CPD Team

This a guest post from Stirling Mackie, Head Teacher of Irvine Royal Academy

 “The secret of management is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided”

(Casey Stengel, former manager of the New York Yankees. All other quotes are from Yogi Berra, former player with the New York Yankees)

One thing about learning rounds is that it delivers the exact opposite of Casey Stengel’s advice. In fact it positively rejoices in doing the opposite and mixing everyone up!

I was fortunate enough to attend the conference addressed by Professor Richard Elmore at Hampden Park in Glasgow in 2007(?). It was being able to hear first hand from Elmore which really inspired me to look more closely at this way of aiding school improvement.

My next step was to buy his book ‘School Reform from the Inside Out’. It is a surprisingly ‘easy’ read and confirmed my initial thoughts that there was something in this. However, like so many other ‘good ideas’ other things got in the way of taking it forward (like an HMIe inspection).

However in 2008, North Ayrshire decided to volunteer to be part of the national learning rounds pilot. The journey of everyone involved in that part of the journey is recorded elsewhere. What I want to share is Irvine Royal Academy’s individual journey, which has already taken a somewhat different, or quicker, route (perhaps Virgin Express rather than …well a slower train company).

We were first to welcome the mixed group of headteachers, deputes, authority staff, academics etc etc into our school to observe learning and teaching. It was on a volunteer basis, and for a variety of historical reasons, we had more than enough volunteers.

This brings me to point 1.

 Irvine Royal Academy was a school at a stage in its development where staff were anxious to invite ‘outsiders’ into their classrooms. Two years earlier I think I would have struggled to get more than a handful of ‘guinea pigs’. In other words much preparatory work had been done (‘inadvertently’ and for other reasons) to create an ‘ethos of openness’ in the school. So in asking yourself, will learning rounds work in my school, the first requirement is, “how open is the school culture currently?” In my opinion learning rounds can considerably help the further development of a culture of openness, but to implement it without it, could potentially lead to conflict and have the opposite effect.

‘You can observe a lot by watching’

I was committed to the learning rounds model and wanted to pilot it. I decided to approach Principal Teachers, on the basis that they already had experience of classroom observation as part of the school’s quality assurance procedures. Only two declined the opportunity.

We put them into groups of two/three and set up observations for them in departments that were not their own. A member of the SMT was also attached to each group, and in one case Margaret Orr of the National CPD team joined one of the groups.

Point 2

Principal Teachers adapted to the learning rounds model quicker than the HT/DHT group. They adopted the descriptive voice, and came up with an impressive list of observations, which can easily be turned into an agenda for action.

They thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and interestingly, their observations also caused them to reflect on their own practice, and lead to immediate changes in their own pedagogy and methodology. Is this powerful CPD or what?

‘If you don’t know where you are going you will end up somewhere else’

We always had a clear idea of where we were going. I wanted to involve ALL staff in the learning rounds model. Would staff want to be involved? Overwhelmingly yes. Approximately 80% of unpromoted staff have volunteered to join a learning rounds group. They may not express it exactly as I do, in the big picture of school improvement, but they have real clarity about two things.

1. That this is powerful CPD.
2. That the object is to improve learning and teaching and thereby more fully engage students and raise attainment.

We have planned to set up the next round of observations by unpromoted staff during ‘SQA time’.

‘The future ain’t what it used to be’

Thank goodness! The future used to be a ‘done to’ model. This is a ‘done together’ model. It works for us because of the climate which had been built over the last two years. It might not work in other places. However;

• I have no doubt as to the advantages that this model can bring to the process of school improvement.
• I have no doubt that staff are correct. This is powerful CPD
• I have no doubt that the impact is immediate.
• I have no doubt that this is real collegiality.
• I have no doubt that we will continue to develop the model further.

Leadership of Learning is a key theme of the Learning Rounds programme and the following is a good text if you want to read more about the issue:

What We Know About School Leadership. Nottingham: NCSL

This report presents an overview of what is known about school leadership, drawing together commissioned research and evaluations NCSL has undertaken, the outcomes of practitioner enquiries, seminars and think tanks, as well as literature reviews and work outside England and education. A key feature of the report is that school leaders should ‘generate and sustain discussion about Learning & Teaching’ (p.20).
It can be accessed on http://www.ncsl.org.uk/media-3e7-55-what-we-know-about-school-leadership.pdf.

 As part of the Learning Rounds, we promised to share with you the resources that are being developed by the LR team to support the project. The first of these are now available on the LR blog.

The first is a simple checklist of the kind of pupil activity that might indicate that they are engaged in learning. The second is some guidance on communication skills which might be helpful when sharing reflection after an observation.

Neither are final or perfect.  They are works in progress and will develop, but colleagues have indicated they’d like early access to them.

If you decide to give them a go, please let us know what you think!

The Learning Rounds (LR) pilot, led by the CPD Team and SCSSA, continues to grow and develop. Colleagues from schools in North Ayrshire and Angus have already been involved. You can see an update of our current work in this project by visiting the LR blog.

Over the next few weeks we will begin to publish some materials which are being developed by the LR team. These will cover topics such as classroom obesrvation using the descriptive voice, teacher movement charts, giving and receiving feedback, higher-order learning, etc. You are very welcome to use these if you find them useful, and we would love to hear from you if you do try them in your school or class.

The Learning and Teaching Committee at Brechin High School has been meeting regularly for the past year at lunchtime on Thursdays to discuss issues of professional interest. The group of approximately 25 teachers started out with a mutual interest in behaviour management and progressed to discussing their experiences in implementing cooperative learning strategies. The meetings were so successful that the group decided to develop ways of supporting each other through peer observation. An early focus for this work was the area of listening skills which was adopted as a learning focus for teachers throughout the school.

 The group’s experience make it an ideal context in which to pilot Learning Rounds, Read more…

SCSSA is leading an exciting new project in partnership with the national CPD Team and the Scottish Government. The project aims to deepen expertise at school and authority level in leading change successfully.Groups of staff will investigate and trial leadership approaches to change designed to deliver high quality learning and teaching across classes, schools and authorities.The process will give educational leaders the opportunity to really fine-tune their skills in developing system wide improvement and will run for the next two years.The attached file below gives an overview of the Learning Rounds project and what we will achieve. Learning Rounds Overview.doc