Research School Network: A blunt implement Do the active ingredients of your identified priorities run through your school like letters through Blackpool rock?


A blunt implement

Do the active ingredients of your identified priorities run through your school like letters through Blackpool rock?

by Blackpool Research School
on the

"If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time"

Steve Jobs

It’s the memory, stupid”, cries the ambitious newly-appointed Assistant Headteacher channeling their inner Bill Clinton at the annual results post-mortem.

We need to do something now or we will never be a Good school!”

At my previous school we interleaved our lessons, spaced concepts, gave every pupil a knowledge organiser and included retrieval practice every period. We gave every teacher a visualiser so they could dual-code, stripped away displays to reduce cognitive overload and banned PowerPoint”

We need to do a big INSET day next week and show some impact before our next monitoring visit. I have a full lesson checklist and observation schedule ready for approval”

At this point I awoke from my siesta, rather relieved that this Orwellian nightmare was a figment of my over active imagination. In describing this nightmare, I carefully chose my phraseology. The situation described above is not too far from the reality of SLT meetings taking place up and down the country as a response to the twin issues of EIF 2019 and GCSE results. Futuristic but hopefully avoidable and unnecessary.

In my 20-year career, half of it in Secondary senior leadership I have learned from the bitter experience of a good idea poorly executed. The initial hope and eventual cynicism as another good idea falls by the wayside. The dream above should it have continued would have ended in confusion, recrimination and a deepening of cynicism in what are ostensibly evidence based best-bets. The use of a bastardised compliance checklist administered by (well-intentioned, overworked) leaders increases accountability, exacerbates recruitment and retention issues and perpetuates the cyclical nature of education.

Using exam results and limited experience, my imaginary assistant headteacher has decided what they want to achieve and has identified many possible solutions. Even in my nightmares, the figments of my imagination still identify evidence-based solutions! The issue with so many priorities and such a short time scale that there is no implementation readiness. These evidence-based, best-bets cited widely in both the EIF and the new Early Career Framework are essential for all teachers to understand. My issue highlighted by my nightmare is not with the evidence, it is with the shallow understanding coupled with the Duning-Kruger effect meaning that best-bets misunderstood and badly implemented erode staff confidence and this must be avoided.

Before the rush to implement any new ideas, can I urge caution and direct readers to the EEF implementation guidance report, which is a cornerstone of the work we do at Blackpool Research School.

If we take one strand of memory such as retrieval practice as our priority to implement based on data and professional judgement, this would be fully supported by EIF 2019:

Over the course of study, teaching is designed to help learners to remember in the long-term the concepts they have been taught and integrate new knowledge into larger concepts”

A clear, logical and well-specified plan must be created with the approach you want to implement and the changes you hope to see. The active ingredients of retrieval will be the behaviours you see when it is working and will run through the school like letters through Blackpool rock.

We then need to gauge and address general capacity of both the concept and the implementation process i.e. does everyone know what retrieval actually is? Are staff aware that retrieval practice needs to occur a reasonable time after the topic has ben initially taught? Is everyone aware that it needs to take the form of testing knowledge either by the teacher or through pupil self-testing? New skills, knowledge and strategies can be introduced with explicit up-front training which can include wider research on memory.

Follow-on support through coaching and mentoring within the school and department setting is crucial. This helps to apply the skills and knowledge that are introduced through the initial training and tailor them to the very different contexts of subjects.

This expert coaching and mentoring can be complemented through structured peer to peer collaboration. This builds capability, increases motivation and these opportunities to work together on shared priorities strengthens the culture of effective implementation.

Professional development and its rhythms, duration and crucially its alignment are vital. As capability grows there is a danger of persisting with explicit training which can risk the expertise-reversal effect. More nuanced CPD with introduction of wider memory research through journal clubs and teaching and learning groups will serve to enhance and amplify the messages of your priorities. Looking regularly at curriculum to support school priorities and crucially the learners is important. How is the curriculum designed to help pupils remember in the long term the concepts they have been taught and develop the schema of larger concepts?

At the end of this planning stage, leaders can now be confident that they have planned to give the idea the best chance of success and only then move into delivery. This structured and iterative process will help leaders avoid summer nightmares and build confidence in teachers that good ideas implemented well can make a difference to pupil outcomes. 

“It’s the implementation, stupid”

Phil Naylor – Blackpool Research School

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