The Emperor is wearing too many clothes!

I'm angry on behalf of young enthusiastic teachers...

I’ve been working hard in this profession since 1970 and I’m just as passionate about it now as I ever was.  That’s why I’m still working flat out way after 60 years and, damn it, still feeling guilty about going on a trek for a month leaving colleagues working away in school.

Some of my passion is anger and it's welling up again and I know I have to get it off my chest before I go, or I’ll burst.  I am angry, really angry and I have been angry for years on behalf of hard working and well meaning teachers, many middle leaders and some senior leaders who are thrashing around in our Educational Empire, struggling under data mountains and forms and plan formats that are quite frankly too complex to consider sensible.   So, here I am, an old man now, screaming out, “The Emperor’s wearing too many clothes!

When I started my NQT year in 1970 there were few, if any, actual requirements to plan in much detail.  As a teacher, I had a foolscap mark book.  As a head of department I had a thicker one. There were no School Improvement Plans and the only legislation was the 1944 Education Act.  A little boy somewhere must have said, “The Emporer is wearing no clothes” because before long, The Taylor Report (1980) started clothing our profession with ever more layers of bureaucracy.  I won’t list the paper-chase  – if you've read this far you’ll have your own list.  Then the computer’s capacity to number crunch,  word process and spew out data and emails to inflate an expanding internet fuelled the virtual pile of plans, targets, in evermore bewildering formats.  And the legislation landslide buried us.  Surely, it’s time to scream, “The Emperor is wearing too many clothes!” 

“Go do teaching”

All I’m asking is that we take a step back and look at the bloody mess we’ve created and start with some principles..  All I’m asking is that we look critically at our literal and virtual paper mountains. 

Pile yours up and examine it.  This is your educational clothing.  I bet it doesn’t fit you, your wardrobe, let alone your desktop, or pocket.  Do you know how much time it takes you to just to tidy and file the stuff?  All I am saying is, if you are suffocating, sweating and restricted by it – take some layers off!  I dare you take it all off and only put back on what you need to stay cool and unrestricted and then... Go on - do what you are paid to do....  “Go do teaching”.

Hounded professionals seeking ways to prove their accountability.

Two true recent stories.  I was invited to a Senior Team meeting of an Academy Chain in London.  It was in a Hotel and, on the surface, all very civilised.  It was about School Improvement.  We were there to demonstrate iAbacus –  our bespoke suit for the Emperor with no clothes.   Two things struck me.  First, the meeting was identical in content, process and emotional tension to the Senior Team meetings I attended as Deputy Chief Inspector in a Local Education Authority 20 years ago.  The table was covered in Ring Binder files, full of paper, stared at and leafed through by tired and hounded professionals seeking ways to prove their accountability.  There were plans for each Academy to fill in (including:  Post Ofsted Action Plan, School Improvement Plan, Raising Achievement Plan, SEF); response forms for their Link Adviser to complete (about the plans the Academy had submitted); summary forms (of the response forms) for the Advisers, to send to their Seniors and the Senior Senior was considering (quietly panicking about) ways to report to the Board about all of these.  It was obviously too much and weighing them down to a sad paralysis.   Second, no-one in the meeting appeared capable of listening to what we were saying to them – they were like Stepford Wives pushing their trolleys of paper aimlessly around the Emporium.

A deep sense of hopelessness was tangible

A few days later I was in a school, to give a talk to a Sixth form about “Enterprise”, wearing my "Business Speakers for Schools" hat.  I was welcomed into the staffroom and sat with teachers, who clearly assumed I had nothing to do with education.  Not missing this opportunity I naively asked, “So, what’s it like in your profession these days?”  Their heartfelt sadness poured out in their witnessing: long hours, overwork, over-detailed planning and persistent calls to justify their actions.  Their professional learned helplessness and deep sense of hopelessness was tangible.  I was upset for days, still am, by the hunted looks of despair in their eyes.

What could I do?  I’ll start by pleading:

1. Don’t ever give up.  If you too despair, scream about it and talk to colleagues about the clothes you might take off without being exposed.
2. Re-tailor the fewer items left to fit you and your needs.
3. Enjoy the new freedom of movement – talk about it – window dress – parade.
4.  Go do teaching!

What can you do?

Pack your bags (and your head) with only the necessary - try living by these maxims - they've served me well:

• do less well rather than more badly
• keep it simple, it'll get complicated anyway, start complicated and you don't stand a chance
• take more time to write shorter letters and speak concisely
• know your priority

I’d love to think that, by reading this, someone somewhere will end up: doing less better, having a shorter To Do list and using more freedom of movement.  If you are that someone - make some time to write me a short note...

OK I'm glad that's off my chest - calmer now... I feel more prepared for a break from work - into the high cold mountains of Nepal.  I will, by necessity, be very careful about the layers of clothing I wear and the weight I carry. Cool but not cold.  Warm but not hot.  And I know I will meet some monks, I always do, and I'll marvel at their calm.  Maybe we should think like monks with their quill pens - and only write what we are prepared to illuminate onto a careful scroll....  

OK off to pack my bags with only the necessary - always a challenge...

Ofsted 2014 - Linking the SEF SIP and PM to empower school improvement

Ofsted 2014 - Linking the SEF SIP and PM to empower school improvement

Compiling the Self-Evaluation Report for Ofsted can ensure sustainable improvement across the school if school leaders combine the SEF the SIP and PM.  This is made so much easier when using The iAbacus - which is designed to make things simpler.

Where we are now...

As Autumn term 2014 starts, school leaders and classroom teachers are leafing through another updated Ofsted Framework  here  Heads and Principals are introducing Performance Management and some are wrestling with the New Curriculum.  One head tells me, he’s preparing for Ofsted scrutiny of each three expectations, “By getting my revenge in first and updating both my Self-Evaluation Form (SEF) and School Improvement Plan (SIP)!”

That word “both” worries me.  Why is he keeping these two critical processes separate? And, why keep the third, Performance Management (PM) out of it?  This is all too complicated.  I want to help him keep it simple because we now know that sustainable improvement can only be achieved when all three processes are brought together in one common system.  One system for everyone in the school to: “Look at what they do, with a view to doing it better”.  I try to explain that SEF+SIP+ PM = Sustainable School Improvement  but I see he’s in a state of learned helplessness and it’s only day two of term - so I say no more.

How did we get here?

The  first Ofsted framework, in the early 1990s  relied almost exclusively on inspector judgement.  That reliance on the primacy of others’ judgement is hard to unlearn.  OK,  later frameworks introduced Self Evaluation and greater reliance on in-school, self evaluation was slow but sure until we had the SEF.  “The importance of teaching” – the schools' White Paper 2010 extended the trend with a clear expectation that schools will be in control of their own development and set their improvement.  The Framework for School Inspection 2011 stated,

“Increasing the school’s confidence: by endorsing its own view of its effectiveness when that is accurate, and offering a sharp challenge and the impetus to act where improvement is needed..... The quality of self-evaluation is a good indicator of the calibre of the school’s leaders and managers and of the school’s capacity to improve.”

That was joy to school improvers, like me.  I had pointed up the learned helplessness in training of Ofsted Inspectors and NCTL Facilitators in “The Giant Awakes – the third age of evaluation” in Improvement Magazine Summer 2009.  I wanted to expose the professional hypocrisy of believing students learn best through peer assessment, or assessment for learning whilst believing that teachers and leaders don’t.

Support from theory and research

We were beginning to know that when students, teachers and leaders can say, “Looking at what we do with a view to doing it better next time, is part of our job - and most of us do it most of the time” there is a sustainable model in place.  Researchers had shown this to be true but the force of John Hattie’s final conclusion from his meta-analyses of achievement is perhaps most powerful.  In, “Visible Learning” 2009he references symmetry in the learning process for students and teachers,

 “School leaders and teachers need to create school, staffroom 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 knowledge and understanding”

Many have written about simplifying complex processes by stepping back to see the overall pattern of things.  Peter Senge in ‘The Fifth Discipline’ (1990) described Systems Thinking when a holistic view is useful because it enables the simplicity of detail to be understood as part of the whole, rather than separate parts.  Writing about medicine and surgery, Atul Gawande in ‘The Checklist Manifesto’ (2010) made an observation that strikes at the heart of this,

“We have accumulated stupendous know-how… and highly trained highly skilled and hardworking people… nonetheless avoidable failures are common and persistent, not to mention demoralising and frustrating…. the reason is increasingly evident: the volume and complexity of what we know and the systems we use have designed, exceed our ability to deliver the benefits... we need a different strategy for overcoming failure, one that builds on experience but also makes up for our inevitable human inadequacies. And there is such a strategy – though it seems almost ridiculous in its simplicity, maybe even crazy, to those of us who have spent years carefully developing ever more advanced skills and technologies.  It is a checklist!”

How do we get there?

So, if it is established wisdom that developing the capacity to self-evaluate and plan for improvement is a requirement, how do we empower it? 

I was one of those first Ofsted Inspectors to be trained in the early 1990s and after one inspection I became an evangelical school improver.  Like others, I preferred helping schools work on their key issues.  After a decade of school improvement in some very challenging schools we began to see a pattern in the schools that did improve.  I became sure that the capacity to self improve can be judged by asking three key questions of students, teachers and leaders, indeed anyone undertaking any endeavour.  The language varied but the essence was:

1.       JUDGEMENT - How well are we doing?

·         How do we know - are we using objective criteria?

·         What's our evidence?

2.       ANALYSIS - What is helping and hindering progress?

·         Which of these are in our control?

·         What are our priorities for action?

3.       ACTION - So, what are we planning to do next?

·         Who can help?  When will it be done?

·         How will we judge success?

Confident answers to the questions, in this hierarchy, require an understanding of a cyclical processes like:  PLAN-DO-REVIEW   The questions link EVALUATION with PLANNING and deal with PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT along the way by ensuring: judgement is matched to criteria – analysis is linked to planning and – evaluation of impact leads back to new judgement.  This was becoming that check-list

Then, I took an ABACUS, perhaps the oldest gadget in the world, as a visual simplification of the complex concepts whereby staff and, at best, students understood they had the capacity to self-improve.   Sliding a bead from left to right, across a competency grid, proved to be amazingly powerful.  Combining this with the computer, one of the newest gadgets, was achieved in 2012. We called it The iABACUS and now describe it as a unique school improvement tool – self evaluation and action planning  for everyone.  The key questions, above, are built in and it is linked to solid theory see www.iabacus.co.uk/model 

It is no irony that The iAbacus has a range of competency grids built in including because we wanted it to be  a check against agreed criteria.  So, it comes pre-populated with The latest September 2014 Ofsted Framework,  all the National Curriculum subject criteria and Headteacher and Teacher Standards.  They are all there, all those supposedly separate pieces of work  SEF+SIP+PM unified in one process - and users check their way through it.  

Our users tell us again and again - it's deceptively simple. My evangelism about school improvement has never been stronger.  I promise you'll like t, if you take time to try it..  if you don't believe me look at the testimonials and articles under MORE INFORMATION on the top bar here

Finally

So, I emailed and offered a licence to the head I spoke to at the start of this BLOG – he’s yet to come back to me.  Indeed, we’ve emailed all secondary heads in England this week - primaries will be contacted later.  I wonder if they’ll have time to read it. 

If you want a free trial, or licence click here or email me directly john@iabacus.co.uk 

To see a short video of it working click here

iAbacus is 10 years old

iAbacus the unique approach to School Improvement: self evaluation and action planning for everyone is 10 years old.

It's been hard work over the last 10 years* Can I reflect a little?  

Happy Birthday to us...

It's heart-warming to receive congratulations from users of the iAbacus on our 10th birthday! I'd still love to hear from you if you're using one of the real abacuses I made - In Sheffield, Hundred of Hoo and Nottinghamshire perhaps....

Where are you now?

You may be drawing dots on paper - Jenny and staff at All Saints, in South Wigston Leicester?  Or, are you still sticking boiled sweets onto a flipchart - North Lincolnshire SNIMPS Consortium?  I don't really mind but you will are missing the built in criteria of the on-line model - hint hint....

Maybe you progressed on-line with us in 2012.  If so, you're joining hundreds of users across the UK, and as far afield as Zimbabwe, Dubai and China.... and can be bolstered by our recent award for support to Leadership and Management

You users have one or two things in common

I'll bet you, like all our early users, love the visual and kinaesthetic way we get you to make judgements, justify them, analyse what is helping and hindering and then, most importantly plan for progress. As our first head Lisa in Stoke said, "It's deceptively simple".

You'll also share our view that starting from the professional's view of themselves is empowering because it builds the capacity of the workforce - their skills, knowledge and understanding.

I reckon the iAbacus is also becoming an established model for school improvement for you and your staff because you tell us it is collaborative, encourages team-working and interdependence.  

I don't like being negative so I'll be realistic. Many of you come to use because you tell me that Ofsted gets in the way because having teachers respond to an absent inspector's judgement diminishes their professionalism, is invariably dis-enabling, often frustrating and anti-learning.  That's why you chose the iAbacus - as Joe said at the very start, "We now get our revenge in first!" It starts with people and moves on to evidence NOT the other way round.

You also tell us that boring administration systems, that are little more than electronic filing cabinets of examination data, spew out over complex scatter graphs to bewilder your colleagues.  You do get over-awed with too much detail.  Who said," Just because a computer can doesn't mean it should".  I love it when Stuart quotes back at me, "Keep it simple, it will get complicated anyway. Start complicated and you don't stand a chance" 
Yes, Dan and I have spent hours taking out complexity in iAbacus..

At the very start you just used our “overall school” focuses but then you began contacting us with ideas for new templates. We loved that  So, we've rolled out our deceptively simple process, approach and format for Whole School Self-Evaluation to a whole raft of  templates - there are now 40+ available to all users.  Now Subject Leaders are using our expanding our range of focuses for the iAbacus process 

Expect more - keep reading your drop down menu of templates to see what's appearing

I hope you’ll have learnt, at iAbacus, that we care about how we help you.  We value your judgement - the professional perspective - and want to work from where you are. Be reassured, we’ll jealously guard the information you input - beware of systems that allow others to see what you enter....

And now you are writing for us

See our latest from Jasbir Mann related to Pupil Premium here  

Finally 

Yes, we want iAbacus to an ethical, collaborative and CPD based approach to self improvement. We start with the professional and move onto evidence NOT the other way round.


If they want to find out more ask them to come to www.iabacus.co.uk  where they’ll find articles, testimonials, videos and crucially the theory and research behind this unique approach to School Improvement www.iabacus.co.uk/model or read and download Gerald Haigh's Review here 

So, if you know of someone else who is tired of bureaucratic, top down, boring, electronic filing cabinets of data hungry admin. systems – tell them WHY we do, WHAT  we do and HOW we do it so well.

* The idea came to me in Westfield School Sheffield in June 2004

Judgement without action is thinking without doing

Gird up and think

It’s May 2014 and the education world continues to atomise into a bewildering complexity of mini systems, school types and quasi commercial support.  As we begin another, “Yaa boo” run up to a, too close to call, general election we education professionals must gird up for the inevitable hectoring.  The wind tunnel of derision will blizzard the usual stuff about standards, quality and behaviour at us.

Looking back to 2009, there were LEAs, state schools, Regions, Every Child Mattered and it was much simpler then.  Hey, I'm not saying better – I'm saying very different - very different indeed.   Now, there are fewer places of shelter, the paths lead in a spread-shot of directions and the signposts seem less distinct.   But, like all the best treks I've been on - it’s invigorating and a bit frightening at the same time. I am supposing we just have to find our own way, our moral compass in all this, whilst looking for trusty friends to accompany us.

Invigorating and a bit frightening

The judgement of more powerful others

I'm taking one recent issue – the most important ever - how we judge the quality of teaching and learning, to use it as a lite motif, a pristine exemplification of a dangerous recurring syndrome I see all around me.  It's a deadly fixation on judgement, to the detriment of action. It's as though too many seemed stuck in a bog of dependency on the judgement of others.  So, as you read on I want you to ask yourself,  “Who is making judgements about me and my work and what, if anything are they doing about it?”  You see, in my view, there is far too much judgement and walking away going on and not enough repairing.

Stumbling blocks or stepping stones?

I found much of the “grade, or not to grade individual lessons” debate defeatist.  It was assumed, by far too many of my colleagues, that inspectors grade and teachers accept, or challenge  (That teachers mark and students accept – that heads decide performance related pay - that Secretaries of State decide and we all follow - Are you getting the general application here?)  Well I and some trusty friends, think we ought to be travelling in a different direction and promoting a professional development, or capacity building model where the learner (be they student, teacher, head, or governor...  OK I’ll leave you to hammer out these comparisons) where "s/he who wishes to learn" is given the respect to speak first, to self-evaluate, make and justify a judgement about their work and then the “more powerful other” validates this self-evaluation and, goes on to ask, “So, what do we do now?”  Why do I argue for this?  Because as student, teacher, head, adviser and, yes, inspector, I always found that it is through the ensuing dialogues that we really learn about progress.  In the best of these, emotionally intelligent dialogues, we, that is "both sides" come to understand and negotiate the twin stumbling blocks of criteria and evidence. We can then set out across the less secure stepping stones of progress -  in a shared professional endeavour.

Setting out across the stepping stones for progress

This is not easy

I want to add something important here - this is not easy - it's tough being self reliant and even tougher allowing others to be so. Namby-pamby, trendy-lefty and airy fairy it ain't.  I'll tell you what it is - it's good practice – good learning - led by outstanding teaching.  It's also leadership because we learn from great leaders. These professional dialogues build the skills of the individual and the team of learners by underlining their personal responsibility for their own success.  It’s obvious isn't it?  For educationalists to use any other method would be hypocritical wouldn't it?

Our fixation with judgement

So, can we please move on from our Ofsted fuelled (some will claim led) fixation with judgement?  Can more of us take (back) responsibility for success making and challenge the assumption that describing one point in time is all there is to judging learning and school improvement?  Jack Nicholson’s character in the film “About Schmitt” captures the syndrome perfectly,  “Hey I am drowning here and all you’re doing is describing the water!”

I'm drowning here and all you're doing is describing the water...

It's more about verbs than the adjectives.

Good teachers and leaders know that learning, improvement, and progress only start with the easy questions, “Where are we now?” or, “How well are we doing?”.  The most successful are able to move on and answer the crucial crushers, "So, what are we going to n,do....first?" Each of us would do well, more often, to take stock, analyse why things are as they are and then act to maintain, sustain or make progress over time.  It's not the judgement stupid – it’s the action that flows from it that matters.  Actions speak louder than words.  Teaching and learning, School improvement - just a minute - ALL improvement - is more about the verbs than the adjectives.

The Golden Paragraph

So, what is your answer to my question, “Who is making judgements about me and my work and what, if anything, are they doing about it?” My hypothesis is that those of you who answered, "Me and I'm taking action" are professionally strong and likely to be motivated (even if tired and hard-working). Whereas those of you who have veered towards, "Others and I have no idea" are almost certainly professionally depressed, even oppressed. In a later BLOG I will try to describe the important distinction between these two and, in the spirit of this argument, how we might act to move colleagues from professional depression, even opporession, into a more hopeful state. In the meantime my last paragraph is a firm first stone..

Gird up and do

I guess that regular readers will be able to chant chunks of this past paragraph without reading it.  Here it comes – all together now...  The answer?  “It’s about looking at what we do, with a view to doing it better next time, as part of our work”.  It's about becoming and being self reliant, developing a sure confidence and working interdependently. It's about “Keeping it simple because it’s going to get complicated anyway” It's about creating the permitting circumstances for a, "Yes, we can!" culture.  Yes, this BLOG has described why the iAbacus exists.  It’s precisely why we designed the iAbacus the way it is.  It's why we need an improvement process that links judgement, through analysis, to action and collaboration. Why we need professional development that builds the capacity and confidence of colleagues before it's too late.  It's why iAbacus is an action tool and I claim it's software with a moral purpose.

Software with a moral purpose

website:  www.iabacus.co.uk
video: www.iabacus.co.uk/school-self-evaluation

The iAbacus in action - for Overall School Improvement

Ofsted & Lesson grades Considering judgements and moving to action

First published in Schools Improvement NET

When is a lesson grade not a grade?

Many of us enjoyed the kick and BLOGrush of last week and the heady debates when Ofsted stopped grading lessons.  See Schools Improve most read  It has been difficult doing the day job and keeping track of developments but make no mistake, this is very, very important stuff.  So, l want to take a longer view of what is happening in our profession,

We are, at last, relinquishing the proven bad practice of lesson grading. So how will we make judgements about teaching and learning? A number of wise colleagues are offering their thoughts.  I liked, in particular, Tom Sherrington’s practical advice about triangulating evidence in his BLOG "What SLTs should do"  Tom was one of the Famous Five who argued for removal of lesson grading.  He is sensibly suggesting SLTs remove references to lesson grades in all Performance Management Protocols and Performance Related Pay Policies. Others are arguing it is still possible, even advisable, to grade lessons - see Mike Bostock’s  Lesson observation - observing the art of teaching.  I’m not convinced that any use of lesson grades from this point is wise, especially those lurking in School Administration systems.  Some are demanding they are removed completely and using freedom of information requests under data protection law to do so. 

All seem to be agreeing that any judgement about teaching and learning must be a careful blend of observations, work scrutiny, student and teacher voice and performance data. So, I’m assuming all agree we can no longer perpetuate the simplistic and broken approach of 20 minute observations stacked up to equal an overall judgement of teaching and learning, or worse, an individual teacher? Unless, there is panic somewhere around Ofsted, the debate is over – the lesson grade parrot is no more.  There are far more important issues, one of which is how best to provide evidence of effectiveness, in order that a fair judgment is made.

Considering judgements

But the grade debate goes on.  I say, I say, “When is a grade not a grade?”, “When it’s a judgement… bum, bum!”.  We must stop music hall word juggling.  Awarding a grade is, for most intents and purposes, awarding a judgement.  My intent and purpose is School Improvement, what’s yours?  So, better questions are: When is a judgement secure?  And, more importantly, how will we use our judgements to move on, to make progress?

To recap and refine - we are rediscovering a truth that grading one event is not the same as judging an area of work that event is part of.  It follows that we should apply the same logic when making other judgements.  We cannot for example use one observation, one case study, one interview or one activity, to judge Performance Management and Performance Related Pay for teachers, teaching assistants, head teachers and admin staff.  We must also question the practice of computing averages of multiple insecure grades from similar events, or activities. 

So, how do we make secure judgments when evaluating the areas of our work: behaviour & safety, leadership, achievement, SMSC, SEN, or indeed any focus where judgements might be required? And, once made, what do we DO with that judgement?

Research methodology helps, in terms of triangulation, and we can learn from our justice system. The wisest judges and juries require a wide range of compelling evidence.  They, literally, interrogate evidence and data, from contributory events and activities, together with statements from reliable witnesses to ensure their eventual and considered judgement, is beyond doubt.   We can do the same by commissioning, collecting, researching and analysing the fullest and most telling range of evidence before coming to our judgement.  And we should make our judgement in order to decide how best to move on and, later, measure any change.

Moving on from judgement

I have long argued that our professional effectiveness is in direct proportion to our ability to, “look at what we do with a view to doing it better next time”.  In other words to make judgements and move on to analyse the evidence in order to decide how best to maintain, sustain, or progress.  Research from Fullen, through Senge, to Harris and Hattie, and many more, shows that this is the most effective way to sustain improvement.  But too often discussion about school improvement has been diverted into false polarities including: traditional v progressive, or, quality assurance v quality control, academy v school, SAT or TA, name your protagonist.

Whilst school improvers have been working alongside colleagues helping, challenging and supporting them through, action research, collaborative inquiry, coaching and lesson study, they have often been criticised as left wing theorists. On the other hand (beware of one handed school improvers) Well intentioned Ofsted inspectors have been pilloried as some kind of fascist government control organisation, perpetuating political dogma.  The truth is somewhere in the middle of the mess but as an ex inspector, of little enthusiasm and a passionate school improver you may glean a bias in the next paragraph – all I ask is that you read on.

There is little doubt that many in our profession have obsessed about obtaining a good or better judgement from Ofsted, to the exclusion of their own analysis.  Some have rested on their badges of “goods and outstanding”, just read those awful, tatty plastic banners strung up on school railings.  Others have been debilitated by their “inadequate” and “requires improvements”.  Many have become afraid, or lost confidence, in making their own judgements.  Some even claim they are non judgemental!  The latter is nonsense.  We all make judgements all of the time – it’s just that some are better holding on to them until it is appropriate to use them.  I am more concerned about colleagues who have been rendered mute in a belief that only more powerful, or experienced others, are equipped to make secure judgements and offer suggestions about ways forward.  I have worked with many in Special Measures and “Failing Schools” and tried to rebuild their professionalism.

In short, we have witnessed a dominant, quality control system in which inspectors, visit, leave and send a report listing issues to be sorted, to return later to check for improvement.  If a teacher did this in a classroom and was judged using Ofsted’s own criteria they would be an immediate and definite inadequate.  We are all learners aren’t we?  No wonder teachers, heads and others, feel treated in a shoddy, educationally counterintuitive way.  We have disempowered a large slice of several generations of heads and teachers.  But I do see a hopeful way forward and refuse to become cynical. Why?

Moving on to action

Last week I was openly truly joyful about an Ofsted regime that is, “looking at what they do with a view to doing it better”. If you still need convincing listen to Mike Cladingbowl interviewed by the TES here Podcast. Be honest, we have all worked with excellent inspectors, so let’s, give them the benefit of any doubt whilst being watchful for the minority of rogues who will, no doubt, perpetuate poor practice.

I want my profession to grasp this moment and do what we know best – teach and learn.  If we apply learning theory to ourselves we can reignite our professional capacity to: judge; analyse; act and evaluate progress.  After 40 odd years, in a range of roles from teacher to head, adviser, inspector, and consultant and back, I have simplified my thinking about School Improvement to four sets of questions and The iAbacus Model for self-evaluation and improvement - it’s my legacy I suppose. 

Unfortunately, these questions are answered, far too often, by school leaders, advisers and inspectors, on behalf of teachers and teams, to the detriment of school improvement.  Why do they do this, when it takes such a long time to collect the evidence first, in order to sift through it and make their judgement?  Why waste time doing this when those being judged already have their evidence?  Why not ask the head, the middle leaders and teachers to say what they think first?  School Improvers know that most colleagues make excellent, accurate and often hard hitting judgements about their practice when asked. And to be honest, those that can’t should be supported in their responsibility to do so.

 A good friend of mine, a proper judge, finds all this inspecting amusing.  He arrives at court, for each case, with a fresh and uncluttered mind. He sits as the evidence is placed before him, by those involved, who then plead, interrogate and argue their case.  He then makes his judgement knowing there are the checks and balances of appeals and retrials.  I’m not saying we should hold court but it saddens me that many judgements applied in schools have used a lower threshold of proof than for common criminals. We should have allowed the professionals to present their cases more often. 

School Improvers have learnt that when the teacher, team or staff, is involved, understands and agrees with the judgement, what flows from later questions is more meaningful and better applied.  I have found the questions below far more challenging, or exhilarating, when asked directly of a teacher, or senior leader, because their responses expose a capacity to self-evaluate and plan for improvement.  Most importantly, any lack of confidence, or quality in answering indicates, precisely, where training and support is needed.  Indeed, research about school improvement, professional development and learning indicates that helping students and colleagues to answer these questions is the foundation for all our work and please note that making a judgement is only the first stage.  

The iAbacus school improvement software takes the user through the same questions in stages here and produces reports but these questions can be used as a paper exercise.  Crucially, they organise the careful accumulation of compelling evidence, over time, which cuts down those desperate scrabbles for illusive pieces of paper around inspection time.

Questions from judgement to action and back

1.      How do you judge performance?  What criteria are you using?

2.      What evidence do you have to support your judgement?

3.      What has helped and hindered progress? What might help and hinder progress?

4.      What action needs to be taken to progress the priorities?

So, we use these questions as the content of “Professional Development Porfolios” and “Self Evaluation and Improvement Plans”.  When last a head I insisted all Middle Leaders had these files and made sure SLT had copies for reference.  The questions reinforce the cycle of school improvement and stop us being obsessed with just the judgement.  Many spent years completing Self-Evaluation Forms, separate School Improvement Plans and even a third Ofsted Improvement Plan.  The four questions ensure one seamless process and the sooner we own it, make it our own the better.  I am pretty convinced there is a willingness within Ofsted to move forward on this, faster than many in schools. See new Ofsted guidance on “Preparing a School Self-Evaluation Summary” Jan 2014 Ref 120203 www.ofsted.gov.uk/schools

Conclusion

We now know that making judgements about teaching and learning is far more than applying grades to lessons.  More importantly, School Improvement is more than making judgements about how well we are doing. 

Research shows that the best leaders, teachers and school staff have a capacity to self-evaluate and plan for improvement.  They look at what they do, make finessed judgements with a view to analysing how they might do better next time.  They prioritise with rigour and plan in sufficient, but not obsessive detail, and they can re-evaluate in further cycles of improvement.  When encouraged to do these things they become self reliant, empowered and confident in an aspiration to know more about their effectiveness and efficiency and how to sustain progress.  The best remain vigilant, open to ideas, suggestions, help and advice from well meaning colleagues and experts.

The best of the well meaning colleagues, experts understand their prime purpose is to validate the insiders’ capacity to self-evaluate and plan for improvement and, where necessary, provide support and challenge.  Consequently, they willingly suspend their judgement; resist any tendency to take over, preferring to listen and watch in order to judge the timing and nature of any intervention. They do this because they want their interventions to be respected and welcomed as genuine and well worth consideration.

Footnote:

* The iAbacus self-evaluation and improvement model is unique in beginning with the user’s intuitive judgement and comes prepopulated with over 20 templates including Ofsted, Estyn and many other sets of criteria (which can be added to and amended)   For more information go to www.iabacus.co.uk