It’s no secret that one of the ways many schools are driving improvement in education is by empowering teachers to become classroom researchers; trialling evidence based best bets with their own students, reflecting on the impact and making small but meaningful adjustments to their practice as a result. The benefits of this approach hardly need selling, with many leading educationalists like John Tomsett, Jonny Uttley and Graham Chisnell, among others, writing about the impact on practice, staff morale and ultimately school culture and student progress.
Our journey to school improvement has been built on a few key strategies, one of which has been applying the inspiration gained from these educationalists to our setting. We are lucky to be part of a trust which has trained, supported, and encouraged us to engage with this approach.
Just 6 months ago, although some individuals within our academy may have been engaging with research in their own time, it was not part of the culture or supported by our systems. Despite this recent starting point, we have successfully embarked on a journey to becoming research informed, hopefully the details and reflections below will be a practical help to anyone starting out on the same path.
Creating a buzz:
Its likely the most important factor in creating a culture of inquiry is to ensure investment from the individuals you are expecting to inquire, so the launch was key. Our launch was part of a September INSET Day and comprised of staff training and supported research.
Our staff training introduced the concept of inquiry questions, some of our colleagues were not familiar with the idea so some key points about what inquiry questions are and what they are not were discussed. For example, dispelling the myth that teachers would be expected to make grandiose claims about their research findings. It was also made clear that inquiry questions are about thinking deeply and ensuring small but sustained improvements in teaching practice across the academy over time.
Following the training session teachers were moved to the library where they had plenty of time to browse a wealth of research which included carefully selected books, articles from Impact Magazine, blogs, WalkThrus, and examples of possible inquiry questions. The resources were arranged into 4 distinct strands which had been agreed by SLT in advance to align closely with our academy improvement strategy. These were literacy, groups (boys, HAPs, PP), SEND and behaviours for learning. The room had been arranged café style including refreshments, with the view of giving colleagues the chance to discuss, browse and engage with the research materials in a relaxed and enjoyable way. Teachers were provided with note sheets to jot down any books/resources that had piqued their interest. Finally at the end of this session colleagues submitted forms ranking their interest in the 4 research strands.
Building in time:
Next most important factor in creating a culture of inquiry is likely to be building in time for busy colleagues to engage with research, discuss their ideas and plan their implementation. Therefore, we carefully planned time within our staff meetings to ensure they felt empowered and enabled by the process, and not like they had been asked to perform an additional task on top of their already busy workload.
The next session comprised of a short reminder training session about how to word an inquiry question, what the implementation and data collection may entail and information about the structure of the inquiry cycle. We had decided that in our first year we would complete 2 short cycles rather than 1 longer cycle to ensure that we could reflect on the outcomes sooner and ensure continued emphasis on inquiry throughout the year. This meant that the time scales allowed a half term to plan, a half term to implement and a half term to reflect, before starting the cycle again.
Once the training session was complete colleagues were assigned their strands (based on their initial preferences form) and were moved into separate spaces. Once in their strands colleagues had access to all the afore mentioned resources from the first session, computers and each strand was allotted a lead teacher to provide support and guide discussions. Within the strands, teachers completed their research, finalised their inquiry questions and discussed these with colleagues engaging in similar research. Finally, all inquiry questions were submitted via a Microsoft Form, which collected data on proposed inquiry question and the range of data which would be collected to determine impact.
As this was the first inquiry cycle, all the proposed inquiry questions were read and discussed with individuals to ensure that everyone started the process with a practical inquiry question and a good range of proposed data.
Specific window for completion:
As we all know teachers are incredibly busy and often need to make tough decisions about how to spend their time, therefore it was of paramount importance to provide a specific time frame within which the implementation stage took place to ensure that it felt manageable. The implementation window commenced with plentiful reminders that any start point data should be collected and then colleagues were given a half term to implement their chosen techniques. Towards the end of the half term reminders were given to ensure any end point data was collected in good time, and support was available throughout, for anyone wanting it.
Consistent approach to evaluation:
From the outset the inquiry evaluation (and subsequent sharing of them) had been signposted as the final stage of the cycle. We felt that to build the culture and establish research-based practice as a norm we needed to genuinely value the work done by all and dedicate time to effective sharing. To enable this it was essential that there was a consistent approach to the inquiry write up so that colleagues had a common structure and language in their evaluations.
In early January (the start of the 3rd half term of the inquiry cycle) teachers were provided with a template for the evaluation, which included a guidance sheet and example inquiry question evaluation (which I had written from my own IQ). Simply providing the template, which all fits on a side of A4, not only provided structure but also limited the length of evaluations to ensure that writing them did not have a negative impact on staff workload and that the completed evaluations would be succinct enough for colleagues to access each other’s work.
Celebrate the cycle:
Having completed the first cycle it was important that all the hard work by colleagues was acknowledged so every single IQ evaluation was read (by me) and personal feedback given. This was a truly enlightening experience as it provided a wealth of knowledge about both the strategies that were implemented and the individuals who planned them.
In order to share the evaluations, staff meeting time was dedicated for this purpose. To give variety in the way that the evaluations were shared, the session was again broken into two parts. The first part was a presentation where some common challenges were shared, for example limited data and starting with an answer rather than starting with the inquiry. Some solutions to these common challenges were discussed. Two particularly strong evaluations were shared by colleagues who had kindly agreed to contribute to the session and strengths from these were reflected upon. For example innovative use of controls, detailed rationales, and insightful conclusions.
The second part of the session saw the all the Evaluations displayed for colleagues to browse. As there was a vast number of these they had been carefully grouped (using a displayed bubble diagram) into discrete focus areas (which interestingly had evolved from our initial 4 strands) so that colleagues could focus their browsing on inquiry questions that were particularly interesting to them or linked to their own inquiry.
Following the conclusion of the first cycle colleagues are now in the process of submitting a Microsoft Form to confirm they are either continuing with their IQ to gather more data, tweaking their IQ in response to their conclusions, or starting a completely new inquiry.
Next steps for us:
Having read this far you can see that we are by no means the finished product, and will certainly endeavour to adapt our inquiry approach to improve its impact.
Moving forward we intend to have yearly cycles to enable more time for engaging with research and implementation. This will include more emphasis on how to engage with research effectively and the EEF provide great resources we intend to utilise to help further develop our practitioners research skills.
The process may also need to have a greater focus on faculties working together on common problems to allow middle leaders to drive improvement in a subject specific way and allow more detailed collaboration and research teams/partnerships to develop. Work to link the IQs in with our annual professional reviews has already begun with a pilot group already trialling this ready for a potential wider launch next year.
Finally, the need for all colleagues, including non-teaching staff to be involved in inquiry has been referenced by many leading in this field and we are yet to establish this within our setting.
Despite the range of possibilities for improvement, it has been a useful point to pause and fully reflect on the journey so far, and having documented here what we have achieved as an academy I am proud of how quickly our talented team have adapted to a new way of working, and displayed their expertise so brilliantly. I look forward to the next cycle, and beyond.
Cat Rushton
@CatherineRusht2
Links to some of my Resources :)
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DXyfXxrKJfiLYwVmZwFpUiWgc_n8DNROSlpJg-lklWM/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1rO5vYEjIvg1c1V7XK0lkXdUEbsv9yq5nxp4xF0rykZs/edit?usp=sharing