The power of networking within a school

Introduction

In this paper, I shall describe how we have broken down barriers between subject departments and between the hierarchical layers within our organisation in order to encourage sharing of best practice and innovation within the classroom.  The strategy has had huge benefits, not only in terms of student learning but also of staff learning and motivation and an increased desire amongst staff to take risks and to model the learning process that we want to encourage in young people.

Context

Norton College is a rural 11-18 secondary school in the United Kingdom with about 65 teaching and non-teaching staff.  In order to encourage new developments, our previous headteacher introduced ‘Teaching and Learning Quality time’ (TALQ time).  Once a fortnight, the school closes one hour early and the week’s one hour meeting time is added on to the end of the day. This means that we have a two-hour period dedicated to ‘learning and teaching’. The headteacher stipulated that, although this time could be used for meetings, these must not be about administrative issues but about classroom practice.  Initially, this time was allocated to faculties, and curriculum leaders drew up a plan for the year.
Staff, parents, governors and the local authority had to be convinced that the loss of teaching time would bring tangible benefits in terms of students’ progress; some parents were concerned about the need to look after children coming home earlier than usual; and as a rural school, where many students use buses to get to and from school, arrangements had to be made with transport services.

Taking the next step

After two years of TALQ time, we were convinced of its value.  Some faculties were using the time extremely well, building strong teams and excellent resources.  But the excellent practice being developed in some areas was not being shared. 

We decided that in order to develop best practice across the college we needed to break down subject barriers.  To do this, we have alternated TALQ sessions between faculty work and what we have termed ‘collaborations’.  These are groups of staff – both teaching and non-teaching – who agree to work together on a specific area of learning and teaching.  To give some concrete examples, a group of staff has come together under the leadership of a main scale RE teacher to investigate the effective use of interactive whiteboards in the classroom.  A second group is developing the use of our new learning platform; this group has created virtual ‘staffrooms’ where members of collaborations discuss ideas and classroom practice and share resources, increasing the effectiveness of the collaborations further.  A third group is introducing a ‘Learning to Learn’ programme into all faculty areas and has set up a system of joint observation and mentoring in order to develop their practice.  In all these cases, leadership of the collaborations has not come from senior staff but from staff at all levels, including non-teaching staff, who are interested in developing an idea with others.

Membership of collaborations is voluntary.  Some staff elect not to join one of the larger collaborations but set up smaller groups of their own. A mathematics teacher and an art teacher have worked together to produce materials combining the study of pop art with transformations in geometry. Science and modern foreign languages staff have collaborated to investigate how group work could be made more effective in both subject areas.  Records of their work included lesson plans and evaluations and video of students working together.

As is clear from this, teachers have taken responsibility for their own learning and have developed some excellent ideas.  In order to share these with members of other collaborations, we have now put aside a professional development day in the Spring term for the sharing of innovations.  The day is run as a series of workshops based around the outcomes of collaborative working and staff choose which ones are of interest.

In a further development of the collaborative idea, we perceived a need for curriculum leaders (who lead our faculties) to work more closely together.  We have therefore set aside three half days during the school year when they work together on learning and teaching issues of relevance to, and chosen by, them.  Leadership of this group has come from within and not from senior leadership.  This year, the group developed ideas for ‘thematic days’ for students.  Our year 7 students (11 year olds) are currently preparing, in discrete subject areas, for a thematic day based on our links with a school in Sri Lanka.  The work will then be followed up in subject areas.  In this way, students are helped to understand the links between different parts of the curriculum – as are the curriculum leaders themselves!  The workshops have, for instance, raised issues about ‘talk for learning’ that have led to the definition of group work roles that can be used in all subject areas.

A very recent development has been the introduction of the General Teaching Council’s ‘Teacher Learning Academy’ framework into the school.  Some teachers are using this framework to plan their collaborative work and to evaluate outcomes as well as submitting presentations and gaining recognition and a wider audience for their work.

Conclusion

Collaborations have been very successful as a way of helping staff at all levels of the organisation to gain a wider perspective across the school.  Best practice has been shared and innovations introduced and evaluated.  The school underwent an inspection by Ofsted in November of 2007 and was judged to be outstanding.  The report states:‘Senior leaders have created a culture of continuing improvement in classroom practice. Established structures at whole-college and faculty level encourage the sharing of good practice and stimulate high quality debate about learning and teaching. The impact of this work is evident in lessons where students demonstrate a real enthusiasm for learning and make good gains in their knowledge and understanding across the curriculum.’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Simon R. Carson is Assistant Headteacher of Norton College, in North Yorkshire, England, in the United Kingdom.

 

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