My mind is often full of thoughts whirring around as they fully form and link together. Sometimes the links happen quickly and sometimes it takes a while, it depends what I’ve read, what that has sparked and what knowledge I already have to filter the new thoughts through. After ResearchEd Birmingham yesterday my mind has slotted some key bits together, further proving to me the value of Saturday CPD; the talks were like the missing bits of the puzzle!

My dissertation on how middle and senior leaders make sense of change has dictated my reading and my thinking for months now. I have done my research, I have done my analysis and my results seem to be really interesting – my initial interpretation of the data appears to show that sensemaking by both groups is centred round interactions and communication; for example, intended message versus received message. It is fascinating and it is making me reflect an awful lot on my own role as a Faculty Leader as well as school systems as a whole.

However, all this thinking can become very internalised and isolating; when you’re researching and writing, you are largely on your own and you have no one to tell you if what you’re doing is right or wrong. That gets hard and the self-doubt starts to creep in. So when the ResearchEd Birmingham programme was published last week, I quickly spied the sessions that linked to my research and made a bee-line for those.

I felt a wave of reassurance listening to Kathryn Morgan talking about the power of conversation; I suddenly realised that my research findings are onto something because I’m clearly not the only person discovering this or thinking this way. I had been inspired by the theory in journals such as by ‘Reconceptualising and redefining educational leadership practice’ by James et al (2019); their work on different forms of interaction coupled with my fascination with sensemaking sparked my initial decision to study this area. However, to then go and listen to someone else speak about communication, conversations and interactions made me feel my choice to look at this was valid. It effectively pressed pause on the internal thinking and tethered my thinking back in the real world which was very reassuring indeed!

I’ve also been giving a great amount of thought to the role of middle leaders within organisations. Balogun and Hailey (2008) describe their position as Janus-like; they see up and they see down. They are change agents. As a middle leader this made complete sense to me. Then I read Beck and Plowman’s journal article ‘The Role of Middle Managers in Animating and Guiding Organisational Interpretations’ and they cited Floyd and Lane (2000, pp.164-165) who say that “The complexity of information and the number of potential interactions, therefore, are greater for middle managers than for top or operating level managers”. This also made sense and set off a lightbulb in my mind; when you are juggling the needs, expectations and pressures of both senior leaders and teachers that is hard, it is complex.

Schools are complex systems and complexity theory tells us there are no simple answers; it is often a case of finding the best fit or at least a way of dealing with a situation that does no harm. These ideas make sense to me; I see it in action, I enact them in my middle leader role and I have studied it through my Masters work. But there isn’t much written about complexity, at least not from a school point of view so hearing Matthew Evans talk yesterday was a delight. Here was someone else thinking about leadership and complexity. He talked about schools as complex places, he acknowledged wicked problems and he is a real life school leader! It was great; again I realised my thinking has a place in reality, I’m not just looking at a theory, it is real and it has value.

So therefore, for me, getting out of bed early on a Saturday and going to ResearchEd was 100% worth it. I realised that I am not alone in wanting to think and develop as a teacher; there were 749 other people who felt the same way. But even more important for me, the work I’m doing for my dissertation doesn’t feel so lonely or theoretical now, it has a grounding in reality and there is scope for it to impact practice. As I draw to the end of my studies, I need to figure how to still engage in this kind of thinking but in a different and sustained way. I feel after yesterday that I might have found a way and that is a very powerful takeaway from an amazing day.  

References

Balogun, J. and Hailey, V.H. (2008).  Exploring Strategic Change (3^rd edition). Essex: Pearson Education Ltd.

Beck, T. and Plowman, D. (2009). ‘Experiencing Rare and Unusual Events Richly: The Role of Middle Managers in Animating and Guiding Organization Interpretation.’ Organization Science. Vol.20, No.5.

James, C., Connolly, M. and Hawkins, M. (2019). ‘Reconceptualising and Redefining Educational Leadership.’ International Journal of Leadership (20190507).

My recent reading, research and thinking has all been centred around how Middle and Senior Leaders make sense of change and whether they see situations in the same way or different. It has been fascinating and I am enjoying developing my thoughts and understanding as I write my dissertation. Along the way, I also read “Be More Toddler” and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I particularly latched onto the idea of the school’s vision and the need to hold onto it as akin to being a toddler clutching on tightly to chocolate buttons and refusing to let go; having read widely about leadership, vision and the need to align the two, the analogy worked well – it allowed me to make sense of the power of a clear vision and the need to hold onto it.

But then I started thinking and reflecting more on what that means for Middle Leaders and how chocolate buttons work in practice. The role of a Middle Leader is complex; Balogun and Hailey (2008) describe their role as Janus-like because they are in the unique position of seeing up to senior leadership and down to teaching colleagues; they have to balance the two. My own experience would concur with this; often I find myself reflecting on the best way to implement change instigated from above in a way that my colleagues and I can manage with the capacity and capability that we have, middle leadership often feels like a balancing act.

I have a clear vision for my Faculty; as a languages teacher I want students to develop skills that enable them use languages in the real world, I want them to be linguists with real and transferable language learning skills. I arrived at this vision in conjunction with my language colleagues based on our shared philosophy of the importance of being able to speak a foreign language. Our passion for helping students develop as linguists is our guiding light as we work out how to deliver the GCSE and A level specs; all the time we are planning we are clutching our chocolate buttons to make sure that the students in our classrooms leave us able to speak French or German or Spanish.

I’m lucky; I know what my chocolate buttons are and I share those with my colleagues. I am also lucky that my chocolate buttons fit with the whole school vision. But what if they didn’t? Leadership occurs on many levels and those levels of leadership should be in harmony with each other because if they are pulling in opposite directions, little will change and everyone’s efforts will be ineffective. As I reflected on “Be More Toddler” I realised that I think that it isn’t about a single packet of chocolate buttons, schools are more complex than that; they are like a multi-pack of buttons. Senior Leaders get to choose the kind of buttons and they get to design the packaging; they are the chief manufacturer of all the chocolate buttons we have. However, as a middle leader, I have an element of choice about my buttons but they have to fit inside the multipack.

Taking the analogy further, if SLT have decided that the school is all about milk chocolate buttons and I want to have white chocolate buttons, that won’t work. If someone came along and opened the multi-pack and found three packets of milk chocolate buttons, one dark chocolate packet, one white chocolate packet, a lollipop, some fudge and a bag of crisps, they would be confused. So how does it all come together? Well, as a middle leader, if I know my senior leaders want milk chocolate buttons, I either have to make my buttons fit inside their multi-pack, I can present a case for white chocolate buttons or I have to take my buttons elsewhere, to an establishment where they do fit.

With my Janus-like view, I can see the vision from above and I can see the classroom; my role is to get the recipe right so that there is harmony between the two. Leaders may decide on the buttons but everyone has to want to eat them and that requires buy-in at every level; middle leaders have a pivotal role to play in persuading everyone that they will enjoy them if they try, whichever bag they take out of the multi-pack.

Chocolate buttons as a senior leader

I found so many things within “Be More Toddler” to be a reflection of time with a toddler and on how to lead effectively.  It took me back to my maternity and whilst I was enjoying the coffee mornings, playdates, sleepless nights and tantrums I wasn’t aware of how many lessons there were to learn from the behaviours of the toddler. I particularly liked the reference to the presence that toddlers have; how once you start a family there becomes a working vision of how that family want to live, and even when the toddler is not there, their existence somehow still permeates the area. Isn’t this what all leaders strive to achieve, a school where the vision is evident everywhere where all the surroundings convey the vision and what the school is driving for. Emma’s second lesson talks about teams and how toddlers happily identify and sharing successes with anyone that will listen, no matter how small it may be. Leaders at all levels could use this to reflect on how we recognise and celebrate those successes and through that create positive teams. Emma’s analogy of being involved in that process as a senior leader resonated with me, are we happy to recognise our role in simply pushing the swing for hours?   

It was as I read the chapter on taking the risk that I wondered if my toddlers taught me a lesson that I have brought into leadership. I have always been a mum that has not panicked about my children falling and have encouraged them to climb trees and had the approach, that if they take a tumble I will wipe down their knees and they will learn not to do it again (which may have been made slightly easier by having boys). I feel this is how I work and lead, I try to encourage staff to try new things to adapt and I have always been happy to take risks. I also however now recognise how having the right chocolate button to hold onto helps limit the risk. Which brings me back to Jude’s reflections on the chocolate buttons…

When I was reading this book and then Jude’s thoughts I got thinking about how holding onto the button can be seen at both senior and middle leadership and for some reason it took me to the work of Heifetz et al and adaptive leadership (2009). I think that Emma is right and successful senior leaders need to know when it is important to have a clear hold on their choc button and refuse to let go. Jude was also right that it is important for middle leaders to be empowered and feel they have some element of choice on a number of key facets within a school. Continuing with her choc analogy my key thought was; is having a single style choc button in a school the right approach? Middle leaders of various subjects all have a different approaches to the same problem and is this wrong? I think the difficulty comes in how senior leaders encourage and enable a level of flexibility with middle leaders whilst also ensuring that all staff stay true to the vision and don’t go rogue.

I feel a lot of this surely comes down to the problem or task at hand? Emma discusses how we need to pick our battles and know when to sit docile in the pushchair and when to have the ‘chocolate mentality’. This will largely come down to the type of task, Heifetz identifies that there are different types of tasks that leaders will face, technical and adaptive problems. Technical ones are often straightforward but may be crucial and therefore leaders can diagnose the problem and direct the actions. In doing so they will ensure the same message is heard and delivered across the school ensuring clarity and consistency for both staff and students. This to me would be the time for the senior leader to adopt the chocolate mentality and hold on tight, knowing what is right for the organisation. It may be that a share bag is needed and leaders at all levels are asked to hold tight to the buttons, ensuring an effective dissemination of the school vision and school priorities would certainly be examples.

However schools are filled with more adaptive and wicked problems to which senior leaders refusing to let go of the button may not be the right answer. These kind of problems often need staff to think outside the box and produce different ideas. Emma looks at this through her decision filter, with the production of ideas that align with the core value/vision or purpose. It may be in these situations that senior leaders need to consider a different packaging all together, one which allows for a myriad of ideas. Without blurring the line between Cadbury’s and Mars; is this where there may be a place for a pack of Revels (even the coffee one!)?

Jude’s notion of the packaging may be key to this, in ensuring the message is shared and is the same across an organisation it is more about the senior leaders deciding which type of pack, buttons or revels, is best and then holding tight to that and guiding middle leaders to drive that forward. I would agree with Heifetz, and feel that having a more elastic cognitive approach to certain things allows a deeper awareness and perspective and with this the views of all stakeholders can be considered, and this elasticity can be used to determine the packaging. Is it that Jude feels her chocolate buttons just so happen to align with the school or is it that they align with the school because the vision of the school has been held tight and communicated effectively?  

This train of thought on choc not only made me hungry but also made me think of so many other applications such as how as leaders at all levels need to consider what happens if too many choc buttons are eaten by the toddler, end result is not pretty! There are many schools that see fixing a problem or driving success being about piling on new initiative after new initiative to the point where staff can no longer recall what the main focus is and they reach exhaustion. Emma’s decision filter is a great example of how to overcome this.

My final thought was how schools can be guilty of changing the packaging but the product is the same. Not a bad tactic as sometimes things simply need refreshing but this only goes so far and at some point the product itself needs to adapt; think of Cadbury’s new mix-ups. Does the product and therefore the packaging need to evolve and allows schools to flourish, and are senior leaders open to these possibilities?

Postscript

Jude – Thank you to Emma Turner for responding to my random DM on Twitter where I shared my multi-pack idea and asked if she minded if I wrote a blog about it. Not only did she reply, she then took the time to chat with me about it – the power of reading and social media to provide CPD for teachers is huge, especially when authors are willing to give up their time to help random teachers who contact them on Saturday mornings!  

Jenny – To echo Jude, thank you Emma for this book it is a refreshing take on some of the complexities of managing change and driving success in a school and one in which I enjoyed relating to and learning from.

References

Balogun, J. and Hailey, V.H. (2008).  Exploring Strategic Change (3^rd edition). Essex: Pearson Education Ltd.

Heifetz, R. A., Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. (2009). The practice of adaptive leadership: Tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. Harvard Business Press.

Turner, E. (2019). Be More Toddler: A Leadership Education from our Little Leaders. Woodbridge: John Catt.

Jude’s perception on research informed teaching

Using research to inform my practice is something that I am passionate about and it just makes sense to me; why wouldn’t I want to engage with research to improve as a classroom teacher? However, there is so much out there, so many ideas and so many possible new strategies to engage with that it can be a bit overwhelming. I gave a lecture to some PGCE students recently about using research in practice and it really made me stop and reflect – what am I doing, how am I doing it and why am I doing it?

I read. I read a lot. I am forever surrounded by books and journals or I am reading blogs online. That fuels my thinking and inspires my practice. But engaging with research isn’t just about reading. It is about thinking and about criticality. Not every idea will work in my context. Not every idea will suit my teaching style or my subject. Not every idea will be a sound idea. Not every idea will be based on research (think about some of the trends in education over the last few years, we have all delivered some ideas that later turned out to be just that, ideas but with no basis). So once I’ve read, I think critically to make sure I have found the golden nuggets that will make a valuable impact on my practice.  I make sure that what I take from my reading and then act upon will be for the benefit of the students I teach. I try to avoid the silver bullets, the quick wins that seem to be too good to be true (and tend to end up with me getting out my trusted laminator!) because long term, they often don’t have an impact on the students. The silver bullets are tempting but the danger is that by trying to do something from everything I read, I will dilute the impact and just create chaos in my classroom. The golden nuggets are the gems that you embed in your practice, that grow your thinking, that help you learn and make you a better teacher.

Golden Nuggets nor silver bullets!! – Jenny’s perception of problems with encouraging research informed teaching

So firstly I feel I need to clarify myself… I too have a strong belief that using research to help inform teaching practice in a classroom and across the school is of enormous value. My statement ‘nuggets nor bullets’ refers to the number of practitioners that don’t appear to value or engage with the research that is out there. Whilst this has always been a bit of a phenomenon for me, as a senior leader I have now had to think more about how I can help steer the boat a little and try to help staff see the value in this more. So in understanding the issue I find myself asking a few questions:

Is it that staff don’t know about how to find research? I find this hard to believe, simply typing in successful teaching strategies found me about 284,000,000 results in just 0.61 seconds. I feel we are in an exciting place for educationalists at the moment there are a number of books being written, blogs being shared all sharing successes and ideas based on research, no longer do we need to head to the library and search out journals, if we don’t want to. Jude is in heaven, two things she loves; reading and teaching found everywhere. Jude currently runs a professional reading group where she finds the books, scans segments, provides a group to discuss this and even shares her summary of the main findings. Our school has a professional reading Twitter account where a variety of things are posted enabling staff to read about research and select strategies as appropriate. The school runs a number of 15 minute forums which can help staff engage with some teaching and learning nuggets that can be shared. Plus we have professional reading that forms part of the directed faculty meetings. I know a number of schools do the same in in many cases more so I am not sure this is the problem in schools.

Is it that staff don’t have the time? I am not going to sit and type this from my ‘ivory tower’ and suggest that this is not a problem for staff. I appreciate teaching a full day with duties can often be a barrier for staff attending additional CPD sessions. But could they read a book for 20mins? Could they go onto twitter and see what other people are sharing? Could they try and find time to have a discussion with other members of the school who are interested? This is a barrier and leaders in the school need to look at how this can be broken down, we are currently looking at how we can use some directed time to add a Teaching and Learning slot in for all staff to attend. 

Do staff not see the value in the research? I think this is the case for a number of teachers in education and is a more of a Wicked Problem for school. There are no quick fixes, it is about changing a culture, about changing the mind-set of staff, about encouraging and empowering staff to embrace new ideas and not be scared of taking a risk! This needs a golden nugget of its own!

We are Jenny and Jude,  a pair of research driven, reading fuelled leaders based in an academy in the UK and we are committed to doing our best to turn our school and our classrooms into thinking spaces where learning takes centre stage. We are committed to bringing research and practice together in the real world, making sure it has an impact where it is most needed.

As one senior leader and one middle leader we have a wealth of expertise and between us we can connect the dots between the different groups of leaders, helping to ensure that everyone is coming at things from the same page. The alternative perspectives we bring to the same issues are invaluable for tackling leadership issues and whole school problem solving.

As part of this blog we will be sharing our thoughts and reflections on our experiences of leadership, research we’ve read and engaged with as well as anything else education related we think people might find interesting. We currently share a lot of our musings over our Tuesday morning coffee and geek sessions but we now want to put our heads above the parapet and share our musings to a wider audience. We’re big into lifelong learning and we look forward to getting feedback and interacting with others to help us develop our thinking and learning further.

The senior half of the duo

Hi, I am an assistant head teacher and PE teacher. In my spare time I play hockey and spend time with my husband and 2 lovely boys. A motto I have always lived by is ‘be the best you can be’; in doing that I strive to make a difference to children’s education and help them and the teachers I work with to do the same.

When I look back on my life it is clear now that it was PE and the support of two key teachers that motivated me to be better in life and influenced the way I think and approach teaching. The time those teachers took to build relationships with me guided me through some difficult times as a teenager. It’s not surprising therefore that I went on to become a PE teacher with relationships being the foundation to my approach to teaching and leadership.

Unlike many bloggers I haven’t written any books… but like many bloggers I spend a great deal of time reflecting and musing over different initiatives, new ideas or problems I face in school. Having completed a Masters a few years ago and recently becoming an SLE I am keen to become part of the movement of teachers and leaders sharing successes and failures that I continually experience to help others reflect on theirs. I realise we are part of something far bigger than our classroom or school and we live in a time where, through collaboration, we can help shape education across the country.

If on mastermind I would say my specialist subjects were curriculum, assessment, pupil premium, teaching and learning and enrichment. I have been heavily influenced by Heidi Jacobs and her thoughts of the fragmented system of education that the majority of schools operate in. I am a constructionist and therefore believe strongly that we learn from our experiences and feel this should be reflected in the curriculum and learning opportunities we give to students. Working closely with disadvantaged students means I fully respect and value the importance of an effective pastoral system but am no specialist and wouldn’t really want to be in the black chair with pastoral questions being fired at me!

The middle half of the duo

I am a Faculty Leader for Languages, leading a team of 5 lovely linguists who teach three languages across three Key Stages. I have been teaching since 2004 and I can honestly say I still love my job, even on those crazy busy days where there aren’t enough hours, my head is spinning and there is no more chocolate in my desk drawer!

I fell in love with words at an early age; that translated into a passion for reading and later a passion for French, hence the day job! I have always worked on the basis that there is no problem that cannot be solved by reading about it and I am never without a book (or several!) on the go. I lead our professional reading group at school and have been referred to as chief geek on more than one occasion, something that makes me very proud!

In my spare time I am studying for my Masters in Educational Leadership and am currently in the throes of writing my dissertation looking at the way middle and seniors make sense of change. I have discovered Weick’s theory of sensemaking since starting my MA and I love how these ideas link so well to the real world. Wicked problems and complexity theory also feature heavily in my thinking. However, what I find really interesting is how theory translates into practice and how does research actually change education for the better? My thought is that educational research is only valuable if it improves experiences and outcomes for students and that is what I try to incorporate into my daily teaching as well as disseminating it throughout school.

Some final thoughts

This is a space we have created to try to get all the different cogs in education working together; we will write about curriculum, assessment, research, behaviour, teaching, learning and CPD amongst other things to try to connect all those elements together. We hope to spark discussion and share ideas and we hope you enjoy reading what we write and sharing your thoughts with us to help move towards a shared goal – to make things better for the students we teach.

We often see on Twitter ‘all views my own’ and that really is what we are about. A lot of what we will put on here will be our thoughts and reflections, some will be based on literature and recent research, others will be based on our own experiences in school. They will all have in common the fact that they are solely our views, no one else’s.