Research School Network: Moving a School Forward through Coaching How we’re improving teaching by helping our existing team to develop

My one and only trip to Old Trafford was a good few years ago. As it happens, the Manchester United fans kept singing, to the tune of ​‘You are my Sunshine’, about one of their favourite players, Ole Gunnar Solskjær. ​‘You are my Solskjær, my Ole Solskjær. You make me happy, when times are grey…’ You get the idea. As football fan chanting goes, it was a very chirpy tune.

We are often told to consider leadership examples from the wider world in the teaching profession. It got me thinking about what we should learn from the dismissal of José Mourinho just before Christmas and the subsequent appointment of Solskjær. I am sure this is not an exhaustive list, but here is what I have taken from this saga:

It doesn’t matter how much you have, it is how you use it

To many on the outside, Mourinho had it all in terms of the wealth and reach of Manchester United. One of the largest clubs in the world, considerable money at their disposal and substantial history. Even with all that at his disposal, it seemed impossible to create a climate for success. Many commentators put that down to a reliance on history and a failure to move with the times.

There are not many in education who would claim to be blessed with wealth. However, the concept of the need to evolve is very much part of our remit. You do not have to have been in education long to realise that ideas come and go. For leaders, this can become tricky, particularly given the personal nature of school leadership. It requires an acceptance that you need to grow and change with the world around you, rather than asserting that one size fits all.

One of the reasons for partnership and collaborative working is the need to maintain an outward view, to see what others see. Taking in sources like the EEF’s Guidance Reports, to understand the current zeitgeist, but recognising also that they will also be of their time.

You need to know how to play with the team you have got

One of Mourinho’s key complaints this year appears to have been that he was not allowed to sign additional players in the summer, particularly a new defender. The argument followed, that it was not his fault that the team played as it did if he didn’t have the rights resources.

I suspect this aspect resonates very strongly. With the shortage of teachers to recruit, particularly in certain subjects, schools are faced with an often limited supply. That is how it is. There is very little that an individual school can do to change this.

In many ways, this is the key focus of the Leading Learning training, CPD for CPD leaders. It is an acceptance that recruitment is not the solution to the development of teaching in our schools. Instead, we need to establish clear ways in which we, as schools, can develop our existing team, exploiting strengths and adjusting weaknesses.

At The Blue, our mechanism has been to use a coaching structure into which all staff sit. That tool allows us to bring in current research, showcase the ideas from other teams and support the development of the staff that we have. It is not the only way of doing it, but we are ensuring that we make the best of our most valuable resource, our staff.

Your team needs to be happy to come to work.

Arguably, the most substantial critique of José Mourinho was the negativity that he brought to the team. It was self-evident that they were not happy, in part with the style of play that he made them use, but also with the public criticisms of their failings.

You may argue that, given the size of their salaries, these footballers should still have done a better job, that it was up to them to turn up. This is one of the most interesting features because it became clear that despite the salaries, the lavish lifestyle, the fact that they were following their dreams, they still wanted to feel happy and appreciated in their workplace.

In my previous blogs, I have tried to emphasise the limited success of accountability as a way of moving schools forward. Largely, this is because it fails to understand that to move a school forward, you have to move a staff forward. There may be a very small number of staff who need to be ​‘held to account’ in order to inspire a better job, but they are vastly outweighed by the teachers for whom support, development and inspiration are key.

Doing this is about keeping those in the organisation content, satisfied and appreciated. Malcolm Gladwell talks in terms of two fundamentals for every individual at work: maintaining a degree of autonomy in your work that allows you to feel in control and an ability to see a direct correlation between your efforts and a successful outcome, whatever that may be.

For school leaders, I would argue that the second element requires some work. We see much more of the whole school than most class teachers, and that includes the successes of the organisation. Communicating these to all staff should be part of our new year mantras so that they are able to connect their efforts with the successes that follow.

It is interesting to note that the Wellcome Foundation have suggested this week that they can move all employees at their headquarters to a four-day week and still maintain the same productivity. Such a destination may be a distant dream in the teaching profession, but keeping people happy and satisfied in their work is very much for the here and now.

Mark Woodlock
Headteacher
The Blue School, Wells