In The Matrix, the story starts with Neo in essentially an imagined world, far different from the related that his physical body is experiencing. Morpheus offers Neo the choice of taking the blue pill, continuing his blissfully ignorant life in this imagined world, or the red pill, opening his eyes to reality.
Matthew Evans wrote a blog post a while back about the way we construct our own imagined school in our mind, warning us that the gap between how the school is and how we imagine it to be is where poor leadership thrives. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, combining this idea with Russell Hobby’s assertion that truth doesn’t always rise to the top; the idea that it is incredibly difficult for leaders to know the full reality of school life.
It is a compelling concept; the reality of school life is unlikely to be what we expect or want it to be. And to help open our eyes to this, I’m suggesting several traps to avoid when it comes to what we imagine our school to be.
#1 | The messages that we have given have been understood
When leaders give a message, we have often spent time thinking it through, probably discussed it with others and chosen our language carefully to give the message. When we give a message though, whether it is about upcoming calendar events, the reasons for doing a particular thing or advice on teaching, we can easily fall foul of the expert knowledge gap. We have spent time thinking about it and give the message in a way that makes sense to us but for others receiving the message, who have not done all that thinking and discussion, the message might not be clear at all. Worse, if we give the message by email or in person without giving the opportunity for those receiving to ask questions, to challenge or to respond, we can easily make the assumption that others hold a similar understanding to us. But Mowles reminds us of the reality:
#2 | The actions that we have asked for have been carried out
Leaders inevitably ask actions of the team. It is easy to pile these on to of one another: mark books like this, build in retrieval practice, adapt tasks for different needs, build relationships with parents, record concerns in this way, write this for the newsletter, input data, moderate in the team, read this article that I found, throw in extra spelling practice, read with every child every fortnight. The list can be endless. We’d be fools to think that all the actions we ask of our team are complete, let alone complete to a standard that we might want. If the things that we have asked our team to do fall away, there is probably a good reason for that. Maybe that do not make a difference to outcomes for children. Maybe they add to workload. Maybe they jar with colleagues’ values. All of which should be taken seriously by leaders, as long as we know!
#3 | Not everything that is planned is taught and not everything that is taught is learned
Teach two hours of PE a week. Remember to fit in French. An hour of English and maths per day. Find time for DT. Don’t forget RE. The timetable is packed and inevitably something has to give in a normal week let alone when there are disruptions from over running assemblies, trips, or the laptops are not working. Ofsted’s intent, implementation and impact framework for inspecting the quality of education comes from work bye Bauersfield in the 1970s:
Not everything that is planned is taught is a fundamental trap to avoid when it comes to the imagined school. As is the idea that not everything that is taught is learned.
#4 | The data that we have collected is accurate
Let’s say that teachers assess writing and input that data into a spreadsheet or a tracking system. Even with the most robust of criteria and moderation, there will be disagreements on some assessments. When you throw into that the real or perceived need for a proportion of children to to be at EXS or GDS, it is unlikely that the data stored in the spreadsheet is an exact representation of the learning that children have achieved, particularly when we cannot assess the entirety of the curriculum, only a sample of it. When the data says that 55% of children are exceeding age related expectations, is that really the case? The tyranny of metrics is a useful lense in which to challenge the imagined school.
#5 | The team is fully behind our initiatives
Even with the most careful, collaborative of implementation it is unlikely that all the team feel the same way about any changes or improvements that we bring in. Even if these initiatives have demonstrable impact on outcomes for children, they could come with additional workload, or they may take some colleagues’ attention and time away from others things that they find valuable or important. We might inquire into buy in, even having conversations about the merits of the initiative where colleagues speak positively about it. But what if they are saying what they want us to hear? This would of course indicate a possible cultural problem where a colleague might not want to speak their mind but again we would be foolish to think that everyone is behind everything that we do.
#6 | Our advocated teaching strategies are supported and implemented
Let’s say we have a way of teaching in our school. We might use Talk for Writing to teach English. We might teach whole class reading. We might use I do, we do, you as a structure for modelling. We might use lollipop sticks to randomly select children to answer questions. We might cold call. We might have talk partners. Does everyone use them all the time? Probably not. This is the wrong question though. Should everyone use them all the time? Do we even need a teaching and learning policy? Just because we have run some training, showed everyone that we care about a particular strategy and seen it in action in observation, doesn’t mean that the strategy is embedded. What if it is only wheeled out when a leader is watching?
#7 | The beliefs that we advocate are shared
We might have school values that we promote and talk about. We might pride ourselves on inclusion, or that every child is capable of learning given the right support and adequate time. We’d like to think that these values are ubiquitous across the team but they probably aren’t. Surely there is at least someone who believes that a child with additional needs requires a TA instead of an adapted classroom environment or adapted teaching or scaffold work. Surely there is at least someone who’d rather pluck a worksheet from a teachers resource website as it is than adapt a task that better clings with our curriculum objectives.
Living in the real world, not our imagined world
It is tempting to build an imaginary school where all of our initiatives are implemented fully with everyone on board, where everyone diligently takes on the actions that we ask and children learn brilliantly as a result. What a school we’d have! As Evans indicates, if we make decisions based on this school instead of the real school, we could get it spectacularly wrong, choosing the wrong problem to tackle and choosing the wrong solution too. At best we might get a sigh and an eye roll about how leaders don’t get it and at worst we could actively drive our team away.
In another post, we’ll look at how how we can avoid these traps…
In the meantime, what other imagined school traps. do you see?
MrNickHart 