Research School Network: When Implementation Goes Wrong

We can all remember occasions where we have seen (or even been responsible for) a new approach being introduced in schools – and then failing, or not having the impact that it should have had. This is a common failing of school leadership and is usually the result of a lack of understanding of the key stages of implementation. The EEF Implementation Guide provides school leaders with a great framework to support with this, by exploring the key stages of implementation – explore, prepare, deliver and sustain.

When planning the implementation of a new approach it’s worth considering examples of when implementation hasn’t worked and the reasons for this – at the different stages of implementation. This should then be used to inform our implementation planning for the future. We should think about:

What happened before delivery?

What happened during delivery?

What was missing for sustainability?

This article will explore some of the common mistakes that are made by leaders when implementing a new approach to their team, during each of these three stages of implementation.

1. What goes wrong before delivery?

- Leaders are not specific when identifying the issue they are trying to solve. For example, when trying to improve literacy across the school a general intervention is put in place rather than identifying the specific issue concerned e.g. a deficit in tier 2 vocabulary and an intervention to address that.

- Leaders do not look at what the research evidence says is most likely to work and use this to plan an intervention. The EEF toolkit is a good starting point for this.

- Leaders don’t stop and think if the time is right to introduce the new approach. For example, if the team is having to manage lots of new change already, they might not be ready to embrace yet another new approach. Effective implementation needs a motivated team.

- Similarly, thought needs to be given to who is going to be involved in the new approach. Is it the whole team, or just a select group in the first instance? This is important, as you will need to know who will need to receive the training and coaching to implement the new approach.

- Insufficient thought has been given to the ​‘active ingredients’ of the new approach. By this we mean what are the essential principles of the new approach that must be implemented if the desired change is going to be achieved? Furthermore, where are we prepared to be ​‘tight and loose’ with these? So, what must be done as prescribed and where can there be flexibility?

- Leaders don’t often carry out a ​‘pre-mortem’ when thinking about introducing a new approach. What might go wrong and what can we do to avoid this?

- A number of new approaches will need administrative support to work effectively e.g. introducing an intervention such as ​‘accelerated reader’ will require somebody to label books, administer and analyse quiz results etc. If this capacity is not available, implementation may be unsuccessful.

- Possibly most importantly, not enough thought is given to how you will monitor that the new approach is carried out with fidelity (it is being carried out as intended), that is has the right reach (is reaching all the students it should be) and that it gains acceptability (it is understood and believed in by teachers). We call fidelity, reach and acceptability implementation outcomes. Ignoring these at the planning stage can be fatal.

- Leaders often have unrealistic expectations about how long it will take implementation to be embedded – they expect it to happen too quickly. Implementation takes time and this should be planned for at the initial stage.

2. What goes wrong during delivery?

- It’s really important that as well as having a shared understanding of what the new approach is, that staff also understand why the change is required. Just telling staff they have to do something, without explaining why and getting them to subscribe to it, is likely to result in ineffective implementation.

- In the worst cases, staff are told about the change at a staff meeting or INSET day and then expected to get on with it, with no follow up. This will be fatal to the successful implementation of the new approach!

- To be more precise, what should happen following the introduction of the new approach, is a complete programme of follow-up training, coaching and support to ensure staff have the required knowledge and skills to implement the change. This is often neglected. This should involve regular opportunities for staff to discuss how the new approach is going.

- Earlier on, we discussed the importance of fidelity, reach and acceptability with implementation. Poor implementation happens when leaders don’t then monitor that the new approach is being implemented with fidelity reach and acceptability – they just hope that it is! This is so dangerous because without this tight monitoring, approaches will mutate over time and as a result become very different from how they were intended and not bring about the change required.

- Stubbornness can hinder implementation – but this is a balancing act! When leaders don’t monitor and review whether the new approach is bringing about the desired change, they will probably just insist that teachers carry on with it regardless. Instead what they should be doing is monitoring the effectiveness of change and looking for small signs of success. If these are visible, it’s sensible to persist with the new approach, but if not, then it’s sensible to make thoughtful adaptations to the approach.

- Change is hard and there will be ​‘push-back’ from staff at times. This is quite normal and leaders should anticipate this. They should provide opportunities for colleagues to raise any concerns they might have about the new approach.

3. What was missing for sustainability?

- If the new approach is going to be sustained, it needs to be kept live. This is often not the case and instead it is just assumed that it is embedded across the team and everything is going well. This can be avoided, by providing regular opportunities for staff to meet and discuss their successes and challenges with the new approach.

- Similarly, we should actively praise colleagues who are implementing the new approach with strong fidelity. This will encourage them to keep going with it.

- To be sustained, new approaches usually need to be scaled up either across the whole team or the whole school. When this goes wrong, it is just assumed that this will happen naturally. It won’t! Scaling up needs to be treated a new implementation process.

- Earlier on we discussed the importance of monitoring fidelity, reach and acceptability. This doesn’t stop. It needs to be maintained long after the new approach is introduced.

The Durrington Research School will be leading a one day workshop on implementation in May 2020 – details and booking here.