Monthly Archives: June 2013

Aggregation of Marginal Behavioural Gains

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I have two passions in my professional life; learning and behaviour. The first is shared by many, many colleagues across the country and indeed the world. Representatives across every sphere of education talk, meet, share and inspire both traditional, tried and tested means of learning and progressive, creative strategies that they hope could all the difference whether in a classroom down the corridor or across the country. Learning is the core business of education and at the heart of everything we do.

But what of behaviour? Is it the elephant in the room? How many people truly feel passionate about managing or improving behaviour? If the twittersphere, blogs & the media are to be believed, poor behaviour is the scourge of teaching and is the most influential factor in colleagues leaving the profession.

It is not my place to pass comment on how prevalent the pandemic has become as I have only worked across two specialist settings in the last seven years and so have a fairly parochial view. I was designated an SLE for behaviour last year, but have yet to be deployed outside of Alliance business which might suggest, at least as far as Leeds is concerned, that the problem is not as wide as we think and this is further reinforced by the fact that no school in the city currently has a grade 4 for behaviour. Despite my not having received a call to arms as yet, I have continued to keep abreast of the national picture, up to date reading and research and regularly visit schools as part of the day job.

The interesting thing for me is that the more I read, the more I reflect, and the more I discuss behaviour, the more I realise how little I know. Now I don’t mean in a “how the hell did I get here?” kind of a way, more of a socratic “I know that I know nothing’ kind of thing. I think the same applies to many, many professionals working in and around education. Everyone has the very best of intentions, but many people work very differently and it often comes down to a leap of faith and the determination to see things through. Despite this, I do know one thing for certain; there is no universal panacea to change behaviour.

So with this one universal truth regarding behaviour in hand, and in considering how to move our own school forward, we have begun to develop a model based on Dave Brailsford’s Aggregation of Marginal Gains – Ladies & Gentlemen, I present to you, the Aggregation of Marginal Behavioural Gains.

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Before going any further, although my target market here is specialist settings (PRU / EBD) I am confident this applies across a much broader field. A common feature of the frustration around behaviour is the inertia of senior colleagues in responding to problems in the classroom, but if the marginal gains are being pursued effectively, then colleagues should feel empowered to manage their challenges and affect their own changes. It might be that some schools don’t require quite as many marginal gains (but my guess is they really do!) and the real beauty of the model is that each gain will change from school to school and setting to setting.

Now, in the absence of a panacea, or indeed anything remotely approaching a panacea, we need to being to look at the whole school, and provide a context that will allow all young people to thrive. Not most young people, and not those students who have the tools to do well but can’t be bothered, but all our young people, and in order to do this, we must think much more broadly than behaviour in the moment. Behaviour management is what happens in the moment, behaviour change is what occurs as a result of pro-active, thoughtful, targeted strategies and conditioning that is the result of deliberate actions, causal successes, effective reflection and consistent application.

So what about these margins? Well, I have shared the 16 we have started with above, but broadly speaking, they fall into four categories; values, systems, curriculum & pedagogy. The values are the guiding light. They should provide the foundation for all aspects of behaviour inputs and it is a challenge for any school’s leadership team to ensure all colleagues across the school accept and / or support these values in order to achieve the holy grail; consistency. Most importantly, when faced with the toughest decisions, or thrust into the inevitable grey areas that accompany challenging behaviour, having a strong set of underpinning values to fall back on should ensure that all colleagues work within a consistent framework but can exercise the all important flexibility.

Systems and policies must reflect these values if you are to create a consistent and predictable world for young people whose lives are often characterised by instability and turmoil. There is no good boasting unconditional positive regard as a core value and then creating a system which demands exclusion unless a student apologises. Similarly, there is no value in claiming ‘restorative practice’ as a driving principle and then demanding escalated sanctions and draconian action because they a child swore in front of the Head.

Curriculum & pedagogy are inextricably linked, and are really in place to emphasise two things; there is no such thing as a one size fits all curriculum and this is a core building block in developing any excellent behaviour practice. There is no more surefire way to disengage a learner from school life than a curriculum that is not fit for purpose. The inclusion of pedagogy is a reminder, as if one were needed, that we are the professionals and are clients are children. Very often, they are damaged, vulnerable and / or emotionally unstable, and it is our job to provide that stability through excellence in the classroom and across the school. This will likely include, but in no way be limited to, effective differentiation, engaging teaching & appropriate challenge.

The final category is the lazy man’s answer to behaviour – targeted support. These are the one stop panaceas which, while they might not fix the whole school, should make the difference to the individual. “He told me to f-off then tipped his chair – he needs anger management”, “I think she might be depressed, can we refer her for counselling?”. Unfortunately, targeted support, no matter how well done, can only achieve so much and, as with everything on the wheel, will only provide the small steps that make up part of the journey.

So they are the categories, but it is the role of the leaders to determine which gains will work together best to affect a sustainable changes to behaviour. It is vital that each gain is considered thoroughly, treated professionally and embraced by all staff as providing a consistent, coherent, predictable world for these young people is crucial if behaviour is going to change.

Over the next few weeks, I may blog about some of the more unusual gains, exploring why they are important for us in our setting and what we plan to do to ensure that it has both a standalone impact, and supports the other marginal gains to contribute to sustainable behaviour change.

From 140 Characters to SEF, School Improvement & OFSTED

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I first came across twitter in a New York subway in 2009 when I saw an advert for teaching in Manhattan accompanied by a twitter handle where I could obtain more information. When I logged on, and saw the 140 character limit, I instantly dismissed it as a glorified collection of Facebook statuses without the pictures, banter (0 followers & nothing interesting to say) or games. I soon gave up my pipe-dream of moving to Manhattan to teach and forgot about Twitter for a few years.

So it was interesting to sit through our OFSTED final de-brief yesterday afternoon and identify Twitter’s fingerprints all over our feedback.

We got the call at midday on Monday. Just five hours earlier I had been eating my porridge and reading @trueenglish365’s very informative blog on her OFSTED experience and had emailed it to a couple of colleagues in our English department. I made a note to myself to follow her advice about lists knowing we could expect the call any minute. Unfortunately, it was too late.

At 1210 our office manager informed me that the call had been transferred upstairs so I proceeded to run around like a headless chicken for five minutes before regaining my composure, pulling together all the students & staff and letting them know we were expecting some visitors over the next 48 hours.

I knew the school was prepared and, although maybe not in peak condition thanks to our year eleven having stood down and there being a maths exam for 21 candidates the next morning across eleven rooms and requiring 19 staff to invigilate, read & scribe, we were facing a busy few days so I proceeded to work on all the paperwork that I had been putting off for the last few months in the hope that they would leave us until September.

The night before an inspection is an interesting time as colleagues pull together like at no other time. The camaraderie was exceptional and even the banter stayed pretty good. People made sure they were ready but also that others were ready as well, there was a real team ethic in preparing and everyone made sure no-one would be left behind.

The two days passed in a blur and were a true roller-coaster of emotions with highs and lows around every corner. Two categories were pretty much ruled out at the end of day one and we were crystal clear what was required for day two. We were brave, where lessons hadn’t been graded as we felt they should have been staff stood up to be counted, took their feedback and invited the inspectors back in in day two to see what we knew the colleagues were capable of. Our confidence in our staff team is unwavering and we encouraged the inspectors to take up these offers knowing what they would see. The problem, of course, was that if they saw under-performance for a second time, we knew there would be implications for both the teaching judgement, leadership and possibly even achievement.

The learning walk took place first thing on wednesday morning and my heart was in my mouth throughout. I used all my poker playing experience to try and pick up a read either from the lead inspector or the Head but to no avail. When Lesley finally came into my office to deliver the news about what had been seen, I momentarily lost composure as relief overtook me knowing that colleagues who had been so deflated the night before could again hold their heads high and that the school was again on the front foot. The pressure on those colleagues to perform was enormous, but they showed exceptional bravery and a willingness to stand up and be counted, as well as the excellence in the classroom that we have come to expect.

The afternoon’s meetings became much easier at that point. Colleagues had worked into the small hours of the morning on everything we needed to secure the achievement judgement and I knew the work scrutiny would only secure our position. What started as a very formal and somewhat intense meeting on T&L turned into an almost enjoyable conversation about what works, what could work and the journey we have been on for the last three years. It was about this stage where, for the first time, the inspector was commenting or passing judgement on things which triggered the realisation around what an impact Twitter has had on not only my career, but also my school.

About an hour later we sat around the table and listened to the final judgements. As I made my notes it slowly became a to-do list of colleagues to acknowledge over Twitter. I knew early in the day that the decision to meet the OFSTED colleagues head on and challenge them to re-inspect something if we disagreed had been inspired by a blog encouraging senior leaders to take control of inspections and not just allow it to be done unto us, but sadly I cannot find that link. Then, as we were discussing the strengths of our teaching staff, the questioning was praised and @teachertoolkit popped into my mind; it was his Pose Pause Pounce Bounce article that had started my fascination with questioning and, supported by Hattie’s favourable effect size, pre-empted our decision to put it at the heart of the school’s CPD for the term.

A number of lessons used the recent training from @hywelroberts to develop engaging, context building starters which developed a framework on which to build the learning and by the time visitors arrived in the room, students were elbow deep in projects, challenges or just good old fashioned learning. Furthermore, in the work scrutinies the creative evidencing of projects from the last couple of months brought a fresh, lively dimension to learner portfolios.

The school’s CPD programme was praised as effective and impactful in the classroom and for this I must raise a glass to @springwellcpd whose programme I have dipped in an out of over the last year in pursuit of learning from the best and it was while in one of their training sessions that I realised how much more we needed to do at TLC North and began to re-model our teacher development inputs. Furthermore, an idea lifted straight from Twitter but unforgivably I have lost the source, was our Teacher Development Plans which are inextricably linked to the CPD programme and helped to secure both our Teaching & L&M judgements.

It is crazy what a difference twitter has made both to me and my school over the last twelve months. Initially, it was a source of stimulation and when I felt inspired, it would lead to further research and possible CPD for other colleagues. However, as time has progressed, the developments in school that have emanated from Twitter have become more and more central to our school life. Ideas are shared, evaluated, tweaked and applied, sometimes with little success, sometimes with huge impact. Where recommendations are made or colleagues name dropped, there is now an instant line of communication with colleagues who are only too willing to help. The generosity & philanthropy of professionals across the country means that perfect strangers have had an impact on my school and the education of some of Leeds’ most disaffected young people and they may never know what a difference they have made. Who would have thought five short years ago that twitter would become a central part of my professional life?

There is so much I would like to write about the last two days but OFSTED protocols and professional discretion prohibit most of it so I will settle with five things I have learned over the last fourty eight hours.

1) There is such a thing as reasonable, sensible, considered OFSTED inspectors. Both colleagues were willing to listen and understood the context they were inspecting which made an enormous difference. They were also willing to accept challenge which I felt made a huge difference in the productivity of the relationship between inspectors and senior leaders and ultimately helped us to shape our own destiny.

2) It paid to be helpful and honest. A car parking space, lunches, drinks, timetables & staff lists etc were all made available and as easy to access as possible. Documentation was kept concise and salient and should they want further information, it was available, we just made a conscious decision not to drown them in paper. We agreed on a no bullshit policy, if we didn’t know, we would find out and if we recognised an area to develop, we would not try and hide it. Nothing ground breaking here, but all contributed to positive and fruitful relationships and conversations throughout the process and, ultimately, I think the inspectors trusted who they were dealing with.

3) When dealing with flexible entry points (Special & PRU) its more valuable to focus on rates of progress than actual progress made. This is probably obvious to most data-heads but I have to thank @thefinalturtle both for his sterling work pre & mid-inspection but also for re-educating me mid-inspection. There was a heap of pressure on one meeting in particular but he sent me in armed with every detail I could possibly have needed and really focussed me on what was important.

4) It really is all about the Teaching & Learning. We are a PRU. You could argue our focus should be on behaviour, social skills and citizenship but, ultimately, as far as OfSTED are concerned, there remains an unrelenting focus on teaching and learning and it truly permeates all four judgements. Every school’s focus should be on high quality teaching which creates high quality learning opportunities and systems and structures must support this. Ultimately, just about every conversation that was held came back to one focus, learning, and long may this continue.

5) The development of basic skills truly remains a whole school priority. Numeracy, and particularly literacy, was a focus throughout many conversations and rightly so. We have made significant strides in developing literacy throughout our curriculum but we are still not quite there. You could make lots of arguments in our defence, none more compelling than the average student spends on 18 months with us, but ultimately this just means that we have to push harder, work smarter and demand the very best in every lesson. I have, at times, been swayed that we shouldn’t risk the integrity of subjects by insisting on implementing literacy initiatives but this process has reminded me that we must work even harder to get this right and ensure that every young person can access the breadth of the curriculum. In order to do this, they have to be able to read and write and the only way this will be achieved in such a short space of time is if it is supported skilfully and thoroughly by every subject area.

I feel as though there is a lot I am missing out here and if, on reflection, I can either source the blogs I have referred to or at least their authors then I will update this. I have done two sixteen hour days and right about now just want to publish this and go to bed. I am exceptionally proud of my school, the team of colleagues who do an incredible job and the young people who put up with the teacher’s frayed nerves and excited tension for two and a half days, plus, they were brutally honest and refreshingly reflective with inspectors giving far more powerful evidence in their Pupil Voice session than anything myself or our data manager could produce. TLC North, we did a hell of a job and will continue to do so.