Reviewing how things have gone and considering the next steps…school improvement…we love it…or at least we should?!
It is as simple as 6 Ps!
Purpose
This P comes before all the other Ps. We often lose sight of the purpose of school improvement. It has become a dirty word in many places. People think school improvement and they think hours of paperwork. The purpose of school improvement is simple. It is to make things better for children. We should almost say this to ourselves every day. Out loud if we are brave enough! ‘The purpose of school improvement is to make things better for children.’ What a wonderful purpose. A great reason to get up every day. How can this be a negative thing? How have we got so lost? We all want to make things better for children. School improvement should therefore be something we embrace and something we are passionate about. Which leads to my next P…
Are all staff clear about the real purpose of school improvement?
Passion
Our purpose should automatically lead to passion. Get the purpose right and the passion comes flowing. If staff seem to have lost their passion for school improvement, maybe they have lost sight of the purpose. This is true and needs to be reviewed. However, the other Ps impact our passion too. What kills our passion is getting the Ps that follow wrong. Passion definitely comes from being clear about the purpose but to maintain that passion we need to plan (oh my goodness, is that another P?!) the following Ps carefully.
Are all staff passionate about school improvement? If not, maybe the other Ps need to be reviewed.
Process
We are all familiar with the school improvement process – analyse, evaluate, plan and implement. We may use slightly different words but if we are in the school improvement game, we all follow this process. It is therefore essential we all understand it.
Review your leader’s understanding of this process.
Principles
Whilst most are familiar with the school improvement process, we often fail to define and communicate the principles on which this process is built. Here comes my next P! We need to have an agreed set of principles before asking staff to go through the school improvement process. What is important when following through with this process? For example, we need to build a culture that ensures everyone is transparent when we analyse. When we evaluate, we need to be concise and factual. When we write a plan it needs to be aligned and communicated and when we implement it needs to be manageable and supportive.
Define your school improvement principles.
Practical Guidance
Now everyone is clear about the process and the principles that sit behind the process, we need to give our leaders practical guidance on how to work through that process throughout the year. Analysing and evaluating are actually quite complex skills so we need to teach our staff and model to our staff. Give staff practical guidance on how they go about analysing how well the school is doing in a certain area, give them a model evaluation report so they become more evaluative in their thinking.
Create practical guidance to support leaders through the school improvement process.
Product
Leaders need to be clear about what is expected of them when it comes to the output of following this process. For example, when leaders analyse, they need to complete an evidence report from a range of sources like learning walks, talks with children and so on and when they evaluate, they need to produce a governor’s report or section of a SEF. There will clearly be practical guidance in place to support them with this!
Check to see you have all school improvement paperwork in place. Check they are relevant, manageable and aligned.
So, the 6Ps of School Improvement – Purpose, Passion, Process, Principles, Practice Guidance and Product.
About the author
Bethan Harding
Bethan has been a Headteacher of an outstanding primary school in Wales and a Principal in an excellent all-through school in England. Bethan has been a peer inspector, a leader on Strategic Boards and a member of the Minister’s Panel in Wales. She has been Head of School Improvement Hubs and Pioneer Schools. Bethan wrote and delivered a number of training programmes, including for school leaders in Hong Kong and America. In 2017, Bethan was awarded with an MBE for Services to Education. Bethan has now launched Harding Education which provides leadership coaching and mentoring and Winning With Numbers which is a maths curriculum and learning platform that ensures children are fluent and confident with numbers. Websites: https://www.wwnumbers.com/ and https://hardingeducation.com Twitter: @_Bethan_Harding