Research School Network: What does a Research Lead do? Part 2: The Consigliere Examining one of many roles a research lead can play

What role do research leads currently play in schools? And what different kinds of models of research lead are there? In ​‘The School Research Lead’, written for the Education Development Trust, Tom Bennett shares a number of roles that a research lead might take:

• Gatekeeper
• Consigliere
• Devil’s Advocate
• Auditor
• Project Manager

We are working our way through each, and this time we focus on the research lead as consigliere.

According to Bennett, the consigliere acts as ​“a special adviser to the headteacher, or senior staff, or governing body, rather than as a specifically whole school resource.” The word, taken from the Italian for advice/​counsel, was popularised in the Godfather books and films, and refers to the advisor to the leader. (We don’t intend to use the mafia as an extended metaphor for school leadership here!)

The consigliere may be a gatekeeper figure, holding the keys to the evidence and passing on the most relevant to school leadership, but the crucial element in this role is that the consigliere will have the credibility and position to be able to influence the decisions of leadership.

Leadership buy-in

Research evidence is toothless without effective implementation, and implementation is futile without the right leadership climate. So the research lead must be able to work with the school leadership to have any chance of any impact. The EEF’s School’s Guide to Implementation is a good read for what this might look like. They say:

The research lead can then take an influence not just on the what but the how, steering leadership to implement any interventions in a clear and sustainable fashion.

Finding the evidence

Often, the consigliere research lead is asked for the evidence around a specific area. Recent educational themes that might be a focus might be curriculum, cognitive science e.g. retrieval practice, literacy, knowledge organisers. All places where a leader might ask for the best evidence and task someone with finding it. Although the research lead may not know all of the evidence, they will be trained in finding it. If tasked with exploring the evidence around improving the quality of writing across a school, they might look at a number of sources:

EEF guidance reports

Blogs from teachers

Trial evaluations

Other schools implementing successful programs

The EEF toolkit

Retrospective ​‘evidence’

There is a danger that a research lead will be asked merely to find the evidence to justify existing practice. Providing that all feedback is welcome, this can be useful to appraise what is currently happening. Any things for which the evidence is overwhelmingly negative can be dropped and everything else refined. Not every practice in schools will have a clear evidence base, however.

Another danger is that a school leader has already decided what to implement and the research lead is just asked to provide justification. They may be asked to ​‘cherry pick’ evidence to support it. A far better approach is to bring the research lead in before the decision is made. Gary Jones, in his excellent ​‘Evidence-based School Leadership and Management’ gives a helpful series of questions for avoiding fads:

• What evidence is there that the new approach can provide productive outputs and outcomes? Are the arguments based on solid evidence from lots of schools followed over time?
• Has the approach worked in schools similar to our own that face similar challenges?
• Is the approach relevant to current priorities and strategies of our school or multi-academy trust?
• Is the advice specific enough to be implemented? 
• Do we have enough information about implementation challenges and how to meet them within the context of our school?
• Is the advice practical for our school given our capabilities and resources?
  Can we reasonably assess the costs and prospective benefits?

Next time: The Devil’s Advocate