the primary head's blog

Halfway through a recent subject leader SDP planning session, one of my middle leaders declared: ‘This is so basic!’ Then, as if remembering I was in earshot, she sheepishly apologised and said that her comment had come out wrong. I quickly reassured her that I did not take this comment as an insult, in fact, what she had said was kind of the point:

School Development Planning should be basic.

Over the years I have toyed around with the format of action planning. I remember when the SDP was twenty, or so, pages long. It was colour-coded. It referenced every syllable of the Ofsted Inspection Handbook. Instead of English, it was written in a weird kind of edu-code that only I and a Lead Inspector would understand. There were multiple boxes, all filled in with an ever-diminishing font.

The whole thing took half the year to write and it impossible to manage. Therefore, you had to write a condensed version that you would use with staff. You also had to have a one-page version that would be ready to email Ofsted after their initial phone call. Governors demanded that you write a ‘child friendly’ version under the pretence that children could understand and, not at all, so they could work out what you were talking about during meetings.

The whole process was unwieldly and did not help anyone with the day to day strategic running of the school. It treated school improvement like some lofty endeavour, resulting in an SDP that read like the aloof and pompous autobiography of Michael Gove. It certainly wasn’t basic.

So, one day, I decided that my SDP had to grow up.

The first step was stripping back all of the nonsense. It was actually whilst listening to Alastair Campbell talk about the strategy and tactics that New Labour used in the run up to the 1997 election where I experienced my first SDP epiphany.

Read more about that here.

(Assuming you have)

So, now that I was armed with my aims, strategies and tactics, I was ready to plan.

In my opinion, the ‘whole school’ development plan should be a relatively generic beast. Because, let’s face it, we’re all after the same thing, aren’t we?

AIMS

1. Children to achieve really, really, REALLY well.
2. Teaching to be tip-top.
3. Everyone to be nice and respectful to each other as well-rounded human beings.
4. Leaders to make a positive difference.

What else is there?

Those have been, pretty much, my SDP aims for the last three years over two schools. And guess what? They fit. So far, they’ve worked too. (Although I’ve only been in the second school for nine days so we should probably hold fire on that judgement.)

Now, the strategies have varied. They have to as they are shaped by the context of the school. But, each and every one of them, has been a single sentence. A clear line that has joined up all the tactics so that everyone in the school can view the hard work, that goes into school improvement, within a shared and united approach: we are all in this together. (Damn you Cameron for ruining that phrase for eternity!)

But what about the written plan? You can’t just have a few sentences (maybe some clip-art?) on a single piece of paper…can you?

No. Of course you can’t. I may be a revolutionary maverick when it comes to school development planning but, even the A-Team wrote down their plans in Microsoft Word so that they could refer back to the tactics and hold each other accountable for the success of the over-arching strategy. They just didn’t film that bit every week. Plus, Murdoch kept changing the bloody font to jokerman which really got on BA’s baracus. The ruddy clown.

No, for each tactic, you need something written down to help guide your workflow throughout the year. I still found it hard to work out how to map out each tactic’s progress throughout the year. Using traditional formats of actions plans I ran the risk of simply splitting up a tactic into smaller components and dressing them up as standalone tactics.

Take target setting. No sooner had I decided that setting targets was an essential tactic – within the strategy of robust use of assessment information – than I had written lots of target setting-esque tactics:

• Whole school targets are set, with governors, based on external data.
• Teachers’ targets are based on internal data and prior attainment.
• Progress meetings are held to review progress against targets.
• Support interventions are put in place where necessary.
• Target review forms part of performance management.

I was getting in a mess. I tried to organise my tactics based on the time of the year. But, I found that this just caused repetition. And I hate repetition. I was writing the same thing in Term 4 than I had in Term 2. It was repetitive. And I hate repetition.

Then I had my second epiphany.

Instead of viewing these tactics as individual actions I began to see them as sequences of the same tactic. Each tactic, I realised, had three main phases:

For the tactic to be operational it needs to be set up properly (compliance phase). Once it has, you can put it into action (implementation phase). Finally, information will be gathered that will allow you to know whether the tactic has been effective (review phase).

Let’s take all those target-setting bits and pieces from earlier and see them in the context of a single tactic spread out over three phases:

Tactic	Compliance	Implementation	Review
Target setting focuses on children reaching the expected standard in RWM combined.	Targets are set based on prior attainment and the SDP’s goals for end of key stage achievement. Targets are shared with staff and governors. Targets form part of teachers’ appraisal.	Leaders and teachers review termly data packs against initial targets. Adjustments to provision are made to ensure that targets are met. Support is identified if groups of pupils seem at risk of not meeting targets. Support for teachers is identified if pupils are not making sufficient gains in their learning. Teaching profile is updated to reflect on-going performance of teachers.	·Targets are reviewed, and taken into account, when judging the effectiveness of teachers’ and leaders’ performance.

The three phases, (and everything that happens within them) flow into each other. You cannot, for example, expect adjustments to provision to be made if the targets haven’t been shared. You cannot take the outcome of targets into consideration during a teacher’s appraisal if they have not been offered support if they were ever at risk of not meeting them.

These phases allow a narrative for each tactic to be created. A simple and linear path that can be easily followed as the year progresses. Obviously, you will have selected some success indicators for each tactic and this will enable you to review each phase.  If your success indicators start flashing red you can look back to see which phase was not carried out effectively? Did you not set the tactic up well enough during the compliance phase? Or has the implementation not been robust enough? Finally, you should be able to determine if this tactic is a vital part of your school improvement strategy or, realise that it is a low performer and never to be repeated?

An added bonus to this plan is that it is concise. Just as one middle leader was praising its simplicity, another middle leader was surprised to find that her new plan took up a single side of A4 in comparison to the four page opus from last year. Much of the actual content was the same but it had been streamlined and stripped down to its essentials. It was a simple set of tactics (all with their own journey mapped out across the three phases) that were united under a single strategy which ‘should’ achieve the overall aim.

So, if you have an unwieldy action plan and no one else can help, and, if you can find them, maybe you should hire The A-team…who won’t mind you using the same format as me because, let’s face it, they just love it when a plan comes together.

Postscript

A few people have contacted me saying that they wish they could see what a entire SDP would look like using the format discussed in this post. Well, don’t say I never give you nothing. Here’s one from a couple of years ago. I think (hope) I’ve deleted any specific ‘my school’ stuff on it. I’m sure you won’t just copy it but feel free to do with it what you will…although pass this format off as your own for cash and I WILL find you.

Enjoy! X

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9C7hqTjwQO2ZnNoMHkwblpJYUE/view?usp=sharing

 

Whilst holidaying in Cuba I stumbled across a primary school. Obviously, I went in (thinking that if I took enough pictures I could get the trip paid for by my employer claiming that the whole holiday was in fact ‘professional development’) where I was met by the school’s Headteacher. The children were on holiday but I was welcome to look around if I had any money to donate as the school didn’t have enough money for pencils. ‘Welcome to my world’ I laughed in slow English as I patted her on the back and got her to pose for a selfie.

Cubans value education enormously. You can tell from the fact that whenever you’re in a taxi the driver will excitedly point out any school or university that you pass with levels of patriotic pride generally reserved for national monuments, of which Cuba, let me tell you, is not short of (you can barely move for statues and murals of men with beards – if you don’t know your communist history you could be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled into a national hipster convention.) Some drivers asked if I wanted to stop so I could take a photo of these beacons of education and, to show respect, I said I’d love to-as long as the photo could be taken with me sitting in the driving seat of their classic American car with the school, university, whatever, in the background.

I also went on a tour of ‘real Cuban life’. You know the drill, where you see real Cubans off their maracas on white rum, smoking cigars and dancing the Rumba. Actually, this tour was a little different. It mainly consisted of walking into ‘quota’ shops to see everyday Cubans queueing up to spend their government issued tokens that entitled them to their weekly allowance of flour, eggs, meat, butter and fruit. As I took a selfie of me, posing with a confused looking elder standing in front of the shop’s counter, I was asked by my Guide if there are such places in England. ‘No,’ I replied. ‘We’re a rich capitalist democracy. We have food banks instead.’

As we continued along the tour I found out that my Guide was in fact a teacher himself. Well, he was, but he gave it up as he found he could make more money as a tour guide than he could as a teacher at the university. ‘It also became frustrating,’ he said. ‘The government expected more and more from teachers but they refused to give us any more resources or money to achieve their demands.’ He continued to explain how he could not afford to live in the main part of the city, where the university was, meaning he had to spend hours traveling to work, sometimes by horse and cart, to teach an ever-expanding curriculum in order to hit an impossibly high set of targets. ‘Welcome to my world’ I laughed in normal English (he was a professor in English and throughout our tour kept on correcting my appalling diction and frequent misuse of the formal vernacular) as I patted him on the back and took a photo of him next to an Instagramily decrepit building that was ‘so’ Cuba.

I asked him about the curriculum. Children learn a lot about Cuban history and the Cuban way of life. This is very important. Through direct instruction they are taught exactly what the government wish them to learn. I asked my Guide if children could question the information that they were presented with by their teacher. ‘Everyone has freedom of thought,’ he explained. ‘But this does not equate to freedom of expression.’ A child asking questions or showing curiosity that may prod the expected norms or challenge the natural (national) order of thinking is not something that you would see in a traditional Cuban classroom. It’s not ‘not allowed’ but it is unlikely it would occur as it would be perceived as getting in the way of the teacher’s knowledge and, therefore, the truth. ‘There are signs that this is changing though in higher education as more young people are asking more questions that challenge the status quo.’ He asked me about education in this country. Four hours later he said that although he still didn’t understand what a progressive teacher was, he did understand that they were a threat to national security.

Cuba has changed much in recent years. Since 2008, Cubans can now run their own businesses, travel more freely, own a mobile phone and stay in hotels. These changes have come as the country has battled with its economic sovereignty and it is likely that, after 2018, the country will see more economic and social changes that will alter the Cuban way of life immeasurably. Some, mainly the older generations, do not yet have Cuban-Fever over this prospect. You can’t blame them. They’ve already gone through one bloody revolution and are satisfied with the circumstances they now find themselves in. The younger generations however want more freedoms, a wider set of life-experiences, the opportunity to question the world they live in so that they may improve it for future generations, and, the ability to face-time whenever they want.

I shook my Guide’s hand and, as we posed together for a final selfie in front of a statue depicting Ernest Hemmingway propping up a bar dribbling strawberry daiquiri all over his beard, I wondered, out loud, whether Cuba might one day be as great as Great Britain. The Guide patted me on the back and said ‘Eres un hombre inglés muy divertido’. I smiled at the compliment and he continued. ‘Yes, there may be some similarities between our two countries,’ he said. ‘Both our governments may value education but not its educators; many of our schools may be so under-funded that they are forced to beg for pencils; teacher retention – due to a combination of increased workload, higher expectations and unaffordable housing – may be at an all-time low. But, at least in Cuba, our country is widening its economic trade borders and making it easier for its people to travel to other countries. At least we are starting to move away from the tight grip of a knowledge only curriculum delivered through robust direct instruction, as we recognise that this can lead to unquestioning indoctrination. And, I think you’ll find, my government has been openly critical about the abhorrent views and policies of a certain world leader that threaten the peace and democracy of the entire planet.’ After that he paused, waiting for a reply. So, as I had done throughout all my time in Cuba when I found myself in a tight spot, I smiled and told him that I was awfully sorry but that I didn’t speak any Spanish.

As we parted, he gifted me a copy of Fidel Castro’s 1953 four-hour speech and eventual manifesto. I haven’t read it yet but it’s got one heck of a snappy title: History will absolve me.

Fingers crossed.

Ah, the twitterstorm. Am I the only one who finds these things immensely tedious? For the uninitiated (boy, you don’t know how lucky you are) let me take you through how these things normally go down.

Someone, apparently important and worthy (to their publisher anyway) writes something monumentally misguided. You know the sort of thing, the sort of thing where they sound like Jesus giving a sermon on the mount. But only if Jesus was backing up his sermon with a biblical amount of scientific evidence. Only, as we’ll see later, it’s not actually a ‘biblical’ amount of evidence, it’s more like a ‘controversial hits’ amount of evidence. This allows them to make a provocative point and share it, not as gospel (because even they know they’re not Jesus) but definitely as a point worth considering (because, although they’re not actually Jesus, they are pretty close). Plus, science and controversy didn’t do any harm for Jesus Richard Dawkins so why shouldn’t they put it out there for our consideration, if only to show us that they are not afraid to think about controversial things even if we are.

The sensible thing to do is to let them write this stuff. Read it if you want, or, don’t: simple. If you’re worried that you won’t know what you’re reading before it’s too late I’ll give you a quick piece of advice. If any blog begins with:

1. A lengthy reference to a blog they’ve already written;
2. A lengthy reference to someone else’s’ blog that disagreed with something they once said;
3. More than two quotes from some research evidence base;
4. Words so long that even Will Self wouldn’t consider using them;

then quit reading straight away.

Unfortunately, some people don’t know these tips and they read all the way to the end. And, some of these people just can’t believe it. They genuinely can’t believe what they’re reading. It’s too much for them. They can’t understand how the words even managed to get into that particular order, let alone how the person who haphazardly banged them out at the laptop – presumably blindfolded with nothing in their system save for naked ambition and half a bottle of scotch – came to the decision to press ‘share’. For them, reading this blog all the way to the end is like being stuck at a party next to someone who talks to you for five hours about why Godfather part III is the strongest of the trilogy by drawing on the user reviews of IMDb and dressing them up as the combined critiques of Barry Norman, Pauline Kael and Philip French.

Their objections tend to fall into three categories:

Tone: I know that this is a controversial opinion but if you can’t recognise its validity then you’re no better than a Sicilian scoreggia.

Level of research: It’s not just me that thinks this, Barry Kemp from Chiswick puts Godfather III above the original Godfather, Citizen Kane and Tango & Cash. So, just accept it.

The fact this point is even being made: Even though nobody has ever watched this film all the way to the end causing it to drop from public consciousness almost completely, I think it’s important I drag it up from the sleeping fishes and make us all watch it again, right now.

Inevitably, because you can’t keep good bloggers (armed with their own selection of opposing evidence) down, counter blogs are written addressing one, or all three, of these categories of dispute.

‘It may a good film in your opinion, but by calling its detractors farts you do nothing to add to the debate.’

‘If you look at most recent reviews on Rotten Tomatoes it scores an average of -13% and is, at best, described as a ‘lazy and boring finish to a fine Mafiosi saga’. To ignore this evidence is dangerous and only serves to illustrate your appalling taste in films.’

‘There’s a part three?’

And here is where the tedium really begins. Pretty soon Twitter is in meltdown and the name-calling begins to the frenzied outrage of the mob on all sides. Every time you check Twitter to see what Donald Trump has done now you can’t see the real (or fake) news without Tweechers getting in the way as they scream ‘polemic’ and ‘ad hominem’ at each other. Some even set it upon themselves to ‘school’ the rest of us in how the Twitch-hunt should be carried out: you’re all doing it wrong, you’re not meant to jump to racism straight away, you’ve got to go through personal histories, homophobic slurs, wild sexism and then racism. Blocked Twitterers are bandied around like trophy scalps with some of us trying to get in on the act by squealing ‘they blocked me once, honest!’

Then, the showdown, the main event, we all knew this was coming: the after-blog. The blogger who started all this gets back on their horse and lets us in on the torment that has been their last 48 hours. Oh, the pain. Oh, the anguish. They had no idea that this controversial and provocative piece of writing would provoke or cause controversy. They are very upset by any name-calling and, of course, that isn’t nice and doesn’t reflect well on anyone involved. Sometimes there’s an apology. Sometimes there isn’t. There’s always a re-clarification and that’s always good fun. It’s like watching a cat jolt itself awake and then look around nonchalantly as it tries to convince those around it that it didn’t happen. ‘Um, I didn’t necessarily say I believed something controversial, I just said something controversial so you would have something to think about, like how brave I was for not being afraid to say it.’

As you scan through the after-blog wondering if you can spot any sign that suggests they won’t do it again (there rarely is) it dawns on you just how vacuous and pointless this whole thing is. These people who feel the need to educate us just because they’ve read some (some being the operative sodding word) information about stuff and, rather than just share it, they feel the need to interpret it and feed us their interpretations like the baby birds we are: too weak to chew the information ourselves. None of their lofty and long-winded interpretations of this ‘scientific-evidence’ helps us in the classrooms or run schools. Why not? Because they’re not applying it to stuff they’ve done or suggesting how we can apply it ourselves. They’re simply grandiose musings on highly important things other people concluded before them. I wonder if they know, or care, that this regurgitated information just clogs up the internet with naïve pseudo-intellectual claptrap and serves no real purpose?

Don’t get me wrong, I read plenty of blogs that I don’t agree with, or that go against what I believe in. But at least those written by active teachers and leaders stem from what they’re doing. They are reflective, they show thinking and, as a result, they are interesting. The debates can be honest and civil because you can’t deny what someone is doing in their own school or classroom (unless you think they’re lying and let’s not go there). They are sometimes rooted in, not weighed down by, rhetoric or theory and, most importantly, they are based in reality which has the added bonus of making them not mind-numbingly dull.

I am not an enemy of evidence or analysis. I just like my evidence sent to me direct or analysed by an expert. I don’t loathe intellectualism. Some of my best friends are clever. I don’t mind points of view different to my own. Just don’t expect me to think the same as you because you’ve gone on an evidence safari. I don’t endorse name calling and I’m sad people are called names that they don’t feel apply to them. My advice would be that if people are going to call you names based on the things that you write, you should try to write better.

Finally, Godfather III is an awful film. Don’t believe me? That’s fine. You’re just a total moronic anti-cinephilatic dullard, that’s all.