Research School Network: Unpacking A School’s Guide to Implementation Part 1: Foundations

The new EEF guidance reportPutting Evidence to Work: A School’s Guide to Implementationoffers six recommendations to help schools give their innovations the very best chance by working carefully through the who, why, where, when and how of managing change. Over a series of blog posts, we will explore those recommendations. In this post we look at the first two:

1. Treat implementation as a process, not an event; plan and execute it in stages
2. Create a leadership environment and school climate that is conducive to good implementation

Both of these recommendations come under the heading of ​‘Setting the foundations for good implementation’- a crucial aspect to bear in mind. By the time the implementation begins, and we start to examine the specifics, it may already be too late for things to work in the way we want. That’s because the foundations need to be there before anything can be built. The implementations need to be built on rock, not sand.

Every new initiative will require careful and thorough planning to get right. Yet even with a thorough plan and careful foresight, good plans don’t always lead to well-implemented projects. The problem is, every new initiative takes place in a wider school context. Any new initiative must be seen in the context of current and previous implementations. If lots of things are going on in a school, it may simply be impossible for staff to get to grips with a new one. If the school has its own history of multiple new programmes and policies, then leaders may face resistance, and willing teachers are torn between getting on board and the cynicism that this kind of environment inevitably fosters. From the guidance report:

Organisations across all sectors, not just education, tend to take on too many projects simultaneously and underestimate the effort involved in implementing innovations effectively. Schools should probably make fewer, but more strategic choices, and pursue these diligently. Reviewing and stopping some existing practices may be required before delivering new ones.

Without careful consideration of the school context, new initiatives flounder and cannot ever take hold. It’s harder in some ways to do fewer things, but this is probably best in order to ensure that there is impact.

Another factor which can contribute to how effective implementation will be is a school’s approach to professional development. Fortunately, we can be confident about what makes effective professional development and avoid some pitfalls. The Dfe Standard for Teachers’ Professional Development makes several relevant recommendations, one of which is ​“Professional development programmes should be sustained over time.” The mistake that can easily be made with implementation is that there is an initial input of training but little follow up built into the implementation. The Dfe Standard document suggests that we should ​“Design programmes with a regular rhythm of opportunities, to form a coherent programme.”

School leaders need to consider this as part of an individual implementation, but also think how all the other initiatives and programmes connect and conflict – there are only so many hours for professional development and a critical mass of programmes for which it will be impossible to provide enough support for. We’ll come back to the idea of effective support for individual implementations in a later post, but it’s important to ensure the wider school climate is ready to support any new implementation.

Finally, the guidance report has a useful set of checklist questions to ask to see if you do have an ​‘implementation friendly’ climate:

• Do we implement changes across the school in a structured and staged manner?
• Is adequate time and care taken when preparing for implementation?
• Are there opportunities to make fewer, but more strategic, implementation decisions and pursue these with greater effort?
• Are there less effective practices that can be stopped to free up time and resources?
• Does our school have a climate that is conducive to good implementation?
• Does the school leadership team create a clear vision and understanding of expectations when changing practices across the school?
• Do staff feel empowered to step forward and take on implementation responsibilities?
• How do day-to-day practices affect the motivation and readiness of staff to change?

Next: Part 2: Explore