Cycles of Practice
Changing from one-off training sessions to cycles of practice brings huge benefits to staff learning
Priory Community School Academy
11-16
State Academy
80 teachers
1,480 students
Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, UK
SITUATION
Disappointing early results
For two years, we had been developing a new CPD programme in The Priory Learning Trust. But we didn’t think this work was making a difference to students’ learning.
Poorly attended
While the aim was to provide quality professional learning, our after-school sessions were poorly attended. Only trainee teachers attended — because they were directed by their tutor.
Lacking coherence
The programme offered one-off sessions. Some were good quality but it all depended on the individual teacher doing it all: planning, resourcing and running it. There were no particular themes and not all were focused on teaching techniques.
Fuzzy expectations
There were no clear expectations of any follow-up. There was no direct link between changing practice and improved student learning.
Not systematic, not valued
There was repetition of similar sessions year on year which meant experienced staff weren’t getting value. It all depended on individual teachers taking away ideas and trying them out. But, even then, there was no systematic checking of this.
THEORY
Shared understanding
There were several reasons for choosing the WalkThrus. They would give us a consistency of quality resources and templates to support more effective teacher planning.
Ownership and practice
We wanted teachers to have easy access to the WalkThrus to trigger ownership of their own CPD. And by using these resources between sessions, we hoped we could shift the focus of teacher CPD from the after-school sessions to the classroom itself — where the real deliberate practice takes place.
Sustained focus
Because teachers were going to sustain focus on one area of teaching over a school year, there would be a greater chance of change in the classroom. For example, with Live Modelling featuring across the course of the year, teachers will have the chance to refine and embed the technique.
ACTION
Laying the foundations
This programme will run each term and can be seen as a stepping-stone to a PGCE commitment. It will be a Critically, we first involved the Heads of Faculty in a conversation about our priorities. Then surveying teachers the theme emerged: to see students become more active and harder-thinking learners.
Key WalkThrus
But which WalkThru would best support this? We found the How? chapter of the WalkThrus book particularly useful while the Running CPD Cycles WalkThru helped us structure the programme.
New learning cycles
We moved from one-off sessions to groups of teachers meeting four times a year to explore a single theme. In between Learning Forums, teachers would practise WalkThrus to in their classroom — with the expectation they would bring their reflections to their next meeting.
Learning Forums in action
The first Learning Forum launched the theme and introduced a WalkThru. After the session, teachers used the A|D|A|P|T process to try out the WalkThru, augmented by related reading. During the second session, teachers reflected on their progress before planning the next WalkThru. We found that Unseen Observations encouraged teachers to collaborate and think critically.
Analysing the impact
The third Learning Forum analysed the impact on solving students’ learning problems, discussing how each step of the WalkThru worked in practice.
Faculty teams
The final Learning Forum took place in faculty teams. Teachers shared their learning with subject colleagues and discussed priorities for the next cycle.
RESULTS
Positive teacher response
The new approach to CPD is having many positive impacts. Teachers’ responses have been encouraging. A survey identified several significant strengths. One being how CPD cycles replaced one-off sessions.
Single focus, regular follow-ups
The new approach ensured that the CPD sessions were followed up through actions in the classroom. Many teachers appreciated the focus on one strategy and the learn-do cycle. Another success was that Unseen Observations were valued as one of the most helpful aspects of the cycle.
Teacher responses
One teacher shared that, “it was nice to be able to reflect with another member of staff about how they used the strategy.” Another liked how, “feeding back on unseen observations allowed us to be critical of our own teaching whilst also praising the positives.” One colleague commented that a strength of the programme was being “given a set of ideas that we can take away and digest / implement in our own time”. Teacher ownership of their CPD resulted in support for trying out new techniques.
Classroom changes
It’s been encouraging to see clear changes in classrooms around the school. One example was how Cold Calling has been widely adopted and is now a default approach. So much so that one teacher commented it was “a shame we hadn’t done it years ago”.
Building on the cycles
One area that we’ve changed since launching the programme, is adding more content to each cycle. To start, one WalkThru would be explored by a group across the school year before teachers started building their own Clusters. But, as teachers enjoyed looking at WalkThrus together, each CPD cycle will now include three related WalkThrus for each group to explore together.
TAKE-AWAYS
Sustained change through cycles
The key factor behind the success was the cyclical process that builds year on year. There’s a process both within a school year and also one that feeds into the content for the following years. This ensured a sustained change in teacher practice and a revitalised CPD programme, capturing the staff’s imagination. Looking at strategies that would really benefit the students and the particular challenge of our context were vital in this success.
Culture change
The use of WalkThrus has become a cultural phenomenon in the school with Heads of Faculty using the books and materials within their own faculty meetings. There’s a resultant shared language for teacher development. WalkThrus have also been used in twilight sessions and staff meetings to feed into curriculum development and assessment work.
Solving problems
It is really being used to solve a broad range of learning challenges in a variety of different contexts outside of the original learning context.
Coaching conversations
We’ve seen WalkThrus being used to inform next steps in coaching conversations. This has been a real benefit for teachers, indicating how WalkThrus have become an integral part of the school. The value placed on them by teachers and leaders at all levels really demonstrates the importance and impact they have.
Next steps
We now want to look at how we can draw together teacher professional learning and coaching into one effective system. Using the facilitators of the different Learning Forum groups as coaches is an exciting possibility. We have a pilot in place this year. Pairing teachers with the facilitator to form coaching triads is a way of further developing this.
Written By
Jason Edwards & Zoë Hancox