Research School Network: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Our Research School website quotes an African proverb: ​“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

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“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Our Research School website quotes an African proverb: ​“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

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Our Research School website quotes an African proverb: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

The recently published updated implementation guidance from the EEF emphasises the need to go together’; to ENGAGE and UNITE people for anything implemented to be effective.

The EEF have always used the metaphor of cultivating a garden for implementation as a process,
rather than an event. The analogy is that we could all buy our seasonal bedding plants from a garden centre, put them in and have some immediate colour and effect: gardening as an event, and usually a costly event at that. Much like poor implementation in schools.

However, the process of cultivating something carefully, through seasons, pacing a range of activities with things happening at the right time will always lead to a stronger, more established and more self-sustaining garden. Much like effective implementation in schools.

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For me the garden imagery comes to mind when we consider the people involved in the process of implementation as much as the process itself. If we consider people as the plants in our gardening analogy, different plants need different things at different times; the right nourishment, the right amount of light or shade etc. Expert gardeners know when to leave them alone, when to remedy them, when to feed and when to cut back. They look after them through the seasons, and through the challenges they face. Activities are spaced; they don’t all happen at once on the same day, and no plants are left without regular oversight and monitoring.

Recommendation 1 of the updated implementation guidance says: Adopt the behaviours that drive effective implementation.

The report states that implementation is fundamentally a collaborative and social process driven by how people think, behave and interact.’

These behaviours are outlined under the 3 banners below:

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Having systems and processes in place to enable the above three things is our fertile soil. The recommendation talks about engaging staff in meaningful conversations because people value what they feel part of. This includes ensuring genuine opportunities to collaborate.

Just as the expert gardener would be vigilant for slugs, snails and greenfly on their plants, so too an effective school leader needs to address anything weakening the implementation process and look to remedy this. It should be explicitly communicated that implementation is not a perfect, linear process. It can and should be improved. Only with a culture of monitoring and refining, even if that means going backwards in order to make more secure progress, can we really cultivate great teachers.

This article(scroll down) about The Early Years Communication Project (EYCP) offers an example of collaboration and engagement through the use of mentors. Two mentors from the EYCP talk about how mentor support, over time, can help overcome stumbling blocks and pitfalls when introducing something new.

Read here (Scroll down)

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