The dream is to teach and learn in calm, peaceful environments that are prosperous and happy, where students can succeed and learn your subject effectively. Teachers want to be free from the stress of paperwork, OFSTED and dealing with challenging behaviour.
Strickland talks about 3 factors that lead to positive impact and long term change in schools:
1. Curriculum
- The Teacher is the expert of their subject, we should use professional development to enhance teacher subject knowledge. Curriculum needs to be knowledge driven, influenced by the expertise of the teacher.
- Strickland looked to 3 particular curriculum models that influenced how the curriculum is implemented in his school, namely Rosenshine, Ron Berger’s Ethic of Excellence and Shimamura’s MARGE model. Using these to create a whole school approach, a system driven method based on routines. As leaders we need to consider what will best fit your subject in your school's context. As Wiliam puts it “everything works somewhere; nothing works everywhere”, we can’t just take something from one context and directly apply it to your own without considering the context you are in.
- What do you want students to learn? Consider the end points and the underpinning ideas that link and connect to future knowledge. Then you have to sequence this and work out what knowledge is interleaved and why? What will you not include and why?
2. Behaviour
- As a senior leader, decide what your desirable behaviour is, what you want to become established and standardised that is carried out by pupils and staff habitually. Clearly define your culture, be explicit about your expectations and model them. Behaviour must be taught, to both staff and students.
- As a teacher, you need to work out what you want to see in your classroom. How do you want your classroom to be set up? How should students answer questions? How is their work presented? Define your routines in lessons, if your school hasn't got well established classroom rules, define them yourself. Command the room, use your presence, think about how you speak and where you stand. Take a look at my video for some tips on how I manage behaviour in my classroom, click here.
3. Leadership
- Knowing your school and context nursing approaches that aren’t taken off the shelf but are specific to what you need.
- Proactive planning rather than reactive. Have a clear plan and clear expectations that are communicated clearly through training and repeated reinforcement.
- Leadership is about protecting your staff from the nonsense, creating a culture where teaching and learning can take place and flourish.
- Key systems and routines have to become habitual, this can take time to be deep rooted.
- Be an outward facing leader. Look at what other schools are doing, ‘steal’ ideas and iterate and improve them to be specific to your own context. Work collaboratively both as a subject lead with other subject leaders but also as a senior leader across successful schools.