Co-Constructing Evidence Based Professional Learning For School

Leaders

Philippa CordingleyPaul Crisp

Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education

Commission - set up, goals and constraints

• An experimental pilot positioned to try out evidence-informed approaches for 2 specific groups

• Priority was ensuring programmes didn’t take people away from school/s for extended periods.

• A commitment to co-construction with system leaders and to building capacity for the future

• A responsibility to create outputs tools to support future offer(e.g. handbooks , resource archives)

• A hideously short recruitment and delivery timescale

Co-construction - understanding needs

• Surveys and design and co-construction involving potential participants or those supporting them via school to school support (S2S) explored needs

• Obstacles to participating in current offers were– the scale of demands ( time and time away from schools)

being made, – the costs; and also – Inappropriateness of existing alternatives

• In effect – our region saw a need for– more structured S2S than a formal programme –– lightness of touch & responsiveness seen as key

Process features arising from co-construction

● Recognition of participants’ substantial but variable

experience

● Content and process:

● Responsiveness to needs (issues faced in these roles)

● Consistency with evidence about effective professional

and leadership development

● Recognition of participants as contributors not just

passive recipients via peer support/coaching

● An engaging, motivating and challenging process that

supported self and programme evaluation

Possible evidence informed approaches?

Look at this list and the table that follows to match 2-3 approaches to one of the target groups. Work out why you would or wouldn’t use an approach in each context• Peer coaching• Specialist coaching• Development/enquiry projects • Action learning sets• Keynote speakers • Expert witness sessions/ adult version of mantle of the

expert• Exchange & or targeted visits

How might you respond?Emerging need Executive heads Anointed but not

appointed heads

Recognition/ use of participants’ substantial but diverse priorexperience

Responsiveness to livechallenges as they unfold

Consistency with evidence re professional learning for heads/ educators

Use of participants as contributors to each others’ learning

Access to specialist expertise & experience

Recruitment and participation

Over 3.5 weeks we recruited Exec Heads sessions: 20 participants – ranging from 9-15 per

sessionAccelerator Heads: 15 initial participants (13 eligible ones) –

ranging from 7-3 per sessionLocating• Accelerator Heads was challenging because of the specificity

of the target group and their low visibility . Local networks were key.

• Executive Heads was easier although databases could rarely keep up with changes

The short timescale/notice was a major stumbling blockThe programme offered 4 formal sessions plus coaching over

circa 10 weeks

Participants - executive heads

• Existing & 2 TSA heads who were aspiring EH

• A few Federation Heads (FH)- under a lot of pressure

• Mix of primary and secondary – but more primary

• A diverse mix of scales and contexts

• Complex governance arrangements especially for FH

Evidence about effective professional learning approaches for

educators and school leaders

Head teacher CPD v CPDL for teachers:

• Lots in common; plus

• Greater importance of the availability of external peer support and its role in extending leaders’ conceptions of their role

• The availability of flexible, non-linear action oriented programmes of activity and support

• The centrality of recruitment processes in identifying leaders’ starting points and their orientation towards learning in designing learning activities

• The role of professional standards as a tool for strengthening the focus on the leadership of learning

Content

External input topics for the programme for accelerator colleagues

• Design workshops and survey analysis also identified issues accelerator colleagues wanted to explore with external input

• These were– Prioritisation and delegation

– The bear traps re statutory functions and compliance

– HR particularly re performance management

– Finance and resources

External input topics for the programme Executive Heads

• Design workshops and survey analysis identified issues EH where wanted external input:

– Governance

– Moving from headship to executive headship

– Roles and responsibilities

– Schemes of delegation

– Effective/ efficient reporting to MAT/ federation

Pooling and analysing approaches for EH

Key strategy was to ask colleagues to• Contribute their own examples of e.g. job

descriptions and schemes of delegation,

• Identify other good/ outlier examples

• Do some preliminary analysis to create an overview and identify patterns

• Use Open Space type approach to involving heads in analysing & commenting on different sub sets in turn to elicit key issues for their context

• Create a curated archive

Lessons learned

Time

• Recruitment and delivery were both MUCH, MUCH too compressed

• 4 sessions insufficient - Both cohorts wanted two more sessions

• Specialist coaching worked for accelerator heads

• Peer coaching for EH didn’t happen- Some EHs already had executive coaches but some started to set it up at the end

Lessons - Action Learning sets for EH

• 12 participants thought ALS very beneficial - 4 wanted more time

• Next steps focussed on “reflecting on the feedback from ALS” “Use learning set with Leadership team” “Reminder re coaching”

• Other also liked windows ALS offered into a range of problems “the learning sets were useful - maybe gather ‘question’ content in advance to structure groups? I think the methodology is strong”.

• It was all very thought provoking. I enjoyed listening to primary and secondary leads in different situations in the excellent learning sets.

Lessons - Action Learning sets for EH

• But 2 primary colleagues disliked them

• One felt “I don’t find the Action Learning Sets useful. I don’t feel comfortable talking about problems with people I don’t know.”

• Another wanted more guidance / advice

• And everyone welcomed a variety of learning modes and access to more “cases”

EH other contributions• One outstanding EH who was able/ willing to

– analyse, map and illustrate his journey from head to co-executive head, to Chief Executive; and

– share a lot of resources and artefacts– offer an additional Q&A session to a sub group– Valuable and greatly prized contribution to all

participants• Other specialist contributions were valued by some

participants and not by others • Perspectives from colleagues from other professions less

welcome than close to home ones• Federation heads and many primary EH/FH wanted a very

direct connection between day to day challenges and operational challenges

Accelerator heads

• Accelerator participants all comfortable with ALS

• But participants’ attendance was very vulnerable to last minute crises and lateness and low numbers made ALS tricky to run with fidelity

• In this programme there was also rather more “instruction” to address key missing building blocks emerging from the consultation

Outputs

• 6 Coaches and facilitators from the region now trained

• A network of EH participants interested in supporting the future of the programme

• Participants now say they feel like a network • Those involved in design and facilitating ( plus some

EH participants) ready to act on results of the evaluation

• The curated archive still needs mediation but could

be the beginning of a capacity building snowball

The Learning Challenge - AH

• AH had loads of information about context but lacked information about key roles and needed tools and skills through which they could process it to re-frame thinking and prioritise quickly

The learning challenge EH

• Struggled with how to act without information & established relationships

• Began to clarify acceptable roles, responsive to dynamic & diverse contexts

• Evolutionary models or roles unlike official, static descriptions

• Lots of governance / whistle blowing challenges

• A blend of principles & consultancy skills & deductive tools for managing unfamilaircomplexity

Key questions

• How can we identify and support AH strategically in a fragmented system?

• Are we buildingthe tooks and intelligence that will enable future EH to negotiate/ “map” roles and a pathway for headship to \chief exutive

Eight key CPDL processes to enable research to make a difference in classrooms

Sustained, iterative, aligned combinations of evidence rich opportunities to:• Focus on aspirations for learners/students

• Access specialist expertise e.g. via research/evaluation

• Engage in peer supported dialogue re learner responses to changes

• Explore disruptions, assumptions & beliefs

• Develop practice and theory/rationale side by side

• Engage in AFL for teachers

• Access support via professional learning toolshttp://www.curee.co.uk/news/2015/06/developing-great-teaching-new-report-effective-teachers-professional-

development

Effect sizes for leadership interventions

Ensuring an orderly and supportive environment

Establishing goals and expectations

Planning, coordinating and evaluating teaching and the curriculum

Promoting and participating in teacher learning

Strategic resourcing

Effect sizes for leadership interventions

Promoting and participating in teacher learning (0.84)

Planning, coordinating and evaluating teaching and the curriculum (0.42)

Establishing goals and expectations (0.35)

Strategic resourcing (0.34)

Ensuring an orderly and supportive environment (0.27)

Contact DetailsPhilippa.cordingley@curee.co.uk

@PhilippaCcuree

@paulcrisp

Paul.crisp@curee.co.uk

www.curee.co.ukCentre for the Use of Research and Evidence in

EducationTel: 024 7652 4036