For most students, learning in school happens in classrooms and is highly dependent on the practices and expertise of class teachers. Yet even the best teacher cannot facilitate effective learning unless other supporting factors are in place – factors that rely substantially on leadership.
How effective a teacher is depends on more than just that teacher themselves. The environment in which they work—be it determined by the actions of school leaders, their fellow teachers, other staff, students, parents, the wider community or context—has a substantial impact on how much students learn.
And the effectiveness of an individual teacher is not constant: a less effective teacher today can grow into an effective teacher in a few years; an initially effective teacher may plateau or decline.
For all these reasons, leadership and the professional environment in which teachers work make a difference to students’ outcomes. That’s why, as part of our Great Teaching Toolkit, Rob Coe and the EBE team set out to review the evidence in support of effective practice in school environments and leadership.
What’s the big idea?
As Rob searched through and summarised the relevant research evidence, he found theories in abundance. Sadly, robust testing of the predictions made by those theories against independent, empirical data were decidedly thin on the ground.
Most of the research is of poor quality, and the claims made within it stray beyond the evidence. Rob’s team began to question whether there was anything that was either scientifically trustworthy or practically useful.
From the best available evidence, however, the team identified a series of school-level characteristics that seem to be related to student attainment. Acknowledging the limitations of the evidence at present, this led to the development of a Model of School Environment and Leadership, and a set of whole-school feedback tools that we hope are of practical utility to leaders who want to understand these characteristics and monitor them in their own context.
What’s missing?
A few popular concepts are notably missing from the model. Neither ‘shared vision’ nor ‘instructional focus’ make an appearance. Both were judged to fall below an acceptable level in relation to clarity of the construct, unique contribution not captured elsewhere in the model, defensible mechanisms by which they may impact student learning and supporting evidence.
It’s troubling that a significant part of the school leadership literature contains methodological flaws that make its claims untrustworthy. While there are some examples of good research, there is so much that is poor that the field has some way to go before practitioners and policymakers can trust its results.
What’s included?
From the evidence that passed muster, we were able to develop a model with three broad components: learning time, learning supports, and management factors.
Learning time refers to the time allocated to learning, and may be thought of as a direct multiplier of the amount of learning that will happen. It includes the amount of time allocated to learning the content, but also the time students spend on meaningful learning activities outside the classroom, attendance, and disruptive factors like changes to timetabled lessons.
Learning supports are the factors that affect the teaching-learning interaction, and are grouped in three sub-categories.
Student-focused support includes working with families and the community around the student, whether students’ fundamental needs are met, and their beliefs and dispositions.
Teacher-focused support includes peer collaboration (for instance through subject associations and groups), collective teacher expertise, and access to quality professional learning.
Lastly, curriculum-focused support includes goals and demands, as well as resources and materials.
Management factors are the school- or team-level factors that are necessary for effective functioning of any organisation. These include supportive working relationships, an improvement mindset, a strategic focus on delivery and removing barriers, and adequate staffing.
What’s next?
When the evidence is limited, the evidence-based approach is not to do nothing, but instead to do what seems most plausible and try to evaluate its impact. So we will work to improve the evidence base by learning from schools using our feedback tools, and openly publishing updates to the model as our own understanding of school environment and leadership develops over time.
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