Preface to The Director's Cut
I am angry and I'm thinking anger is OK isn't it?"
It's possible to be angry and, at the same time, thoughtful, even
reflective isn't it?
Well, I've been angry for years about this issue and controlling that
anger, at least in public.
Why? I believed that when I was calm, reflective and
measured, my words would hold more impact. They don't.
And sod it.... I've just done it again this week, controlled my
anger and, chivvied by an excellent editor, wrote a cool analysis of why and
how a #Teacher Growth approach works better than any other - but I was left thinking, "Something is missing - maybe a heartfelt, anger fuelled, Director's
Cut would get more Box-Office?"
So, here I let let rip...
TEACHER GROWTH
THE DIRECTOR'S CUT
The XXX rated version
For the sensitive a UU rated Short here
I wrote a despairing email to a friend this morning,
"I have an image in my head of all those creative teachers and
heads I've worked with, over all those years, standing in a weary, downtrodden
line, drenched to the skin in a rain of patronising abuse of their
professionalism... Down hearted, cold, drained and turning away from work they
once loved and were so good at.... There is one such head I am thinking of
today...and I’m still angry about it…We failed so many and it's still happening..."
I have to say a little more, whilst maintaining confidence....
This is a true story... That head is now at home, for the second month
in a row, crying through hours each day. I’m updated by a close relative
and spouse, gate-keepers both, who tell me some of the things they hear between sobs.
There's another valued colleague I spoke to, directly, this week too. She stunned me, mid conversation, suddenly opening up with similar words and
phrases. They echo conversations that
have haunted me down 50 years in the profession but I'm hearing them more and more
these days.
"I'm broken, drained, exhausted, unable to sleep, tearful,
emotional, unable to think of work, can't seem to get out of bed... on
medication. It's a deep despair. It's the inability to deal with negative
colleagues, as I used to do.... I'm ground down, had enough now....can't face
any of it it anymore...."
The latter from the headteacher who has decided not to return to
school. Do I hear these cries because I have uttered the same phrases? Do all colleagues know this is happening
around them? If so what are they DOING?
If they don't know, or are doing nothing why not?
So, our first challenge!
Do not be a #SilentWitness. When we see such behaviour, or
the symptoms it generates, we first support the victim and then we cry,
"Unacceptable" and whistleblow our lungs out.
Our second challenge!
Do not be ignorant of the theory, research and evidence of a
professional growth approach. We know about #TeacherGrowth and can apply it beyond Education across all other areas of human
endeavour.
Well, we know there are those who can't hear the cries of struggling colleagues, or don't want
to. They are either ignorant or evaders. My worst experience of this?
When speaking of professional pressure at a Local Authority conference and
alluding to a colleague who was "Off sick" and detailing some of the
distress, there was an audible smirk, "Ah dear.... poor little
man.." followed by a chuckle and a deep silence that brought
the session to an early end. After an enforced break, the organiser made
a retraction and sincere apology, on behalf of the unsympathetic
headteacher. But the stark reality of that emotionally unintelligent
perspective had been exposed. No one was convinced the individual had wanted to
apologise.
Yes, we all know, there are some who simply do not accept a teacher
growth model - despite the wealth of research proving its value. That
view has a pedigree. There are reasons
it persists. We have to understand those
reasons.
What is this Teacher Growth?
Search #teachergrowth and you’ll find animated debate out there on
twitter, facebook and Linked-in. The phrase and the associated: #GrowthMindset
#studentgrowth, has re-captured something about professional learning, by the
individual, for the school, supported by peers. It’s there in a proliferation
of #Blogs and on #Headteacher, #SLT and #TeacherChat forums.
Teacher Growth is about self-discovery, self-evaluation and home grown
CPD - pun intended. Thousands of teachers and leaders are finding solace,
support, well-being and fulfilment in Teacher Growth activity at #teachmeets,
#learningfests #EdConferences.. Supportive professional sharing on-line
in #Edutwitter #WomenEd is palpable. In these virtual Teachers’ Centres Ofsted,
student testing and lesson observations are not popular concepts.
We must celebrate this re-emergence of professional self-discovery and
self-reliance. In one sense we have no alternative. We become stronger as
a profession when we nurture each other’s openness and willingness to debate -
don’t we? Yes, of course, but whilst supporting each other, we must remember
that not all professionals inhabit the echoing chambers of these forums. Indeed,
a worrying trend is the emergence of educational “trolls” who criticise
"Snowflakey" content on-line and pull down hopeful and enquiring
thoughts, often of younger and, yes, female colleagues. On-line discussion is
becoming increasingly abusive. Are these people harking back to a golden age of
more control?
Remember, “give a man a fish”? Well, Quality Controllers (QC), stand
at the end of processes, judging outputs. They inspect arguing, “Give a teacher a
judgement and a list key issues and they’ll know what the nation wants them to
do”. While Quality Assurers
(QA) argue, "Teach them
self-evaluation and planning for improvement and they’ll know how to do it for the
rest of their lives" I've always argued the most sensible approach is, "Give them a
fish to eat and then teach them how to fish for themselves - we learn best on a
full stomach" but I'm jumping too far too soon… let’s look into the reasons why some
remain unconvinced….
Taking Back Control
Never forget that the "professional development/QA" or teacher
growth approach took a bashing in the decades either side of the
millennium. In these years Ofsted and SATs imposed a regulatory/QC model
aided by the rise of data crunching computers and those oh so sexy scatter
graphs. The seeds of Action Research, Heron’s Facilitation Styles and
GROW coaching stages were still there but had to follow the leaders and the
leaders were Ofsted. In short, Teacher Growth went underground. (For more
history see *Appendix)
Many will never forget HMCI Chris Woodhead’s, “15,000 incompetent
teachers!” jibe, based, erroneously, on Ofsted Lesson Observation
statistics. Early Ofsted’s were riven with fear - they were nowhere near
a growth model. I know - I was one of
the first Ofsted inspectors trained but refused to inspect after my first
experience.
It felt just wrong walking away at the very point we were
needed - when issues had been identified and the school wanted support. So, many of us continued to work with and alongside
our colleagues in schools and some of us majored in Post Ofsted support,
especially in what were termed "failing schools".
It’s more than interesting to reflect that the current generation of
school leaders, and their younger colleagues, many now embracing teacher
growth, lived their school days through the early Ofsteds and testing years
when a common cry from their teachers was, “You don’t help plants grow by
pulling them up and looking at their roots!” The metaphor exemplified a
frustrated and often angry profession who felt objectified as operatives and
diminished within a system that was being dissected, measured and refocused by
teams of inspectors who came, judged, left Key Issues ToDo and went.
Can we presume some students, now our School Leaders, welcomed their
teachers being scrutinised, whilst others felt sympathy for them? Did
this mould their attitude to their own leadership? Is there, alongside a burgeoning Teacher
Growth, a rise in the less sensitive, controlling, approaches that hark back to
the tougher days, of the Black Papers and a presumed golden age of, "Back
to Basics"?
Is the "Take Back Control" strapline, that many British voters
swallowed, beginning to influence some of our modern managers and leaders? Is
the belligerence of emerging political leaders like Trump and the combative
style of Dominic Cummings giving some inspiration to be tougher, macho and
utilitarian? Mixing more metaphors... Is the heat being, deliberately, increased
in some kitchens, in an expectation that those who can't stand it will,
"Get Out"? Constructive Dismissal by stealth? Speak to my two struggling colleagues. What then for the "Teacher Growth
Snowflakes"? "Ah...poor
little men and women.."
Two tribes - one profession?
The profession, at large, certainly became tribal in the 1990's - for
Ofsted, or against. One major Teacher Union began advising colleagues against
getting involved in preparation for Ofsted, appraisal and self-evaluation,
others were silent. Lesson Observations were resisted, as they often
still are. A view pervades in some
schools and chains of schools that observations can only be done in inspector
mode - experts judging operatives and awarding grades. There have always been other ways - there
still are - but the folk memory of, “Ofsted Lesson Obs” remain so strong... too
strong?
Tribes parted either side of a false dichotomy Ofsted v Teacher
Growth. Just as they had before on: Traditional v Progressive; Active v
Rote Learning; TA v SATs; When answering the old question, “What makes a good lesson?” answers were
often judged tribally - some quoting experience, others looking up Ofsted
descriptors.
One question is, “Did Ofsted and other inspection regimes, in their
first incarnation, inflict too much professional damage?” A better
question is, “What can we now do to repair it?”
The answer is by deploying a unified professional approach
We do so by recognising two important, evidence based, conclusions:
1. The most effective school improvement work begins with a Teacher
Growth model.
We now know that Teacher Growth achieves Quality Assurance by creating
the permitting circumstances for school improvement and success. It does
this by respecting and building individual professionalism through team
self-evaluation and planning. Implemented
with rigour, this ensures there is an increasing professional experience,
together with associated evidence of impact. Teacher Growth provides each
professional with a solid set of arguments ready for any scrutiny. How do we
know?
The shift towards a unified approach was heavily influenced by the work
of School Improvement Facilitators in and out of schools. We knew that
emerging global research best exemplified by John Hattie’s “Visible Learning”,
demonstrated that student achievement is best influenced by an emotionally
intelligent mix of methodologies BUT the best foundation is when School
Leaders,
“Create school, staff-room and
classroom environments where error is welcomed as a learning opportunity, where
discarding incorrect knowledge and understanding is welcomed, and where
participants can feel safe to learn, re-learn and explore…”
Now even Ofsted Inspection Frameworks have move further towards a
validated self-evaluation model, where colleagues in school were becoming an
inextricable part of the process. There are still some evangelist
Ofstedders v Teacher Growers but the ground is more fertile for a more unified
professional burgeoning.
The work of successful School Improvers has always been based on a philosophy
that recognised the best of both QA and QC approaches. Work in Post Ofsted
schools and lead tutoring NCTL programmes (LftM, Leadership Pathways and NPQH)
demonstrated, for many of us (not all) that leaders, teachers and schools must first
work out and describe their own vision. Doing so they were equally foolish to
either slavishly follow Ofsted and NCSL descriptors or pretend they didn’t
exist.
Professional respect, grown this way, demonstrates, time and time again
that colleagues, leaders and those who scrutinise schools are best when
adopting a “teacher talks first” approach, rather than assuming they hold a
supremacy of judgement over each colleague’s day to day experience. I have very rarely had to challenge a
teacher’s, or leader’s judgement of their own performance because, invariably,
they know already.
They don’t need telling, indeed they often resent patronage.
BUT I have been prepared to do so when emerging
evidence indicates it is necessary. I’ve learnt that the vast majority of
teachers and leaders have an unerring nous for accurate judgements. How dare outsiders proffer judgement without
at least listening to the professionals first?
What does ignoring, or dismissing, their views do to the self-esteem of
colleagues? Well, ask my two colleagues
at the start of this Director's Cut for their views on that.
School Improvers, working “alongside and with”, rather than “on” colleagues
encouraged them to see that the wisest leaders (and teachers are leaders too)
factor in the full context in which they work and, at least, know what the
system requires of them - whether that be Governing Body, Trust Board, Academy
Chain, Governmental Statute/Guidance, inspection criteria or whatever. They
know it’s equally foolish to either slavishly follow given guidance or pretend
it doesn’t exist. The best of them chant,
"Rules are
for the adherence of fools and the guidance of the wise"
So, yes, a Teacher Growth model works and it works well.
2. Educational Systems that cost 5% of GDP require both regulation and
scrutiny.
However, Nevertheless, Of course, national, politically driven scrutiny,
regulation and measuring will not go away - ever. Who could possibly
believe it could? But we now know the Teacher Growth movement has influenced
the way such scrutiny works. It is clear the English Ofsted Inspection
Frameworks have already moved closer towards a validated self-evaluation model,
and other UK approaches have gone further. Colleagues in school are now, inextricably
and increasingly part of the inspection process. Teacher Growth is burgeoning but if we want
to be even more effective it’s clear we have to inject more rigour in our
search for quality and success and also a quest for better professional
well-being. We have to challenge those who still reject, or ignore the very
idea of scrutiny and the need for accountability.
So, how do leaders deploy a realistic, unified, Teacher Growth model?
An obvious point is this is as much more about a school’s culture than
its systems and procedures. Teacher Growth gestates in the mind of
leaders. They accept there are always
going to be judgements about performance, achievement and success. The
question is, “Who is making these judgement and on what basis are they coming
to their conclusions?” School leaders, who
wish to harness a growth model must first believe their colleagues have the
professional capacity to improve and achieve their own success, as an integral
part of the school’s. Beware of the
leader who speaks of Teacher Growth and practices a different model. "It ain't what
you say - it's the way that you do it - that's what gets results".
Only when leaders become fully convinced of these possibilities will
they prepare the ground by explaining what change, or development, to plant a
growth mindset means. They’ll start well by sowing seeds in the most
fertile areas and spreading out from there. A few keen early adopters are worth
far more than a dozen, press-ganged, heavies.
It’s then about signalling professional respect, whenever appropriate,
by asking enabling questions of colleagues and looking for opportunities to do
so. Investing in these opportunities means seeking answers by working
with and alongside receptive colleagues.
This is time well spent. This
doesn’t remove a right to be clear, decisive and provide given ways forward,
but it does mean leaders challenging themselves to consider that factoring in
the methods, thoughts and approaches of colleagues might strengthen their
initial ideas. This does take time, it might well take longer initially,
but these efforts will bear fruit.
And, thinking of the bruised and damaged colleagues I started with... Convinced
school leaders will know and learn it is possible to care for the individual
who struggles - whilst leading an organisation to success. They’ll know we all struggle
from time to time. They'll learn to argue, from experience, that’s it’s
possible to be tough on standards of student achievement and performance of
staff whilst taking time and care to attend to the emotional, physical and
motivational needs of each.
They know and will show that students and teachers are not robots who
just require power and programming. They will celebrate that they/we are
all sentient human beings with hopes, fears, anxieties and strengths and we all
respond well to praise for success and training for more. Of course, the
best leaders know there is room for tough love, for redirection, even
redeployment and they'll demonstrate this can be done with care and compassion.
They will never leave an individual alone, vulnerable and abused, in
plain sight.
How can it work in a school – in any workplace?
How does Teacher or Professional Growth work?
4 Questions to fuel Teacher Growth
Over the years, in schools and business settings I developed four
hierarchical questions for colleagues to ask themselves in order to, “Look at what I do
with a view to doing it better”. These proven self-coaching questions build a capacity for
strategic thinking. I regularly use them
myself.
1. How well am I performing
now? (in relation
to my vision/success criteria)
2. What evidence justifies
this judgement?
3. What will help and hinder
success?
4. (So) What am I planning to do
next?
They typify Action Research, they are reflective prompts, designed to
facilitate learning but don’t ever underestimate the complexity they unearth
and the message they communicate. These questions can be asked of colleagues:
generally, at the start or during, any number of processes: work scrutiny,
lesson review, moderation, appraisal and pre-inspection. When we ask questions, we want answers – obvious? Yes, but sometimes we can be too eager to
answer for others. Asking these questions signals we expect colleagues to take responsibility
for their own work. They are tough questions - especially when an
individual must answer themselves, unprompted.
We are requiring them to be self-evaluators, capable of collecting their
own evidence, doing their own analysis and making their own plans. If we help
them do this well – to fish - they should
never be surprised by another's judgement.
Over time their own judgement will become more secure. In my experience colleagues welcome this – even
find a release in it. They do require support
and time to do it properly. Over time
and through cycles f the 4 Questions, Their noted answers become: Professional
Profiles, Performance Management Documents, Diaries, Portfolios and Blogs. They
become Subject/Area/School Improvement Plans,
It’s a statement of the obvious that encouraging professionals to share
this kind of thinking sustains their development and growth. They will bring
their reflections and evidence of impact to meetings with colleagues, leaders
and others, including inspectors. This turns those meetings into dialogues,
enriched by the views of professionals in situ. It is in these respectful
professional dialogues that sustained school improvement blossoms.
Where there is hope
Even more important... back to the colleagues I began with and am still
very angry about. If they have been using a Teacher Growth approach, they’ll
have a detailed record of evidence to answer those 4 Questions. In their
current deep despair they will not be capable of referencing it, but when,
eventually, they become strong enough to begin their climb back to any sense of
professional pride - the evidence will be there for them to put into any
discussion about their future.
Just think for a minute…. How could anyone - any system - deny them that
right?
Finally, The iAbacus
I wrote earlier of the systems in schools and want to say a little more….
There was and there remains a need to ameliorate the proliferation of “School Admin
Systems” designed in a Quality Control mindset.
They spread in the late 1990’s and early 2000s and heavily affected
thinking about School Improvement.
Almost all began by gathering and mining data. We’ve all seen eyes glaze over when some SLT
Nerd opens an electronic filing cabinet, and fuels up over complicated screens. We know it demotivates teachers! I’ve been in meetings of teachers, governors
and inspectors when hardly anyone understands what they are seeing.
I’ve never said never do it – I do say, first create the permitting
circumstances for such complicated data to be understood, needed and real and
ALWAYS allow for questions of scrutiny and solicit the classroom view.
Dan O'Brien and I launched the iAbacus into this mix in 2012. It’s
a unique Teacher Growth model that starts with the professional in situ’s view.
We wanted iAbacus to be set within the
real context of school scrutiny. I
wrote, “the iAbacus Model combines the emotional intelligence of coaching with
the rigours of criterion referenced inspection” https://www.iabacus.co.uk/model/ you’ll hear echoes of
this Director’s Cut in that paper.
The iAbacus is proving to be unique because it exemplifies the unified
approach described above. It deploys the 4 Questions and guides
the user through the questions and captures, in sequential reports, their
judgements, evidence, analysis and planning for success. To find out more
visit https://www.iabacus.co.uk/
To help users come to
their own judgements we prepopulated the software with a range of criteria for
judgements, as supplied by National Bodies like Ofsted, Estyn, and Teachers’
Standards. We included these “templates” for reference not adherence.
Most colleagues saw the possibilities, built into the software, to augment,
edit and modify criterion to suit their schools and classrooms. Many now write
their own criteria using blank templates and we work alongside colleagues creating
bespoke templates.
A minority of
teachers and leaders who veer towards an evangelist Teacher Growth Model cannot
see how they benefit from setting their own judgements against expectations in National
Inspection Frameworks, or criteria sets. Some heads and CEOs still use the
iAbacus as a tool for the most senior.
It’s great to work
with colleagues in schools and now wider contexts who see our deceptively
simple iAbacus as a powerful way to self-evaluate and plan for success.
Contact me to find out more. Or:
* Appendix - a little history
Before the "Take Back Controllers" or "Teacher
Growers" rewrite history let me remind them that older professionals, like
me, remember discussing with colleagues in the 1970's and 1980's , “What makes
a good lesson?” “What teaching methods work best?” We’d get into the
detail, based on our experience and come up with practical ways forward and
ideas which meant something real to us, in our own classrooms. We shared materials and methods and, of
course, we disagreed, often vehemently. There was a freshness, a sense of
exploration and discovery. We didn’t
have reams of criteria to plough through. There were books but fewer. There
weren’t the statutory papers, and later, digital guidance, checklists and data
avalanches to bury individuality. It was
all so much freer. I was just after the 1960’s. The latest Education Act was
way back in 1944. Inspectors were few and far between, they were well
selected and paid far more than head teachers.
We were, largely autonomous professionals. So far so good....
But it was not all wonderful! The cane was not banned until 1976
and other abuses were hidden, or misunderstood. Many left school
unequipped for work, and there wasn’t much work, but we teachers were working
on it. We shared stuff, we met at actual Teachers’ Centres, we formed Subject,
Phase and Specialist “National Associations” and ran conferences. The point I
am making is that we had to rely on each other to strengthen our
professionalism. We grasped at the wisdom in Kolb and Boyatzis Learning Cycles
and Senge’s Five Disciplines. Sadly, we were unable to convince a
sceptical public and so Ofsted, testing, regulation and quality control took
centre ground, for a while.
I was, at that time a Local Authority Adviser and required to train as
an inspector. many of us were initially sceptical about the inspection
regime becoming supreme. The hardest
question we had to answer was, "Can you honestly say that schools would
have improved so much without Ofsted?" The true answer was we needed
Ofsted but maybe the pendulum swung too far to the control and regulation side,
to the detriment of professional teachers and leaders. Maybe it had to do so to be brought back.
For me this indicates that an either or model, one for or against
scrutiny, can never work. In short, we need to nurture professionalism
within an emotionally intelligent system of checks and balances. There is
rarely one simple answer to a complex issue.
