Research School Network: Putting Evidence to Work at John Taylor Free School Tom Bithell shares how John Taylor Free School have successfully grown a research informed culture of professional development.

Tom Bithell is a middle leader and has the significant responsibility of embedding a research informed culture at John Taylor Free School. Here he writes about how he has put evidence to work with the help of the EEF Implementation Guidance Report.

As the first brand new secondary school to be built in Staffordshire for 25 years, we had the unique opportunity to create a culture that was truly research informed. Even before the school opened, the Head of School made preparations for this with the creation of the Research Lead post, tailored questions around research-informed practice through the interview process and sharing research pieces with new staff during the induction phase. Once I was in post as Research Lead, the EEF Implementation Guidance Report was a key document in making the vision of a research-informed school a reality. It was important to recognise as a middle leader, that implementation is a process and it takes time to foster a culture which is actually research informed. Fortunately, the Senior Leadership Team at John Taylor Free School value the importance of this and have helped to facilitate a school climate that is conducive to executing the implementation process in manageable stages. With these basic principles, colleagues are empowered to reflect and explore their own practice in a trusting climate that actively promotes professional curiosity. Through professional noticing, reflective practice and coaching, colleagues have the autonomy to identify a particular area of their teaching practice that they want to improve or change.

It is then my job as Research Lead to disseminate and communicate the research in different ways so it infiltrates the thinking of all colleagues and allows them to make more evidence informed decisions in their planning. We expose and explore research at John Taylor Free School in several different ways. Blog of the Week has proven to be a great way of enabling staff to research in the education and cognitive science communities in a bitesize format. We post Blog of the Week through Office 365 on Microsoft Teams so colleagues can discuss, comment and critique the blogs and promote how they are utilising it their classrooms. The blogs frequently link with emerging needs of students and staff and buttress learning that has been undertaken through our Professional Learning programme. Blogs emanate from a range of reputable and reliable sources such as the EEF, the Chartered College for Teaching, BERA, Ambition Institute and ResearchEd. Areas of interest have been wide ranging including retrieval practice, interleaving, formative feedback, metacognition and vocabulary acquisition. Teachers are also supported to access research through monthly Progress papers which they vote on through an internal online poll. A range of topic areas are voted on so we are responding to the needs and interests of our staff. Whichever area comes first, I write a short summary of a research study in that area and what the classroom implications are. This month’s Progress handout focused on student mindset and building resilience to help them be more effective learners. All of the above helps to make research easy to read, digestible and user friendly which is integral in a busy school.

The most integral form of sharing research informed ideas, concepts and strategies is through our highly personalised programme of Professional Learning. Our two hour sessions are held on a weekly basis and gives colleagues a chance to digest and learn about research-informed practice. These sessions are often underpinned by pre-reading that I prepare so colleagues can engage with the session on a more advanced level. This ensures that staff are able to discuss ideas not from the perspective of a novice but as more informed professionals so conversations are more purposeful. The learning that is undertaken in these sessions then feeds into the blogs and resources that are shared with staff to further embed research-informed practice across the curriculum. As a result of this approach, teachers have explored how to embed more effective vocabulary, reading and oracy strategies into schemes of learning, investigated how to maximise the success of mixed-ability groups as well as improving the quality of feedback through review tickets. There is also a carefully curated Research Hub on SharePoint that gives all teachers access to research reports and guidance which they can access at any time to help them progress as professionals. 

Engaging with this wide variety of research in different ways gives teachers the confidence to trial the strategies we have read and discussed in their own classrooms. All colleagues undertake a micro-trial to test a research informed strategy or idea during the second half of the academic year. I support staff through what can seem a daunting process along with the help of EEF DIY Evaluation Guide. This helps colleagues to frame their micro-trial in three simple steps outline below:

Step 1: What do you want to achieve?
Determine your priorities using internal data and professional judgement. What are your ambitions for improvement? In which particular areas do pupils need more support?

Step 2: How can you get there?
Having identified what your goal is, education research can be useful in providing information about what has worked elsewhere particular approach. This encourages colleagues to think about the methodology of the trial, the participants and resources needed. 

Step 3: Did it work and should you continue?

Colleagues have the opportunity to use the Effect Size Calculator that helps to measure impact and inform next steps.

This simple framework acts a safeguard in ensuring the trials are rigorous enough to inform teaching practice moving forward. At the end of the trial, teachers come together and share their findings in an open and trusting environment and discuss how it will inform school, departmental and teaching priorities moving forward. This is recorded on the micro-trial summary sheet which is made available to all teaching staff. This process helps us as a school to sustain and embed research informed practice across the curriculum and improve student outcomes. Over the last eighteen months, it has become apparent that engaging with research has helped colleagues become better teachers and make more informed decisions about their own practice. SLT, the governing body and Lead Teachers have demonstrated a strong commitment in ensuring our research informed approach remains a central part of our vision at John Taylor Free School. In the coming months, our priorities will centre around ensuring our STRIPE curriculum is based around the EEF Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning Report as well as continuing to embed an evidence based approach to our whole school literacy strategy. Embedding this research informed culture is crucial in ensuring all colleagues can implement the ​‘best bets’ of research and make positive changes to their classroom practice.

If you would like to know more about Tom’s approach at JTFS, please contact us here.