Skip to main content

Year Four and Beyond Practitioner Enquiry

We are now just into our fourth year of taking a Practitioner Enquiry approach to our school development. All our evaluations, internal and external, have demonstrated the positive, and continuing, impact we have had. Teachers and schools have moved forward and we have lots of hard, and soft, evidence to support this assertion. In our last session teachers finished their research posters and we had most of these professionally reproduced.
We started this session with an in-house sharing by teachers with their colleagues around their enquiries and their posters. The schools were buzzing with conversations around teaching and learning, and the sharing of experiences and discoveries. A fabulous way to start the new session!
As you will understand, we are committed to taking the same approach. Staff have again asked, to which we agreed, for more input around language so we are looking at poetry as a genre and persuasive writing as another. All staff are carrying out their own enquiries again into an aspect of their practice, decided by themselves.They can also decide how they are going to share this with colleagues at the end of the school year. Most are talking about using the research poster again.
In addition we are also looking at Carol Dweck's work around Growth Mindsets and how we can use her research to help us develop more resilience in all our learners. The approach we are taking to this is very much a practitioner enquiry one. Currently we are identifying the professional reading that will be necessary to support and inform this.
We have also begun working with the other primary school in the town, as they begin their own journey of discovery, using practitioner enquiry approaches. Our senior management team have worked with those from the other school to identify how we can support them and their staff and we will work alongside them as they begin their own journey. The local secondary school has also been very interested in what we have been doing, and we have began speaking to their managers about how we might support them on a similar journey. There is an exciting opportunity to develop a common approach to development within a cluster of schools, whilst still recognising the uniqueness of each setting, and the fact that they all start from different positions.

So, what are the main benefits we have identified so far in taking a practitioner enquiry approach to school development?

  • Attainment and achievement has been raised for all pupils
  • Learning and teaching experiences have improved in all classrooms
  • Teacher understanding of both aspects of curriculum and pedagogy have deepened
  • The approach has helped re-professionalise the profession
  • Collaboration and professional dialogue have been enhanced and promoted
  • We have been able to connect up all the key elements of development and manage change
  • We have connected in a meaningful way to school, local and national priorities
  • Informed innovation is promoted and expected
  • It challenges orthodoxies
  • It is meaningful and sustainable, it is a disposition

What are the health warnings we would give?

  • This is a Pandora's box. Once opened there really is no going back to superficial, tick-box approaches
  • It's messy and complicated. There is nothing much linear about this approach
  • All senior managers need to be fully engaged to really understand and support
  • It needs an open, supportive and trusting ethos and culture
  • One size does not fit all, so you have to start from where you are
  • The support of a 'critical friend' is crucial
  • Not all staff can, or will, develop at the same speed
  • It is challenging to teachers and management
  • To be really effective you will need to slow down and provide 'space'for assimilation
None of the health warnings should stop any school from taking a similar approach because, in our eyes, the benefits have been so substantial. 
Our journey will continue and I really believe others can achieve as much and more from adopting  practitioner enquiry as their development focus. 
Remember, you are not alone!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Six Qualities of Educational Leadership

I wrote a post a few weeks ago (The six tasks of leadership 12/12/15) following an article about Sir Tim Brighouse, who had identified what he thought were the six key tasks for school leaders. My own list was a bit different to Tim's but it also set me thinking about what might be the qualities you would look for in high performing school leaders. I give you my six as a stimulus for discussion and perhaps your own consideration of what qualities we should look for in school leaders. The first is authenticity. I believe all school leaders need to be authentic and to really walk the walk of their talk. There can be nothing so dispiriting for school community members than being led by a leader who says one thing but does another. Remember to say what you mean and mean what you say. I think the highest performing leaders possess emotional awareness. They know themselves well and they know the people they lead well too. They understand the importance of relationships and how to ta...
35 comments
Read more

Evaluation: a process, not an event

Throughout my time as a school leader, and since, I have wrestled with the challenge of evaluation, in terms of measuring the impact of change, in a way which is meaningful and useful . Early in my career, such evaluation was very much viewed as an event, or events, that happened towards the end of a project, or piece of work, usually occurring towards the end of a school year. This was often a time filled with lots of scrabbling around looking for 'evidence' that could be put into some sort of report aimed at different different audiences. It felt stressful, concocted at times and often disconnected from the whole change agenda. Evaluation was a thing to be endured at the end of something else, with its main purpose consisting of proving you had been doing something to different people. Some of these would take what you gave them, and put that into their own 'evaluation report' for a cluster of schools, a local authority, or even a national system. A major issue with...
13 comments
Read more

Some thoughts for new student teachers

  Having gained a host of new followers on Twitter, who are either completing PGDE, or other student teacher qualifications, got me thinking about the advice, thoughts, comments I would give to those embarking on their own professional learning journey.   It is heart-warming to see, and hear, the enthusiasm of new entrants into the profession. They are passionate about their career path, and are constantly enthusing about the high quality input they are receiving from lecturers, professors of education and practitioners. My first piece of advice would to use those feelings as a touchstone, to go back to and revisit, throughout your career, but especially when you are facing challenges. Teaching is one of the most satisfying and rewarding professions to be involved in, but throughout your career you will encounter a myriad of challenges, and during these times it is often worth your while reminding yourself of why you came into the profession, and re-consider your early en...
13 comments
Read more