Research School Network: Implementing a new approach to extra curricular Engaging and uniting staff and reflecting on feedback to improve implementation

This academic year we have implemented a new strategy for our extracurricular provision. You can find out more about this in our previous blogs hereand here. A key part of this was creating a shared vision and uniting colleagues which links to the newly updated EEF School’s Guide to Implementation which refers to the need to consider implementation as a collaborative and social process driven by how people think, behave and interact.

We considered the following behaviours that are at the heart of what drives effective implementation:

Engage
From the outset, we wanted everyone in the school community to feel included in the decisions that were made and that their perspectives were valued. Therefore, it was essential to include all stakeholders in the planning process. We organised a comprehensive initial consultation process where staff, students, and even parents could voice their perspectives via a Microsoft Form about the current offer and ideas about how it could be improved. This ensured that the extracurricular program would reflect a broad range of interests and needs, fostering a sense of ownership and commitment among all parties involved.

Strong leadership was critical in driving the project forward. We established a leadership team comprising of two ​‘Extracurricular Champions’ who were supported by the Deputy headteacher overseeing Pupil Premium and Assistant Headteacher overseeing Personal Development. This team was responsible for overseeing the development and implementation of the extracurricular program. Creating an implementation plan and timeline together helped with this and prevented implementation being dragged off track.

We then clearly communicated to all stakeholders what our goals were and what we intended to do. Our two new Extracurricular Champions did a brilliant job of communicating the direction of travel and motivating staff to get involved and offer a club to students.

Unite
To develop a unified vision, we delivered some staff CPD sessions. These sessions were designed to be collaborative and engaging and the Extracurricular Champions shared the research evidence about why these opportunities are so valuable particularly for our disadvantaged students. This helped everyone to understand the benefits of this strategy.

Reflect
A key part of the initial consultation was learning current practices and the barriers in terms of why students didn’t currently engage fully with the offer we had in place and why many staff didn’t feel able to run a club. We were then able to work collaboratively to share ideas about how we could address these barriers and solve the problems together. Examples include:

- Early lunch passes for students so they could get food and attend the club
- Better display boards so students knew where and when clubs were

It also allowed us to address some of the barriers that our staff had shared about why they didn’t feel able to offer a club. As well as limited time, staff referred to a lack of specialism and knowledge needed to deliver a club e.g. basketball. A solution was to offer a Student Leadership Accreditation to our sixth form students and explain to them the benefits of leadership and engaging with opportunities in school. Many students expressed an interest in leading a club so that a member of staff was just needed to take a register and support the student leader.

The Senior Leadership team considered the intervention at length and discussed whether to make it compulsory for every member of staff to offer a club. The decision was made that in our context, with our staff this was less likely to be successful and that it would be better to leave this up to people to choose and instead focus on trying to remove barriers and address motivation.

Effective communication was pivotal. To start with, weekly learning walks took place, popping in to ask if everything was going ok or if there was anything we could do to support. Also checking that the club was in the correct room and taking place at the correct time (and aligned with what was on the display/​school website). There were also half termly emails sharing attendance data including total number of students, number of disadvantaged students and number of students with SEND. This also enabled us to maintain momentum and morale, as we were celebrating success and recognising contributions regularly, recognizing the hard work and achievements of colleagues reinforced the collective effort and encouraged ongoing participation and enthusiasm.

Information was also shared with parents in each of the fortnightly parental communications sent by the Headteacher.

As a team we adopted a mindset of continuous improvement. We have met half termly to look at the data and what we needed to do to continue to improve the provision. This approach kept everyone informed and allowed for continuous feedback, adjusting as needed to stay aligned with our shared vision.

By focusing on engaging, uniting and reflecting, we were able to unite colleagues and create a shared vision that has helped improve our extracurricular provision.

Julie Kettlewell, Assistant Director of Huntington Research School