EducationFest… Reflections for me as a Senior Leader

As a regular attender of #EducationFest, I know that I will leave every year feeling re-energised and inspired, but more importantly, informed.  As we know though, a one off conference does not lead to change in performance and so an important part of ensuring that this incredible CPD has an impact on my practice is to spend some time reflecting on my top takeaways.

This year I have decided to write 3 mini blogs rather than one big blog post, with each post focusing on a different area of my practice and this one is about my learning as a senior leader.

The first session I attended (after the brilliantly entertaining Hugh Dennis) was Daisy Christodolou who was discussing life after levels 5 years on.  This was a brilliant presentation that began by questioning whether the decision to remove levels was the right one.  She absolutely convinced me that it was by showing exactly how inadequate levels and associated descriptors had been at helping us to measure students progress.  They failed to provide an accurate snapshot of where students were at, failed to provide helpful next steps and became so overused that they displaced learning (her example of levelled objectives proved this point so well).  She then took us through what schools were doing differently.  The bad and sad reality is that some are not.  Some have replaced levels and level descriptors wirh… levels and level descriptors.  Other schools have simply moved GCSE descriptors down into key stage 3 whilst another popular concept has been introducing triple marking.  All systems are entirely understandable and certainly easy to see why schools have done this but these are not necessarily better than the levels they have replaced.  Luckily for us, Daisy did have some suggestions of better ways: formative assessment using multiple choice questions, one page marking proformas (which I know as class marking) and summative assessments using scaled scores and comparative judgement.  So my key takeaways from this session?  That assessment can and should be better.  When looking at what the next 5 years holds, she placed a clear emphasis on assessment practice, theory and training and as CPD lead, it is my job to ensure staff know what good assessment looks like, to provide them with strategies and to ensure that the systems we use do what we need them to do.

The next session I attended was Katherine Birbalsingh talking about her school Michaela and it was exactly that - a talk that shared with us what they do and why.  If you are interested in Michaela, I would encourage you to research the school, read blogs written by Katherine and her staff or better still to visit (that’s a definite on my ‘to-do’ list) because I am not going to type up her talk.  Instead I would like to reflect on a few things that resonated with me.  I honestly don’t know if I agree with everything that they do at Michaela and that’s okay.  Birbalsingh described herself as a ‘disruptive influence’ and this is a label she is proud of.  And she is.  She disrupted my thinking, challenged my assumptions and preconceptions and that’s what I love about her school.  Birbalsingh is a role model as an educational leader and not because of her educational philosophy but because of her absolute belief in what she is doing.  She loves her school, her community, her staff and her students and she educates them fiercely.  From saying no to nice things to having candid conversations to getting rid of appraisal to abolishing marking to bootcamping year 7s to obsessing over the minutiae of decisions, she walks her talk. You don’t have to like her (I kind of do) but it is hard not to admire her.  In her own words ‘leadership is about hard decisions and taking responsibility for those decisions’, she absolutely does that and it was refreshing to hear.     

My next session saw me listening to Rob Coe – I pretty much do it every year (alongside my annual David Weston talk) and as ever he did not disappoint.  This year he was discussing how teachers can learn to be better teachers and I found myself reflecting on his talk both as CPD lead and classroom practitioner.  As CPD lead, he reminded me that in order for teachers to improve we need to focus on three key areas: general principles, specific requirements and learning environment. Thinking generally we know that good learning takes us from where we are at, is clear about success, challenges us, assesses and feeds back on the gap, features coaching, mentoring and peer support and requires trust.  We also know that good pedagogy occurs when learning aims are linked to learning gains, it is evidence based, it is appropriate to context and blends theory (wisdom and intuition) and practice (skills and techniques).  It is important to remember that for experienced teachers, teaching is a habit and changing habits is hard, it requires time, support and feedback.  The most important focus for me though was on the environment or culture – for teachers to become better teachers, professional learning must be championed, time and funding must be devoted to it, there has to be a culture of trust and challenge and it must be coherent, existing within a wider strategy.  It is worth noting that trust does not mean ‘leaving you alone to be mediocre’, it means being vulnerable and helping other to be vulnerable enough to explore ways in which we can improve.  Coe shared with us a number of useful thoughts which resonated with me – suggesting that when thinking about changing behaviours, weightwatchers is more useful than psychology!  As a result of his talk, I have a couple of key readings to catch up on (and share with staff) and some of my own research to do around the work of the behavioural insights team as I think the ideas he discussed are the final push I need for my CPD programme to have the impact I want it to have.

There is more so much more but apparently 700 words is good practice in a blog and this is… longer.  Some excellent and thought provoking sessions as ever.