Leading a school research community

In today’s often claustrophobic, standards-driven climate, a research-based approach can empower teachers to take charge of their own learning and improve practice across the school.

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We are experiencing a time of unprecedented pressure on school: greater accountability, a narrowing of the curriculum through more prescriptive assessment, a flood of directives and additional budget pressures.

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      string(348) "... Connect, Professional Development Today, 14, 4, pp. 13-19. Imaginative Minds. ■ Hatch, T. (1998) The Differences in Theory that Matter in the Practice of School Improvement, American Educational Research Journal, 35, 1, pp. 3-31.■ Hattie, J. (2009) Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating ..."
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      string(4664) "implications), Journal of Educational Administration, 51, 3, pp. 264-289.■ Hall, G. and Hord, S. (1987) Change in schools: Facilitating the process (Albany, NY, State University of New York Press).■ Hall, G. E. and Hord, S.M. (2001) Implementing Change: Patterns, Principles and Potholes. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.■ Harris, A. and Jones, M. (2012) Connect to Learn: Learn to Connect, Professional Development Today, 14, 4, pp. 13-19. Imaginative Minds. ■ Hatch, T. (1998) The Differences in Theory that Matter in the Practice of School Improvement, American Educational Research Journal, 35, 1, pp. 3-31.■ Hattie, J. (2009) Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement, (Abingdon: Routledge).■ Hattie, J. (2012) Visible Learning: Maximising impact on learning (Abingdon: Routledge).■ Hattie, J. (2013) Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement, (London Routledge).■ Kaser, L. and Halbert, J. (2009) Leadership Mindsets, (Abingdon, Routledge).■ Knoster, T., Villa, R., and Thousand, J. (2000). A framework for thinking about systems change, in Villa, R. and Thousand, J. (Eds.), Restructuring for caring and effective education: Piecing the puzzle together (pp. 93-128), (Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co).■ Kotter, J. (1996) Leading Change, (Boston, MA, Harvard Business School Press)■ Leithwood, K. Louis, K.S., Anderson, S. and Wahlstrom, K. (2004) How leadership influences student learning (New York, NY, Wallace Foundation). ■ Leithwood, K., Day, C., Sammons, P., Harris, A. and Hopkins, D (2006) Successful school leadership: what it is and how it influences student learning. Research report 800, (London, DfES).■ Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995) The knowledge creating company: how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation, (New York, Oxford University Press).■ Ogawa, R. and Bossert, S. (1995) Leadership as an organizational quality, EducationalAdministration Quarterly, 31, 2, pp. 224–43.■ Sebba, J., Tregenza, J. and Kent, P. (2012) Powerful professional learning: a school leader’s guide to joint practice development (Nottingham, National College for School Leadership). ■ Rogers, E. (2003) Diffusion of innovations (5th Edition) (New York, NY, Free Press)■ Southworth, G. (2009) Learning centred leadership, in Davies, B. (ed), The essentials of school leadership (2nd edn), (London, Sage).■ Stoll, L. (2008) Leadership and policy learning communities: promoting knowledge animation, in: Chakroun, B. and Sahlberg, P. (Eds) Policy learning in action: European Training Foundation Yearbook 2008, (Torino, Italy, European Training Foundation).■ Stoll, L. (2012) Stimulating Learning Conversations in Professional Development Today 14.4, Pages 6-12 Imaginative Minds. ■ Stoll, L. (2015), Using evidence, learning and the role of professional learning communities, in Brown, C. (ed) Leading the use of research and evidence in schools, (London, IOE Press).■ Stoll, L., Bolam, R., McMahon, A., Wallace, M. and Thomas, S. (2006) Professional learning communities: a review of the literature, Journal of Educational Change, 7, 4, pp. 221-258.■ Stoll, L. and Brown, C. (2015) Middle leaders as catalysts for evidence-informed change, in Brown, C. (ed) Leading the use of research and evidence in schools, (London, IOE Press).■ Stoll, L. and Fink, D. (1996) Changing Our Schools, (Buckingham, Open University Press).■ Stoll, L., Halbert, J and Kaser, L. (2011) Deepening Learning in School-to-School Networks, in: Day, C. (ed) International Handbook on Teacher and School Development, (London, Routledge).■ Stoll, L; Harris, A; and Handscomb, G. (2012) Great Professional Development that leads to Great Pedagogy: Nine Strong Claims from Research. LCLL, Institute of Education, University of London; The National College; NFER; Sheffield Hallam University. ■ Taylor, C. and Spence-Thomas, K. (2015), Understanding impact and the cycle of enquiry, in Brown, C. (ed) Leading the use of research and evidence in schools, (London, IOE Press).■ Wenger, E., Trayner, B. and de Laat, M. (2011) Promoting and assessing value creation in communities and networks: a conceptual framework, (Ruud de Moor Centrum, Open Universiteit, Netherlands).■ Wiliam, D., Lee, C., Harrison, C. and Black, P. (2004) Teachers developing assessment for learning: Impact on student achievement, Assessment in Education, 11,1, pp. 49-65."
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'How to do it' Guides

How to … assess the impact of evidenced-informed interventions

20 May 2019

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      string(491) "A Case Study in a Queensland Secondary School. The main thesis of the study is that in the turbulent complexity of modern schooling, effective leadership is more likely to be spread across a network of individuals rather than concentrated in the hands of one or two leaders.  It reveals why distributed school leadership has become prominent in the contemporary international context of school improvement and leadership in the past decade. By Matthew Glen - 2009."
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      string(5703) "different ways to a groupor organization; and the concertive action aspect which is about the additional dynamic that is theproduct of conjoint activity – this is where people work together in such a way  15that the outcome is a product or energy which is greater than the sum of theirindividual actions.These meanings coincide very broadly with the “leader-plus” and “leadership practice”aspects identified by Spillane and his colleagues in the United States.Another analysis of the confusing definitional domain has been provided by MacBeathet al. (2004) in their research project for the NCSL. They prefer a definition provided byBennett et al. (2003, p. 3) which points out a distinction between “doing to” and “doingwith” others, as follows:Distributed leadership is not something ‘done’ by an individual ‘to’ others, or aset of individual actions through which people contribute to a group ororganisation…. Distributed leadership is a group activity that works through andwithin relationships, rather than individual action. It emerges from a variety ofsources depending on the issue and who has the relevant expertise orcreativity.This definition highlights a finer grained distinction between the terms “distributed” and“distributive” leadership.  According to MacBeath et al. (2004, p. 11) the former termappears to be linked with “doing to” in which leadership roles are the “gift of the headteacher” which are distributed at his/her discretion whilst holding on to power. The latterterm “distributive”, on the other hand, “implies holding, or taking initiative as a rightrather than it being bestowed as a gift” (MacBeath et al., 2004, p. 12). Most studiesreviewed in this chapter do not make such a distinction, however, and both termsappear to be used interchangeably in much of the relevant literature. In this study,inter-changeability of the two terms applies.In summarising the differences amongst the various terms linked to distributedleadership, MacBeath et al. (2004) conclude that all share one common feature whichis that leadership does not simply reside in one person and that many may exerciseleadership in an organization. A recent review of the definitions and multiple uses of theconcept in the field by Mayrowetz (2008) suggests there are at least four differentusages of the terms in the field by researchers: a theoretical lens for looking at the activity of leadership (leading theorists ofthis usage are Gronn and Spillane); distributed leadership for democracy; distributed leadership for effectiveness and efficiency; and distributed leadership as human capacity building.  16Mayrowetz (2008, p. 433) concludes that each usage has strengths and weaknessesand there is unlikely to be an agreed universal definition of the term.  He suggests:… as distributed leadership initiatives in schools and empirical researchcontinue to flourish, the field will benefit from scholarship that clearly articulateswhat is meant by distributed leadership in studies that are both responsive tocentral problems of practice and anchored in relevant theory.2.4 Theoretical and Empirical ConceptualizationsIn describing the theoretical aspects of distributed leadership, the current internationaldebate is being driven by key academics and researchers located on three differentcontinents: In the United Kingdom, especially through the National College of SchoolLeadership (NCSL), which has had an on-going research interest and nationalproject around the concept and has linked it to academic theory and successfulschool-based practice; In North America, where Spillane and his colleagues have theorised thatdistributed leadership is a way of understanding leadership that focuses uponinteraction amongst leaders, followers and complex social processes. Otherwriters with specific insights into distributed leadership and how it contributes toleadership sustainability and effective change are Hargreaves and Fink,Leithwood, and Michael Fullan; and In Australia, where Gronn has written extensively on this leadership topicbasing the majority of his analysis around a particular version of activity theory.Additionally, recent research by Mulford et al. (2004) and Crowther et al. (2002)have also made important contributions to the knowledge of this topic.One further distinguishing feature of the arguments for distributed leadership is thatmuch of the supporting empirical evidence can be found primarily within the schoolimprovement and teacher leadership research literature. Each of these areas is nowcovered.2.4.1 United Kingdom researchAs noted earlier, the notion and definition of distributed leadership is a contestedtheoretical topic in the academic literature (Bottery, 2004; Gunter, 2001; Gunter &Ribbins, 2002; Harris, 2005) depending largely on the researchers’ orientation towardsthe concept of “power” and the distinction between “agency” and “structure” (Giddens,  171984). This is depicted in Table 2 which suggests a variety of research questions andexamples of research within each of five “research knowledge domains” suggested in atypology by Gunter and Ribbins (2002). These authors provide examples using one ofthe 10 leadership development propositions which underpinned the establishment ofthe NCSL in the United Kingdom in 2000.Table 2NCSL Proposition #5: School leadership is a function which needs to be distributedthroughout the school community.KnowledgedomainsExample of research question Example of researcherConceptual Where does distribution"
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Leadership

Distributed Leadership

6 Jul 2017

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      string(290) "What is it like to be a child in care in school? Imagine you are this child starting a new school, perhaps your school. The fact that you have survived abuse and neglect will not be uppermost in your mind. The key thing will be the immediate: these new people ..."
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      string(5679) "What is it like to be a child in care in school? Imagine you are this child starting a new school, perhaps your school. The fact that you have survived abuse and neglect will not be uppermost in your mind. The key thing will be the immediate: these new people, this new space, how to read the situation and work out the rules. So, to that extent you are not much different from a new teacher with a new class. You may actually be much quicker to read the patterns than this new teacher, because you’ve had to work hard to survive this far, had to learn how to avoid sudden violence, get your needs met amidst the chaos and build walls to protect you from the silence, from the times no one came and from all the times no one was there. The problem is that these skills are not on the curriculum, and so when it comes to learning, the part of your brain that is needed to focus on maths, is too busy dealing with potential threat and managing the reverberations of yesterday, when you were taken from your home and your siblings to somewhere a social worker you met for the first time said would be better and safer. When your new teacher tries to make the connections, you may not be there, may not yet feel safe enough to learn.It is essential that we support children in care and those who work with them by giving them access to key information about how the brain works, how enough stress can drive its learning but how toxic stress created by abuse and neglect can damage it. In healthy child development, the baby learns to manage the stress of entering a strange new world by attuning to a key care giver. Through this ‘attachment’ relationship the child learns. 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There are really two reasons: attachment is at the heart of learning and not understanding it is not good for children or for adults, in both cases leading to additional and sometime overwhelming stress. On the other hand, when schools gain an understanding of the ‘basics’ of brain development, attachment and trauma, it frees up adults to be creative and responsive to children’s needs in their context. The ‘basics’ are not complex and have been summed up as ‘The brain is survival oriented and pattern seeking’, or ‘Connections on the outside of the body build neural connections on the inside’.3So, let’s go back to our new teacher and her new child in care. In response to whole-school-training from the Virtual School’s educational psychologist, who provides follow-up consultations, the new teacher creates an environment for optimal brain functioning in her classroom and she knows why she is doing what she is doing. For example, the teacher works with the foster carer to make a space in the classroom with objects that the child associates with the foster carer and safety. They both use the same language to help the child name difficult feelings and seek out a safe space to calm down. The child in care finds a safe pattern and with consistent and persistent support from the adults around her, begins to normalise to this pattern. For this child, the downward spiral of school exclusion and care placement breakdown is stopped. As well as the change for the child, the costs of residential care and special school education are saved. As a Virtual Headteacher, I saw this hopeful pattern created by the work of dedicated schools and allied professionals over and over again.The approach did not rely on rules, discipline, behaviour policy – the focus was on learning. In this respect, helping children to overcome trauma and abuse is like helping children to learn anything: it really helps to build from a sound understanding of the basics. In reading we might begin with phonics; in dealing with trauma we begin with attachment. In the past, teachers who had felt disempowered when their own rote learning methods did not work, found that understanding phonics unlocked their ability to teach reading. Teachers working with children who have experienced neglect and abuse have found understanding attachment and trauma has a similar impact: ‘It gave me a light-bulb moment about children I knew in school, the way they behaved and how I responded. From then on, my mind-set started to change.’ Deputy Head‘It took a series of children with needs that we just found hard to identify until we started to apply attachment theory thinking.  And it just unlocked these children and made us able to understand what was going on with far greater clarity. As a result, we got to make much more progress with them.’ Headteacher‘Even if we were to express it in terms of crude economics (and it is"
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Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties

Reducing the Impact of Trauma for Looked After Children

4 Dec 2018

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      string(5743) "Peer mentoring was an area I was keen to explore; having seen and been inspired by what two Y6 children were capable of achieving in my previous school,After just a day’s training and support two of them had set themselves a target of organising a charity football match. They collaborated, communicated and organised the whole event, with little additional adult support. The final event was held in July and was supported by many parents. So for a separate annual event called ‘Fab Friday’ where teachers, teaching assistants and members of the local community were invited to share their talents/interests with children  I took a risk and invited Y6 children to organise, resource and run activities on the day. It was a very successful and an enjoyable experience for all. As a result the  school embarked on a bold programme of giving children more responsibility, more directly with learning. The Y6 teaching staff invited all children in the year to write a letter of application to become a Curriculum Based Ambassador: to liaise with teachers, generate ideas and take responsibility for keeping resource areas organised, Every Y6 child was also given the opportunity to take on more responsibility with regard to running ‘family’ groups (about 20 children drawn from the same ‘school house’ across the school from Y1-Y6). However, without training or support, some of the Y6 children struggled with aspects of leading such groups and holding ‘House’ assemblies. Equally, some children did not engage with the idea of being Curriculum Ambassadors and many of the roles fizzled out.I now wanted to see if we could learn the lessons and roll out a successful Peer Tutoring program that would have wide reaching benefits in my new school, Ravensthorpe, in Peterborough.Ravensthorpe Primary School is a good and rapidly improving school. It is located to the north-wes of Peterborough and currently the number on roll stands at 252. This is growing year on year following a major building expansion project. Over the next 5 years Ravensthorpe will be doubling in size to be a 2 form entry school with 420 pupils. Over a third of pupils are eligible for pupil premium support. This reflects the local evidence, which shows that almost three quarters of its pupils come from the poorest quartile of postcodes in England. Pupils attend from the Westwood and Ravensthorpe housing estate, but increasingly, children are joining the school from across the city. Ravensthorpe is a diverse school and its pupils come from a wide range of social and ethnic minority backgrounds. Pupils who speak English as an additional language make up half of Ravensthorpe’s school roll. In 2015, half of the children in Foundation Stage spoke little or no English.I chose to deliver ‘Peer Tutor’ training to Y5 pupils – to ensure that all children had the chance to be a tutor, regardless of ability, EAL, behaviour or attitude. In consultation with other teaching staff, I devised a project in which each Y5 child, as far as possible was matched to an individual child in Y3. (Several Y5s had the responsibility of ‘tutoring’ two Y3 children)As a context for the peer coaching, I chose the development of an instant recall of the multiplication tables facts, in line with the demands of the new curriculum. All the children in Y3 were given a list of times tables facts to complete, which was split into 2 phases. The Blue Phase: x2, x5, x10 and the Green Phase: x3, x4, x6 x8. The children were challenged to complete each set of 20 mixed number sentences in 60 seconds e.g. 3×4 =, 9×3= (The Y5s had an additional Red Phase: x7, x9, x11, x12) The pupils were then presented with exact copies of the lists at the end of the project and the results were compared.Learning from the LiteraturePeer tutoring is ‘an approach in which one child instructs another child in material on which the first is an expert and the second a novice.’ (Damon and Phelps 1989 p11 in Leading Other Learners a UFA Publication p 11) The UFA makes a clear distinction that Peer Tutoring has learning as its focus.  Others define it as ‘ … a range of approaches in which learners work in pairs … to provide each other with explicit teaching support. In cross-age tutoring an older learner takes the tutoring role and is paired with a younger tutee … with sessions of 25-35 minutes two or three times a week.’  http://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit/peer-tutoring/Research has shown that the examination performance of students who were tutored was better than the examination performance of students in a conventional class, especially for mathematics and reading, at both primary and secondary school levels. (Cohen, Kulik, Kulik 1982 p237-248) Therefore, in consultation with other teaching staff at Ravensthorpe Primary, we settled on a project to improve the pupils’ instant recall of the times tables facts. On first glance, it may seem reasonable to assume that peer tutoring favours those who are tutored. However, through my reading, I have found studies that reveal significant gains made by both tutor and tutee. The tutor benefits from reinforcing existing knowledge and gains an insight into the teaching/learning process, whereas the tutee benefits from individualised instruction in a non-threatening, supportive setting. (Goodlad and Hirst 1989)Whilst research demonstrates that the impact of peer tutoring is relatively high with benefits for both tutor and tutee, it was especially successful in cross-age"
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Leadership

The Truth About Peer Tutoring: It works!

16 Jan 2018