In order to achieve this integrated process of school self-evaluation, school development, performence management and CPD at Littlehampton, a docu- ment has been produced called ‘The Learning Toolkit’. This is a key document for the school in terms of outlining what is expected in terms of effective teaching and learning. It contains four sections – on Teaching for Learning, Assessment for Learning, Behaviour for Learning, and Literacy for Learning – and each section is then divided into key sub-sections:
• Principles – the importance of the approach
• Practice – what the principles should look like in the classroom
• Strategies – suggested strategies to help put the principles into practice. Specialist coaching is being used to support teachers at the school to turn the principles within the document into practice. Three teachers have been appointed to a coaching role, called ‘professional tutors’. Each of these profes- sional tutors has been allocated to a cluster of subject areas, and is then charged with using their coaching skills to support the subject leader in embedding the aspects of the toolkit into the day-to-day teaching within that area. The school self-evaluation process is used to identify areas of need, where this specialist coaching can then be targeted. Furthermore, the coaches will facilitate the sharing of best practice between subject areas within their clusters. So, for example, if a teacher in history is very skilled at developing the literacy skills of low-ability students, he or she should be asked to coach a teacher in science who wishes to develop this aspect of teaching and learning.
There is also evidence of specialist coaching being used within teams. The science department at Littlehampton Community School has identified AfL as being a key priority for development this year. The subject leaders for science have bought in some excellent AfL resources, however they are mindful of the fact that it is not enough to just buy the resources – they have to become embedded into the teaching of all science teachers. To facilitate this, they have identified teachers within the team who demonstrate good AfL practice. These colleagues have then been paired up with other science teachers. The pairs will then co-plan an AfL-rich lesson using the new resources. They will observe each other delivering the les- son, then feed back to each other in a coaching style. The best practice will then be shared with the whole department, during departmental meeting time. Another example of this sharing of expertise has been seen with the English department and other departments within the school. Following an after- school session on developing literacy strategies, members of the English
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department paired up with colleagues from the geography department who wanted to develop literacy strategies within their subject. The colleagues within the English department then coached their colleagues by co-planning a literacy-based activity with them. They then observed the activity in action in the classroom, followed by a coaching conversation after the lesson on the effectiveness of the strategy.
Question for reflection and discussion
Does your school have systems in place to facilitate the sharing of best practice amongst the staff?
It is clear that the landscape of school leadership is changing towards a more col- laborative approach between schools. In order to prepare our future leaders for this, we need to facilitate this process within schools and encourage colleagues to move outside of the comfort zone of their own subject areas – especially in large second- ary schools. Specialist coaching provides us with the opportunity to do this by encouraging colleagues from one subject area who wish to develop an aspect of their practice, to work with a good practitioner in this aspect of practice from a dif- ferent subject area.
This should not be left to chance. In smaller primary schools, it tends to happen quite naturally due to a lack of subject-based compartmentalisation – and the most effective primary schools ensure that it happens regularly. Secondary schools need to re-evaluate how they structure themselves, in order to move towards a more effective, internal collaborative approach and this may involve asking questions about the effectiveness of subject-based compartmentalisation.
A common structure for secondary schools is the faculty structure. In this model, subjects with some commonality – for example, physical education, drama, dance and so on – are placed together, often with a head of faculty and then heads of department beneath that. This may work fine. However, if the subjects within that faculty are not working effectively, then who can colleagues learn from? This prob- lem may be exacerbated if there are issues of poor leadership within that faculty. If the subjects within the faculty have all identified, for example, differentiation for the less able as a development priority, but then only ever meet together as a faculty group, how are they going to be able to learn from another subject area not in their faculty which demonstrates good practice in this area?
Would a more sensible alternative to the ‘faculty’ approach be to group subject areas together according to developmental needs, areas of strength and leadership capacity, irrespective of tenuous subject-based links? For example, why not group four or five unrelated subject areas together as ‘school improvement teams’? Each of these small clusters of subjects could be strategically put together to include some subjects areas with strengths in certain areas of pedagogy, coupled with THE COACHING TOOLKIT
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strong leadership, alongside other subject areas which need to develop certain areas of their practice, and which may lack the leadership capacity to drive this through. Amongst these school improvement teams could be set up some strong specialist coaching, based on pedagogy, avoiding an over-emphasis on subject-related issues. This model could be a very powerful driver for a more collaborative and effective form of middle leadership within secondary schools.
Question for reflection and discussion
Does your school departmental structure facilitate the sharing of best practice and collaborative working between subject areas?
Summary
School self-evaluation needs to be used to identify areas of whole-school develop- mental focus. There will then be a wealth of expertise within the staffroom that should be used in a coaching capacity to develop these areas of teaching and learning. The performance management process should also be used to enable staff to identify their CPD needs, with regards to these areas of focus, and then commit to action. Underlying all of this is the need for schools to look at their structures, systems and procedures to ensure that there are opportunities for staff to work collaboratively and share best practice.
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