improves your teaching]. It also helps my credibility as a teacher because everyone in the department is using the same terms." Exhibit 11: Extract from the department’s teaching writing policy Rationale

As the teaching of individual students has increasingly become the responsibility of many different English teachers, especially during the three-year Key Stage 4, the need for a standardised core approach to teaching writing has become more pressing.

Skills and approaches: GCSE Unit 2 text types Planning

PACS: Purpose, Audience, Content, Style

Students should:

• analyse purpose and audience of the writing task set

• be supported in being increasingly confident with describing the appropriate style for the context, eg the register(s) (formal, modified formal, colloquial), the tone (eg humorous, conversational, impersonal)

• consider content as the next step Four ideas and a spare equals four developed paragraphs

The idea of four main paragraphs is that it matches the time and length requirements of WJEC GCSE English Unit 2.

Students should be encouraged to:

• plan ideas for their paragraphs using a spider diagram

• decide upon a suitable order for the paragraphs then number each one on the diagram


Planning into writing

Students should be encouraged to develop skills in writing arresting or clear functional openings of a variety of texts:

• an opening paragraph

• four developed paragraphs

• an ending paragraph Support students in seeing with absolute clarity how the plan gives a clearly signposted structure to the text as a whole:

• Each idea on your plan becomes the first (topic) sentence of each paragraph.

Ways in which paragraphs may be developed (using standardised terminology):

• Write your topic sentence, then another sentence, then another and another. Students should be explicitly taught these ways in which the initial idea may be developed or supported, understanding which strategies are appropriate for different text types: • facts

• anecdotes

• opinions

• statistics

• suggestions for future action

• imaginary scenarios

• quotations

Using a linking phrase

This aspect of writing was given high priority by the National Literacy Strategy. It is important, but it is definitely not as important as the skills involved in generating ideas and structuring and developing sustained texts. Students should be encouraged to develop a range of linking strategies between paragraphs, but caution must be exercised over appropriateness: “furthermore” and “moreover” may be suitable for formal debates, A level Literature essays or ever-so-slightly-pompous letters to broadsheet newspapers, but they are not appropriate for wider usage.

Lucy commented on the extent of standardisation that was used in the department:

"We had a big standardisation [meeting] on how we teach writing across every lesson so that the students hear the same thing from every English teacher that they have. So we have standardised phrases that we use [in our teaching] like the arm’s-length test [seeing from a distance the size of paragraphs in writing]. So if you look at a pupil’s work ‘at arm’s length’ that [shows you] that they’ve got similar lengths of paragraphs then it’s already looking good, (ie each idea is well developed)."

In terms of shared and readily available resources, teachers have access to:

• schemes of work to support the published plan for the year

• the above linked to banks of lesson plans and comments

• past exam papers and mark schemes

• students’ marked work

Monitoring the quality of classroom teaching Robert highlighted that the 100 per cent time initiative provided a comprehensive view of the quality of teaching in the department. This, combined with informal lesson observations, gave Robert the ability to talent spot, searching out effective teachers and providing them with opportunities to develop.


To a large extent this obviated the need to have a formal lesson observation regime, separate to performance management. This is not to say, however, that the department lacked formal procedures for performance management or for analysing the work of an individual teacher.

In terms of formal performance management, Robert observes the English department leadership team. Other observations of teachers in the department are rolled out across his team but Robert himself will observe NQTs once a term (in addition to their mentor). Additionally Robert will observe any NQT who requires a support plan. Members of the senior leadership team undertake drop-ins and if they detect any concerns, Robert will complete companion observations of the teacher in question.

He noted, however:

"We have an open-door policy in the department and because of the 100 per cent time, [staff] are so used to people dropping in and have got used to others being in their room."

The quality of teaching is verified, therefore, by:

• formal lesson observation and performance management procedures

• intelligence gained by the 100 per cent advisers

• scrutiny of teachers’ marking and records

• comprehensive student data collection and analysis

• dedicated training sessions and opportunities to share good practice • one-to-one coaching. In addition to the above, work scrutiny is used to monitor progress and

standardise marking (Exhibit 12).

Exhibit 12: Folder scrutiny form

The folder is sampled by other members of the department where comments about the action required are provided. There is also space on the form to comment on variations in grading.

Year 9 interim GCSE coursework folder scrutiny Set: 9X-ENG

Teacher responsible: EEE Scrutiny undertaken by and date: ROB 7/7/10

Progress towards complete set of folders:

73% Standardised interpretation: C

The standardised interpretation is based on the number of standard deviations from the mean level of completion across all groups. E=less than –1; D=-0.99—0.5; C=-0.49-0.49; B=0.5-0.99; A=greater than 1. EE and AA are outside –1.5 and 1.5 respectively.

Comment Action required

Speaking and Listening: Descriptors highlighted

Shakespeare EN2oral: No records Please provide records

Folder sampling: Pupil 1 : all agreed

Pupil 2: all agreed

Revisit pieces at top end and check marks


Pupil 3 : Poetry and Desc generous at 16 – should be 15; others agreed

Summary comment: Slightly generous at top end but folders well-organised and systematic. Pieces of appropriate length and content.

English and maths monitoring and the RAG system

Robert leads what the academy calls its RAG (red, amber, green) meeting. Every English and maths teacher attends this meeting together with a senior leader and learning support managers. Robert is in charge of the spreadsheet which contains the comprehensive performance data. Every teacher is asked to grade the students in the C/D grade area. Peter outlined his role as principal of the academy and senior leader in analysing this data and comparing the predictions in English and Maths to make sure that there was no mismatch. As league table results are based on the number of students gaining A*-C grades in both English and maths, he commented "I don’t want 88 per cent getting English and 50 per cent maths and so we only end up with 50 per cent A*– C in English and maths.”

The coding system that the academy uses is:

Green 1 indicates a student who is capable of turning their current grade D performance into a C grade (without intervention).

Amber is split into three grades:

• Amber 1 means that the student may need some intervention to catch up such as attending a catch up session after

school or a weekend programme.

• Amber 2 means they will need significant intervention. Peter commented that with students in this category:

"We’ll need to get the parents in and probably look at one-to-one tuition.”

• Amber 3 means that a lot of significant intervention is required but that it is considered unlikely that such students will get a grade C, although there is an outside chance that they might.

Red indicates that a student is not likely to achieve a grade C.

Implementing the strategy Robert commented that it had taken him several years to get the staff to type their results promptly into the spreadsheet. Colleagues had been unconvinced of the value of a statistical approach to improving teaching. Robert found that some people were slow to enter information and, in some cases, the information wasn’t supplied at all. This meant that there was no time “to do anything with it.” He commented that some English teachers, in his opinion, were not very enthusiastic about spreadsheets and so he had to be persistent in his approach and in demonstrating the value of an analytical stance.

There were similar problems in sharing good practice and the deployment of staff as 100 per cent advisers. Robert commented:

"There’s no point in sharing good practice unless the practice is good. There was a sense of ‘Buggins’s turn’ and that everyone felt they were entitled to have a go. You have to implement some quality control and you need to be sure that something needs to be good to be worth sharing. You need to choose people who have a specific idea that you’ve identified as being important."

A similar difficulty arose when considering modelling practice. He commented:

"When you model something, you need to cut out what is irrelevant and pare it down to what is required as modelling makes it fixed."

In terms of implementing 100 per cent time, Robert noted that people were initially sensitive to other people coming into


their lessons so it was:

"... important to present it as not being simply lesson observation and to emphasise that the exercise was entirely supportive of you as a teacher, securing your professional development as well as the progress of the pupils."

Robert also emphasised, echoing his modelling point above, that he needed to be satisfied that his 100 per cent advisers had the appropriate expertise and people skills as the role depended on effective personal relationships.

He appreciated also that his approach might appear to be excessively prescriptive and focused too tightly on examination performance. He commented, however, that:

"This academy is not an exam factory, it’s not simply about getting students a grade. This is about building students’ skills in English that are then validated by getting the good results at the end."

He quoted an analogy to emphasise the importance of teaching with complete consistency:

"I use the analogy of the tandem: if you don’t all pedal at the same time you didn’t get up the hills very quickly. People can be doing the same thing but if they’re not doing it exactly the way that supports teaching and learning across the whole board then the effort is wasted. It’s not that the effort is bad or the direction is wrong, but it detracts from the effective co-ordinated togetherness of the message.” Exhibit 13: Progress in GCSE results 2001 to 2011 As evidence of the journey that had been taken and the improvements that were made in student attainment Exhibit 13 charts the level of student achievement in GCSE English.

Year % A* - C

Robert appointed

2001

58

2002

62

2003

56

2004

65

2005

72

2006

67

2007

73

Start of strategy (change of exam board)

2008 82

2009 77

Work scrutiny exercise

2010 84

2011 88


Robert was appointed in 2001 and the decision to change the examination board was taken for the first students sitting the examination in 2008. A fall in results in 2009, which Robert attributed to a generous marker in 2008, nevertheless prompted him to look elsewhere for improvement and the work scrutiny in 2009-10.

After this had become embedded in the department’s teaching, GCSE results hit 84 per cent of students achieving A*–C grades in 2010, rising to 88 per cent in 2011. The department achieved 88 per cent again in 2012, against a FFT Rank 10 target of 83 per cent. (Rank 10 is what needs to be achieved in order to be in the top 10 per cent of schools, as opposed to FFT D which refers to the top 25 per cent).

Key leadership traits that led to success

In reflecting on key elements of his strategy to improve the quality of teaching, Robert isolated some key leadership behaviours that he found essential to improving the quality of teaching:

• Have a clear vision of the nature of good English teaching and keep up to date with the latest developments in the subject.

• Find people who can help such as advisers and experts and use their knowledge to advance your plans.

• Latch onto what is successful and pursue it with tenacity, not allowing any other priority to deflect you from the right way of doing things.

• Influence your department but don’t shove it.

• Make the most of informal contact (meeting members of the department over lunch, for example).

• Establish your credibility as a teacher by taking tough classes.

• Use modelling: people adapt and improve by being shown, not by being told.

• Show people that you’re supportive and that you have integrity.

• Act as a buffer between teachers and issues that may impede their teaching (parental comment, government policy changes).

• Know that if things go wrong that you will always try and support teachers.

• Give practical advice that you know will work.

• Exhibit enthusiasm: it’s all about people being engaged and wanting to do it.

• Success builds enthusiasm.

• Only do what you know what you can implement fully and completely. Never allow yourself to get overburdened by anything that ruins it.

The principal added to this list of effective leadership behaviours when he observed that Robert, in his opinion, was a truly inspirational teacher and a highly effective head of department who had systematically developed an outstanding department, operating significantly above national averages. He also paid credit to Robert’s absolute focus and ability to analyse the teaching situation and to take appropriate actions:

"Robert was amazed, despite the fact that he was doing well, how much time [teachers were] wasting teaching non-important aspects of the syllabus. And what he’s done is he’s absolutely pared it down year on year down to... what really matters. This is what you have to do to pass.

His [monitoring, data-collection and standardisation] processes not only ensure that teacher X and teacher Y’s grades are the same going into the system but it also tells Robert what the problem is for his [CPD activities] and allows him to set his plan. He’ll notice, for example, that there may be a problem with literacy then he can think about [learning and performance] sessions where he can deal with that problem with his staff."

Teachers gave an additional dimension to Robert’s abilities as a head of department leading the quality of teaching. Louise commented:

"He’s inspirational, positive and enthusiastic. He is spurred on by students’ progress and puts students first, improving not just their results but their life chances. His passion for improving students’ progress is spurred on by the fact that he rea lly cares. Students say he lights up when he teaches. He not only inspires the department but he inspires students as well. He is democratic and professional, everyone is treated the same way and he is very inclusive. In department time he brings in his mark book to show everybody how he records progress and brings in students’ books to demonstrate how he does it. Then as a department we all bring our mark books in and we’ll share good practice.” When asked about his next steps, Robert said he wants to extend the improvements he had achieved in his KS4 strategies further down the school so that improving student achievement in English displayed the same focus and vigour in Year 7 as it now did in Year 10 and Year 11.

When asked for his key to success Robert commented:

"You do small things absolutely systematically, rigorously or you don’t do them at all."


Analysis of practice Now that you have read the themed case study 'Improving the quality of teaching in a secondary school', consider the following questions. • 01. The case study identifies a number of strategies that were used to increase the success rate of pupils. Which do

you think were the most effective strategies, and why? What have you learnt from reading about these strategies – what they were and how they were used -that could inform your own practice?

• 02. The middle leader, Robert, faced a number of leadership challenges. Do they in any way resemble the challenges you face in leading improvements in teaching and learning, and how? If not, what are the challenges you face? What can you learn from the way Robert has addressed his leadership challenges that could inform the way you address yours?

Case study: Improving the quality of teaching in a primary school

Introduction This case study focuses on a large community primary school with over 700 pupils on roll. The school’s latest Ofsted Inspection judged the school to be overall ‘outstanding’. The inspectors commented, however, that the school needed to make greater use of target setting to maximise pupils’ progress in writing. This was consistent with the school’s own self-evaluation and set the scene for a school-wide approach focused on these key elements. Roz, a middle leader who is the English subject lead has been selected to drive the initiative forward.

Improving the quality of teaching in a primary school Background This case study focuses on a large community primary school with over 700 pupils on roll.

The school’s pupil population is largely White British with a small number from minority ethnic backgrounds. The proportion of pupils with special needs is well above average, with some displaying behavioural, emotional and social difficulties (BESD).

The school’s most recent Ofsted inspection judged the school to be outstanding overall.

The inspectors commented, however, that the school needed to make greater use of target-setting to maximise pupils’ progress in writing. This was consistent with the school’s own self-evaluation and set the scene for a school -wide approach focused on these key elements. Leading these improvements would use and stretch the leadership traits of the middle leader, Roz, who was selected to drive the initiative forward.

This case study demonstrates:

• the role of a middle leader in improving the quality of teaching

• strategies she used for implementing a successful school-wide initiative

• the challenges and issues she faced and how these were overcome

• key personal and professional learning that the initiative stimulated

Roz, joined the school as a newly qualified teacher (NQT). She was fortunate in that the school placed a high premium on the professional development of its staff, particularly as far as developing leadership capability was concerned. This ethos was embodied in a leadership shadowing programme. The headteacher, John, outlined its principles:

"When we appoint teachers we’re looking at opportunities to develop them as leaders... We can make bespoke projects for people and give them opportunities to extend their leadership."

Roz shadowed the head of English, Mary, also a deputy head, over a period of two years and during this time took over more and more responsibility for the leadership of English to the point where Mary was ready to step down. Roz then applied for the role and was subsequently appointed subject leader for English three years after her arrival. Shadowing an experienced leader, being coached in leadership skills, observing lessons and being allocated increasing amounts of responsibility had provided her with the confidence to face the challenge of addressing the areas for improvement Ofsted inspectors had highlighted.


Analysis of need The school has a history of closely tracking pupil progress with a member of staff acting as a dedicated assessment manager. This work has been assisted through the use of an online pupil tracking package which has enabled a more sophisticated analysis of progress. This complemented other quantitative data available to the school in terms of the RAISEonline analysis.

The headteacher outlined the extensive data analysis activity, which was initiated by the senior leadership team (SLT) but extended to all teaching staff:

“Roz, my deputy head, my assessment manager and I would look through the data first of all as one part of our school improvement cycle and identify any gaps or dips. As a school we pull it all together by cross-referencing through constant monitoring of data. This includes the SEN team, teachers at year and unit level1 as well as by the assessment manager, the subject leader and individual teachers. On top of this data analysis you’ve got classroom observation and you’ve got pupil progress data monitoring.”

As is shown in the Key Stage 1 RAISEonline report above, writing stood out as being consistently worse than other subjects. At Key Stage 2, the school’s own data showed a similar trend that English and maths were above average, but that progress was slower in writing.

Roz summarised the situation:

"So reading was flying high, maths was flying high. Writing was doing well but we could continue to make improvements there."

Roz used the school’s monitoring information to provide a whole-school view of the quality of teaching in English. Fundamental to this monitoring activity was lesson observation. These lesson observations were carried out by the English team. All members of the teaching staff were observed teaching writing, with a particular focus on guided group work.

Additionally, work scrutiny and a close analysis of pupils' writing development books were undertaken. The English team then met to discuss the outcomes from observations and other data and to draw together key strengths and weaknesses at year, team, unit, key stage and whole-school levels. Roz concluded:

"There was good practice in pockets, teachers were setting clear targets and teaching towards these targets. Groups of pupils were being regularly reviewed and assessed. All of this was having a positive impact on progress. In other areas, however, progress appeared to be slower and it was clear that improvements could be made."

The table below is an example of a work scrutiny report, conducted by Roz before the initiative got under way. This indicated the direction in which the school needed to travel to improve the quality of teaching writing.


Example of work scrutiny report for literacy

Work scrutiny Evidence/good practice

Speaking and listening subject knowledge secure

role-play/drama activities clearly develop and enhance writing but limited evidence seen of explicit teaching of speaking and listening skills

Marking very positive and thorough marking - certain pupils would benefit from even more specific guidance / support, eg example of adjective in front of noun

spelling errors picked up and practised

Range of work Progress Assignment & targets, presentation & organisation

very good range and balance of text-level work and skills development

clear differentiation evident

evidence of good cross-curricular links

exciting and stimulating opportunities provided for writing for different purposes

very good range of approaches used to motivate and engage pupils which clearly meet different learning styles

good use of ICT

good progress is evident across all ability groups

no obvious gender difference

good evidence of redrafting and gives clear guidance for pupils

very good evidence of peer and self assessment; AfL used very effectively in all areas to influence pupils' future work

success criteria shared with pupils; very good practice

good evidence of target-setting but consider best system to review and incorporate new ones

Attainment high expectations evidence, books well presented and organised

books clearly named and labelled by subject

demanding work rate evident

good standard of attainment across all ability groups

Summary

Areas for discussion/development

Thank you X. Your pupils are clearly making progress. You are providing a very good range of exciting writing opportunities to develop your pupils as effective writers. You are now in a good position to enhance writing further by:

• expecting pupils to make independent corrections/improvements

• considering a regular system of reviewing targets, how to incorporate new ones and always ensuring targets set are high value (discuss across year group)

• consider non-fiction instructional work-look at extending expectations and progress/using full instructional text (discuss across year group)

• establish consistent spelling testing across Unit (discuss with Y) Roz’s analysis of teachers’ use of targets indicated in some instances:

• a notable lack of subject knowledge in some of her colleagues, indicating confusion over the meaning and significance of some targets

• poor subject knowledge leading to inappropriate or undemanding writing tasks

• targets that were too broad, or conversely too limited so that they didn’t satisfy individual pupils’ learning needs

• less than adequate understanding by pupils of their targets


In addition Roz identified a pocket of resistance with the teachers in one year group who were reluctant to expend any extra time on pupil assessment and target-setting.

The head, John, indicated the problem and what he expected of his staff in terms of solutions:

"I call it trading the truth, so the data shows the issue and we’re all part of it so what are we going to do about it?"

Critically, the school had established a no-blame culture. Monitoring was part and parcel of everyday professional life. In this context, teachers didn’t feel threatened but felt that they were part of an organisation that constantly aimed to improve standards. It would be Roz who would be expected to shape the complete course of action.

John noted:

"I have the expectation that the problem and its solution will be firmly with the middle leaders. I expect her to define the outcomes, scope the project and to define the success criteria, which I will include in the school improvement plan."

He paid credit to Roz’s core values, which put pupils first and shaped the strategy so that pupils would achieve even higher standards. Even though Roz was in the frontline in terms of leading the project, staff appreciated that she had the full endorsement and support of the headteacher.

Similarly, the project, as Roz appreciated:

"...permeates through the range of school systems.”

Significantly, for the success of the project, its key outcomes were incorporated into teachers' performance management targets and into the school improvement plan, which was reported to governors by the SLT.

Monitoring the progress of the project drew on the school’s established pupil progress tracking systems, target moderation, lesson observation and work scrutiny.

Strategies for improvement It became clear to Roz that the leadership approaches she would need to adopt would have to be extensive and varied to address the breadth of challenges with which she was faced. The English team itself, led by Roz, became an invaluable resource as it contained a breadth of experience including the expertise of Mary, the deputy head, and two other members with teaching proficiency across key stages 1 and 2. The team had dedicated development team times for them to work on teacher and pupil performance data and to turn these into action plans for improvement. They acted as sounding boards and critical friends for each other.

The inclusion of the deputy head on the team secured a conduit for communication to and from the SLT and a means of securing support.

Strand 1: Improving target-setting The strategy to improve the target-setting process started with a whole-staff meeting where colleagues could share ideas and practice. The English team used this as an opportunity of assessing the status quo to aid action-planning for the project.

Roz had already worked with her colleagues on an initiative focusing on assessing pupil progress (APP). Teachers therefore had a clear understanding of how careful formative assessment informed individual target-setting.

The next step was to help teachers use their assessment evidence more effectively in converting it into individual, high-value writing targets for pupils. High-value targets for Roz were defined as those that would impact most significantly on progress in a particular strand of writing, for example sentence structure or punctuation.

Such targets (see 'Example of pupil target-setting card') identified for individual pupils marked a way forward for those colleagues who focused unproductively on the minutiae of writing, for example, letter formation.


Example of pupil target-setting card SUMMER Year 5 pupil • Develop use of sentence variation to contribute to the effectiveness of writing. • Continue to demonstrate effective development of material across whole texts, in a range of writing (eg

closings refer back to openings, clear links that guide the reader etc). • Demonstrate use of a range of punctuation within sentences accurately (eg brackets, dashes, colons,

semi-colons), across a range of text types.

Strand 2: Guided writing strategy

Running parallel with the target-setting strategy was a focus on guided writing driven by pupils’ individual targets. The twin strands of the initiative were, therefore, intimately intertwined. The focus on guided writing was designed to sharpen the teacher’s role in closely targeting teaching on pupils’ next steps in writing, helping the pupils to work with increasing independence.

Roz, in a presentation to staff, highlighted the connections between assessment and securing progress through guided writing opportunities.

Leadership and the subject expert Roz appreciated that subject knowledge was an issue with a number of colleagues and perceptively noted a typical reaction when teachers were asked to embrace a new initiative:

"The difficulty is when teachers are asked to do something new then they feel they ought to know how to do it. They are reluctant to say that they are having difficulty or they are stuck."

Roz saw it as her role to clarify misunderstandings and uncertainties as the subject expert. She has previously taken part in the Every Child a Writer project, which had significantly increased her subject knowledge.

Supporting staff, however, required not only subject expertise but leadership understanding on an personal level and an appreciation of the motivations and sensitivities of her colleagues.

She noted:

"When you start any initiative and ask for whole-school change it’s only in the actual doing of it that you come across the real needs of teachers."

For certain teachers Roz wanted to avoid the ‘Oh no, not us again getting the criticism’ syndrome. She therefore initiated a differentiated approach ranging from whole-staff briefings to individual and group support depending on the context.

Roz commented:

“I reckon the culture of the place you’re in dictates your approach and the nature of the work dictates ways of working and which staff you’re trying to reach. We started from the most important thing that we needed to do, which was to give the message about whole-school target-setting. Everyone needed to hear that message.


I’d ask myself, ‘Can they do it?’ If they can then we hold a staff [in-service training (Inset) day] and they go away and do it. Then as you begin to monitor and gather evidence you begin to build a picture of different people requiring different support and what you then have to do is [create] the best match to the situation and the individual. So at that point I was able to say this person needs to understand the progression through the targets so I’ll work with them one-to-one. So you’re saying I’ve got the subject knowledge that’s going to help them access that knowledge. I am confident that whatever way they need it, I’ll be able to work it out with them so I’ll meet with them one-to-one. Or it could happen that in a year team there seems to be one person who is having difficulty. What we can do there, though, as we’ve got strength in that team, is we can pair them up or get them working in threes and they can work together to develop their understanding. It’s not so formal as to say, ‘well use this strategy or that strategy’. It’s very much about being responsive to individual needs and what the outcomes are.”

Roz had already noted that the project was defined by the principles of distributed leadership so that she would often work collaboratively with colleagues so that they could pass on key messages and develop others.

Claire, a KS1 unit leader commented on this process whereby she would acquire the appropriate knowledge, skills and understanding from Roz so that she could work confidently with her colleagues:

"I checked with Roz. When I was sure I was doing the right thing then I could support my colleagues. When it came to supporting the NQTs in my unit, I was actually sitting down and doing that with them, but that’s part of how we work anyway. Anything new that comes in or if somebody doesn’t know something then we work quite collaboratively anyway. [There is] lots of collaboration and sharing and comparing pupils’ work so you get that consistency."

Flexible and responsive leadership Roz felt there were no hard and fast rules for sustaining impetus in the project. This was raised when the issue of individual or team responsibility was discussed. Roz was aware that there were a lot of things that she held as her personal responsibility as a subject leader and these would be outlined in her formal role description. She also appreciated, however, that there were times when she could and should use the expertise and energy of her subject team. She wanted to make sure that she fully utilised this resource and organised monitoring and development activities with them.

She pointed out that a leader needs to be flexible and in tune with the progress of the project. She needed to make sure she secured its impetus so if there were issues to resolve, she could not leave them until the next team meeting. She took it on herself to offer immediate support.

"It’s a case of offering the best match to the situation.”

In terms of individualised support, Roz identified that she needed to have a close appreciation of the needs of individual teachers. Her repertoire ranged from individual coaching and mentoring support to getting staff to work in pairs or small groups for mutual observation of each other’s work. All the time, she would scrutinise and evaluate progress through the school’s established procedures. She would step in if additional support was needed.

Critical to the initiative was an understanding by pupils of their targets. They were encouraged to have a degree of autonomy in shaping their own progress. A key strategy was the modelling effective target-setting practice by the English team. Through these means, other teachers began to appreciate the significance of teacher pupil dialogue. The routine was to focus pupils on the current activity, clarify prior assessments and ensure a full understanding of their individual targets.

A typical dialogue with a pupil, quoted by Roz, was:

"Ok, this is what we are focusing on today. Have we done this already in our work? Let’s go to your individual targets and you tell me which targets you’ve met in your writing."

Monitoring such conversations via feedback from members of her team allowed Roz to gain a fine-grained view of teachers’ subject knowledge. By these means she was able to highlight who needed extra support and what the nature of that support should be.

Her leadership encompassed strategic direction, guiding and empowering distributed leaders, as well as a hands-on approach with individuals through explanation, demonstration, coaching and mentoring.

Leadership challenges

Reflecting on her experiences, Roz commented on the growth of her emotional intelligence and her ability to be receptive to different needs and reactions. She noted that she had come to recognise the need to treat each member of staff as an individual and to understand their needs, goals, fears and personalities. She felt that this needed to be taken into account when deciding on the best approach to working with individuals in order to maximise the effectiveness of outcomes. She appreciated, for example, that one colleague in particular was sensitive to her lack of subject knowledge and that this was radically affecting her confidence. Roz also appreciated that the teacher needed to work though the technical detail for herself so that she could internalise it. Simply talking it through would not work in this case.


The teacher, with Roz’s support, created a flowchart that showed text structure and organisation from Level 1 through to Level 3. Having undertaken this exercise, targets became more meaningful to her, enabling the teacher to apply her knowledge in the classroom. In similar vein, Roz appreciated that a year team was struggling with target-setting and showing signs of resistance to the school strategy. This team had established a very strong group ethos and allegiance to the year leader. The year leader had produced what he felt was a helpful guide on target-setting which would help the team with the initiative. Roz felt, however, that the guide was not helpful and was unnecessarily reductive, by putting whole groups of pupils on one target level, for example. The guide ran seriously counter to the initiative, which was designed to focus on individual strands of writing for specific pupils. This produced a major challenge for Roz. She had to deal with a considerable number of teachers who had significant influence in the school. Their resistance could potentially derail the initiative. She realised that giving the year leader responsible for the guide a rap on the knuckles would be inappropriate and counterproductive. Instead, she credited his initiative by pointing out to him that producing the guide was very useful but that it didn’t work for the pupils in the school. Next she had to turn her attention to the team itself.

Roz used the deputy in her English team as a sounding board to check her perceptions of the team’s objections. Both Roz and Mary appreciated that time pressures were at the forefront of this team’s thinking. Roz commented on the approach: "This team was resistant to change because they felt it was more work for them, so my approach was to convince them that it was worthwhile and worth the extra effort. The task was also to change their practice without making them feel they were not doing a good job. I had to make sure that the team was in a receptive state of mind."

Roz’s approach with this team was to work with it as a group. She started with the team’s current practice, looking at the materials used to set targets alongside individual pupils’ work and demonstrating why this was not effective. She worked with the team to develop an understanding of progression through the different writing strands. The team used APP and pupils’ work to assess progress in writing jointly and then set targets.

The team then worked independently to set some targets, which Roz subsequently moderated and provided feedback for. Following this feedback, team members felt sufficiently confident to set their own targets.

Roz noted:

"This was a gradual process of support, with scaffolding and monitoring slowly being removed until the point when I was confident in their subject knowledge and independent assessment and target-setting practices."

With greater understanding and confidence in their professional judgements, staff resistance had been reduced. Through her strategy Roz had also confirmed her reputation as a subject expert which meant that her monitoring was both expected and carried authority. Rather than an imposition or a criticism, her actions had become a source of help and support for members of this team.

Roz managed to establish a key principle of the initiative, which was that target-setting and guided writing were highly motivating experiences for pupils.

Claire commented:

“Children love targets because they love knowing what they need to do next. Teachers when they introduce a piece of writing make the connection with the task and targets and ask pupils to make the connection. [The pupils] can describe exactly which targets they are using and prove to a partner how they have moved on in their targets.”

Key learning Roz, reflecting on the initiative, emphasised the positive ethos that had been established in the school. Teachers agreed that they were "willing to have a go" as part of a school-wide commitment to continuous improvement. other key learning focused on interpersonal, developmental and educational growth. Interpersonally, Roz had honed her abilities to deal with reluctant and resistant individuals. She emphasised that her passion, purpose and desire to support had carried her through. When faced with a wall of resistance she stayed calm and relied on reasoned analysis, placing the emphasis on the issue and not the people. She had appreciated teachers' motivation, and that, "at root, they wanted to be better teachers."


Developmentally, she had appreciated the motivations and concerns of her colleagues. She had not fallen into the trap of thinking that truculence and resistance was an early warning sign for conflict. Rather she had supported her colleagues to vocalise their uncertainties so that she could work with them and they could move forward. Educationally and pedagogically, she had increased her awareness of how it works in the classroom from evidence and by shaping and sharpening the dialogue between teacher and pupil. Roz had also established an ethos of openness where monitoring was seen in a positive light, as a means to improve practice. As an indication of the way the school was moving, the following monitoring report (see "work scrutiny report") marks a distinct improvement from the previous work scrutiny (see "Example of work scrutiny report for literacy"), which originated before the initiative began. This report was for a different colleague but still charts the improving awareness of teachers.

Aspect Evidence

Speaking and listening subject knowledge very secure

very good cross-curricular links used to develop writing in other areas

excellent use of ICT to support literacy

very good evidence of teaching of explicit speaking and listening skills

Marking Range of work

very effective and positive marking gives clear direction and guidance to the pupil and is linked to the learning objective - you skilfully differentiate for most able by asking KH to look for opportunities to find...

good evidence of pupil spelling errors picked up, collected and practised as well as pupil self-correction in pencil

very good evidence of redrafting and pupils' response to it

Progress Assessment & targets Presentation & organisation

exciting and stimulating opportunities provided for writing for different purposes

very good range and use of appropriate genres to support writing development

differentiation evident

very good cross-curricular work seen, with plenty of opportunities for extended writing

very good progress is evident

no obvious gender difference

AfL used very effectively in all areas to influence pupils' future work

success criteria shared with pupils - very good practice

evidence of appropriate high-value targets being used to improve attainment

APP highlighted effectively and appropriate targets set

Attainment high expectations evident - work presented very well

books - clearly named and labelled by subject

evidence of secure progress in handwriting

very demanding work rate evident

very good standard of attainment


Work scrutiny report

SUMMARY

Areas for discussion/development

Thank you, X. It was a pleasure to look at your books. You are providing your pupils with excellent direction and guidance through your marking. There are plenty of exciting and purposeful writing opportunities and they are clearly making very good progress. Your choice of appropriate high value targets for your pupils is positively impacting on their progress and attainment. Well done!

Points for discussion across year group;

• more able spellers

• frequent errors – how to apply these independently

Impact The impact of the initiative can be assessed both formally with quantitative data as well as with qualitative data. Claire commented:

"We now don’t have children who feel they can’t write. Children having their target card each day has had a massive impact and knowing that they’re making progress towards those targets has had a huge impact on their writing. For us [as teachers], being very focused about the next steps for their learning [has]… been... the biggest change in our practice."

Qualitatively, the headteacher pointed to the fact that the children were motivated, understood what was being asked of them and felt confident in their progress. He commented that their books showed work that demonstrated progress and that the teachers were more confident. An informal request by Roz in a staff meeting, for example, as to whether anyone needed help with either target-setting or guided writing indicated that all staff appeared comfortable in their understanding.

Moderation of targets and lesson observations also indicated that there was a greater appreciation of processes, mixing accurate and focused targets tied to appropriate activities and effective outcomes. As an example, the following comment appeared on Roz’s target moderation sheet: "Well done, X. Thorough, accurate assessment of pupils’ writing and a range of well-matched, high-value targets set. There is also evidence that targets are being applied/assessed regularly."

In quantitative terms, the RAISEonline data showed that writing had exceeded the national value.

Reflecting on Roz’s leadership Teachers in the school paid testament to Roz’s enthusiasm, commitment and an insight into her leadership styles which had led to the success of the initiative. One teacher commented:

"She grabs you with the data and says, 'Look, this is how it is,' (she’s very black and white), 'this is what the data is telling us. This is what we need to do to improve and I’m going to help you to get there. I’ve started thinking about this but I’m not doing it on my own; we’re all going together and I’m doing it with you'.”


Another teacher paid tribute to her fervour:

"She is very very passionate about her subject. You can tell that she loves to read and enjoys writing. She has excellent subject knowledge. We know that’s she’s very skilled at literacy and supporting others in improving their literacy teaching."

Roz reflected on her own leadership motivations:

• knowing what you want

• having a clear view of outcomes

• not being in a hurry to get there In the case of the latter point, she appreciated that in a large school change is not going to be immediate and any initiative will take time to embed itself. Leaders should not be disappointed if they don’t see immediate improvements. She also appreciated that the methods to achieve this embedded status would require “a lot of work along the way” in monitoring progress, feeding back to colleagues and having remediation strategies ready to keep everyone on track. Her experience also relied on the principles of distributed leadership whereby: "It’s not just you who has to do everything and be responsible for everything but you can share the workload. As trust increases you can increase that sharing." Roz’s key leadership traits The headteacher was able to enunciate what he felt were Roz’s key leadership traits. They can be divided into: • moral purpose • interpersonal skills • professional skills Moral purpose In terms of purpose: • Pupils come first. • She has a role as a champion of standards and delivers continuous improvement. • She holds high expectations based on outcomes. Interpersonal skills Roz: • is confident and grows in self-awareness

• has self-belief

• develops personal drive

• grows in resilience and personal maturity

• possesses the steel to tell it how it is and make difficult decisions

• learns how to inspire others Professional skills

Roz:

• uses data and analytical skills to highlight areas for improvement

• sets high expectations for others and holds them to account

• has outstanding subject knowledge and uses this to develop others

• shows excellent pedagogic skills

• is an excellent facilitator

• can coach and mentor

• displays good presentation skills

• stays focused

• is succinct


Next Steps A teacher commented that pupils were now making excellent progress in writing as well as in reading and maths. The headteacher commented what for him was a significant approach and important ingredients for success: "For me that’s about supporting the middle leader and getting consistency, it’s about eradicating that in-school variation. So it’s got to be sustainable and the staff have to feel part of it and have that sense of ownership, that sense of development and believe it works otherwise when you stop monitoring they’ll stop doing it." Analysis of practice Now that you have read the themed case study 'Improving the quality of teaching in a primary school', consider the following questions. 01. Roz implemented a school–wide initiative as a way of improving pupil progress in writing. What strategies did she use, how did she implement them and what were the outcomes? Would you have addressed ‘closing the gap’ in achievement in the same way? If so, why or if not, why not? 02. Roz faced a number of leadership challenges but, on reflection, felt that she had grown in terms of her emotional intelligence and the ability to be receptive to differing needs. How is this evident in the case study? What would you say have been your most significant areas of leadership growth when leading your team to make improvements in teaching and learning? Give some examples.


Case study: Closing the gap Introduction This case study focuses on a pilot project led by a primary school middle leader, Claire, into closing the gap between girls’ and boys’ attainment in level 3 mathematics at the end of Key Stage 1. It looks at the strategies used to improve teaching and learning – based on national and in-school research – and the use of data to inform action and assess impact. The school is a large inner-city primary with 500 pupils on roll.

Closing the gap

Case study of a middle leader

This case study focuses on:

a pilot project led by primary school middle leader, Claire, into closing the gap between girls’ and boys’ attainment in level 3 maths at the end of Key Stage 1

the use of a range of teaching and learning strategies to support improvement based on national and in-school research

the use of modelling and dialogue in leading change

the use of data to inform action and to assess impact

Background

Greenside is a large, two-form entry, federated, inner-city primary school with just under 500 pupils on roll. Its pupils come from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds: there are 33 in total and around 20 per cent of its pupils have EAL (English as an additional language), with 31 different languages spoken. The level of SEN (special educational needs) is broadly average, and 15 per cent of pupils are in receipt of free school meals. There are approximately 30 teaching staff and 30 learning support staff. Claire is in her fourth year of teaching at Greenside, having joined it as a newly qualified teacher. She is now its assessment co-ordinator with whole-school responsibility for the management of pupil performance data, including its analysis and reporting. This reporting consists of writing twice-yearly standards reports that she disseminates to governors, the senior leadership team (SLT) and staff. She also takes a lead role in pupil progress meetings. She is Year 2 leader with line management responsibilities for those in this year group. In addition, Claire is a general primary advanced skills teacher and staff governor. Previous to leading this project, she led a Closing the Gap project in level 5 science at Key Stage 2. The case study is written in five sections: 1. The gap: what the gaps were, how they were identified and what the underpinning issues were seen to be. 2. Strategies: the strategies used to close the gap. 3. Outcomes: the impact of the strategies on closing the gap.

4. Key learning: what Claire sees as her main learning points from the strategies she has led and the leadership skills that have contributed to their success.

5. Next steps: the school’s next steps in closing the gap and Claire’s role in leading these.


The gap The gap identified was between the attainment of boys and girls at the end of Key Stage 1 in maths, specifically at level 3, with girls underachieving relative to boys.

Although the gap had been evident from Claire’s analysis of the end of Key Stage 1 data, following the summer term assessments it was seen that this might be more cohort-related than a potential trend.

However, when the school received its local authority-produced data in the first half of the autumn term, this confirmed the performance gap at the end of Key Stage 1 (see Exhibit 1), as did RAISEonline (see Exhibit 2).

The autumn term standards report provides an analysis of the school’s performance at Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 (see Exhibit 3) based on school-level, local authority and RAISEonline analyses.

Exhibit 1: Local authority data report, extract for 2010 % level 2+ % level 2b+ % level 2a+ % level 3+

Number of pupils

Re Wr Ma Re Wr Ma Re Wr M Re Wr

All pupils

60 90 92 90 82 62 75 53 43 47 43 27

Girls 23 91 91 91 91 74 83 52 43 43 39 22

Boys 37 89 92 89 76 54 70 54 43 49 46 30

Note: Re = reading; Wr = writing; Ma = maths

Exhibit 2: Key Stage 1 maths attainment, RAISEonline report, extract for 2010

MATHS

School National

Cohort APS APS

All pupils 60 16.3 15.7

Girls 23 15.9 15.7

Boys 37 16.5 15.7


Key Stage 1 maths attainment, RAISEonline report

MATHS

2008 2009 2010

Cohort 59 59 60

School 17.8 16.9 16.3

National 15.8 15.7 15.7

Difference 2.0 1.2 0.6

Significance Sig + Sig +

Exhibit 3: Key Stage 1 standards report, extract Attainment at the end of Key Stage 1 for maths

2008 2009 2010

Level 2+ 98% (87%) 93% (89%) 90% (87%)

Level 3 34% (18%) 39% (19%)

33% (19%)

National Level 2+ 90% 89% 89%

Note: Numbers in brackets are local authority averages.

Contextual information for Year 2 (now Year 3)

• 10 SEN children

• 37 boys and 23 girls

• 11 EAL children Analysis of results All the school’s levels remain above the local authority and national average.


Maths Gender breakdown for Key Stage 1 (current Year 3), 2010

Maths 2+ shows a downward trend over three years but remains above the local authority and national averages. Over the last three years, the school’s figure averages at 94 per cent.

Level 3 maths remains stable with an average of 35 per cent over three years, and remains above the local authority average.

Gender breakdown for Key Stage 1 (current Year 3), 2010

Level 2+ Maths

Female 91% (88%)

Male 89% (85%)

Level 3 Maths

Level 3 Maths

Female 17% (17%)

Male 43% (20%)

Girls at level 3 maths are equal to the local authority average but should be above if this was in line with other school trends.

Progress from end Year 1 to end Year 2

Progress Maths

<2 sublevels 4%

2 sublevels 44%

>2 sublevels 52%

At least 2 sublevels 96%

Progress Maths

There was very good progress from the end of Year 1 to the end of Year 2. Main points of action

• To improve the number of girls achieving level 3 maths so that it is above the local authority average.

• To ensure that the progress of more able children in current Year 3 is closely monitored. Action to be taken

Year 2 teachers to identify and closely track the progress of girls who are aiming to achieve level 3 maths at the end of Key Stage 1. Use APP (assessing pupil progress) to analyse gaps and ensure that this feeds into planning.

Use pupil progress meetings to identify and track children.


However, when Claire analysed the attainment of the new Year 2 cohort at the start of the autumn term, this too showed a similar gap and alerted her to a potential trend occurring. Her predicted attainment of these girls at the end of Year 2 would again reflect this gap unless improvements were made (see Exhibit 4):

"In my current class, when I did the analysis...I thought, well, perhaps this gap is turning into a trend and I better do something about it. So my initial reaction in the summer was: perhaps this is a cohort thing, andthen, by the beginning of the autumn term, it was: no, I think we ought to do something about this… It really stuck out as not being right. I didn’t feel I could leave that."

---Claire

Claire identified that there were two levels of implications to her concerns:

1. For her own year group and intervention in some form with those girls she had identified.

2. For other year groups at a whole-school level, as she considered a trend was developing.

The latter particularly reflected her leadership role, and Claire took her concerns to the executive headteacher, Richard, and head of school, Jocelyn, and they discussed possible implications and improvement routes.

Exhibit 4: Predicted level 3 attainment in maths at Key Stage 1, 2011

Boys Girls

Predicted level 3 attainment at end of Key Stage 1, based on two sublevels' progress within the year

26% 10%

A gap had already been identified in writing between these groups and this was being addressed as part of the school’s improvement plan. A working party for this had been formed following discussions at SLT level and this comprised the Early Years leader, a higher level teaching assistant and Claire. The focus on girls’ maths achievement and attainment at level 3 was added into the working party’s remit.

However, Richard and Claire agreed that Claire would use her learning from her working party involvement to date, but leave the focus on writing to other working party members and take a lead on closing the gap between boys and girls at level 3 maths in Key Stage 1. The maths focus would form part of the school improvement plan alongside writing. However, later in the term they decided that, as it had been added into the improvement plan in-year and they did not wish to overload staff, it should primarily form a pilot project in Year 2 only. It would, however, include whole-school awareness raising, and an expectation that staff would trial aspects with a focus group of girls.

"I think the improvement plan was rather full [this past year] and I tend to always err on the side of caution rather than overwhelming people, because you don’t do anything well if people ask you to do too much...and I thought we needed to know more. Not only about the outcomes: what we found out about around why girls don’t do as well in maths, but also in terms of the project management."

---Richard

The emphasis would be on Claire and Jane, her colleague teacher in Year 2, piloting teaching and learning strategies with a group of target girls in each class, tracking their progress and evaluating the success of the strategies used. The outcomes of this pilot could then be used to inform a school-wide improvement focus in the following year if it was seen to achieve success, as there would then be ‘hard evidence’ to convince staff of impact.


3. Strategies

3.1 The working party The work of the initial working party centred on writing and formulating an action plan related to improving both boys’ writing and later, girls’ maths achievement and attainment. Initial activity focused on data analysis, discussion of possible improvement actions and an exploration of nationally available research concerned with gender issues in learning and achievement.

There were sensitivities to be addressed in terms of Claire’s leadership of a maths-focused project that would normally be the role of the maths leader, Ruth. This crossing of boundaries did present a challenge to Claire. It was broached in the context of it being a gap that she had identified and was willing to explore, and that Ruth already had significant commitments in leading maths that year. Claire also had the backing of Richard and Jocelyn in pursuing the project. However, Claire anticipated that there might be some resistance related to this, and so she spoke with Ruth to discuss the data and her intended leadership of a project to close the identified gap. Based on her prior experience of working with Ruth, Claire decided she needed to adopt a particular approach. She was empathetic, appreciating Ruth’s other commitments, and emphasising how, with Claire leading the project, this would help out and not place any additional burden on Ruth. Claire also acknowledged Ruth’s subject expertise, asking whether she had any suggestions that might inform the project approach, thereby expressing her valuing of Ruth’s potential contributions. Claire also knew Ruth’s sense of humour, and so mirrored this in her dialogue with her in an effort to reduce any sense of threat or ‘toe-treading’. Through this approach, Claire gained Ruth’s support in advance of beginning her lead role. As the project progressed, Claire set aside time for one-to-one discussions so that Ruth was always kept abreast of developments, rather than hearing about them in staff meetings along with everyone else. She also offered Ruth the opportunity to observe her teaching guided groups as this approach was new to Ruth. Claire negotiated release cover for this knowing that having sufficient time would have been one of Ruth’s concerns. This was taken up by Ruth, helping her to become more familiar with guided groups in maths, feel less threatened and more involved in developments in what was, after all, her subject area. Claire later provided Ruth will all her information on guided groups as she was to take the lead on this the following year.

"One of the key challenges is understanding that everyone is different and that you have to empathise with them and perhaps use their expertise as well."

---Claire

When Claire took the lead on the maths aspect of the working party’s work, it split. It was felt that this would apportion workload more effectively and make better sense as Claire was in Year 2 where the focus or raising attainment would lie. At this stage Claire drew up a revised action plan (see Exhibit 5).


Exhibit 5: Revised Action Plan

Greenside Primary School

School Improvement Planning Action Plan (Management Summary)

Objective: to close the gap between the attainment of boys and girls in maths

Priority Reviewed: Halftermly

Manager: Claire Dawson

Target: (including success criteria or perceived benefits as appropriate)

Resources

Target: (including success criteria or perceived benefits as appropriate)

Team

When by

Budget

Analyse data and clearly identify where there are significant differences between the attainment of boys and girls

Clare Dawson October

Identify groups of children in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 for intervention

Claire Dawson and class teachers

By end of November after pupil progress meetings

Plan appropriate interventions for identified children

Working party and subject leaders

End of autumn term

Review progress half-termly and use pupil progress meetings to evaluate impact

Claire Dawson and working party

Ongoing

Draw on research findings (in conjunction with working party members) into differences between boys and girls and how this has an impact on their learning


End of autumn term

Claire still worked alongside the others at times to consider developments – for example, in preparing a

staff meeting focused on gender performance issues in writing and maths.

Review progress half-termly and use pupil progress meetings to evaluate impact


Ongoing

Draw on research findings (in conjunction with working party members) into differences between boys and girls and how this has an impact on their learning


End of autumn term


3.2 Sharing findings with staff

Once Claire had written her standards report, this was presented as part of a specific Closing the Gap staff meeting, which gave her the opportunity to raise the trend issue with staff:

"I think the reaction of everybody else was “Oh yes, this could be just a cohort thing, we don’t know that this is a trend”, but then looking at [the data] at the beginning of term and seeing that it was following the same pattern [changed this]. When you’re leading something, it’s hard to make others care about it as much as you do. People are very busy and then you’re throwing another thing at them – “Oh you need to do this” – and they want to see the evidence...it gave it a bit more strength at the beginning of the year when I said, “Well look, actually, this could turn into a [trend]... This then made them think: “Yes, we need to do something about that”."

---Claire

Claire also considered that presenting staff with research that showed girls’ attainment in maths to be a national issue created a sense of ‘diminished responsibility’, its nationwide occurrence reducing the need for staff to see it as something that was a particular imperative for them to address:

""Well it’s everywhere, what are we supposed to do about it?” I got that initial feeling at the beginning. But it wasn’t just the gap; it was that low figure of girls getting level 3 that convinced them."

---Claire

Claire’s prior leadership of a Closing the Gap project in science did, she feels, lend her credibility with staff as this had been successful; this gave credence to her highlighting a new gap, and also gave her greater confidence in presenting this gap and the associated imperative to close it.

“When you have a big school, views are always going to be mixed. The staff here are always persuaded by strong evidence and so they’ll be seriously listening because they know that neither Claire nor I would be laying anything at their door that didn’t have a strong evidence base. The key of course is what they are then going to do to close the gap and that’s when differentiated approaches are always necessary because some teachers can manage something more complex and some teachers need a simpler approach and you then need [staff leading developments] to make judgements.” ---Richard At a later staff meeting, working party members Claire and the Early Years leader presented slides using presentation software to share findings from their work to date (Exhibit 6). This led into an activity Claire had prepared, based on her research, in which staff sorted statements on cards, deciding which of these related to boys and which to girls (Exhibit 7). These covered aspects such as gender, brain development and attitudes towards learning. The outcomes were not those that staff predicted, which helped challenge their existing thinking and gave weight to the need for a focus on gender considerations to aid improvement: "It was really interesting and people were quite shocked by some of it. I think as a teacher you’re so busy you don’t have time to read the research...and have time to think about those things." ---Claire

Claire then led a discussion on staff’s own experiences, their reflection on their current practice and thentheir consideration of the implications for teaching and learning for girls in maths at Greenside. Claire collated and compiled the staff’s ideas in a one-page document. This was given to staff with an expectation that they would trial some of these approaches in their respective classes (see Exhibit 8).

Exhibit 8: Staff ideas sheet prepared by Claire – maths extract

A selection of your ideas about how we could raise the attainment of girls in maths

• Grouping together girls who lack confidence as part of a guided maths session.

• More emphasis on explanation of how you did something rather than a focus on the answer.


• More error analysis – especially where children are resistant to using a particular strategy.

• Wherever possible, link maths to real life. Claire felt that this was a productive session that raised awareness, challenged viewpoints and provided some practical ways forward. Richard highlighted that communicating projects to staff is not always an easy thing to achieve:

"Some people understand these issues easier than others and the minute someone starts to find it difficult they tend to switch off and think about what they’re going to cook for their dinner. So... the... challenge is to communicate the issues and outcomes and best practice at many different levels [that is, differentiate input to meet audience needs]."

---Richard

What stemmed from these discussions was staff members putting strategies into place and engaging in informal dialogue with Claire about these.

This achieved a number of points for Claire:

• As there were no formal observation monitoring arrangements, it provided her with feedback on developments that were taking place and where.

• It gave her the opportunity to deliberately use these examples in subsequent staff meetings, for example, during AOB (Any Other Business) to:

1 publicly acknowledge the developments taking place

2 strengthen staff’s knowledge and understanding through sharing good practice

3 monitor staff reactions to the sharing of good practice and any subsequent actions taken by them in response to this

4 reinforce the project’s status, strategies that could be deployed and that the staff could proactively make changes to secure improvements:

“One of the Year 6 teachers moved his groupings round as he realised there rwere a few girls sitting with some really confidence boys and feeling that they couldn’t express themselves…He was able to say that his groupings were holding some children back but that he had done something about it.” ---Claire

3.3 Identifying a target group

As part of Claire’s improvement work and in her role as assessment co-ordinator, she asked staff to identify a focus group of above-average girls that would benefit from the strategies outlined in Exhibit 7. In Year 2, this comprised 12 pupils, 6 in each class. Claire and her colleague Year 2 teacher, Jane, identified these together. All of these girls were assessed at level 2c in maths and so would need to make a whole level’s progress in one year. They also shared similar characteristics related to being able but not thinking they were, being hesitant and being under confident.

A few parents were informed of their child’s involvement in the groups, but there was nothing ‘official’ sent out to parents informing them of this.

3.4 The NPQH internee

Greenside hosts a number of NPQH (National Professional Qualification for Headship) internees each year who are required to carry out a small-scale, leadership-focused project as part of their placement. The school always finds out their area of expertise at an interview before they start their placement to see if this ties in with the school’s own improvement priorities and the internee’s training plan priorities so that there is potential mutual benefit. The SLT identify a set of questions each year that would benefit from more intensive audit. One of these was:

"Why don’t girls do so well in maths?" ---Richard In this case, the internee, Wendy, wanted to do a project related to maths, and this was seen as an ideal opportunity to use her skills in conducting a small-scale research project to examine girls’ attitudes to


maths in Years 2 and 3 (the former being the pilot cohort and the latter the girls who had underperformed relative to boys the previous academic year). This would provide Claire and the school with an external, objective viewpoint on the issues. Wendy carried out lesson observations in all Year 2 and 3 classes, including Claire’s, focused particularly on how girls and boys behaved in maths lessons, and carried out interviews with the pupils and the maths leader.

At the end of the project she wrote a report on her findings that Claire then took to her working party to discuss and produce a summary version for staff (Exhibit 9).

This summary report was presented at a staff meeting subsequent to the one focused on gender and achievement, as well as to governors. Wendy’s report very much echoed the findings from the working party’s research that Claire had presented to staff. This third-party perspective helped reinforced Claire’s findings, linking these directly to Greenside’s pupils; this provided additional leverage and credence to Claire’s leadership of developments.

Exhibit 9: Claire’s summarised version of the NPQH internee’s report

Closing the gender gap in maths at level 3

As you may know, Wendy has spent some time with Year 2 and 3 completing her NPQH project. As closing the gender gap is on the school improvement plan, she has been looking at girls’ attitudes towards maths. She spent time observing sessions and interviewing some children.

Here is a quick summary of her findings:

• Boys were more competitive in maths than girls and were not put off by getting an incorrect answer.

• Girls were less responsive than boys and less willing to ‘have a go’.

• Boys tended to call out more on the carpet.

• Girls did not always apply the most efficient method to a problem.

• Girls did not see how maths was relevant in real life and did not rate it as high as other subjects.

• Girls felt that working with someone helped them to learn best.

Wendy has made some recommendations for next steps. Here is a summary of these: Points for action

• Identify a group of girls who are average/slightly above who would benefit from guided work.

• Keep this group together during maths lessons.

• Use APP3 on this group of girls. Use this as a working document to identify gaps.

• Use your lolly sticks during a carpet session to ensure the boys don’t dominate the discussions.

• Plan more collaborative tasks and games.

• Ensure maths is linked to real life wherever possible (particularly for girls). This last point was something that was highlighted in the research we read during our staff meeting in December.

In order to close the gender gap in the long term, we understand that a whole-school approach is required.

This year we will be piloting different approaches towards our more able girls in Year 2.

Teaching and learning strategies in Year 2:

• Our focus group will sit together for the majority of maths lessons.

• We will ensure that the teacher works with that group at least once a week.

• These children will have opportunities to take risks, work collaboratively, experience error analysis, solve problems in a real-life context, solve problems using the most efficient method as well as having ‘challenges’ to complete learning in a set time.

We hope that these approaches will increase their confidence and change their attitudes towards maths. Please consider gender grouping in your own practice as well as the points for action above.


Claire discussed this report’s findings, recommendations and points for action with her Year 2 colleague, Jane, and together they decided on what steps they would take in response. These were shared with staff via a staff meeting so that they were aware what approaches the two Year 2 teachers would be adopting in their pilot. This also reinforced previous messages about gender-oriented provision needing to be implemented. Claire adopted a deliberately persistent approach in which she used both formal and informal opportunities to reinforce messages about participation and to prompt staff to think about strategies they could use.

3.5 Making adjustments to teaching and learning

Based on both national and school-based research, a number of strategies were implemented to help raise girls’ achievement. It was also expected that other teachers would use these approaches while Claire and Jane piloted them in their own classes. Those used by other staff with their focus groups of girls were ones Claire considered would not be onerous for them to put in place so that they stood a better chance of being implemented (see Exhibit 10).

Exhibit 10: Teaching and learning strategies used in pilot classes and other classes

Teaching and learning strategies

Used in Year 2 pilot Used by other staff

Using APP (using and applying maths and number) with each of the girls to build a profile of their achievement and inform planning sequences

X (with each pupil in both cases)

Using APP but not necessarily with each of the girls

individually.

Grouping girls in same gender groups daily with opportunities to work more collaboratively to increase discussion and confidence

X

Increased amount of error analysis activities

X

Teaching the focus girls using guided maths group approaches at least once per week

X

Using a technique to control the answering of questions in whole-class activities so that boys were not able to dominate these

X X

Using timed activities to improve speed of calculation

X

Setting girls' learning in maths within problem-solving, real-life contexts so that maths activities required skills and knowledge to be applied

X X

Claire planned weekly as part of directed time with Jane, and this helped her to ensure consistency across the two classes that:

APP assessments carried out during the week informed the following week's planning of teaching and learning sequences and activities

agreed strategies to be used with their respective guided groups of girls were clearly identified with the teacher and additional adult support highlighted

discussion with Jane about the pupils, their progress and response to strategies was programmed into their planning meeting and also informed subsequent planning


Teaching and learning st

There was a good level of correlation between the two groups’ needs that aided dialogue and shared planning approaches. This co-planning gave Claire ideal opportunities to keep a close eye on the pupils’ progress throughout the year and to take a direct lead in influencing strategies used and evaluating their impact. It also afforded a good opportunity for her to share good practice with her colleague.

The use of guided groups stemmed from Claire’s good knowledge of these and their potential effectiveness through prior experience of using these in a project within the local authority. This involved her modelling guided group work with teachers in other schools and observing them teaching as part of a developmental process. Claire was therefore able to use her classroom experience to inform Jane’s work in this as well as her own work.

According to Richard, this was not a relationship without challenges for Claire, as Jane was a more experienced colleague in terms of years and Claire needed to exercise sensitive handling and coaching skills to ensure the pilot’s success. Claire was conscious that Jane would likely see the pilot work as an additional burden, requiring more time in an already busy teaching role. To alleviate these anticipated issues, Claire looked to adopt supportive steps aimed at reducing any sense that it would be onerous. She spoke to Jane about using their weekly planning meetings and planning approaches together offered for Jane to observe her teaching guided groups, although this offer was not taken up.

Claire also ensured she shared her ideas at planning meetings and to help make approaches achievable, helped in planning time allocations. Through having worked with her previously, Claire could anticipate likely reactions and knew how to respond to these positively and where appropriate, with humour. However, she also adopted an empathetic approach that appreciated Jane’s concerns:

"Yes, I know, it is really busy, but let’s see how we can fit this in."

---Claire

3.6 Monitoring progress In terms of the pilot, Claire monitored the project’s progress through her weekly planning meeting discussions and her and Jane’s use of APP:

"We had the APP sheets with us when we were working with our groups so we highlighted those [to assess criteria demonstrated by pupils]. And I know it’s not very reliable but we could [also] see those girls just blossoming in their confidence because they felt safe in that kind of environment."

This latter point was confirmed by these girls in their discussions with the head of school who undertook a lesson observation of Claire.

APP assessments were also supported through Claire and Jane’s use of Key Stage 1 maths SATs in the spring term. These were used formatively to help them identify gaps in the pupils’ learning so that these informed planning. Claire made the decision to focus on attainment targets 1 and 2 only in maths, as the latter had a higher weighting and impact, and the former had a direct relationship with one of the main strategies used: applying maths in real-life contexts.

It also made it a more manageable process, as did only using it with six pupils in each class. It was seen as very helpful in using assessment to plan for needs and closely monitoring progress. As the year progressed, the focus on specific pupils who were at risk of not making level 3 increased.

So that there was a layer of accountability for other staff in trying out strategies for girls, Claire ensured that the focus group of girls in each class, including her own, would be discussed at pupil progress meetings. These are high-profile meetings, as pupils’ individual progress is discussed in relation to teacher assessments and decisions made on intervention strategies as required. In requiring that the girls which staff had identified in each of their classes would be discussed as part of these meetings, this increased the stakes, as it was not only Claire monitoring this group but also the other senior leaders.

Claire used this as a deliberate leadership ploy, acknowledging that, without such an approach, and in the absence of more formal accountability structures, such as performance management-related targets for pupil progress, staff were less likely to engage in making different provision for these girls. Placing discussion about them at a higher level and monitoring their progress increased project status.

“Your greatest tool as a leader is influence. Claire is the assessment co-ordinator and the leadership structure I’ve got makes the assessment post one of the three most important posts I’ve got in the school.


That means in effect her influence is very considerable. She really leads all the pupil progress meetings... The pupil progress meetings are the most influential meetings of the year...as we’re bringing people to account and there are always some hard messages and people know that. It was more than a pilot because of the influence Claire could have at the pupil progress meetings. For what it’s worth, my experience tells me that sometimes you’re better going through the back door than through the front door. And in many ways the whole focus on all children doing their best and inequalities being driven out, that’s needed a lot of work to make that work and for staff to be on board with that. If you always come through the front door, people just give lip service, you’ve got to persuade people that this is an important thing and that’s what those meetings did really well.”

---Richard

Claire reminded staff in advance to bring the lists of their identified pupils with them, and after meetings provided written feedback to staff on pupils who needed increased focus/intervention following these meetings. These actions reinforced with staff the importance that she was attaching to developments.

However, Claire made sure that in these meetings she adopted the school’s emphasis on using language such as ‘our’ and ‘we’ that presents progress issues as the whole school’s concern. This, Claire considered, made teachers feel that they could discuss their data and take responsibility, but not feel they had to defend themselves.

An updated standards report at the start of the summer term provided another opportunity to highlight the work to staff that had been carried out. Governors were also aware through updates on progress in relation to the school improvement plan. Claire found reporting back to governors quite daunting at times, as they were very rigorous and challenging in their critical friend role.

"They were quite horrified by the gap and were saying: 'Well, what are you doing?' and 'How are you going to ensure this gap is closed?'"

Claire ensured she was very well prepared so that she put herself in a position to field questions authoritatively and developed the confidence to defer responses where she needed to find something out.

The fact that class-based monitoring opportunities for Claire were not planned as part of the project meant that she did have to trust that staff were implementing the strategies they stated they were and she saw this as a challenge. Claire's informal dialogue with colleagues, discussions at staff meetings and progress meetings gave her the opportunity to monitor strategies that had been used by proxy in this instance.

4. Outcomes The impact of the Year 2 pilot is reflected in the attainment levels at the end of Key Stage 1 and for the focus groups of girls (see exhibit 11) Exhibit 11: Level 3 attainment in maths, 2011

Number of girls in the target groups (12 in total) who attained level 3 in maths at the end of Key Stage 1

Level 3 attainment in maths at the end of Key Stage 1 - boys (start of Year 2 prediction based on two sublevels' progress in brackets)

Level 3 attainment in maths at the end of Key Stage 1 - girls (start of Year 2 prediction based on two sublevels' progress in brackets)

11 (1 girl attained level 2a) 43% (26%)

41% (10%)

"It's been quite exciting to see that difference in data - quite a big difference - and seeing how an impact on teaching and learning can have an impact on the standards. It makes you feel more confident in what you're saying being right; that you are on the right track. I think it's been really good for my other colleague in Year 2 as well and to see the impact on her class as it's really raised standards for her as well." --Claire Claire also interviewed all 12 pupils at the end of the pilot year to provide qualitative impact data based on the girls' attitudes towards maths. This took place after the end of Key Stage 1 teacher assessments and was carried out so that Claire could compare their attitudes with those reflected in the interviews with the same 12 pupils conducted earlier in the year by Wendy. The interview highlighted increased enjoyment, confidence and understanding of the application of maths in real-life contexts. The pupils also reflected on how the focus groups had helped them through working with their peers and how they enjoyed the time with their teacher.


Claire is scheduled to write an outcomes report based on the Year 2 pilot so that this can inform whole school improvement. She will present this at the start of the next academic year alongside her autumn term standards report so that this is 'fresh' in the mind of staff rather than at the end of the summer term and school year when she acknowledges staff are tired and less likely to take note of points or to act on them. Claire will also carry out an analysis of the progress of the focus groups of girls in the other classes. Informal feedback from staff has also been that using gender groups has had an impact on these girls' confidence and achievement, in line with Claire and Jane's findings. Claire reflected on the fact that the boys had also made a gain in terms of end-of-year level 3 attainment compared with predicted levels. She puts this down to the increased focus on gender based strategies that arose from the staff meeting in which boys' learning styles and preferences were considered alongside girls. Putting in place strategies that, for example, limited hands-up risk-taking and calling out answers, she feels, had made them less impulsive. Claire also stated: "I found myself challenging them more. I have some boys who think they are amazing at maths and don't think they need your help and I've said, "No, you need to look at this", and really kept challenging them and I think that's something I've done more this year in response to this [gender] work." --Claire 5. Key learning Reflecting on what made the project a success, Claire identifies the following:

Being consistent, that is, in ensuring that there has been a weekly focus on these pupils from Claire and her colleague, Jane, and that it hasn't fallen away at any stage.

Being persistent - Claire's assessment co-ordinator role has put her in a position where she has been able to demonstrate this.

"I'm constantly drip-feeding with staff, I think I've been gentle but firm! In that way they know I mean this, that I'm serious about it." --Claire

Using data to show evidence and impact.

Using available published research as well as school-based research:

"There's some really good research on gender and there's no point doing it all over again if it's already out there." --Claire Having the support of colleagues, for example, the working party members and the collaborative approach in year 2 with Jane. Claire feels that the areas she has made progress in as a leader are as follows:

• Encouraging and valuing colleagues’ contributions to developments, including using language

such as ‘we’ and ‘our’, so that her style is more collegiate.

• Encouraging and celebrating the sharing of good practice as both a means of disseminating this and providing continued momentum to the project.

• Listening actively to what colleagues say in informal dialogue and acting on this:

"When you do have those informal conversations with people, it’s about actually listening and doing something about it. So you’re not just superficially listening; you’re acting on it and mentioning it in meetings, for example."

---Claire

• Taking a more individualised approach in leading staff; knowing the individuals, anticipating likely issues and reactions and responding proactively, empathetically and where appropriate, with humour:

"I think a few years ago, I would have worried about people’s reactions, but I think I’m now at the point


where it’s more “water off a duck’s back”…you know you’ve got an agenda to deliver and you just have to get on with it… But it is about being sensitive as well. I would say in the last two years I’ve really dealt with that."

---Claire

Claire also feels that many of the skills she has as an effective teacher translate into being an effective middle leader, including:

• listening to and acting on others’ ideas

• building positive relationships

• modelling expectations – doing what you expect of others

• good communication skills

Richard's views on Claire's leadership traits are that she:

• prepares meticulously so that data, the evidence base, are all clear

• clearly communicating the way forward, for example, to the SLT, so that this is well expressed and understood

• understands her own and other people’s accountabilities very well

• is both a starter and a finisher

• has good coaching skills

• is an advocate for children and:

"... makes sure there’s no hiding place for anyone: she asks difficult questions and she doesn’t let go; she’s tenacious.” ---Richard

This is evident when someone makes out there isn’t an issue in their class when the data says different, and when someone is being tardy in completing something so that she chases this time and again. However, Richard sets this within the context that Claire is liked by her colleagues and they want to please her.

Linked to these aspects, Richard sees the key learning for closing the gap through middle level leadership as:

• being absolutely clear on data and the evidence base

• learning from best practice – in-house, nationally and internationally, for example, through research

• making a decision on the strategy you are going to use and communicating it clearly and simply

• having a clear strategy for monitoring and evaluating the outcomes

• using the evidence from monitoring and evaluation to affect and change policy

6. Next steps Following the success of the pilot project, and owing to the original intention that it would be a whole school improvement focus in the current year, it will now be rolled out across the school next year as an improvement priority. The academic progress of the identified groups of girls will therefore be monitored as part of performance management. This, Claire feels, will raise the stakes more for staff and increase commitment to closing the gap school-wide and aid monitoring, for example, through lesson observations: “For me, this year has been more of a gentle reminder [at pupil progress meetings] but next year, as it will be part of performance management, it will be far more rigorous.” ---Claire


As part of whole-school improvement, Claire intends that one of the strategies will be for her, or another allotted person, to provide staff training on guided maths groups so that staff are aware of how these are conducted. This area of support required feedback to Claire by staff and will link with Ruth’s work on this:

"We won’t be asking people to be doing massively different things. It’s thinking about groupings. From the results, it’s had a massive impact on those girls and we were really surprised how it changed those girls’ attitudes to maths and their confidence. I didn’t have to plan differently because that’s what scares people – “Oh, I have to do something different” – I didn’t; you just approach things in a different way and have a different angle on it. So that’s what I want to make clear to people when I report back to them. It’s not an extra thing to do.

I feel confident now [through carrying out the pilot] that I know what works and I can feed that back to staff and when I’m monitoring on a bigger scale I’ll know what I’m looking for."

---Claire

Analysis of practice

Now that you have read the themed case study 'Closing the gap: Case study of a middle leader', consider the following questions.

• 01. Although the gap in achievement that Claire is focusing on might be different from yours,

look at how Claire identified the gap and compare this with the process you have been, or are going through, to identify a gap in achievement as a priority to focus on. What can you learn from Claire’s approach that could inform yours?

• 02. Claire had some leadership challenges in terms of leading this maths project. What do you think were the most significant challenges – and why? Would you have addressed them in the same way as Claire – if so why, if not what would you have done? Can you identify with any of Claire’s challenges, in terms of the leadership challenges you are facing? What can you learn from the way that Claire has approached addressing them?

Managing your research project Overview This paper provides practical guidance to a middle leader on how to plan and manage a research project. Many of the techniques discussed are central to effective leadership and management as they are techniques that are essential to monitoring, review and evaluation. Therefore the guidance it gives helps to embed a research project into the everyday work of the middle leader rather than as an ‘add-on’.


Leading teaching Section 02: The importance of teaching and securing consistency Overview This section presents the thinkpiece ‘The importance of teaching and securing consistency’, which forms the basis of this module. It reviews the evidence for the problem of in-school variation and inconsistency, providing the rationale for closing the gap in achievement. It also begins to explore issues in relation to closing the gap, including the moral issue of enhancing equity in society, your school, your team and every classroom. These issues are addressed further in the module.

Theme 1: Ensuring consistently high-quality teaching

Overview This thinkpiece looks at the moral case for closing the gap in achievement and reviews the evidence for the problem of in-school variation and inconsistency. In the account of practice that follows, a middle leader describes his experience of ensuring consistently high-quality teaching and learning. The importance of teaching and securing consistency In-school variation Fundamental to any discussion of the leadership of teaching and learning is the issue of equity. In essence it is not enough to secure excellent teaching and learning for the few; it has to be for all, however challenging that might be. Citing evidence from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) PISA survey for 2009, the Department for Education (DfE) defined the central issue for schools in England in the following terms: "England had one of the highest gaps between high-and low-performing pupils and a strong relationship between social background and performance. 13.9 per cent of the variance in performance of pupils in England could be explained by their social background, as compared to just 8.3 per cent in Finland and 8.2 per cent in Canada. For a very long time in this country, the ‘long tail of underachievement’ has been tolerated; sometimes it has been seen as an inevitable consequence of a system which does a very good job for some." ---DfE, 2010, p2

The gap refers to the range of pupil performance that is wider in England than in most developed countries. This is the key leadership issue for both school and team leaders. There is no doubt that there are many factors that explain the gap; some are cultural and historic, others social and economic. In the school, it is the ‘factors closest to student learning’ that have the greatest effect. This relates directly to the quality of teaching and learning and the effectiveness of teachers. In many ways, this is the pivotal point of this programme: it is the fundamental purpose of team leaders to work on the quality of teaching and learning. Nothing is as important; it’s why schools have team leaders. Strategies to close the gap work on many levels, but the area of greatest impact is ensuring the consistent quality of teaching and learning. "According to the OECD, variation in performance within schools is four times greater than the variation in performance between schools. The result is that the UK has one of the biggest class divides in education in the industrial world. In comprehensive school systems, within-school variation in pupil attainment seems to be much greater than between-school variation. A DfES study of 2003 data showed that in value-added terms, Key Stage 2 within-school variation is five times greater than between-school variance. For Key Stage 3, it’s 11 times greater and for Key Stage 4, it’s 14 times greater" ---National College, 2005, p3

The biggest single variable (30 per cent) that explains in-school variation is teachers: teaching strategies, professional characteristics and classroom climate explain the disturbing levels of variation in some


schools. Achieving consistency means eliminating variation and that in turn involves identifying the non--negotiables, ie aspects of teaching and learning that have been identified as essential to raising performance and achievement. In very broad terms, high-performing schools are schools with the lowest levels of variation, ie the highest levels of consistently outstanding practice. The leadership of subject or phase teaching has to start and end with the issue of consistency and variation.

The impact of in-school variation is shown in the Sutton Trust (2011) report 'Improving the impact of teachers on pupil achievement in the UK: interim findings'.

“The difference between a very effective teacher and a poorly performing teacher is large. For example during one year with a very effective maths teacher, pupils gain 40 per cent more in their learning than they would with a poorly performing maths teacher. The effects of high-quality teaching are especially significant for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds: over a school year, these pupils gain 1.5 years’ worth of learning with very effective teachers, compared with 0.5 years with poorly performing teachers. In other words, for poor pupils the difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher is a whole year’s learning.”

---Sutton Trust, 2011, p2

These points are reinforced by another piece of research focusing on the impact of poor teachers:

"In US research, an eight-year-old consistently given a teacher in the top fifth of performance was found to perform 50 percentile points better three years later than a similarly performing eight-year-old consistently given a teacher in the bottom fifth of performance. Internal Department for Education analysis suggests that this translates into a difference of more than two years’ progress."

"Analysis of test data from Tennessee showed that teacher quality affected student performance more than any other variable; on average, two students with average performance (50th percentile) would diverge by more than 50 percentile points over a three year period depending on the teacher they were assigned."

---Sanders and Rivers The impact of this variation on student achievement is made very clear in the diagram below, which shows very clearly just how directly teacher quality impacts on progress and potential success. This perspective is further reinforced by the Sutton Trust study, which argues that bringing the bottom 10 per cent of teachers up to the national average would have a significant impact on England’s relative international performance other things being equal: “in five years the UK’s rank amongst OECD countries would improve from 21st in Reading to as high as 7th, and from 22nd in Maths to as high as 12th.”(Sutton Trust 2011: 7). These various insights provide evidence of the greatest challenge facing school leaders, irrespective of their role: how to secure effective teaching for every pupil. In many ways, team leaders are absolutely pivotal to this process as it is their responsibility to ensure effective teaching, pupil progress and achievement on a daily basis in every classroom for every pupil consistently over time.


The rest of this module focuses on four related factors that seem to be fundamental to closing the gap.

Shared values and moral purpose

There is a general consensus that irrespective of role or status, we need to see leadership in education as being an essentially moral activity. From this perspective, a central challenge for school leaders is to translate principle into practice, to make the abstract concrete and to turn aspiration into experience. The challenge in this module is to apply those principles of effective leading and managing to the quality of teaching and pupil progress and achievement within your team.

It has to be stressed that in many schools for most of the time there is a strong correlation between aspiration and actual achievement; in essence these schools are keeping their promises. However, the higher the aspiration, the more difficult it is to translate it into consistent concrete experience. This is particularly true for teaching and learning. Although there are many individual examples of outstanding practice, they are not always translated into consistent practice across the whole school.

School leaders therefore need to use a range of strategies to increase the possibility of high levels of congruence between aspiration and the actual experience of learners in a way that is consistent across the school and over time. The issue is one of equity: while everybody may in principle be equal, not everybody experiences equity. Every child has a right to go to school, but not every child goes to a good school.

In many ways school leadership is all about the relationship between principle and practice. Team leaders are uniquely placed to form the bridge between school policies, classroom practice and the concrete experience of pupils. It might be helpful to see school leaders as the lynchpins of school improvement. The role of team leaders is as much about interpretation and application as it is about articulation; it is not enough to publish the policy, it also has to be embedded in practice. This is very much a moral issue centred on securing every learner’s right to effective education. The moral dimension of the role of leaders in any capacity in a school is thus to make values and promises real in the life of every learner.


At the very least this might involve:

• the explicit articulation of school values and moral principles at team level • the interpretation and application of those principles in team situations • ensuring that every individual in the school understands the principles and is able to make

them personally meaningful • working to create a consensus around the principles and to ensure their consistent application

across the team • monitoring the life of the team or department to ensure that aspirations are being translated

into actual experience, e.g. carrying out an ethical audit of the work of the team • affirming appropriate and successful teaching, and challenging inappropriate and ineffective

strategies • investing time in monitoring, reviewing and renewing personal and team value systems

There does seem to be a very high correlation between high performing teams and agreement around

core principles and values. Middle leaders are often at their most effective when they are helping to build

a consensus in their team around the basic values that influence how team members approach their work.

Review and reflection

1 What evidence is there that a consistent focus on the quality of teaching and learning is at the heart of leadership in your school?

2 What do your school’s aims or mission statement say about effective teaching and learning?

3 How are those values translated into policies and strategies across the school? What is your role in this process?

4 What evidence is there of the school’s values in your team documentation?

5 How does your job or role description define your responsibility for the quality of teaching and learning?

Ensuring equity

Ensuring equity is a key issue for team leaders. In the thinkpiece it states that:

"... it is not enough to secure excellent teaching and learning for a few, it has to be for all."

It is known that the range of pupil performance is wider in England than in other developed countries. It is therefore the fundamental purpose of team leaders to close that gap by leading improvements in teaching and learning and ensuring consistency in the quality of teaching and learning. This account of practice by Nick Murray, head of media studies at Wood Green Academy in the West Midlands, illustrates how he as a team leader achieves this.

Ensuring consistently high-quality teaching and learning

Nick Murray, middle leader, Wood Green Academy, Wednesbury

Nick is head of the media studies department in this large, 11–19 academy that was judged outstanding by Ofsted in May 2012. The department itself is a success story. It has grown under Nick’s leadership from only 30 students 3 years ago to over 100 today, the result of what he describes as “students voting with their feet”. It is staffed largely by non-specialist teachers from the English and ICT departments and, due to timetable pressures, is subject to a degree of staff turnover from year to year. The middle leadership tier in the academy consists of subject and year leaders, reporting to the headteacher and senior leadership team. Middle leaders received a strong endorsement in the Ofsted report for ‘driving improvement resolutely and with the best interests of the students in mind’.

This is clearly a highly effective and supportive professional environment in which to operate as a middle leader. The headteacher has established a shared sense of purpose and strong teamwork to raise the aspirations of students and teachers.

All of this does not mean that middle leaders such as Nick have an easy life, however. On the contrary, everyone’s performance is monitored rigorously and expectations are very high. The culture of success and high standards provides a positive context in which middle leaders are working, but it also means that


the bar is set high. For the academy to sustain the currently outstanding quality of teaching, nothing less than the best practice will do.

There is a strong emphasis across all subjects on developing and sharing good classroom practice in order to maintain the academy’s position at the cutting-edge of pedagogy. Much of this work falls within the remit of the innovations unit, which co-ordinates and directs teacher collaboration on curriculum development, as well as ensuring the highest standards of teaching and learning. Care is also taken to ensure that provision meets the criteria for teaching and learning in the Ofsted framework for inspection.

Identifying variations in teaching

Nick’s leadership of the media studies department in the last three years has followed the academy’s policy of sharing and developing good practice, but how does he identify variation in the teaching of media studies? The evidence comes from a number of sources which are the focus of Nick’s leadership throughout the academic year:

• formative and summative assessment data to evaluate the success of the department across a range of student outcomes, as well as identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the media studies curriculum

• joint moderation of teachers’ assessment of students’ work • • scrutiny of students’ books and other media studies work, including the quality and

helpfulness of marking

• • ongoing, raw performance data in the target and tracking system, using baseline targets set by Fischer Family Trust (FFT 15 in 2011-2012) data to monitor student progress

• informal and formal classroom observation, which also contributes to the academy’s performance management system, and using a standard form as the basis for reflection and dialogue with teachers and to reflect the most up-to-date expectations in the Ofsted framework

All of these amount to a broad range of evidence, but much of it is ongoing and embedded in the department’s work on a week-by-week basis. What matters most, however, is the use that Nick makes of it all and how it is made available through feedback to his colleagues. The perfect opportunity for feedback is provided by weekly continuing professional development (CPD) sessions over two hours every Wednesday afternoon. The media studies department combines with the English department for these sessions, when the focus is on sharing best practice in teaching and learning and discussing where and how further improvements can be made. Careful consideration is given to the evidence of variation in the quality of teaching and learning when planning the agendas for these meetings. There is a workshop approach to the sessions and everyone is encouraged to contribute with ideas and examples of effective practice. Where needed, break-out groups allow for differentiation in the topics under discussion. Overall, the Wednesday sessions provide Nick and other middle leaders with the opportunity not only to analyse and tackle areas of practice where there is scope for improvement, but also to celebrate success. Nick’s approach to CPD outside the Wednesday sessions reflects the size of the department and the high turnover of staff: "As a small department with ever-changing staff, the need to be very flexible and responsive to the learning styles of the staff is key." A good example of this flexibility was a series of breakfast CPD sessions focused on developing the skills of two members of the department in the use and teaching of digital image editing. Nick decided to run these early morning sessions before the start of the normal working day after staff expressed a preference for guided, hands-on sessions for this particular skill:

"I think the provision of breakfast was the clincher for persuading people to come to work early. I provided lashings of coffee, orange juice and croissants." Identifying priorities for improvement Interpreting the evidence to identify priorities for improvement within the department is a key feature of Nick’s leadership role. Nick regards these priorities as non-negotiables, inasmuch as they form the basis of the departmental action plan. The following components of the current action plan for media studies, some


of which are also whole-school priorities, will determine the agenda for Nick’s leadership over the year: • improving teaching through better and more regular marking of students’ work, with formal

marking for all students at least every two weeks • achieving outstanding teaching by ensuring students make progress in their learning in every

session • sustaining the highest standards of classroom management to ensure students meet the

academy’s expectations in terms of personal appearance, attitude and uniform • achieving thinking school1 status by embedding the teaching of thinking skills and the use of

higher order questioning across the curriculum • ensuring all student targets are set at least in line with, and never below, the progress derived

from the FFT top 15 per cent of students nationally • providing the necessary CPD to enable teachers to meet the demands of the action plan

Measuring impact Measuring the impact of the initiatives in the action plan completes the cycle of Nick’s role in the development of teaching in the media studies department. The cycle began with identifying the areas for improvement, followed by an action plan and CPD to support staff development. Measuring the impact of the action plan involves a number of leadership practices:

• directing a formal process of self evaluation by the department once a year that measures its effectiveness through quantitative (performance data) and qualitative (evidence of teaching and learning) evidence

• co-ordinating the publication of success criteria, time frames and expectations of students’ performance

• monitoring and evaluating new units of work, including feedback from students, to assess their capacity to meet the needs of learners and ensure consistency in the way they are delivered

• analysing feedback from students from interviews and written comments about their media studies courses and the work they have done

• directing a cycle of performance data collection throughout the year, focusing on the progress of pupil groups, gaps in attainment and any issues arising from earlier assessments

A good example of focusing the collection of performance data on specific pupil groups arose from concerns about girls’ enjoyment of, and engagement with, ICT within the creative media production module of the BTEC course. Grade-and value-added data using FFT analyses showed a worrying dip in the value-added score for girls partway through Year 11 when the media production course included more elements of ICT. Alerted by the data, Nick and his team took action to focus on improving the skills and attitudes of girls in ICT and were rewarded when the end-of-course results showed a significant improvement in girls’ grades and value-added scores. These results were a clear demonstration of the impact of the intervention to support girls’ ICT within the BTEC media studies course during Year 11.

Summary Nick’s leadership is based on a belief in the importance of good systems combined with developing people, both of which are important in a small department with higher than average turnover and a number of non specialists: "I like to ensure there is a firm structure for staff within each unit of work in the media studies curriculum that guides their lessons and supports students’ learning. I’m a great believer in positivity."

Ensuring consistency in the quality of teaching and learning

Ensuring consistency in the quality of teaching and learning

The components of Nick’s role in ensuring consistency in the quality of teaching and learning are found in three leadership practices:

• Setting direction

• Developing people

• Developing systems


Setting direction

Using a wide range of data from the continuous evaluation of the department’s effectiveness, Nick draws up an action plan which drives a programme of improvements in the curriculum and ensures greater consistency in the quality of teaching.

Developing people

There is a strong emphasis on collaborative working within the media studies and English departments by which Nick is able to establish consistent teaching practices and procedures. The weekly CPD sessions are a tangible demonstration of the academy’s commitment to staff development and support.

Developing systems

Ensuring consistency in the department’s policies and practice for teaching and learning, classroom management and the use of data underpins the development of staff and students, as well as supporting the key elements of the department’s action plan.


Now that you have read 'Ensuring consistently high-quality teaching and learning', review the practice in your school by considering the following questions.

• 01. How does this school ensure consistently high-quality teaching and learning? How does this compare with the practice in your school?

• 02. The account of practice highlights three leadership practices that the middle leader uses to ensure consistency in the quality of teaching and learning: setting direction, developing people and developing systems. If you were asked to rank these leadership competences in order of priority, what would that be, and why?

Theme 2: Shared values and moral purpose

Introduction The thinkpiece refers to leadership in education as being a moral responsibility. It goes on to state that the moral dimension of a leader’s role is to 'make values and promises real in the life of every learner’ and it sets out what this might involve.

Here, a headteacher and a middle leader give their perspectives on moral responsibility.

Moral purpose

Mark Perry, headteacher, St Peter’s School, Exeter

This account of practice is from a headteacher’s perspective in terms of what he would expect from middle leaders and their teams.

Mark Perry has been head of St Peter’s School, Exeter for 16 years. A church of England (CofE) aided school, it has 1,225 students aged 11–16. It was rated good with outstanding features in its most recent Ofsted inspection and outstanding in the National Society inspection for church schools.

The school emphasises efforts to help every student fulfil their potential and develop strong home–school links, and promotes a caring, nurturing environment.


What does leading with moral purpose look like? The concept of leadership with moral purpose is fundamental to St Peter’s as a school that encourages people to think carefully about their own contributions to society and their own moral values, says Mark.

"It is part of our service to others and teaching as a vocation: we are here to do a good job for the youngsters, help them to do their best and fulfil their potential."

Moral purpose is integral to good teaching and learning:

"If students believe the teachers have their interests at heart, they will understand that it is in their interests to behave well, so the teachers will not have to waste time on crowd control. That makes exciting teaching a lot easier to achieve."

How do you ensure middle leaders articulate school values and moral principles?

Moral purpose is not something that can be tidily boxed off into a topic for staff meetings or an in-service training (Inset) day. It is an ongoing, constant part of the job of the head and the senior leadership team (SLT) to ensure that the school’s values and moral principles are embedded in all aspects of the school and that staff know it, Mark says. The SLT has a responsibility to model those values for middle leaders. It can be, for example, by modelling caring behaviour – being genuinely concerned and interested in the well-being of individual members of staff, or ensuring that the school places what is best for students at the heart of every strategic discussion. "We want middle leaders to personify the ethos of the school and to do that we must set an example as a senior team ourselves." Areas of development in the school are discussed with middle leaders at meetings four times a term. Mark says: “If you want something done effectively, it will have most chance of success if the middle leaders lead on it. We wouldn’t impose things on the middle leaders, what we would do is discuss it and come up with a consensus based on the aims and objectives of the school and take it forward together. For example, a couple of years ago we had some concerns about how the students were behaving around the school. It’s the kind of thing that happens from time to time in all schools and we felt we needed to do more to encourage young people to take more care of each other. We brought together the middle leaders to look at the school code and to talk about how to encourage the kind of behaviour the code stipulates in classrooms and around the school. We came up with ways in which they and their teams could promote it during lessons, for example, by using positive reinforcement of good behaviour through a school-wide rewards system on duty around school and in assemblies. So everybody together made it a focus for a while and things improved.”

Explaining moral purpose to new staff

The emphasis on care and support for others and on enabling every child to succeed is set out clearly to candidates at interview. At the start of term, the head will go through the school’s ethos, its aims andobjectives for the students and how these are reflected in practice. An informal mentoring system means each new member of staff has somebody to work with who knows the ropes and whom they can consult for help and advice. Mark says:

"One of the hardest lessons for new teachers is what to do when kids are really not helpful. You have to forgive them and give them another chance, and sometimes that’s tough for some teachers to realise. If ever a difficulty arises, then middle leaders will step in and negotiate an outcome which preserves the dignity of both the member of staff and the student involved. Sometimes putting high principles into action is tough. Of course, sometimes students make mistakes that we cannot allow to go without serious consequences, but these are few and far between."

Resolving conflict

What would happen if Mark felt that a middle leader who was otherwise competent and professional was acting in a way that clashed with the school ethos? Such issues rarely arise, he says. If they did,


as headteacher he would need to spell out the school’s expectations and how the individual had departed from them.

"If the head and senior team have given a very clear interpretation of moral purpose and modelled it in their own behaviour and practice, then the middle leader shouldn’t really be surprised by what they hear”

One thing it’s important to recognise is that the school’s interpretation of moral purpose is obviously informed but not bound by its Christian foundation. There are atheists on the staff as well as among the students, but the school remains determined to be an inclusive community.

“I don’t want people to feel that they are censored here because that would be quite unacceptable... but I think the critical mass of staff are committed to the foundation of the school and what we are trying to do. We have parents too who come to us because they like the ethos and they are not too bothered that it is religious. I think what that they like is the sense of moral purpose.” Impact

Building and sustaining a sense of moral purpose is an ongoing task, Mark emphasises:

"We have a very strong, caring ethos now and it’s one of the school’s strong points, which parents often comment on. But you have to keep working at it. You have to recruit the right people – people with a strong sense of moral purpose, who want to do the best for the students and want to enable them to fulfil their potential, and who share our caring ethos."

Impact is difficult to quantify, he adds, but Mark has had a clear and increasing sense in the last few years that day-to-day interactions between staff and between staff and students are carried out in a spirit of mutual respect and a shared wish that the school community is based on sound principles and values. This is evident in the way middle leaders lead and interact with their teams.

Analysis of practice Now that you have read the account of practice entitled 'Moral purpose', review the practice in your school by considering the following questions.

• 01. What have you learned from this account of practice about the way in which a head teacher can ensure middle leaders articulate school values and moral principles – and how they do that?

• 02. What can you take from this account of practice that will help you to articulate through the leadership of your team your school’s values and moral principles?

Values and moral purpose in school leadership

Laura Wyatt, Phase Leader for 7–14, Oak Field Special School

Laura Wyatt works at Oak Field Special School, in Nottingham as a Phase Leader for 7 to 14. In this account of practice, Laura talks about values and the importance of a leader in ensuring that these are underpinning practice -both their practice and that of their team.

"I think it's important to make sure that the team that you're working with understand what our principles are, what our values are, and so that they're really clear about what it is that we're trying to achieve. So that they can build that into their planning, they can build that into the way that they work and they interact with the students, and that it becomes... an everyday part of what we're doing, that... it should go across everything that we do, and be... embedded into everything that we do."

---Laura Wyatt, Phase Leader for 7-14, Oak Field School


Now that you have watched Laura Wyatt's account of practice, 'Values and moral purpose in school leadership', review the practice in your school by considering the following questions.

• 01. How does Laura expect her team to demonstrate the school’s values through their practice – and what does she do as a leader to ensure that happens?

• 02. What can you take from this account of practice that will help you to articulate through the leadership of your team your school’s values and moral principles?


Values and moral purpose in school leadership

Introduction

There does seem to be a strong correlation between high-performing teams and broad agreement on core principles and values. Middle leaders are often at their most effective when they are helping to build a consensus in their team around the basic values that influence how team members approach their work.

Task

Review the practice in your school by considering the following questions in the panel on the right. Record your thoughts in your blog.

1 What evidence is there that a consistent focus on the quality of teaching and learning is at the heart of leadership in your school?

2 What do your school’s aims or mission statement say about effective teaching and learning?

3 How are those values translated into policies and strategies across the school? What is your role in this process?

4 What evidence is there of the school’s values in your team documentation?

5 How does your job or role description define your responsibility for the quality of teaching and learning?

6 What strategies do you use to ensure consistency of effective teaching and learning across your team?

Further information Overview

This page contains a range of additional resources you may want to use to extend your learning in this section.

References

• Sanders & Rivers, Cumulative and residual effects on future student academic achievement. In DfE, 2010, The case for change, London, Department for Education

Overview

The thinkpiece 'The importance of teaching and securing consistency' presents evidence for the problem of in-school variation and inconsistency and begins to explore the issues in closing the gap, including the moral issue of enhancing equity.

This section of the module continues to explore these issues by looking at securing outstanding teaching and learning and consistent progress and achievement for every pupil. The importance of data to this process is emphasised throughout this discussion.


Section 03: Achieving consistent excellence

Theme 1: Securing consistency

Introduction In the thinkpiece, you will have read the evidence for the presence of variation across the education system in England. In essence, there is excellent teaching and many pupils achieve outstanding results. But not all do. How do we close the gap between those who achieve and those who do not?

In the most basic terms: eliminate the variation between teachers and you will do much to eliminate the variation in pupil achievement and so shorten the tail of underachievement. Issues such as poverty and parenting will always be a major influence on academic success, but the quality of the classroom experience is something that team leaders have direct and significant control over.

Holding colleagues to account through teacher appraisal, managing performance and professional competence and embedding the Ofsted framework into daily practice is the real work of team leaders. Equally, team leaders will work to create a sense of common purpose, trust and personal and professional commitment.

The purpose of the following accounts of practice is to look at what four middle leaders in different contexts regard as outstanding teaching and how that influences their practice as leaders.

• Steve Hinshelwood, Head of Science Faculty, Chesterton Community College

• Katrina Patterson, Head of Languages, Chesterton Community College

• Sonia Hayward, literacy leader, Castle Hill Primary School

• Jo Field, middle leader, Ladywood Special School

Understanding what outstanding teaching and learning look like: Secondary

Steve Hinshelwood, Head of Science Faculty, Chesterton Community College

Steve Hinshelwood, head of science has just moved from a faculty that was outstanding to one that is good with outstanding features. His role is to make his new department outstanding. In this video, Steve talks about making the teaching more effective. He describes what he would expect to see in an outstanding lesson, focusing on the learning rather than the teaching. He talks about building consistency in order to improve practice; the link between high quality teaching and students’ behaviour; and teaching strategies and their effectiveness. He sees that the key factor in moving his faculty to outstanding is through building a team.

"The most important one for me in my department at the moment is to build a team that has got a common goal on becoming outstanding and that all shares the same vision of what outstanding looks like. So my main role is about communicating and building a consensus about how we are going to look and why we want to look that way and what we’re going to do to get there."

---Steve Hinshelwood, Head of Science Faculty, Chesterton Community College

Understanding what outstanding teaching and learning look like: Secondary Katrina Patterson, Head of Languages, Chesterton Community College

Katrina Patterson is Head of Languages in Chesterton Community College. In the video, Katrina talks about the need for a leader to be a good teacher themselves, if they are going to improve the quality of teaching across their team. She talks about the importance of them knowing what good and outstanding teaching looks like and how it can be achieved. Her aim as a leader is to get outstanding teaching across the faculty and she focuses on the importance of setting high standards within her team; regularly monitoring what is going on in the faculty; and keeping the focus on teaching and learning high on the team’s agenda. However, for her, the measure of success is through the students themselves:

"Outstanding teaching in my team looks like students being happy and satisfied with their own progress.


Students walking out at the end of the day with top grades at GCSE. Students enjoying what they’re doing. Students wanting to take my subject at key stage four. It’s the results of outstanding teaching."

---Katrina Patterson, Head of Languages, Chesterton Community College

Understanding what outstanding teaching and learning look like: Primary Sonia Hayward, literacy leader, Castle Hill Primary School, Hampshire

Introduction

This account of practice captures the perceptions of Sonia Hayward, head of Year 5, member of the senior leadership team (SLT) and literacy leader at Castle Hill Primary School in Hampshire.

The school serves a mixed area and has moved from the threat of closure to achieving multi-award-winning status. There are two classes in each year group and the school is consistently over-subscribed. The school’s motto, Aim for Excellence, reflects its unambiguous commitment to high standards for all. The school’s headteacher and leadership team provide stability and a clear vision of success for both pupils and staff.

Sonia was asked for her views on the most effective ways to develop, improve and sustain high-quality literacy teaching across the school.

Supporting and extending outstanding literacy teaching

Sonia has a clear idea of what outstanding literacy teaching looks like, developed over time and through the responsibilities she has for monitoring and evaluating teaching and learning in this vital area. Outstanding and high-level practice, she maintains, starts with the children whose reactions to a lesson clearly identify whether they are fully engaged with learning. Sonia is aware that whilst all staff aim for the full engagement of pupils, it is not always possible to achieve this. Sometimes issues such as low-level disruption or a mismatch between teacher perceptions and learner needs can interfere with the engagement and learning process.

Staff who experience problems or who need additional support are quick to ask for guidance. This is in part due to respect for the position Sonia has within the school as an expert in the field of literacy but is also due to a school-wide culture of collegiality and trust that has been engendered by the headteacher over a number of years and is reinforced throughout all school systems and communication networks.

The culture of learning and disseminating good and developing practice is well established at Castle Hill where the staff team proactively works to secure the highest standards of professional practice in order to benefit pupils and extend good practice. This climate for learning means that as well as Sonia, other members of staff are involved in supporting and extending learning and literacy practice. At Castle Hill everyone regards themselves as a learner.

Sonia provides help, support and insights into literacy and its development through a range of networks, strategies and forums. She identifies some of these as follows:

• keeping abreast of recent, relevant research and development in the area of literacy • distributing to staff information in relation to national developments

• organising whole-staff training in the context of the school’s in-service training days

• reviewing lessons

• reviewing teacher planning

• sharing good and developing practice

• monitoring and evaluating practice through book and work trawls, review of pupil targets, adherence to the marking policy and scrutiny of extended writing

• talking with pupils about their learning experiences

• supporting new and beginner teachers in developing a comprehensive repertoire of skills

• coaching and modelling literacy practice


• pushing initiatives and observing their impact

• modelling standards

• giving one-to-one feedback

• keeping up parental contact and liaison

• liaising with the head and deputy head on next focus areas

• team teaching

The comprehensive range of teacher and pupil involvement she identifies helps her to ensure that things are “moving forward” and assists her in “evaluating how things are going”. Acting on feedback, as reflected upon by the school’s 2010 Ofsted report, Sonia comments:

"All stakeholders are continually consulted as to how to improve things and their advice is acted upon."

Responding positively to Ofsted feedback helps her and the teaching team to improve practice, aspiring to and reaching the highest levels of pupil engagement and success in literacy.

Sonia and the Castle Hill team are aware that there are challenges in the school regarding both boys’ and girls’ literacy levels. Some challenges can be addressed in the classroom through enhanced teaching techniques whilst others, often the most difficult to address, are rooted in parental and societal expectations. With these challenges in mind, Sonia regularly works alongside parents to help them understand the intricacies of their child’s school work, and also runs workshops with colleagues on phonics and related issues.

The focus of Sonia’s work is clearly on her main school role in leading literacy, but as an experienced practitioner she knows that whatever the lesson content, certain key ingredients must always be present. It is by looking at these key ingredients through the lens of literacy that Sonia’s work in securing outstanding teaching moves into the wider arena of pedagogy and practice.

Although Sonia has the lead role in monitoring and evaluating literacy practice, she is not the only person who takes an active role in this area. From time to time, the whole staff team will look at books and work across the entire teaching team, helping them to understand the cross-phase nature of pupil and teacher development. Additionally, at the end of every two-week unit of work, pupils undertake a self-review process, supported through developing peer review practice, a process that enables them to set themselves new targets for literacy success and to monitor their progress. In this way Sonia says:

"They take responsibility for where they go next.”

Children use a green pen to review and annotate their work with their class teacher, this process helping them and their teachers to see the dynamics, improvements and outcomes of the writing process as it evolves and they progress.

Pupils also work with peer markers on a scheme that Sonia identified as “two stars and a wish.” This comprehensively used approach means that children commend their partners on two things they have done well, identifying why those things have been successful, and then identify one area in which they think their partner might reasonably improve. This process helps youngsters to review the work of others in an insightful and mature way and ensures that learner support and practice permeates the whole organisation.

Peer marking is an ongoing process which provides an underpinning rationale for pupil self-review and evaluation. It is valuable for a number of reasons: it helps pupils to develop critical review processes, promotes higher level thinking and questioning skills, generates peer trust and respect, supports an ongoing dialogue about marking which youngsters are expected to reflect on and refer to, and creates a learning situation where the views and opinions of pupils are valued.

Pupil-led work of this kind is important in supporting detailed teacher marking which, by its nature, takes place on a less regular basis than that carried out by peers. By creating opportunities for this important activity to take place, teachers can create time to work with individual pupils needing additional help or

take a moment for themselves to reflect on the effectiveness of their teaching, reviewing their perceptions against the insights of their pupils recorded in the peer-marking process.


The importance of good discipline

Sonia’s work on cross-curricular literacy means that she has clear notions of the importance of good discipline in the classroom.

Sonia knows that regardless of the subject area or the lesson focus, all lessons need to be engaging, challenging, relevant, well-paced and appropriate. This means planning according to the pupils’ needs and having detailed knowledge of each child. Castle Hill staff pride themselves in the data they have which enables them to plan in this way and Sonia expects to see that knowledge reflected in the lessons she observes, the planning she reviews and the pupil interviews she carries out. Sonia also reflects on the need for a: "... calm, fun, ordered and well-disciplined approach to learning." Good behaviour is a 'keystone' of high-level teaching and learning. When these are present, the following benchmarks of outstanding practice can be used and seen:

• enjoyment, involvement and engagement

• good subject knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject matter

• practical ways that provide youngsters with unusual starter activities

• use of ICT to engage learners

• scaffolding

• investigation

• pace and variety in tasks and learning approaches

• different learning approaches that take account of differing learning styles

• on-task talking and thinking

• modelling expectations

• pace and appropriateness

• pupil and peer review

• supported experience of failure with opportunities for review and higher level thinking and analysis

• pupils as critics and evaluators

• teacher evaluation and reflection

Sonia is a believer in the value of reviewing learning styles, having reviewed her own and those of her Year 5 class. Knowing how children learn, she suggests, helps teachers support learners in developing a full repertoire of skills.

Sonia is a firm believer in the value of reflection when it comes to evaluating and diagnosing lesson outcomes:

"If you haven’t got the response from a class that you wanted, it’s usually something you’ve done wrong.”

At Castle Hill the focus is on moving forward, with pupils and teachers both having targets for improvement. Recognising and implementing these targets is central to school improvement and determines for teachers and pupils where they will go next. The role of leadership is to make these next moves possible. Understanding what outstanding teaching and learning look like: Special School Jo Field, middle leader, Ladywood Special School, Bolton Jo Field is a class 3 teacher at Ladywood Special School in Bolton, a primary school for 4–11 year olds with complex learning needs, and has worked there for three years. Ladywood was rated outstanding by Ofsted in 2011.

As a middle leader, Jo works with a team including her job-share partner and two teaching assistants and is also responsible for the school’s science curriculum. This year, she has participated in the Middle Leadership Development Programme (MLDP), which Ladywood, in its capacity as a national teaching school, offers with the National College. She will shortly be switching from part time to full time.


Leadership roles This year, Jo has been developing the science curriculum for progression from Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 2, looking at how to incorporate scientific enquiry into the children’s learning, how learning is recorded to match assessment statements and how it is moderated. Her findings have been presented to whole-school staff meetings. Her other leadership challenge in school has been the renewal of Ladywood’s Quality Mark.

Externally, she was one of the school’s lead teachers on a research project with the University of Manchester which explored the application of the principles of outdoor learning at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.

She says:

"Our Foundation Stage children have access to the outdoor learning environment all the time and we wanted to look at whether we could embed the same principles in KS1 and KS2 to improve teaching and learning... It involved composing an action plan, putting together a working party, organising timetables, writing [observation forms], motivating people, and doing a presentation to the university with colleagues, so [it] used all my leadership skills.”

The project has challenged preconceptions about how children with special educational needs (SEN) learn and consequently triggered reflection about teaching practice.

“Usually, the preferred method of working would be one-to-one learning with the teacher but we’ve found the learning outcomes have been outstanding when the children are learning from their peers and also when they’ve steered their own learning... It means we move to being facilitators of learning, rather than delivering and supporting all of the time. Taking that step back and revising your own practice has been really powerful.”

Middle leadership

Ofsted rated Ladywood’s leadership and management as outstanding school at its most recent inspection and the senior leadership team provides powerful role models that shape her own approach to leadership, Jo says.

"I try to model myself on the leadership that I see around me. So I try 100 per cent to be a good role model; I wouldn’t ask someone to do something that I don’t already do and do well, for example."

Jo sets great store by detailed planning and ensuring the support she provides is tailored to different members of staff and different teams throughout the school. One example is Jo’s approach to developing the use of scientific enquiry with staff, some of whom had more experience of using it than others.

"Before delivering a staff meeting on scientific enquiry I met teaching staff to discuss how they were incorporating it into their science planning and lessons. It became clear that staff were at different stages of their understanding of the importance and need for scientific enquiry. I used this information to plan the meeting to meet the needs of all teachers. I produced documents highlighting why scientific enquiry is important and packs for each teacher to take away with all the necessary sheets to scaffold implementation. For those unsure of what it might look like I modelled the use of ‘discovery dog’, a scientific enquiry resource, and showed how to plan an investigation with the children."

It meant that Jo’s aims and expectations were made explicit to all and provided a consistent approach for all teaching staff to use when addressing scientific enquiry in class.

One of the key qualities middle leadership requires is strong interpersonal skills, Jo points out:

“Rather than going in all guns blazing, reflection and self-reflection are very important tools to get people on board. You have to demonstrate to people that you are approachable, and that yours is a support role as well as a working role. As a middle leader, you understand the pressures everyone’s going through as you’re going through the same. But you have to remain positive for the benefit of the children and when you do that, you see people coming on board who are enthused by your enthusiasm. Something I learned from the MLDP is to be aware of other people’s learning styles and that, although some people’s learning styles are different from mine, the result can be just as good. It has had a big impact on me this year.”


Outstanding teaching Detailed planning and preparation are crucial to Jo’s and Ladywood’s approach to, as is prior assessment. “You need to know where to pitch the lesson…Some children will switch off if it’s too difficult or too easy for them or if it is something they have already covered. The important thing here is that deep knowledge of the whole child, their learning style, their prior learning and their assessment. With that understanding and your own subject knowledge, you can set out what they should be aiming for next, so that they continue to progress in the right way and at the right pace for them.” In subject teaching, differentiation is clearly important but it depends on detailed, regular assessment. Jo says: "You need that ability to know each individual child in your class, their preferred learning style and what makes them tick. For example, when the pupils come into class each year and each term I assess them on the four areas of scientific learning. With that information, I know instantly to tailor the lesson three ways to meet the needs of the children as identified in their assessment levels." Jo cites the example of changing materials in science and using sensory learning with Year 1 pupils at three different levels.

“We would have some ice in the classroom and the children would be exploring it using all their senses, plus symbols would be on display for them to interact with. The next group up would be perhaps sequencing the changes in the materials, while my top groups would be planning an investigation centred on changing materials. We would also make ice lollies to taste – which is always popular with the children but also an amazing assessment activity at the end of a unit to question the knowledge and scientific vocabulary they have acquired. I ask them probing questions such as ‘How did you make an ice lolly and what changes happened?’”

As a leader in the classroom, Jo has to ensure staff have grasped the way of working and outcomes she is aiming for. She shares her aims and expectations for differentiated learning at weekly meetings, and learning objectives are all clearly displayed in the class, as are examples of questions to use with children of different abilities.

"I try not to presume they understand everything at once and will often revisit previous conversations so I know for sure my expectations are understood"

For assessment, the staff are fully aware of the school’s marking policy and always use it, so Jo can see clearly the judgements teachers have made when she looks at a child’s work. The information, together with the assessments the children make themselves (see below), is brought to the next planning meeting to shape the next steps for the children. Jo says:

"Being very clear from the outset and checking for consistency at the start of the academic year ensures we are all marking and conducting assessments consistently. It highlights the need for clear dialogue and regular communication and reflection opportunities as a team.”

Evaluation

All of the children have individual education plans (IEPs). These are evaluated weekly to see whether a child can move to the next objective. The plans are evaluated and revised three times a year.

"The culture of Ladywood is assess, evaluate, move on... You are always analysing and evaluating to move the pupils on to the next steps. It is effective for the teachers and practitioners, but also being able to share with the parents even the smallest step in the learning is immense as well."

Besides staff assessments, children are also encouraged to evaluate their own learning with a system of orange and green smiley faces. Orange means ‘I can do it’ and green means ‘More help please’.

Jo says:

"The children have individual targets and each time they come and learn with me or one of the other staff, they go to their personalised target board and choose their target. I will read it to them at the start of their learning, where appropriate: it might be ‘I can find number one’, for example. At the end I’ll read back the target and they either indicate an orange sticker or a green one.

It’s amazing how even children with a low level of ability and understanding can evaluate whether they can do it or need more help. That then helps me to make sure that everything is appropriate to where their learning journey is at the moment and the next steps in their learning.”


Support from Senior Leaders Jo can call on the senior leadership of Ladywood if she has a particular challenge in one area. The school’s deputy head, for example, is in charge of behaviour management and Jo has sought her help on a number of occasions. "Often, it’s for clarification, about whether the systems I have in place are appropriate or to ask her to evaluate what I’ve been doing and suggest other things that might work,” she says. “For example, we had a child this year whose behaviour was perfect in class but deteriorated once she went out to the yard; she was not listening to adults and was challenging other children. I hadn’t seen this pattern of different behaviours for different parts of the school before but the senior staff had, so we talked about strategies that could work on the playground.” At a whole-school staff meeting, Jo told her colleagues that the child was finding being on the yard a challenge, and asked them to support her by modelling ‘being a good friend’ and ‘playing nicely with other children’.

Jo says:

"At Ladywood, if you say, ‘we need help with this child’, the whole school comes on board because everything is centred on the needs of the child. So staff on duty became aware they needed to monitor her and engage with her to give her no opportunities not to be following the rules. And with constant role-modelling of following the rules and our high expectations, her behaviour has improved so she now enjoys playtime.”

One of the key aspects of middle leadership is to recognise that you can still ask for help in this way, she adds:

"It makes you remember that people can still intervene to support you. Whatever the issue is, somebody will have faced it before and will be able to guide you."

Questions for reflection

• What steps would you take to ensure your staff understand your aims and objectives in the classroom?

• How could you involve children in assessing their own progress?

• How would you ensure other teachers have sufficient understanding of your subject specialism and its methods to deliver the activities you have devised?


Now that you have watched the two video accounts of practice by Steve Hinshelwood and Katrina Patterson and read the two accounts of practice by Sonia Hayward and Jo Field on 'Understanding what outstanding teaching and learning look like', consider the following questions.

• 01. Drawing from these accounts of practice, what do you identify as the key factors of outstanding teaching? Are there any missing and if so what are they?

• 02. What have you learnt from looking at the way each of these leaders work to achieve outstanding teaching across their team? What for you will be your next steps in achieving outstanding teaching across your team?

Consistency in your team

Take time to consider the practice in your school. Reflect on the questions below and record your responses in your blog.

• Do you recognise the issue of consistency as a concern in your own school and team?

• How would you explain the current situation in your team, department or school? What are the significant variables at work in your context?

• How would you explain the current situation in your team, department or school? What are the significant variables at work in your context?


• How does your team’s response to the issue of variation compare with that of other teams?

• How directly does your role focus on your personal accountability for the performance of your colleagues?

• In what ways is the work of your school and team in closing the gap and challenging variation underpinned by evidence-based strategies, including evidence from hard data?

Theme 2: Making use of data

Exploring consistency

One useful way of exploring the issue of consistency is to look at it from the perspective of ‘find and fix’ and ‘predict and prevent’. Find and fix can be exemplified as wait until it goes wrong and then repair or replace it. It can often be used to explain catastrophic systems failures and disasters. Find and fix is essentially a reactive culture based on the mistaken belief that it is cheaper to put things right rather than stop them going wrong.

Predict and prevent is based on ‘prevention is better than cure’ and involves moving the culture of an organisation from reaction to anticipation and intervention. There are numerous examples of this approach from everyday life; for example, the best way to avoid a heart attack is to stop smoking, not to invest in more cardiac surgeons, and the most effective way to maintain your car’s efficiency is to have it regularly serviced. The best way to close the gap is to prevent children failing and that means actively challenging poor and inappropriate performance.

While experienced school leaders will usually have an intuitive understanding of the areas where predict and prevent might be appropriate it is an area where appropriate and valid data is all-important. Data needs to be reliable, relevant, focused and easy to understand and, crucially, focused on closing the gap, securing improvement and sustaining achievement.

Data to inform school improvement

The use of data to inform school improvement strategies can assist in these areas:

identification of pupils’ achievements and targets

• identification of gaps in achievement for vulnerable groups, leading to prioritising of strategies and monitoring impact

• data-informed allocation of resources and deployment of staff

• developing an evidence-based approach to performance management and prioritising CPD needs

• monitoring the effectiveness of initiatives and strategies and informing interventions

• evidence-based discussions with the DfE, Ofsted, local authorities and governors on school-to-school support

• challenging the expectations and aspirations of staff, pupils and parents

• transitions and transfers, particularly between key stages and between schools

• evidence relating to the quality of teaching and learning

Keith Lloyd reinforces the centrality of data to effective leadership in his practical guide to data:

"If you are responsible for the Foundation Stage you will need to know the data in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP), but you should also be aware of the Roll data showing how well your pupils did when they reached the end of KS1 two years later.

If you are responsible for any part of Key Stages 1 to 4 you will certainly need to have a good working knowledge of the data in the Roll report for your school and how these data inform your tracking and target setting systems. The Roll report remains the most objective measure of the school’s effectiveness in improving progress and attainment by the end of each key stage. You may also find it helpful to consider the guidance on measuring the impact of your leadership on pupils’ progress and attainment,


since it is important for you to know how much difference you and your team have made."

Understanding and using data

by Keith Lloyd

This is a practical guide for school leaders from Levels 1 to 5 who wish to make more effective use of performance data. The emphasis is on using data to identify differences in attainment between pupil groups so that actions to close the gap are well informed and make an impact on pupils’ learning.

The guide takes you through the ground rules for using data, both internal and external to the school, and there are questions to help you analyse the arrangements for assessment and the use of data in your own school. There is also advice on how to ensure that any steps you take to measure the impact of your leadership and teamwork on pupils’ progress and attainment are successful. Personal reflection Reflect on what you have read about the use of data in Keith Lloyd's opinion piece. Thinking about the data you collate in school, consider the following questions.

• 01. What data do you need in order make sound judgements about your team’s performance? • 02. Where will you get the data you need in an appropriate format? • 03. Do you know how to interpret it and apply it to your situation? • 04. How will you test it to ensure that it is valid and reliable? • 05. How will you discuss it with your team?

• 06. What have you learned from the data and what actions do you need to take?

• 07. When and how will you review your findings? What are the implications?

• 08. Having analysed the school-based data relevant to your subject, key stage or project, what are the implications for your team in relation to closing the gap?

Right first time

Apart from the emphasis on data-rich techniques, one of the key differences between high-quality businesses, services, industries and the rest is that in the high-quality environment, every worker accepts personal responsibility for his or her own work – it is not left for someone further down the production line to put things right. This is often described as the rather intimidating strategy of ‘right first time’. In educational terms this might be best understood as every lesson working with pupils achieving and making progress. Perhaps the best examples of intervention strategies are those focused on the early years that have a disproportionately positive impact on long-term achievement and wellbeing.

A very significant issue for school leaders is that the evidence from high-performing systems seems to indicate that as a school, team or teacher improves, so the degree of control needs to diminish, that is, there is a need to eliminate variation but to increasingly celebrate variety.

"Systems on the journey from poor to fair, in general characterized by less skilled educators, tightly control teaching and learning processes from the center because minimizing variation across classrooms and schools is the core driver of performance improvement at this level.

In contrast, the systems moving from good to great, characterized by more highly skilled educators, provide only loose guidelines on teaching and learning processes because peer-led creativity and innovation inside schools becomes the core driver for raising performance at this level."

---Mourshed et al, 2010, p20

As performance improves, so confidence grows and so trust can increase. There are certain aspects of leading and managing in schools where variation is totally unacceptable – the quality of teaching, implementation of school strategies and procedures, and pupil behaviour for example. Equally, the flair and creativity of outstanding teachers have to be nurtured and celebrated. The best way to eliminate variation is to have valid data that is used to inform the management of pupil progress and secure outstanding teaching and achievement and consolidate strategies that enhance and extend professional practice.


The work of Reynolds (2007) highlights the importance of the work of middle leaders in responding to the problem of variation: "Virtually every one of these secondary schools launched initiatives with their departmental heads. In most schools, these roles had been historically poorly resourced and indeed sometimes regarded as an infliction on the people holding them rather than as a management tier offering an opportunity for personal and professional development. These initiatives were specifically:

• changing philosophy from being purely middle managers to being middle leaders; • training of middle managers, particularly in areas such as coaching/mentoring, data usage,

classroom observation etc, not just using exceptional individuals as models but using all middle managers on the sound basis that all had learned one good piece of professional practice to share; "

• buddying’ or ‘matching’ of middle managers with others specially chosen to permit transfer of skills, attitudes and behaviours rapidly using exemplary middle managers in whole-school training days;

• using key personnel – heads of department respected by the wider staff group – to start the ball rolling;

• extending the focus to heads of Year, or heads of house, and ensuring the same programmes were created for them as for heads of department;

• disaggregating data to subject level to permit fine-grained analysis; • inspection of pupil performance and its variation across subjects." ---Reynolds, 2007, p15

Using data in a secondary school to close the gap in achievement

Katrina Patterson, head of languages, Chesterton Community College

Katrina Patterson, head of languages, Chesterton Community College describes how she uses a range of data to identify students’ progress and gaps in achievement – and what she does with the outcomes.

"I use data to improve the outcomes in my teaching by using it to set challenging targets. Base line data is very useful for us in understanding what we can expect from individuals and from groups of individuals and making and being able to make and plan interventions to make sure that they achieve those challenging targets."


Now that you have watched Katrina Patterson's video on 'Using data in a secondary school to close the gap in achievement', review the practice in your school by considering the following questions.

• 01. How does Katrina identify gaps in achievement within her Faculty? Do you carry out a

similar process? If so, how successful is it, and how could it be improved?

• 02. Look at the process by which Katrina monitors student progress and works with her line manager and team to implement strategies for improvement. How does this compare with the process in your school? As a middle leader, what can you learn from it?

Using data in a primary school to close the gap in achievement

Michelle Boyce, SENCO and AFA Achievement Coacher, Cotgrave Candleby Lane School, Nottinghamshire

Michelle Boyce from Cotgrave Candleby Lane School discusses how in her school data is used to identify gaps in achievement and the actions taken to address those gaps. She talks about how the effectiveness of intervention strategies is monitored – and how the outcomes are used.

"So using data gives you a whole picture of the child, it gives you that journey from the beginning of that academic year to the end, so you can see the progress that they’ve made and the attainment level


they’re at, and you can see gaps or difficulties that they have. So if they’re better at maths or not so confident in literacy, and what we can do about it to support that child."


Now that you have watched the videos of Michelle Boyce, review the practice in your school by considering the following questions.

• 01. What can you learn from the way Michelle works with teaching staff and TAs to identify gaps in achievement – and address those gaps?

• 02. How do you monitor the effectiveness of interventions, and how does this compare with the way they are monitored in Michelle’s school?

Personal reflection

Reflecting on the outcomes of the analysis of practice above, what you have read in the text and on your practice in school, consider these further questions.

• 01. Do you recognise the cultures of find and fix and predict and prevent in your own experience?

• 02. To what extent is management in your school data based and enables evidenced-based decision-making? What use do you make of data and how is data used in reviewing your performance?

• 03. Where is your school and your team on the ‘tight–loose’ (variation-variety) continuum? Are they at the same or different points of the continuum? Why might this be?

• 04. In what ways do you secure consistency when appropriate and encourage personal autonomy when appropriate?

• 05. What are the implications of this section for how you lead and manage? Are you comfortable and confident in applying the various approaches outlined above?

• 06. What are the implications of this section for your professional effectiveness? What actions do you need to take?

References

• Mourshed, M, Chijioke, C & Barber, M, 2010, How the world’s most improved systems keep getting better, London, McKinsey & Co


Section 04: Understanding outstanding teaching

Overview

This section reviews the evidence for our understanding of outstanding teaching and how it relates to pupil achievement and progress. The importance of subject expertise and appropriate behaviour as essential prerequisites to teaching and learning is placed in the context of the components of effective teaching models. This approach is then extended to focus on specific strategies to close the gap.


Theme 1: Leadership of learning and teaching

Introduction All the leaders in a school are pivotal to enhancing the quality of learning and teaching in schools but team leaders have a highly influential and significant role. Indeed, it could be argued that the principal reason that we have team leaders is to ensure the quality of the pupil experience, in particular the consistent focus on achievement for every pupil in every classroom and every lesson. One of the most powerful means of securing consistency is to develop a shared language across the whole team. A common understanding and high-level dialogue are possible because of a shared vocabulary. This implies that there are very clear, explicit and agreed criteria to define and describe effective teaching strategies and their relation to pupil progress and achievement.

It is essential that school leaders build a shared understanding of the principles underpinning effective teaching and pupil progress. None of us would trust a doctor who had limited knowledge of human physiology, a pilot who was not aware of the basic laws of physics or an electrician who was unaware of the principles of electrical circuitry. So an education professional needs to be able to root his or her teaching strategies in models of effective teaching and learning based on appropriate levels of subject expertise which lead to sustained progress and achievement. It is the responsibility of team leaders to ensure that this understanding is shared and then applied consistently.


Theme 2: Subject knowledge and subject leadership

Subject expertise

Pivotal to any model of teaching and learning to raise achievement and close the gap is the issue of the subject expertise of teachers. The Ofsted evaluation schedule captures the relationship between these elements:

"Drawing on excellent subject knowledge, teachers plan astutely and set challenging tasks based on systematic, accurate assessment of pupils’ prior skills, knowledge and understanding. They use well-judged and often imaginative teaching strategies that, together with sharply focused and timely support and intervention, match individual needs accurately.

---Ofsted, 2012, p12


It could be argued that the role of subject leadership is the management of three variables – the integrity of subject knowledge (‘knowing what’), the appropriateness of teaching and learning strategies (‘knowing how’), and the pressure to demonstrate sustained improvement.

Taking any one of these elements out of context compromises the others – they exist in an interdependent relationship where each extends and reinforces the others.

Subject leadership is the application of school policies and strategies at team, departmental or key stage level, where the subject area is the school in microcosm.

Characteristics of successful subject leadership

The characteristics of successful subject leadership might include the following elements:

• Ensure that school policies are applied in the context of the subject area and that there are clear lines of accountability and responsibility for the quality of teaching and learning and securing pupil achievement and school improvement.

• Secure the application of basic skills, notably literacy, numeracy and ICT, across all aspects of subject teaching.

• Develop strategies to secure coverage of the subject curriculum and embed coherence, sequencing, continuity and progression in the subject for all pupils.

• Ensure that teachers are clear about the teaching and learning outcomes of lessons, understand the sequence of themes and topics in the subject, and ensure that pupils are active participants in their learning.

• Support teachers in matching the choice of appropriate teaching and learning methods to the needs of the subject and the range of pupil needs.

• Establish and implement school policies and practices for assessing, recording and reporting on pupil achievement and implementing appropriate intervention strategies.

• Set high expectations and targets for staff and pupils in relation to the standards of pupil achievement and the quality of teaching; establish clear targets for pupil achievement, and evaluate progress and achievement in the subject by all pupils, including those with special educational and linguistic needs.

• Monitor and evaluate the teaching of the subject in the school, use this analysis to identify effective practice and areas for improvement, and take action to improve further the quality of teaching, learning and achievement.


What is the importance of subject specialism?

by David Jones, former Chief Executive of the Council for Subject Associations

David Jones talks about the importance of subject specialism. He talks about the importance of a teacher’s passion for their subject and what that brings to teaching and learning. He outlines what subject leaders need to do to be effective and to ensure that their team are effective.

"Subject specialisms are important in schools because they’re really the building blocks of a curriculum... Most importantly is that subjects really offer that mixture of skills and theory, so that... a good teacher will bring into the lesson some way of applying the knowledge and the skills that they’re teaching to make the children understand more about the subject. It’s looking at things in depth, going down into a subject, drilling into a subject that gives that context that pupils can latch onto to make sense of the world around them."

---David Jones, former Chief Executive of the Council for Subject Associations

"... [W]hen children understand or can see that a teacher has passion for a subject they become more engaged with the teacher and actually with the subjects themselves because they can see that there is a greater depth and a greater understanding that the teacher brings out in them. And it’s that passion that really excites children to see that there is somewhere that they can go within the subject."

---David Jones, former Chief Executive of the Council for Subject Associations

Activity

Now that you have watched the video 'What is the importance of subject specialism?', reflect on the following questions.

• 01. Compare and contrast what David says about the importance of subject specialism with what is written in this section. Why do you think subject specialism is important, and how does this compare with the other two views?

• 02. In what ways can you as a leader develop subject knowledge across your team? How can you monitor the impact of such developments?

The role of the SLE

The role of the SLE is to support schools to improve the quality of their teaching and learning. They do this in a number of ways – by working with the whole school, or a department or an individual. As stated earlier:

"... pivotal to any model of teaching and learning to raise achievement and close the gap is the issue of the subject expertise of teachers."

This account of practice focuses on how an SLE – Richard Middlebrook -working through an English department, supported a school to improve its teaching and learning. The importance of subject knowledge Richard Middlebrook, headteacher, Alsager School, Cheshire

This section refers to the fact that teachers need to be able to ‘root their teaching strategies in models of effective teaching and learning based on appropriate levels of subject knowledge which leads to sustained progress and achievement’ cited in the Leading Teaching module core text.

In this account of practice, this statement is exemplified by looking at the work of a specialist leader of education (SLE) as he worked in his own school and when working with an outstanding department to improve the quality of teaching in an at-risk school.

Richard Middlebrook is now headteacher at Alsager School. Before joining the school, Richard was deputy head at Ashton-on-Mersey School, a secondary modern that was part of a hard federation. As part of avery successful school (judged outstanding in its previous four inspections), the staff at Ashton-on-Mersey are highly motivated to continue to improve quality across the school and beyond (a moral purpose). Richard was also a member of the group that piloted the SLE role and was one of the


first of 10 SLEs as part of the Greater Manchester Challenge.

Improving teaching and learning in the school

Although the quality of teaching and learning was good at Ashton, a range of strategies was put in place by the senior leadership team (SLT) to sustain and continue to improve teaching and learning.

These activities had a common purpose: to increase profession dialogue around teaching and learning in subject teams and across teams that in time developed into a shared language – a key factor in securing consistency. Reflecting together on excellence in teaching and learning and how to achieve it provided an understanding for all teachers with regard to what outstanding teaching looked like, so clear benchmarks were established.

Strategies to sustain improve teaching and learning

These included:

• setting up cross-observation weeks to provide CPD opportunities for teachers and leaders and to share practice

• establishing a teaching and learning forum to continue to share good practice across the school

• establishing learning walks to provide CPD opportunities for staff from across the school

• expanding the number of initial teacher training (ITT) trainees in school

Maintaining quality

As Ashton School is a national support school, its doors are regularly open to a range of visitors. Learning walks are a key part of what the school offers to visitors and although teachers know the purpose of the visits is CPD for those visiting, the walks nevertheless keep them on their toes, as Richard says:

"Staff upped their game [and] sharpened their practice.”

Engaging in professional dialogue with visitors not only provides staff with the opportunity to reflect on their own practice but to learn from others about theirs.

Richard challenges the notion that being a school involved in school-to-school support means that the school could potentially suffer. He argues that being a support school provides:

"... opportunities to learn from each other and... the effect of not only driving up standards in their school but in ours too.”

Developing subject knowledge

Richard feels that providing opportunities for pupils to access knowledge in subject areas for themselves was key to the learning in the school, but this in turn depended heavily on teachers’ own subject knowledge to provide the right learning opportunities. He emphasises that subject leaders are pivotal in ensuring the teachers continue to develop their subject knowledge. He cites the maths department at Ashton, which is made up of a group of highly reflective practitioners. The department ran a school-based maths project in which 15 maths ITT trainees worked alongside the teachers in the classrooms.

Together they focused on subject expertise and the quality of teaching and learning in a particular lessons, “…dissecting lessons [and] discussing good practice.”

As well as generating enthusiasm and debate around the teaching of the subject, leaders are also responsible for the quality of teaching and learning in their departments. Carrying out lesson observations within their department, identifying quality issues and finding ways of addressing them, they contribute to the school’s plan for improving the quality of teaching and learning. As subject leads, they are responsible for understanding and evaluating the quality of teaching and learning in their subject, and doing something about it if it is not of the highest quality.


Supporting improvements in other schools

As an SLE, Richard would draw on what he had learned about improving teaching and learning in his own school when he went to support other schools to improve the quality of teaching. He cites an example of supporting a school that was at risk. The first task for him was to build up a picture of the school. A significant factor in the poor performance of the school was that subject leaders did not take responsibility for their own subject and the level of subject expertise within the team. This responsibility was instead held by senior leaders who oversaw a number of subject departments across the school.

However, there was one department where there was outstanding practice, the English department. What made this department outstanding in this at-risk school? The team had an outstanding leader who was enthusiastic about her subject and who provided team members with opportunities to continue developing their subject expertise, reflect on their practice and share their expertise across the team, learning with and from each other. She provided opportunities for staff to engage in professional dialogue around the teaching of their subject, and in so doing saw them continuously develop their subject knowledge both as a team and as individual teachers. Richard commented that this team had a leader who not only had excellent subject knowledge but also the leadership ability to monitor the quality of teaching and learning and then provide support and challenge to improve teaching where required.

Thus, Richard had identified a pocket of outstanding practice and used the head of English and her team to share their practice both in teaching, learning and leadership with colleagues from other subject teams. This professional support was aimed at improving the quality of teaching and learning in different subject areas across the school.

The head of English became a role model, both in terms of how to be a highly effective subject leader and how to lead a team so that it works effectively, and where staff support and learn from one another.

Through this work, Richard was able to show how important it was for the subject leader to be:

"...passionate for and about their subject, up to date in both content and the way it is presented, and have the ability to relate this to ‘what is taught’ and ‘how it is taught'."

For Richard, this work demonstrated that:

"...outstanding teaching is directly related to expertise in the subject being taught.”

He was also able to open up opportunities for other subject leaders and their teams to learn from the expertise within the school.

Richard believes that in all schools:

"...peer-to-peer support is key... Subject experts in school and across schools supporting each other... learning together"

...to improve outcomes for pupils and students.


Now that you have read the account of practice on 'The importance of subject knowledge', review the practice in your school by considering the following questions.

• 01. Consider the way in which Richard used subject expertise in a school that he was supporting to improve teaching and learning across the school. Where are the areas of subject expertise in your school, and how can you make the most of that expertise to develop the practice of members of your team?

• 02. As a subject expert, whether in a primary, secondary or special school, how do you continue to develop your expertise and keep your knowledge up to date? What strategies do you use to enable your team to develop their subject knowledge too? How effective are those strategies?

This account of practice focuses on Rebekah Grycuk, Head of Mathematics Faculty at Beauchamp College, Leicester, where Maths is one of the top three most popular subjects. It looks at how the subject knowledge of those teaching sixth form pupils is secured and maintained so that they are well equipped to teach in their subject areas and ensure that students learn, make maximum progress and achieve their full potential.


Subject specialism

Rebekah Grycuk, head of mathematics faculty, Beauchamp College, Oadby, Leicester

Maths at A level has a tradition of being one of the most popular subjects at Beauchamp, a highly aspirational community college.

More than 400 of the 1,000-plus students are currently studying advanced maths. They comprise 200 students at AS level, 150 at A2 level, and within both groups, discrete further maths classes consisting of up to 30 students. In addition, the sixth form at Beauchamp, which serves an ethnically diverse range of young people aged 14–19 years, also accommodates between 80 and 100 students either re-sitting maths GCSE or studying adult numeracy and functional skills.

Rebekah has been leading the maths faculty for five years. The provision covers the GCSE curriculum, including Level 2 in further maths, as well as the sixth-form syllabus. Previously, she was GCSE coordinator within the department for 14 years. Rebekah says: “One of our main strengths is that all our teachers are mathematicians. That creates real passion for the subject. The number of sixth formers taking maths is probably the biggest indicator of the positive impact of staff’s subject knowledge on students. They see how much staff discuss maths with each other and support each other mathematically. This is infectious! It encourages a similar enthusiasm, interest and curiosity in our students.” Supporting her view are the findings of a student questionnaire, which concluded that the most important aspect of schooling is teacher subject knowledge; this applied to all subjects offered by the college.

Rebekah is responsible for a team comprising 14 full-time and four part-time teaching staff, 2 higher level teaching assistants (HLTAs), 2 graduate trainees, 2 newly qualified teachers (NQTs) and administrative support. Just over half the faculty is female and in terms of staff age it is similarly well balanced.

Collaboration is a given. Rebekah observes:

"I’ve learned there is no way that I can do this job unless I delegate and trust my staff, and play to their strengths. Also, I’m no longer awed by the language of official documents, government directives and Ofsted. I know when and who to go to for an explanation and how to avoid sounding panicked. I’ve learned to break things down and pass information on to my team that not only makes it seem manageable to them but is also something they want to do." Whilst the buck stops with Rebekah, decisions are made and initiatives are developed as a team and then all staff supports one another, on the basis that the range and depth of expert knowledge and experience enable:

"...each of us in our own way to lead."

She recognises that although quality assurance is an important factor in securing consistency, Rebekah doesn’t believe in “telling teachers how to teach” and compromising variety. To this end she has implemented a range of policies and strategies.

Each teacher stays with the same group for the duration of the course. Staff are generally allocated two Year 10 classes and two Year 11 classes in the lower school across the full ability range, and three A level groups comprising two Year 12 groups and one Year 13 or vice versa. The exception is NQTs, who teach Year 12 groups only, allowing them to concentrate on one advanced syllabus.

Peer observations are based on the well-established quality learning and teaching (QLT) culture within the college and reinforced by Beauchamp’s full involvement in the graduate trainee programme. Staff are encouraged to attend their colleagues’ lessons, not to judge but to learn. As Rebekah says:

"It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been teaching, we’re always learning.”

Learning snapshots are utilised − bite-sized observation exercises that provide QLT evidence and feedback about what the maths faculty is doing in terms of strengths and areas for development. Participation in a current snapshot is agreed by the rest of the department, it is also open to any other interested members of staff. It involves spending 10-15 minutes in many different classes, looking at


students’ work, obtaining their views on written feedback, then writing and presenting a general summary to the whole team. Rolling out written feedback is one focus for Rebekah, her deputy and teacher with QLT responsibility, following the creation of a formal written feedback policy produced by the faculty last year. Rebekah says:

“I have gradually realised that no matter what else is going on − such as the huge challenge in removing coursework from maths GCSE − we have to make time for teaching and learning. It is now measured and evaluated much more formally and rigorously. Sometimes we are already doing what needs to be done; it then becomes vital for everyone in the team to be made aware of this and acknowledge it.”

Practical teaching and learning within the faculty are underpinned by meticulous organisation in order to grow high-quality, professional relationships that capitalise on the team’s individual skills. Rebekah has divided her staff into seven groups whose primary task is to look at different aspects of resources development. NQTs are paired with their own dedicated mentor and placed together in the same group.

Maths staff with strengths “currently in demand”, are strategically placed within the appropriate group and may be asked to help develop their colleagues’ skills, in addition to leading that group in a collaborative piece of work. Two faculty members with “phenomenal IT skills” are engaged in developing online A level support and resources as part of the maths team’s major objective to assist and promote independent learning among sixth-form students.

Capturing and storing the wealth of ideas are difficult but essential. Where appropriate, ideas are stored centrally in an online resources bank. Two-thirds of faculty meetings focus on teaching and learning with contributions expected from every team member.

As mathematicians, Rebekah and her team are members of the Association of Teachers’ of Mathematics and find it a pleasure to keep up to date with their subject. Staff also share any online maths discoveries with their colleagues. Rebekah says:

"This allows me a hands-off approach. When maths GCSE changed we all had to look at delivering it in a different way but I didn’t have to drill down to nitty-gritty maths teaching because they are specialists."

The biggest challenge for the sixth form that Rebekah and the faculty face is the transition from GCSE to A level. She has introduced an assessment programme whereby students are regularly tested, informed of their status and then given homework based on the test. This is checked to see whether they have made progress. Maths, she insists, requires continuous study and cannot be crammed at the end.

Assessment for learning (AfL) is an area that Rebekah is seeking to develop. Beauchamp’s online learning data system allows students (and parents) to access individual progress data. The aim is to produce a post -test process in which students gain a much deeper understanding of where they are with their learning and how they can best develop those areas where they may struggle.

Data is crucially also used by Rebekah to facilitate the leadership development of her team. As subject leader, she has access to a database identifying all college staff’s strengths and areas of development, calculated following a comprehensive observation exercise by the senior leadership team. Informed by the data, she is encouraging faculty members to contribute to the professional learning communities that the college is starting up, one of which will be on behaviour for learning. Rebekah says: "What I try to do is continue giving ownership of the curriculum and faculty to staff and encourage staff to give students ownership, so that everybody has a stake in the subject."

Other teaching and learning and leadership initiatives include the following:

• The Maths Society is open to all maths students, supported by NQTs and led by a teacher in his second year. It is designed to give staff area and organisational responsibility, and encourage innovative thinking and accountability for student achievement in maths outside the curriculum, eg, on complex numbers.

• The open-door maths policy means that any maths student can seek help from any maths teacher; even at sixth form there is a strong need in maths to deliver the theory, and independence comes from practising the theory, eg in guided reading around the subject.

• A student ambassador scheme is followed by compulsory transition lectures for students who


achieved a grade B at GCSE maths. In this, high-achieving sixth formers are paired with average students and together they talk to potential A level students in Year 11 about their experiences to ensure that those planning to take the course have realistic expectations.

• In the peer mentoring programme, sixth-form students volunteer as Key Stage 4 (KS4) mentors, providing one-to-one support in the classroom and during the November, March and June revision sessions, which they on occasion run. This is designed to create and embed teaching and learning relationships at all levels.

The College has produced a number of teaching and learning aids in house:

• ‘Seven features of outstanding teaching and learning’ is a document that contains shared criteria for teaching and learning. It is aimed at improving teaching and learning across KS4 and the transition to the sixth form.

• Key word booklets incorporate key words that define maths topics. They are designed to improve literacy and students’ ability to comprehend maths problems, and also increase the quality of teaching by developing problem-solving techniques.

• A set of 16 ‘Q cards’ bearing 16 A level questions are used. The students have to identify the topic each one relates to, and then pick one to try and solve the problem.

• An Easter revision booklet contains five GCSE questions set for each day of the holiday with students given online access to work on solutions. Their parents/carers are contacted and made aware of the tools to support them. The booklet was produced by a member of staff whom Rebekah sent on a learning walk to another school to observe how it dealt with students who were on the grade C–D GCSE borderline.


Once you have read the account of practice on 'Subject specialism', consider the following questions.

• 01. How do the staff in the maths department featured in this account of practice continue to develop their subject knowledge? How does the Head of Maths support them?

• 02. In what ways do you support members of your team to continue to develop their subject knowledge, individually and as a team? What, for you as a leader, are the greatest challenges, and how do you overcome them?


Theme 3: Teaching strategies

Strategies to maximise achievement and ensure progress

Effective teaching is all about context – linking the elements in the figure below to maximise achievement and ensure progress for every pupil. The outstanding teacher is able to adopt appropriate strategies from a portfolio and use them in a skilful and appropriate way to optimise understanding. It would be wrong to impose a stereotypical model of teaching on any part of the primary school day or a secondary lesson; however it is entirely reasonable to expect to see a number of carefully justified alternative strategies deployed which can clearly demonstrate an impact on progress and achievement. Team leaders have a particular responsibility to support staff in developing their confidence in the use of alternative approaches, to model how such approaches might work and to monitor the quality of lessons from this perspective.

The following diagram offers one way of understanding this issue – all the approaches are valid, and the important thing is that they are used in a deliberate way that is focused on enhancing pupils’ progress and achievement.


The diagram 'Portfolio of teaching strategies' shows one possible way of interpreting the portfolio of teaching strategies. They are all equally valid – the issue is the extent to which they are appropriate to the topic being taught and the needs of the audience. Outstanding teaching involves being able to select the most appropriate strategies and then moving between them with fluency and confidence. Sensitivity to the needs of learners and the carefully judged use of appropriate strategies are key features of outstanding teaching. Team leaders need to be able to both model the strategies and help their team members to develop fluency and confidence.

The traditional didactic approach can be best described as the authoritative presentation of information to an audience in a way that is best suited to the developmental stage of that audience The teacher determines what is presented and how it is presented and ensures that the subject matter is authoritatively put across and engages the class.

The next stage, teacher direction, is characterised by high levels of direction by the teacher in terms of content and activities but is more interactive than the previous stage.

The teacher scaffolding knowledge involves high levels of interaction led by the teacher involving feedback, questioning and a range of structured activities designed to enhance engagement and understanding.

With the teacher as facilitator, the focus switches to the class with the teacher drawing on the knowledge, ideas and interpretations of the group. The role of the teacher is to elicit the involvement and active engagement of the class.

Teacher guidance is offering a range of activities with the teacher advising, guiding and steering pupils towards particular opportunities in order to ensure variety of experience and coverage of the curriculum.

With group-based learning, the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of the curriculum is left to groups of students who become self-managing within a context defined by the teacher. The approach here is essentially one of enquiry-based learning.

Personalised plans are derived from individual needs and are designed as specific interventions to support disadvantaged pupils and those with particular talents. Thus the most effective EAL support and coaching an exceptional musical talent would both fall in this category.

What makes a good lesson?

The following video sets out a number of people’s views of what makes a good lesson. David Jones from the Council of Subject Associations talks about the importance of the teacher being well prepared and having the ability to engage the pupils through their deep subject knowledge.

Sally McFarlane, Headteacher at Ladywood Special School in Bolton, focuses on the importance of clear planning, with clear lesson objectives; the need for the teacher to have good subject knowledge; and the importance of well organised resources.

Bill Lucas, Professor of Education at the University of Winchester, focuses on four key factors of a good


lesson: well-informed teachers; engaging content with appropriately matched learning methods; reliability in terms of lessons produced always being good lessons, but where there is an element of surprise for the students; and learning that connects with the outside world and is applicable.

Finally, John West-Burnham, Professor of Educational Leadership, St. Mary’s University of Twickenham talks about both the simplicity and complexity of lessons. He focuses on the importance of a lesson being structured coherent and clear; the ability of the teacher to enable learning; the presence of challenge; and clarity of outcomes. John emphasises that the lesson is a social process in which people accept mutual responsibility for each other’s learning. “ A good lesson on the one had is incredibly simple. It’s well taught in which children learn. And on the other hand it’s incredibly complex because of all the variables that get in the way of that simplicity. For me a good lesson is first and foremost structured, coherent and clear. This is what we are going to learn, this is how we’re going to learn it.” ---John West-Burnham, Professor of Educational Leadership, St. Mary’s University College, Twickenham

Analysis of practice Now that you have watched the video 'What makes a good lesson?', reflect on the following questions.

• 01. After watching the video and comparing and contrasting the views of others with yours,

what do you think are the ingredients of a good lesson? • 02. How can you develop a shared understanding of what makes a good lesson across your

team?

Personal reflection Reflecting on the outcomes of the analysis of practice above, what you have read in the text and on your practice in school, consider these further questions.

• 01. How would you assess the current level of shared understanding of effective teaching

strategies across your team? • 02. What shared model of learning informs your team’s professional practice? • 03. What school-based evidence, data and research do you have to corroborate your view? • 04. What documentation is available to support shared understanding of teaching and

learning? • 05. In your role as a team leader, what proportion of your time do you spend working with

colleagues on shared approaches to teaching and learning? • 06. How do you balance the needs of your subject/phase with the wider demands of the

school? • 07. What are the most significant challenges in securing the status and integrity of your

subject? In what ways do you collaborate with other subject leaders? • 08. How will this process of analysis inform the next stage of your improvement strategy?

Specific responsibilities

There are numerous permutations of titles for middle leaders. In primary, special and secondary schools, the historic distinction between subject and pastoral leadership is blurring, with increasing focus on securing effective learning. However, subject team leaders and co-ordinators, key stage leaders, year heads, heads of department and heads of faculty all still abound. A key challenge for middle leaders is to establish their key focus and core purpose and specific accountabilities. For those who do not have a specific responsibility for the leadership of a curriculum area or subject, it might be helpful to see their work in terms of securing pupil and student engagement.

Student engagement involves pupils and students in making a personal commitment to their learning. They respond positively to what the school offers. Pupils and students are engaged when they attend regularly, come to school ready to learn, behave appropriately and are involved in their work, work hard, actively participate and are committed to improving the quality of their learning.


As the diagram demonstrates engagement is a complex mix of variables and all middle leaders share the responsibility to secure and sustain engagement and to support members of their teams in doing so.

Activity Look at the 'Securing pupil engagement' diagram and consider the following questions.

• 01. Would it be appropriate to modify the diagram illustrating pupil engagement to reflect the priorities and issues facing your team? How would it change?

• 02. Looking at the diagram illustrating the components of pupil engagement, what are the most significant issues in your school context?

• 03. Is pupil engagement a leadership priority?

• 04. What strategies are currently in place, and making a difference?

• 05. How significant is this aspect of leadership responsibility in your working life?

• 06. Do you agree with the factors identified in the diagram? What for you are the most significant issues in determining pupil engagement?


Theme 4: Pupil behaviour

Securing a high standard of pupil behaviour

There is a very clear consensus that one of the most important preconditions for achieving effective teaching and learning and raising achievement is securing a consistently high standard of pupil behaviour across the school. This is as much a component of effective teaching as subject knowledge or the use of alternative teaching strategies. The Ofsted framework is very clear in its expectations of behaviour as expressed in the criteria for a judgement of ‘outstanding’:

"Parents, carers, staff and pupils are highly positive about behaviour and safety. Pupils make an exceptional contribution to a safe, positive learning environment. They make every effort to ensure that others learn and thrive in an atmosphere of respect and dignity. Pupils show very high levels of engagement, courtesy, collaboration and cooperation in and out of lessons. They have excellent, enthusiastic attitudes to learning, enabling lessons to proceed without interruption."

---Ofsted, 2012, p16


The schedule goes on to define the specifics of appropriate behaviour:

• Pupils are consistently punctual in arriving at school and lessons.

• They are highly adept at managing their own behaviour in the classroom and in social situations.

• Their behaviour is supported by systematic, consistently applied approaches to behaviour management.

• They are very calm, orderly and considerate when moving around the school.

• There are excellent improvements in behaviour over time for any individuals or groups with particular behavioural difficulties. Instances of bullying, including for example, cyber-bullying and prejudice-based bullying related to special educational need, sexual orientation, sex, race, religion and belief, gender reassignment or disability, are extremely rare.

• Pupils are acutely aware of different forms of bullying and actively try to prevent it from occurring.

• The school has an active and highly effective approach to identifying and tackling bullying.

• All groups of pupils feel safe at school at all times. They understand very clearly what constitutes unsafe situations and are highly aware of how to keep themselves and others safe.

One of the key criteria for the successful leadership and management of teaching, learning and raising achievement is that leaders and managers explicitly, deliberately and consistently work to create a positive learning environment. Taylor (2011) identifies the fundamental principles for headteachers for securing appropriate behaviour, which can be applied to all leaders and managers.

Taylor’s checklist approach is a classic example of the predict and prevent approach – the combination of definition and consistent application is one of the most effective strategies to secure consistently high standards of behaviour. An even more powerful approach is the combination of a meaningful curriculum, outstanding teachers and motivated students who are supported by effective leadership and positive parenting respectively. Just as consistency is fundamental to any behaviour management approach, so there is a need for clarity in terms of effective teaching.

Fundamental principles for securing appropriate behaviour

• Ensure absolute clarity about the expected standard of pupils’ behaviour. • Ensure that the behaviour policy is clearly understood by all staff, parents and pupils. • Display school rules clearly in classes and around the building. Staff and pupils should know

what they are. • Display the tariff of sanctions and rewards in each class. • Have a system in place for making sure that children never miss out on sanctions or rewards. • Model the behaviour you want to see from your staff. ---Taylor, 2011, p3

Gaining consistency across the school The checklist that Charlie Taylor devised is being used by schools to support them in gaining consistency in the way they deal with behaviour. It is however being adapted to meet the particular needs of individual schools. The role of team leaders in securing appropriate behaviour Issues of behaviour are a classic example of the importance of the role of team leaders. Securing appropriate behaviour is an essential pre-requisite to effective teaching and learning; it is therefore a crucial element of middle leadership effectiveness.

The development of a common language with a shared vocabulary and agreed criteria is one of the most powerful means of securing consensus around effective teaching, progress and achievement through effective behaviour management. The process of developing alignment around these issues is


probably more important than the actual outcome, i.e. building consensus and shared understanding is what really makes a difference.

Team leaders are at their most effective with regard to behaviour management when:

• they have worked with their team to secure common understanding and acceptance of the school’s policy

• there are direct and explicit references to the school approach in every classroom

• team leaders work with individual colleagues to develop strategies to embed school approaches in their classroom

• monitoring the work of team members includes consistent application of school policies and strategies

• they obtain advice and support from senior staff as necessary but recognise that resolving issues and incidents is, primarily, their responsibility

Behaviour management

Tony Walsop, Director for Children, Cotgrave Candleby Lane School, Nottinghamshire

Tony Walsop, a middle leader from Cotgrave Candleby Lane School in Nottinghamshire, sets out in these videos a whole-school approach to behaviour management. He looks at the school’s mission statement and vision; focuses on the behaviour policy; and effective management of behaviour.

"Our mission statement is to look back with pride and forward with confidence. So the values that really underpin, that are all centred around keeping it very simple, respect and pride. It’s something that we’re sort of really hot on with the children is the respect – respect for themselves, respect for other people and respect for the property."

Behaviour management

Sarah Lockyer, Head of RE, St Paul’s School, Leicester

In the following audio clips, Sarah Lockyer, Head of RE at St Paul’s School in Leicester, talks about reviewing behaviour management across her Faculty. She focuses on the implementation of the school behaviour policy – balancing quick wins with long-term strategies. In addition, she offers advice to new middle leaders.

"I would suggest in terms of practical advice that you sit down with your team, that you ensure that your team is very clear on the whole school behaviour approach, that everybody’s clear what that means for them within their classroom. It’s not about just telling people what they should be doing, it’s about modelling it and it’s about giving them opportunities to share, to trial things out, and also then to build their confidence in terms of their behaviour management, so focusing on key areas but doing this very regularly."

---Sarah Lockyer, Head of RE, St Paul’s School

Approach to leadership "As a middle leader the issues that needed to be resolved and the most urgent steps really that I needed to take was to ensure that every member of the faculty provided a consistent approach and a consistent learning experience for the students in their care. So this really was something that I took on board very early on and through a series of quality assurance procedures, so lesson observations, learning walks, scrutinies of marking, I was able to ascertain where there were strengths and where there were perhaps areas that needed to be developed.” ---Sarah Lockyer, Head of RE, St Paul’s School

Maintaining successful implementation

"[The] parents’ role is key in supporting the behaviour management strategies that we use within school and ensuring that students know that there are rules and regulations that are there for a reason, to


ensure their learning takes place and that good learning takes place."


Guidance for new leaders

"...the key messages I’d want to share with new middle leaders about leading and managing pupil behaviour is that you are the person who is ultimately in control of the teaching and learning, so do expect good teaching and learning to take place, do expect a consistent approach from members in your faculty, don’t allow your standards to fall because people want to take an easier route or because it is the easier option. You don’t allow those standards to fall and never underestimate the importance of planning for good behaviour."



Now that you have watched the videos and listened to the audio accounts on 'Behaviour management', review the practice in your school by considering the following questions.

• 01. How do Tony Walsop and Sarah Lockyer ensure that members of their teams are consistent in their approach to behaviour management?

• 02. What can you learn in terms of your leadership of your team in ensuring consistency? What impact will this have on your practice? How will you measure its effectiveness?


Activities to initiate debate

Overview

What follows are examples and activities designed to initiate debate; it is important that the appropriate elements in the Ofsted framework, your school’s own strategies and examples from other schools are fed into this process.

Activity 1: Accountability Introduction

The focus of this task is accountability. It is important that models of teaching and learning are evidenced based, that is, they draw on research into successful practice within the team, across the school and from other schools. For all schools leaders accountability is a central feature of their work, both being held accountable and holding others accountable. For school leaders in England, the Ofsted framework (2012) is obviously the most important source of criteria for accountability procedures, both internal and external.

Using the Ofsted criteria and descriptors set out in 'Ranking a team's performance', provided below, complete the following tasks.


Task 1

Identify what you consider to be the most relevant criteria to your team’s level of effectiveness.

Task 2

For each criterion, rank your team’s current level of performance using the rankings below:

• A = high confidence, consistently outstanding practice

• B = evidence of outstanding practice but not consistent

• C = broadly satisfactory practice and consistency

• D = significant issues of quality and consistency

Task 3 Now consider what your leadership response to the current level of performance might be. Record your findings in the grid provided in ‘Ranking a team’s performance’.

Activity 2: Developing shared understanding and practice

Introduction

Of course the Ofsted framework is not the totality of effective teaching and learning, and schools need to have their own philosophies, strategies and best practice in place. There are numerous sources of outstanding teaching and learning and one of the crucial whole-school leadership issues is to develop shared understanding and practice.

One important source of ideas is the work of Professor John Hattie. His research on effective pedagogy over 20 years has produced one of the most authoritative models on what actually makes a difference to pupil achievement in the classroom.

Personal reflection

Once you have read 'The positive attributes of teaching' (above), review the practice in your school by considering the following questions.

• 01. Is there anything like Hattie’s criteria for excellent teaching in your school?

• 02. If there is, how was it developed and how is it used to inform the leadership of teaching and learning?

• 03. What use does your school and your team make of the Teachers’ Standards (published in May 2012)?

• 04. If there is no agreed school model, how does your team express its aspirations and expectations for effective teaching?

• 05. What is the evidence for models of effective teaching in your team and across your school?

• 06. How might you use the Hattie data in team meetings; planning team CPD; supporting paired working and working with team members?

Activity 3: Cost-effective teaching and learning strategies

Another study that provides detailed evidence about what actually makes a difference to pupil achievement is the Sutton Trust report (Higgins et al, 2011), which analyses the most cost-effective teaching and learning strategies, ie those practices that are most likely to raise achievement in a cost-effective way. Although it was written in the context of the pupil premium and focuses on the financial support available to schools with pupils eligible for free school meals, its findings are applicable in a more general context.

This report, like Hattie’s findings, is based on a meta-analysis of a range of research projects. Its key findings are shown in the table below.


Key findings of ‘Toolkit of strategies to improve learning’ (Higgins et al, 2011)

Effective feedback "One study even estimates that the impact of rapid feedback on learning is 124 times more cost effective than reducing class sizes."

Peer tutoring "Benefits are apparent for both tutor and tutee, though the approach should be used to supplement or enhance normal teaching, rather than replace it."

Meta-cognitive"Studies report substantial gains equivalent to moving a class from 50th approaches place in a league table of 100 schools to about 25th."

Homework "It is more valuable at secondary school level and much less effective for children of primary school age."

Teaching assistants "Most studies have consistently found very small or no effects on attainment."

School uniforms "[There is] no robust evidence that introducing a school uniform will improve academic performance."

Reducing class sizes "Overall the benefits are not particularly large or clear, until class size is reduced to under 20 or even below 15."

One-to-one tuition "Pupils might improve by about 4 or 5 months during the programme, but costs are high as the support is intensive."

Ability grouping "There may be some benefits for higher-attaining pupils, but these are largely outweighed by the negative effects on attitudes for middle and lower -performing learners."

Activity 4: Keeping up to date

As well as providing leadership in terms of their subject knowledge and expertise, team leaders also need to focus on continually developing effective teaching strategies. One powerful resource in this area is the sort of research carried out by researchers such as Professor John Hattie and organisations such as the Sutton Trust. You have already made use of their work several times in this module.

An important element of leadership effectiveness is keeping up to date and being aware of significant, credible and relevant advances in both subject knowledge and teaching and learning.

Examples of how such materials might be used could include:

Regular discussions about significant research at team meetings

Team-based projects to test the relevance of findings to team members’ practice

Working with other team leaders to develop innovative strategies across the school

Sharing innovations with senior leaders and other schools through collaborations and networks

Activity 5: Teaching and learning strategies

Introduction

This activity looks at defining the range of teaching and learning strategies. The grid 'A framework of teaching strategies', provided below, offers one way of defining the range of teaching and learning strategies that a teacher might be expected to use as part of his or her core repertoire.

A framework like this is only as useful to the extent to which it has credibility and is owned by all those who are expected to use it. Such a model has to be developed through the active participation of those whose performance will be judged by it.


Task

Working with colleagues, modify the 'framework of teaching strategies' grid, which you can download below, so that it is credible and authoritative in the context of your leadership responsibilities.

In developing and improving this model you might consider:

• existing definitions of outstanding practice in use in your school

• examples from other schools

• the Ofsted framework (2012)

• research such as that from Hattie (2009) and Higgins et al (2011) quoted above

Personal reflection

Reflect on the exercise you have undertaken in 'Activity 5: Teaching and learning strategies' using the following questions.

• 01. How comfortable and confident were you in leading professional conversations on teaching and learning?

• 02. How confident were your colleagues in sharing their perspectives and professional practice?

• 03. How easy or difficult was it to achieve consensus around models of outstanding teaching and learning?

• 04. What strategies did you agree to in order to embed your agreed approaches in consistent practice?

• 05. How confident are you about modelling the practice you have agreed?

• 06. What are the implications for your leadership development?

• 07. What are the implications of your answers to the above questions for developing your team members’ effectiveness and confidence in working together to improve practice, share innovation and work collaboratively to change practice?

References

• Hattie, J, 2009, Visible learning, London, Routledge

• Higgins, S, Kokotsaki, D & Coe, R, 2011, Toolkit of strategies to improve learning, London, Sutton Trust


Theme 5: The appropriateness of the curriculum

A further factor in securing effective teaching and learning is the appropriateness of the curriculum. One of the outcomes of present government policy is likely to be a greater focus on the core aspects of the curriculum; subject specialism and leadership; and much greater discretion for schools in developing curriculum models that meet all of the needs of all of their pupils. As the Secretary of State for Education expressed it in June 2011:

"We must revive a crucial distinction between the National Curriculum and the School Curriculum. The purpose of the National Curriculum is to set out the essential knowledge that children need to advance in core subjects. We then want to liberate teachers to decide on pedagogy – how those core subjects should be taught – and also to decide on what other subjects, or activities, should make up the whole school curriculum."

---Right Hon Michael Gove, MP, speech to the Royal Society, 29 June 2011

There are at least two key implications arising from this.

First, all middle leaders, irrespective of their specific role, will have a responsibility for embedding the ‘essential knowledge’ across the whole curriculum experience.


Second, they will have a key responsibility to develop pedagogy and decide on which other ‘subjects or activities’ will be offered. Middle leaders will usually be responsible for implementing a whole-school approach to curriculum innovation and change but it is worth stressing that the leadership skills in this area are generic rather than related to one particular part of the school’s leadership.

"Since the curriculum lies at the heart of the core purpose of education, successful curriculum innovation requires the use of high levels of skill in all of the key areas of leadership including strategy development and implementation, human resource management, teaching and learning, financial management, accountability, and liaison with key stakeholders and the community. Leaders of successful schools view major curriculum change as a whole-school activity rather than a piecemeal process. Such leaders carefully assess the school environment as a whole; they use high-level negotiation and communication skills to calculate the needs of the school community; and they work with other staff to negotiate agreed targets that are built into carefully constructed strategic plans."

---Brundrett & Duncan, 2010, p4 “Good leaders recognise the necessity of allowing time and space for reflection, evaluation and a carefully staged process of change with the whole school working in a unififed direction. Successful leaders are also prepared to seek advice and to research new approaches to the curriculum, since teachers value explicit guidance in contructing new formats which capture cross-curricular approaches to learning, as well as the skills and knowledge to be covered in specific subject areas.” ---Brundrett & Duncan, 2010, p5

Curriculum innovation Task 1

Please consider the quotations from Brundrett and Duncan (2010), provided above. They are reporting on their research into the successful leadership of curriculum innovation in primary schools but there is a very strong case to argue that these principles apply to special and secondary schools as well.

Task 2

These quotations are written from the perspective of whole-school leadership. You might find it illuminating to rework them, translating the key insights and principles from school to team leadership and your context.

Task 3

You might then share your summary with other middle leaders and senior staff to refine your perspective on the successful leadership of curriculum innovation.

The link between curriculum content and strategies to deliver it

There is, of course, a very close link between the content of the curriculum and the strategies that are used to deliver it – the ‘what’ and the ‘how’. Middle leaders need to be particularly conscious of this relationship; the strategies used to enable effective teaching and learning outcomes have to be explicitly linked to the content of the curriculum. In applying school curriculum policies, middle leaders need to be very conscious of the interaction between the variables shown in the diagram opposite.

In developing a new approach to a specific aspect of the curriculum, subject co-ordinators and leaders have to integrate the various elements shown in the diagram. At the heart of any initiative has to be the quality of the pupil experience and the need to ensure equity and secure the entitlement of an appropriate curriculum for all pupils.


The starting point in this process is deciding on the subject content, and ensuring that it meets national and school requirements. This will then enable two parallel processes to function.

First, the design and development of teaching and learning strategies must be appropriate to the needs of the pupils for whom the curriculum is intended. Second, the subject content is explicitly linked to core skills (literacy, numeracy etc) and subject-specific skills (for example causality and exemplification). Having developed these elements, it is possible to design assessment strategies that generate the data to monitor the progress of pupils and the effectiveness of teaching and learning, and to evaluate the suitability of the curriculum.

The following account of practice focuses on Amanda Cowan, the 14–16 learning co-ordinator at Ash Lea Special School. It looks at her role in implementing a structured foundation-level curriculum in her school and the development of her leadership perceptions and behaviours.

Implementing a curriculum initiative

Amanda Cowan, learning co-ordinator 14–19, Ash Lea Special School, Nottinghamshire

This account of practice concerns Amanda Cowan who, in addition to her learning co-ordinator role, is a class teacher. It focuses on her role in developing and implementing a structured foundation-level curriculum in her school. This account relates to the development of her leadership perceptions and behaviours including her learning as a participant on the National College programme, Leading from the Middle (LftM).


Ash Lea is a special school catering for the needs of pupils aged 3–19. There are currently 80 pupils on roll with 32 learners accessing foundation learning. Pupils accessing foundation learning have a wide range of needs, including profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD), severe learning disabilities (SLD) and moderate learning disabilities (MLD). Some 30 per cent of pupils have autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) as a secondary and, in some instances, primary need. Some pupils also display challenging behaviours. Foundation-level pupils work within the ability range of P2 to Level 2 of the national curriculum.

Amanda started her career as a personal care assistant in the school and then undertook training to become a teaching assistant (TA). Her responsibilities increased as a TA and eventually she was able to work with teachers to plan sessions. She really enjoyed this work and set her sights on becoming a teacher. When funding became available she was able to secure her ambition. As Amanda appreciated, this became excellent preparation for managing change because she had a good understanding of all the different roles within the school because, as she said:

"I’ve been there and done it.”

Foundation-level curriculum

Amanda commented that schools were “plucking qualifications” which she felt were inappropriate for society’s most vulnerable young people. She felt that this strategy was “a bit hit and miss”. Her objectives in implementing effective foundation-level progression pathways for pupils were that the school should be offered a wider curriculum that covered essential components of foundation learning: functional skills in mathematics, English and ICT, and vocational skills and personal and social development.

These progression pathways would be drawn from units and qualifications in the Qualifications and Credit Framework and would create minimum requirements for skills, depth and breadth.

They would end with achievement at entry levels 1, 2 or 3 or Level 1 and give opportunities for students to progress to Level 2 and beyond or to other meaningful destinations.

The pathways could incorporate other initiatives such as Entry to Employment, Key Stage 4 engagement programmes and foundation learning in further education.

Local consortiums

In order to develop the potential of the foundation-level curriculum, Amanda was asked by her local authority to assist in facilitating groups of local schools in understanding the parameters of good practice. As co-ordinator of the Nottinghamshire Special Schools Foundation Learning Group and the Rushcliffe Foundation Learning Group, she organised termly meetings both for mainstream and special schools. Amanda made it a condition of membership that each member made a commitment to promote foundation learning and agreed to support collaborative working. Members of the group also offered CPD opportunities by contributing their specialist experience in a subject or vocational area to shape the offerings of individual schools.

Amanda invited expert speakers to contribute their knowledge to support the growth of understanding among the group for the potential of foundation learning. To further their aims, the group produced an audit of provision which helped the schools create action plans for further improvement.

As a result of these developmental and supportive activities, members were confident in implementing changes in foundation learning. Over a period of two terms, teachers noted that the engagement of their pupils had significantly increased. This echoed pupil reactions in Amanda’s school where she noted that learners who had hitherto been demotivated had increased their attendance and were now fully involved with the fuller curriculum that had been developed by the group. All schools in the group were now able to construct progression pathways for pupils tailored to their abilities.

Principles of foundation learning

The aim of the foundation learning project was to provide structured personal and individual learning for students. The main organising structure is progression pathways, which are combinations of qualifications drawn from the entry levels and Level 1 of the Qualifications and Credit Framework.

Central to the changes is the idea of progression, that learning should not be a one-off activity, but a habit that lasts a lifetime. In order to place pupils on their pathways, Ash Lea School operates a system


of person-centred planning to make sure there’s a clear progression route.

Amanda commented:

“It’s not just whilst they’re at school but beyond into further education or employment. It should be individualised to the student or small cohorts and it’s a curriculum offer that a school can put together that is nationally recognised whereas before it was local or in-house provision.”

The way forward at Ash Lea School

Amanda commented that the senior leadership team (SLT) at Ash Lea was very forward-thinking in promoting the foundation-level curriculum as it was an excellent way for learners to recognise and demonstrate the skills and understanding that they possessed.

She noted, however, that there were some real issues about making sure that all staff were on board with the idea: “It was a big change for us.” Amanda said:

"We had a couple of members of staff, a minority but quite a vocal minority, that were resistant. It was really quite a challenge to get them to recognise why we needed to do it. I don’t think anyone questioned it was the right thing to do for our learners. It was their fear of change that made them resistant. People can get quite comfortable in what they are doing and they repeat the same thing over and over again. It was about getting them to think differently and in a different way.” In helping her to manage this change process, Amanda drew on her learning from the National College Leading from the Middle (LftM) programme. As part of LftM, participants undertake a school-based project designed to develop their leadership abilities and sharpen their perceptions of the difficulties of leading change. Amanda chose to use implementing foundation-level learning as her LftM project. Amanda noted: "LftM gave me the skills to recognise the different kinds of people [you are likely to encounter in managing change] like your blockers and your advocates. I realised that you need a blocker in your team to make you think to make sure you have thought things through. So LftM helped me to realise who my resisters were and who were my willing followers." She found that there were two experienced members of staff who were vocal in their resistance to the new scheme. Amanda noted that their opposition was not always made obvious but that occasionally they would voice overt resistance, asking why they were engaged in changing things when they felt that their current practice was acceptable. Amanda could cope with overt dissent as she was totally committed to the new scheme and could explain its benefits. It was the silent objections that she found difficult.

A central piece of learning on LftM, ‘viewpoints on style’, enabled her to find ways of dealing with reluctant colleagues. On LftM she had recognised that she had her own way of doing things; her style was that of a pragmatist, believing that her course of action was the right one. She also learned, however, that other people had different ways of perceiving things, and because of their own style would react negatively to a pragmatist.

Amanda appreciated that she had to get to grips with her resisters. She saw, after her work on LftM, that her style could prevent her from really listening to people. She noted:

"I think before [LftM] I thought I was listening to people but really I was imposing my ideas. Now I appreciate that I mustn’t try to impose my own ideas on them and appreciate they have their own."

In order to really understand her colleagues’ views, she extended her experience of being coached on LftM by further training from a mentoring and peer coaching training session organised by an external provider.

Undertaking one-to-one coaching sessions with these colleagues helped both parties realise that underlying the resistance were fears and anxieties about their capabilities and understanding. In their coaching sessions these staff expressed genuine concerns that they didn’t have the skills or the knowledge to implement the new curriculum.

Armed with these realisations, Amanda was able to move forward using a variety of training providers to develop her colleagues’ awareness, including in-house training and that offered by the local authority and awarding bodies. She organised model lessons for her colleagues and extended the school’s coaching approach by implementing peer coaching and mutual support.


Amanda commented:

"It was an evolving process over time. By the end of the second term of implementation, those resistances had been eliminated. Looking back on it now it was important to use [the resistant staff’s] ideas as they needed to feel some type of control. When I coached them I kept it friendly and professional and as informal and relaxed as possible."

Further challenges

The other challenges for Amanda centred on communication:

"It was all about making it clearer and more succinct so that parents were aware and staff were aware. For students it was clear which of the progression pathways they were on."

Parents posed a particular problem as they demonstrated very little awareness of what was available for their children. Their concerns were not so much on the academic side but focused on their children acquiring life skills. Amanda worked closely with parents to ensure that the school created the right plan:

"[The anxieties don’t] happen now because parents are informed what is the right kind of provision for their child. Parents go away happy and confident that children are going to progress to the best of their capability. With these new progression pathways now it’s clear to everybody." Achieving Success As a measure of her success in winning hearts and minds, Amanda commented that the staff who were the greatest resisters are now “majorly enthusiastic” and integral to the success of the whole project. Indeed, these teachers are now responsible for ensuring that moderation procedures are completed to the satisfaction of the awarding bodies.

Reflecting on her development as a leader through this project, Amanda commented that she now saw herself as a leader where previously she had perceived herself as a follower. She observed:

"You may not have the formal title of a leader but you’re leading a group of people whether it’s the staff you are working with, groups of parents, health and support services, the bodies that you are liaising with or administrative staff."

This project has provided her with the impetus to develop her career. Through LftM and her experiences in school, Amanda believes that her leadership is evolving and she is looking at career directions to extend her experience, possibly as a phase-level leader.

Analysis of practice Now that you have read the account of practice 'Implementing a curriculum initiative', review the practice in your school by considering the following questions.

• 01. What were the key challenges for Amanda in implementing the curriculum initiative and

how did she overcome them? How did she measure success? • 02. What can you learn from this account of practice that could inform the way you take

forward curriculum development in your school?


Leadership and curriculum innovation and change

Component School policies Team strategies

Values and aims: National policies

Links to school improvement planning

The school's context: Local needs and priorities

Resources: Finance, staffing, space and materials

Implementation schedule

Monitoring, review and improvement

Evaluation

Leadership and curriculum innovation and change Task 1 Drawing on the points that have emerged from this section so far, download a copy of the grid 'Leadership and curriculum innovation and change' below, to identify how each component of curriculum leadership is interpreted at school and team level. This grid can also be seen above.

Complete the grid and record your thoughts in your blog.

Task 2

Once you have completed the grid, reflect on the following questions. Record your thoughts in your blog.

• Where, as a team leader, do you have significant choice and discretion and where are there explicit requirements as to how you lead your aspect of the curriculum?

• Have you investigated how other teams in your school are approaching curriculum change? How about teams in other schools?


Further Information Overview

This page contains a range of additional resources you may want to use to extend your learning in this section.

Other modules with similar themes Behaviour toolkit This checklist is part of a range of tools available in the Behaviour toolkit. This is a set of online materials offering middle leaders the opportunity to explore the principles that underpin effective behaviour for teaching and learning and the practical leadership implications. It provides prompts, starting points and leadership activities that are a stimulus for thinking and action. The term ‘behaviour for teaching and learning’ is used throughout, highlighting that pupil behaviour is


inextricably linked to high-quality teaching and learning and high levels of achievement and attainment.

Section 05: Leading teaching and sustained improvement

Overview This section explores the relationship between outstanding teaching and learning and leadership.

In particular, it focuses on the relationship between team leadership, and pupil progress and achievement. The components of successful team leadership are discussed, and there is a particular focus on the Ofsted model of outstanding leadership and its implications for team leaders.

A range of leadership strategies are presented for review, and the section ends by looking at the leadership strategies most likely to raise standards and close the gap.


Theme 1: The relationship between leadership, raising standards and closing the gap

High-quality teaching and learning as the primary responsibility

During the past few years, there has been an increasing consensus around the idea that school leadership is not about budgets, strategy, premises or even leading and managing staff, but rather about all of these from the perspective of the quality of teaching and learning as the primary responsibility. You only have to look at school roles and structures, the focus of professional development and publications on educational leadership from 10 to 15 years ago to realise that the focus was on almost everything but teaching and learning. Certainly, the issue of closing the gap was not central to most leadership roles and the focus on the classroom was mixed.

In the past, there was huge diversity in the role of team leaders; sometimes team leaders were concerned with little more than routine administration, and sometimes they were focused on a subject but rarely did they have an emphasis on progress and achievement. A lot of the work of team leaders might be best described as administration – the important but essentially routine work of managing resources. Very rarely were team leaders appointed to manage the quality of teaching and ensure the consistency of pupils’ learning experiences.

Barber, Whelan and Clark (2010) capture the importance of the relationship between leadership, raising standards and closing the gap in the following synthesis:

“Analysis of Ofsted inspection results in England… suggests that the overall performance of a school almost never exceeds the quality of its leadership and management. For every 100 schools that have good leadership and management, 93 will have good standards of student achievement. For every 100 schools that do not have good leadership and management, only one will have good standards of achievement. A large number of quantitative studies in North America… show that school leadership influences performance more than any other variable except socio-economic background and the quality of teaching. A recent study found that “nearly 60 percent of a school’s impact on student achievement is attributable to principal and teacher effectiveness. These are the most important in-school factors driving school success, with principals accounting for 25 percent and teachers 33 percent of a school’s total impact on achievement. This statement may even understate the potential impact of effective school leadership, because leadership is itself one of the main drivers of the quality of teaching. A major study of improving schools in England… found that “there are statistically significant empirical and qualitatively robust associations between heads’ educational values, qualities, and their strategic actions and improvement in school conditions leading to improvements in student outcomes.”


---Barber, Whelan and Clark, 2010, p5

The relationship between leadership strategies, school improvement and pupil

outcomes

Day and his colleagues (2010) provide very clear evidence of the relationship between leadership strategies, school improvement and enhanced pupil outcomes:

"The analysis provides new empirical data that shows that it is the combination and accumulation of actions and strategies over time that results in school improvement: the head teachers’ leadership directly both creates and influences improvements in the school organisation and in the teaching and learning environment, which in turn improves pupil outcomes."

---Day et al, 2010, p11

The findings complement the qualitative case study analyses, which show their context. Of particular note are the:

• roles played by heads’ trust in teachers, both in relation to the SLT and broader staff leadership

• important links between redesigning the organisation and setting directions

• ways redesigning the organisation predicts improvement in school conditions

• ways leadership strategies to develop people link with the teacher collaborative culture, and with high academic standards and positive learner motivation and a learning culture

• positive associations between improvement in school conditions for teaching and learning and better outcomes in terms of pupil behaviour, pupil attendance, and learner motivation and learning culture; there were broad similarities in strategies and actions cited by primary and secondary heads, although a change in school culture was cited more often by secondary heads.

These pings have significant implications for team leaders in that they provide a summary of the key points usually associated with effective teams.


Section 05: Leading teaching and sustained improvement Theme 2: Leadership and effective teams

Characteristics of successful teams

Team leaders are only as effective as the teams they lead. Successful, high-performing teams in schools seem to have the following characteristics:

• integrity in social relationships resulting in high levels of trust and effective, open communications

• a sense of common purpose and shared values

• a clear focus on outcomes and performance

• a commitment to collaborative working

• a focus on improving teaching and learning

Effective teams focus on teaching and learning and this is expressed through regular interaction between team members, sharing and testing best practice and innovative strategies:

• developing consensus and consistency around effective teaching, raising achievement and securing progress across the team

• team leaders monitoring teaching, giving feedback and supporting change

• team leaders modelling outstanding practice

• regular team dialogue around pupil achievement and progress

• focusing on developing and extending subject knowledge

• partnership working to improve practice and develop new strategies

• working with other teams in the school to moderate teaching approaches

• working with teams from other schools to share and model best practice

However, the full potential of a team depends to some extent on the presence of a supportive environment. Robinson and her colleagues (2008) provide one of the most important perspectives on what actually makes a difference in terms of the leadership of teaching and learning. In their meta-analysis of the available research on the key themes that have the greatest impact on teaching, learning and achievement, five key themes were identified:

• Dimension one: Establishing goals and expectations

• Dimension two: Strategic resourcing

• Dimension three: Planning, coordinating and evaluating teaching and the curriculum

• Dimension four: Promoting and participating in teacher learning and development • Dimension five: Ensuring an orderly and supportive

Dimension one: Establishing goals and expectations

Leadership makes a difference to students through its emphasis on clear academic and learning goals. In a work environment, where multiple, conflicting demands can make everything seem equally important, goals establish what is important, and focus staff and student attention and effort accordingly. Dimension two: Strategic resourcing The word ‘strategic’ in the description of this dimension signals that this leadership dimension is about securing and allocating material and staffing resources that are aligned to pedagogical purposes, rather than leadership skill in securing resources.


Dimension three: Planning, co-ordinating and evaluating teaching and the curriculum

There was considerable evidence that this leadership dimension makes a strong impact on student outcomes. It involves four types of leadership practice:

1 Involving staff in discussions of teaching, including its impact on students.

2 Working with staff to co-ordinate and review the curriculum, for example, developing progression of objectives for the teaching of writing across year levels.

3 Providing feedback to teachers, based on classroom observations that they report as useful in improving their teaching.

4 Systematic monitoring of student progress for the purpose of improvement at school, department and class level.

Dimension four: Promoting and participating in teacher learning and development This leadership dimension is described as both promoting and participating, because more is involved here than just supporting or sponsoring other staff in their learning. The leader participates in the learning as leader, learner or both. The contexts for such learning are both formal (staff meetings and professional development) and informal (discussions about specific teaching problems). Dimension five: Ensuring an orderly and supportive environment This dimension describes those leadership practices that ensure that teachers can focus on teaching, and that students can focus on learning. The findings for this dimension suggest that the leadership of high-performing schools is distinguished by its emphasis on, and success in, establishing a safe and supportive environment through clear and consistently enforced social expectations and discipline codes. Source: Robinson et al, 2008, p14

Robinson et al’s conclusion provides a powerful vindication of the refocusing of leadership that is taking place in many education systems: "The main conclusion to be drawn from the present analyses is that particular types of school leadership have substantial impacts on student outcomes. The more leaders focus their influence, their learning, and their relationships with teachers on the core business of teaching and learning, the greater their likely influence on student outcomes." ---Robinson et al, 2008, p16 Robinson (2011) provides a very clear and authoritative view of the essential components of leadership that is focused on improving student outcomes. Her work is based on the detailed analysis of a wide range of research papers and very robust evidence. She is very clear that the ‘five dimensions work together as a set and have strong reciprocal effects’ (Robinson, 2011, p10). In calculating the effect size of each of these five elements, the greatest effect size is found in promoting teacher learning and development (0.84) with establishing goals and expectations and ensuring high-quality teaching both significant (0.42), with strategic resourcing (0.31) and an orderly and safe environment (0.27) relatively less significant (ibid, 2011, p9). In educational research an effect size of 0.4 is considered moderate and 0.6 significant. There is a clear need to work through the implications of her conclusions and apply them in detail and, in particular, to find evidence at school level of the focus on the ‘core business of teaching and learning’ and their impact on student outcomes. References

• Robinson, V M J, Lloyd, C & Rowe, K, 2008, The impact of leadership on student outcomes: an analysis of the differential effects of leadership types, Educational Administration Quarterly, 44(5), 635-74 • Robinson, V M J, 2011, Student-Centered Leadership, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass



Theme 3: Commitment to the quality of teaching

Commitment of leaders to the quality of teaching and learning

What follows is a list of possible examples of the evidence that might demonstrate and confirm the commitment of school and team leaders to the quality of teaching and learning. It is not suggested that all of the elements are equally significant in every context.

What is important is that there is a clear recognition of what is significant for a particular team, department or school at a particular time. It might be helpful to think of each item as the concrete evidence that school leaders are focusing on teaching and learning, raising achievement and closing the gap in practical and specific ways.

Leadership of teaching and learning: the evidence

• Team leaders’ role descriptions focus on the quality of teaching and learning, and personal areas of leadership responsibility. Internal accountability is focused on equity and excellence, which is at the heart of performance management, and performance targets are related to effective classroom practice.

• Staff deployment reflects the quality of teaching and professional expertise – expertise is located where it is most likely to make a difference to pupil achievement.

• There is a structured programme for monitoring, reviewing and giving feedback on classroom practice by school leaders. A detailed record of classroom visits is kept, together with outcomes and actions taken.

• Agendas and minutes of team meetings provide evidence of regular review and discussion of teaching and learning. Staff meetings report on the progress of teaching and learning strategies.

• Team leaders regularly model outstanding classroom practice and enable the involvement of all staff in lesson study activities.

• All team members are involved in co-coaching, peer review and teaching buddies approaches, which is reinforced by book scrutiny. There are class/pupil progress meetings, triangulation of core subjects and one-to-one learning reviews with every pupil.

• Team leaders are involved in managing data to track all vulnerable pupils with details of intervention strategies with the involvement of the SEN co-ordinator in all teaching and learning activities. Improvement planning is focused on teaching and learning.

• Team leaders are involved in the design, delivery and implementation of CPD to share innovative and successful strategies across the school and with other schools to disseminate successful practice and secure consistency.

• Team leaders make regular reports to the school leadership team and governing body focusing on issues of performance and accountability.

You might want to use this range of examples of evidence in negotiating your teacher appraisal agenda and in developing members of your team who aspire to leadership positions.

Ofsted descriptor for outstanding leadership and management

The pursuit of excellence in all of the school’s activities is demonstrated by an uncompromising and highly successful drive to strongly improve achievement, or maintain the highest levels of achievement, for all pupils, including disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs, over a sustained period of time.

All leaders and managers, including the governing body, are highly ambitious for the school and lead by example. They base their actions on a deep and accurate understanding of the school’s performance and of staff and pupils’ skills and attributes.

Key leaders focus relentlessly on improving teaching and learning, resulting in teaching that is likely to be outstanding and at least consistently good. The school’s curriculum: provides highly positive, memorable experiences and rich opportunities for high-quality learning; has a very positive impact on all pupils’


behaviour and safety; and contributes very well to pupils’ achievement and to their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

The school has highly successful strategies for engaging with parents and carers to the very obvious benefit of pupils, including those who might traditionally find working with the school difficult. The school’s arrangements for safeguarding pupils meet statutory requirements and give no cause for concern.

Grid for practical task: Implications for your leadership responsibility

Significant criteria Ranking

Leadership Implications

Implications for your leadership responsibility Task Using the Ofsted descriptor for outstanding leadership and management above:

• identify what you consider to be the most significant aspects of the criteria for your area of leadership responsibility • for each aspect, rank the current level of performance using the four rankings in the panel on

the right • consider the implications for your leadership

Rankings

A = high confidence, consistently outstanding patience B = evidence of outstanding practice but not consistent C = broadly satisfactory practice and consistency D = significant issues of quality and consistency.



Theme 4: Effective leadership

This diagram was developed as part of the National College’s research project 'Making a difference', which researched the strategies and behaviours used by outstanding middle leaders in secondary schools. One of the key attributes they shared was the ability to move with ease between the strategic and the operational; on the one hand to be absolutely focused on getting the basics right and on the other to be creating a climate of trust and creativity.

Highly effective leaders had the confidence to judge where they should position themselves on the following scales, and were able to move from one position to another easily and in a way that was sensitive to context and the needs of pupils.

• Tight ----------Loose

• Controlling ----------Trusting

• Eliminating variation ----------Celebrating variety

• Procedures ----------Values

• Conforming ----------Creating

• Systems ----------Relationships


Effective team leaders seem able to help colleagues move from the left-hand side to the right as confidence and capability grow. It is very much the same as managing a class; sometimes leadership needs to be tight – clear, explicit and controlling – while at other times or with different people, things can be more relaxed, looser, and working through trust.

This confidence is a classic example of the importance of developing practical experience in leadership which builds personal understanding and so the ability to make sound judgements. It’s much the same process as learning to drive. It takes time to build the experience and understanding which means that you make appropriate and (it is to be hoped) accurate judgements about when to turn, when to overtake, and so on.


Learning-centred leadership Learning-centred strategies

Southworth (2006) in the 'Middle leadership in primary schools project', identified three learning-centred strategies that leaders can use to influence the quality of learning in schools:

• modelling – leading by example

• monitoring – knowing what is going on in classrooms

• dialogue – talking and listening to colleagues

In analysing effective school leadership in primary schools, Southworth also stresses the importance of setting up structures and systems in order to ensure consistent delivery.

As shown in the diagram, the first three elements are closely interrelated. It is worth adding the strategy of coaching to Southworth’s model as the unifying strategy that maximises the impact of the other three elements.

Components of learning-centred leadership Introduction Southworth (2004) defines the three elements in the research paper 'Learning-centred leadership'. Modelling Modelling is concerned with the power of example. Teachers and headteachers believe in setting an example because they know this influences pupils and colleagues alike. Research shows that teachers watch their leaders closely, and teachers watch what their leaders do in order to check whether leaders’ actions are consistent over time and to test whether leaders do as they say. Teachers do not follow leaders who cannot ‘walk the talk’ (ibid, p6). For team leaders, modelling is a very powerful strategy. It means that they are able and confident enough to demonstrate strategies and techniques to their colleagues – this is a classic example of ‘do as I do’ rather than ‘do as I say’.

Monitoring Monitoring includes analysing and acting on pupil progress and outcome data (for example, assessment and test scores, evaluation data, school performance trends, parental opinion surveys, pupil attendance


data, pupil interview information). Leadership is stronger and more effective when it is informed by data on pupils’ learning, progress and achievements as well as by direct knowledge of all teaching practices and classroom dynamics (ibid, p7). Monitoring the consistency of the quality of teaching is fundamental to the work of team leaders – it is the most important form of intelligence-gathering for the school as it is the basis of internal and external accountability and developing strategies to secure improvement. Dialogue Dialogue in this context is about creating opportunities for teachers to talk with their colleagues about learning and teaching. The kinds of dialogues that influence what happens in classrooms are focused on learning and teaching. Leaders create the circumstances to meet with colleagues and discuss pedagogy and pupil learning (ibid, p 8). Dialogue is when team leaders are potentially at their most effective and making the greatest impact. It involves sustained professional conversations in which leaders explain, define and exemplify effective teaching. The power of coaching Coaching provides one of the most significant strategies for leaders to support the development of colleagues. In this context (relating back to its classical origins), mentoring is seen as a long-term developmental relationship that supports personal growth and learning. Coaching is seen as more of a short-term, authoritative intervention in order to support improved performance or changing strategies and behaviours. Coaching can be seen as a key relationship in the workplace describing the relationship between leaders and team members. As Goleman (2002) says: "Coaching’s surprisingly positive emotional impact stems largely from the empathy and rapport a leader establishes with employees. A good coach communicates a belief in people’s potentials and an expectation that they can do their best. The tacit message is, “I believe in you, I’m investing in you, and I expect yourbest efforts.” As a result, people sense that the leader cares, so they feel motivated to uphold their own high standards for performance, and they feel accountable for how well they do." ---Goleman, 2002, p62

By common consent, coaching is one of the most powerful learning strategies to bring about fundamental and embedded change. In many ways it is one of the most effective and efficient developmental strategies available to team leaders – it is proven to be one of the most powerful ways to help professionals improve their practice and introduce new techniques. The combination of these four strategies forms a powerful nexus that has the potential to:

• personalise leadership engagement with colleagues • model practice of the most effective relationships with learners • demonstrate high-profile, consistent commitment to the core purpose of the school

For Sergiovanni (2001): “Learning earns the center-stage position because it is a powerful way for schools to adapt, to stay ahead, and to invent new solutions. At the heart of any successful change is a change in culture which makes new goals, new initiatives, and new ways of behaving part of a school’s norm structure.”

---Sergiovanni, 2001, p119

Hargreaves and Fink (2006) make a very explicit link between effective leadership and distributed leadership:

"… an ultimate goal of sustainable learning and leadership is that, in time, the vast majority of schools will become authentic and assertive professional learning communities that will constitute the strong cells of system wide improvement. Ultimately, leadership that stays centered on learning and that lasts over time is

deliberately distributed leadership that stretches across a school or system, is a genuinely shared responsibility, and is taken as much as given."

---Hargreaves & Fink, 2006, p139


In essence, leadership does make a difference to learning and achievement; it will make a greater impact to the extent that it is distributed and, in Leithwood’s terms, the school focuses on ‘total’ leadership and the absolute focus of total leadership is on the quality of teaching and learning.

Personal reflection Reflect on what you have read in this section of the module, on your own leadership practice and explore the practice in your school.

Use the questions below to help you.

• 01. Reflect on the extent to which each of the four components of learning-centered leadership (monitoring, modelling, dialogue and coaching) is a significant part of your personal repertoire of leadership behaviours. What does your 360-degree feedback tell you about this? • 02. How comfortable are you with this approach to your work as a team leader? • 03. To what extent do your leaders and colleagues model this approach? • 04. Use part of a team meeting to explore this approach to leadership with your colleagues and prepare a response for discussion at your next face-to-face session.

References • Goleman, D, 2002, The new leaders, London, Little Brown • Hargreaves, A & Fink, D, 2006, Sustainable leadership, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass • Sergiovanni, T, 2001, Leadership: what’s in it for schools?, London, Routledge

Falmer

Section 05: Leading teaching and sustained improvement Summary

Key themes

It is very difficult to offer a synthesis of all of the various themes and models that this module has discussed. However, Robinson (2011) provides a very useful summary of the key themes that we need to keep in mind: "We… know, however, that school based influences on teacher recruitment, teacher retention, student attendance, students’ sense of safety, student achievement, parent involvement, and parent-school trust are a lot bigger than is often assumed. We discover rather than declare the limits of school leaders’ influence by continual inquiry into the conditions and capabilities that enable them to be more effective." ---Robinson, 2011, p154 In focusing us on ‘discover rather than declare’, Robinson reinforces the centrality of leaders accepting responsibility for continuing to learn, research and understand what it is that really makes a difference in the leadership of teaching and learning in order to secure achievement and sustain progress. For team leaders this means being committed to their own learning in order to model professional growth and to give them the confidence to model and coach their colleagues and engage in dialogue around the core purpose of closing the gap. In many respects, middle leaders are at their most effective, and most likely to make a real and sustainable impact on teaching and learning when they are actively engaged with their colleagues in reviewing and developing classroom practice. Central to this is the process of lesson observation that reflects all the elements in the Southworth model outlined above. There is no substitute for leaders who have detailed, reliable and up-to-date knowledge of the quality of classroom practice. In essence, observation provides the evidence on which to base celebration of success, support for innovation and creativity and challenge to improve. It is central to the teacher appraisal process as the model policy for schools (below) shows.


Teacher appraisal and capability: A model policy for schools

"This school believes that observation of classroom practice and other responsibilities is important both as a way of assessing teachers’ performance in order to identify any particular strengths and areas for development they may have and of gaining useful information which can inform school improvement more generally. All observation will be carried out in a supportive fashion. (Schools may like to be more specific here about how observations will be conducted – or to refer to any separate document that clarifies how classroom observation will be conducted in their school)."

"In this school, teachers’ performance will be regularly observed, but the amount and type of classroom observation will depend on the individual circumstances of the teacher and the overall needs of the school. Classroom observation will be carried out by those with QTS. In addition to formal observation, head teachers or other leaders with responsibility for teaching standards may “drop in” in order to evaluate the standards of teaching and to check that high standards of professional performance are established and maintained. The length and frequency of “drop in” observations will vary depending on specific circumstances (schools may wish to be more specific about “drop in” observations)."

---Teacher appraisal and capability: A model policy for schools, DfE, 2012, p6

Observation

Observation for appraisal will never be enough to meet all the development needs and improvement strategies of a team. Alongside the formal process there needs to be a culture of review, advice, support and constant interaction and dialogue around the nature of effective teaching. Paired review and collaborative developmental strategies have a significant role to play in enhancing teaching but they are never a substitute for the active engagement of the team leader in securing sustainable improvement. Effective and credible observation needs to meet a number of criteria:

• There needs to be explicit and agreed criteria against which judgements will be made. The Ofsted criteria are clearly authoritative in this context.

• The focus for the observation needs to be negotiated. If the process is to be genuinely developmental then there must be agreement about the areas of greatest need and significance.

• Mutual perceptions of the session need to be shared and agreed.

• Conclusions and judgements need to be clearly related to developmental outcomes and specific actions.

• The process needs to be followed up to ensure that agreed changes are taking place.

Hargreaves and Fullan (2012,p87) provide an integrated summary of the variables influencing professional engagement and effectiveness:

• the conditions for professionals to meet (high-performing countries provide more time for this

than low performers)

• expectations and frameworks of learning and curriculum that are challenging and open enough for teachers to innovate and inquire into their practice together

• ongoing timely data that enables teachers, individually and together, to diagnose student

learning needs and tailor their instructional responses carefully

• outstanding stable leadership that can galvanise professionals as a team in pursuit of a greater good

• opportunities as well as incentives to learn from colleagues in other classrooms, other schools and even other countries

Question to consider

• How might you make each of these elements available within your team?

• Record your reflections in your blog.


Leadership strategies to close the gap: review and reflection

Introduction

Use this task to help you begin to draw conclusions about your understanding of leading teaching and learning, and the impact that you and your colleagues are having on enhancing the quality of teaching and learning in order to secure sustained improvement and so close the gap.

Task 1

Download the 'Leadership strategies to close the gap' table from the link below. Go through the components of the table and modify them in the light of your own experience, the ideas you have come across in this module, and conversations and exchanges you have had in the course of your engagement with this programme. You might wish to change the wording, alter the priorities, leave some categories out and/or add others.

Task 2

When you are satisfied that the table represents what you believe to be appropriate to your context, classify each of the components of effective leadership and management in your team A, B, C or D according to the extent to which it is:

• A: well established in principle and practice across the whole team

• B: emergent practice in parts of the team

• C: associated with some awareness but no consistent practice • D: has no awareness

Task 3 Download the grid in the 'End of programme review: implications' document from the link below. Using the grid provided, review your response to this activity by considering the implications of what you perceive to be the most significant issues for you in your leadership role, for your team and for your school.

References

• Hargreaves, A & Fullan, M, 2012, Professional capital: Transforming teaching in every school, New York, Teachers College Press

• Teacher appraisal and capability: A model policy for schools, DfE, 2012


Leading teaching Review, analysis and reflection

Summary of what I have learnt

Review and analyse what you have learned about: • the importance of teaching and securing consistency • outstanding teaching

• leading teaching and sustained improvement

Look back at the final practical task you completed in the 'Summary' in Section 5. Consider what this means for:

• you as a leader

• the leadership of your team • leading improvements in teaching and learning in order to close the gap in achievement

Impact on my actions as a leader

Following review, analysis and reflection, consider how your actions as a leader have developed through this module. Record in your blog for future reference.

Next steps

Reflect on all your learning and plan the next stages of your journey as a leader. Record in your blog for future reference.

Documents

NPQML: Leading Teaching Module About this module · NPQML: Leading Teaching Module About this module “The more leaders focus their relationships, their work, and their learning