Identifying our challenge
Middle leaders are integral to the success of a school, but it is a role that is often torn between the conflicting demands of the day-to-day administration of running a department and the desire to dedicate time to thinking strategically about how to improve student outcomes.
At my school, Uppingham Community College in Rutland, we are fortunate to have a team of experienced heads of department and we have always been keen to draw on their expertise.
We know that giving teachers greater autonomy has a significant impact on retention and job satisfaction (Worth & Van den Brande, 2020). Therefore, we wanted to encourage these colleagues to lead on teaching and learning within their departments and have greater autonomy over quality assurance – all areas they had asked to do more of.
From an initial idea championed by one of our middle leaders our department self-review process evolved, a process which has since had the biggest single impact on our model of distributed leadership.
Consultation on need
Through discussion with our middle leaders it became apparent that we needed to have different stages of a department review to make it work effectively. We wanted to tie together our approach to several key processes – notably our exam data analysis, department self-evaluation, use of lesson observations, and resourcing meetings. This resulted in the creation of three steps in the department self-review process – DSR1, DSR2 and DSR3.
Department Self-Review 1 (DSR1)
This first stage of the department self-review process takes place early in September and involves each head of department meeting with the principal and deputy principal for assessment to discuss their student outcomes.
This stage involves our data manager collating results for middle leaders to analyse, allowing them to spend time action planning. Discussions focus on the progress and attainment of student groups as well as how the subject lead will use these results to inform future teaching and the curriculum.
These next steps are incorporated into each head of department’s strategic plan for the year. Progress against the objectives on this plan are then discussed at subsequent one-to-one line management meetings with their senior leadership team link.
This is the first stage in our internal quality assurance, and it is very much led by each middle leader – they present their results to the senior leadership team and then have ownership of the strategic priorities they have identified to drive their department forward.
Department Self-Review 2 (DSR2)
The second stage is the largest and most significant, relying on our high-trust culture within school and our use of instructional coaching. We have invested heavily into the use of instructional coaching within our school, using it to facilitate the impact cycle of “identify, learn, improve” (Knight, 2017).
For the purpose of the DSR2, heads of department use the impact cycle by:
- Identifying a development need within the department, often as a result of the DSR1 data analysis. For example, a low percentage of grade 7+ may indicate a need for greater challenge in the curriculum content and pedagogy.
- Learning what the current situation is through a mixture of learning walks and curriculum conversations.
- Improving the quality of education provision through effective quality assurance and addressing any identified concerns. For example, through training or as priorities on the department strategic plan.
Our DSR2 process spans November to April with one subject area focused on every one to two weeks.
When we began the process, we were very keen that it would not feel like “internal mini-Ofsted visits” for our subject teams. Instead we wanted it to be a supportive process with each head of department very much leading the quality assurance. After all, they should know their department better than anyone.
Initially this second stage involved significant senior leadership support, in terms of coaching conversations and modelling learning walks and feedback to our middle leaders. However, it has quickly evolved into being completely driven by our subject leaders. They self-evaluate their department’s quality of education and conduct the learning walks, with senior leadership involved more to “sense-check” the process and resulting judgements.
Where we may have more concerns about a department’s performance, the senior leadership team will be more heavily involved, but generally it is a much lighter touch now that the middle leaders are fully trained.
This in turn has allowed for much greater autonomy for our heads of department with a significant impact on their confidence and ability to improve teaching and learning standards across the school.
In addition, by removing some of the senior leadership presence, it has allowed all teachers within each department to get involved in the learning walks, with colleagues dropping into each other’s lessons to share best practice, further consolidating our high-trust, supportive culture. It also allows for a greater buy-in to the department’s strategic priorities from the whole subject team.
The process for each subject’s week-long DSR2 can be summarised as follows:
- Head of department collates curriculum plans, department self-evaluation and strategic plan. We have developed a tool for middle leaders to use to help guide their quality assurance at this point. The UCC Education Provision Map is an interactive document with key questions and example documents which guide analysis. Areas include curriculum intent, implementation and impact, assessment for learning, pedagogy, and links to further reading.
- Review meeting takes place between head of department and senior leadership link with discussion focused on curriculum intent and implementation. Time of learning walks identified by head of department, ensuring an equal coverage of all year groups and colleagues. Notes from meeting are recorded in a Microsoft form.
- Learning walks take place – some of these are just the head of department, some include the senior leadership team, and some are teachers observing each other. Two to four learning walks take place depending on the size of the department. Comments and coaching questions resulting from the learning walks are captured in another Microsoft form for future reference.
- The deputy principal for teaching and learning meets with a randomly selected group of students across year groups to conduct student voice on their learning experiences in the subject being reviewed. This feedback is given to the head of department and recorded on a third Microsoft form.
- At the end of the week a follow-up meeting takes place between the head of department and the senior leadership link which identifies areas of strength and areas to develop. This leads to action planning and amendments to the department strategic plan priorities if needed. Discussions are recorded in a fourth Microsoft form.
- At the end of the process all the Microsoft forms are collated to produce a DSR2 report for heads of department to use.
Department Self-Review 3 (DSR3)
The final stage of the department self-review process occurs towards the end of the academic year, focusing on budgeting, resourcing, site requirements, and any identified training needs.
This provides an opportunity for heads of department to meet with our business manager, the site manager, and the deputy principal for CPD.
Integral to this final step is the review of each department strategic plan. Heads of department are asked to evaluate the impact of their plan and begin to consider any on-going or new priorities for the upcoming year.
Next steps
The department self-review process has been running very successfully for several years now but we are keen to keep developing it so that it continues to improve teaching and learning across the school. To facilitate this we are introducing a new department planning document which captures all of the key elements of the DSR processes in one place, but importantly adds a new level of autonomy for subject leaders.
By creating and incorporating a flexible school calendar, heads of department can now set their own department meeting and training times based on their changing department priorities during the year.
Additionally, we are further investing in the use of instructional coaching across the school with a department coaching model. This involves teachers receiving training on an area of pedagogy and then having the time and opportunity to deliberately practise the technique in their classroom, receiving feedback from their head of department through department coaching conversations and then action planning. Through this we hope to foster even closer links between teaching and learning and the DSR process.
Lessons learned
- The success of our department self-review process relied on first establishing a high-trust culture across the school.
- Take every opportunity to encourage the sharing of best practice – we use our regular extended leadership team meetings to discuss examples of effective teaching and learning we have seen.
- Training up heads of department in effective quality assurance takes time – plan for gradual increases in autonomy.
- Clarity around the purpose and requirement of each step in the review process is crucial for success.
- Plan for the process to be a year-long cycle, constantly evolving and feeding into school improvement.
- Clare Duffy is deputy principal (teaching and learning and CPD) at Uppingham Community College in Rutland. Follow her on X (Twitter) @ClareHDuffy and find her previous articles for SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/clare-duffy
Further information and resources
- Knight: The Impact Cycle: What instructional coaches should do to foster powerful improvements in teaching, 2017.
- Worth & Van den Brande: Teacher autonomy: how does it relate to job satisfaction and retention? National Foundation for Educational Research, 2020: www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/teacher-autonomy-how-does-it-relate-to-job-satisfaction-and-retention