Many an idea fails not because the idea itself is bad or inappropriate, but because it is not implemented effectively. This is especially when the implementation is across the whole organisation.
In my article last week, I explored the problems we faced in relation to too much variation and a lack of consistency in the quality of teaching and learning and also described the solutions we developed – namely our new curriculum The South Wirral Way of Excellence in Teaching.
This framework outline five stages which should take place in every learning episode:
- Retrieval practice: A short series of questions to activate relevant schema and check prior knowledge.
- I do: Present new material in small steps (with student practice after each step).
- We do: Ask a large number of questions and check the responses of all students. Provide models. Guide student practice. Check for student understanding.
- You do: Present new material in small steps with student practice after each step. Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks. Require and monitor independent practice. Obtain a high success rate.
- Review task: A final question to encourage reflection on learning during the lesson.
In this article, I will explore the process we developed to maximise the effectiveness of our approach to implementation and the impact of the changes we introduced.
The South Wirral Way Framework was initially developed in parallel within the science and mathematics faculties and once we were confident that the new approaches were effective whole-school roll-out was agreed with the senior leadership team.
So the aim was to support all teachers to adopt this approach to curriculum implementation. We planned four phases to increase the buy-in from staff and therefore the effectiveness of embedding this into all subject areas:
- Share the framework with the faculty leaders in a face-to-face meeting to allow in-depth discussion.
- Share the framework with the whole school during a summer term INSET to allow planning and preparation for September.
- Work alongside faculty leadership teams to identify the priorities for staging the implementation of the South Wirral Way throughout the 2020/21 academic year.
- Faculty leadership teams to guide subject-specific application of the South Wirral Way supported by cross-curricular hub meetings (groups of teachers from different subject areas who engaged with research on a specific aspect of the framework and then fed-back to their faculty teams).
Unfortunately for us the sequence was developed during the spring of 2020 with the first stage planned for May 2020 – and then the world went into lockdown.
Curriculum vs Covid
This presented us with our first major challenge. At the start of the pandemic we, like everyone else, scrambled to adapt to a new way of teaching and supporting students and so delayed the timeline for implementation.
Once it became clear that it would be a long time before we could return to face-to-face meetings and freely mixing with groups of staff we started the process of sharing the South Wirral Way virtually.
During the summer term 2020 the rationale and principles were shared with the faculty leaders and in place of INSET teachers were asked to engage with research articles including Rosenshine’s principles and subject-specific research which had been identified and agreed with the faculty leaders.
When school opened in September 2020, we formally launched the South Wirral Way with all teachers during INSET and then provided time for subject teams to meet and discuss how they felt it would fit with their specific curricula.
Due to the need to bubble staff, the hub meetings could no longer take place as planned and therefore it was decided to use the time to continue working with faculty groups on the adaptation of lessons.
Staff concerns
At this time, one of the biggest concerns voiced by staff was that the South Wirral Way framework was just a new take on the old “three-part lesson” model that many of us had been directed to apply in previous years.
To address this we didn’t actually avoid the comparison, but we were explicit about the similarities and differences between the two frameworks.
In particular, we discussed the idea that the five South Wirral Way stages would not necessarily take place during a one-hour lesson. For example, we emphasised that there may well be a few “I do” sections interspersed with “we do” before students were asked to attempt an independent task.
The second concern was how to adapt this to all subject areas – how can you do retrieval practice at the start of a PE lesson, for example? This created a space for some detailed discussions about a variety of activities which could be used at each stage, which in turn allayed some teachers’ fears that they would lose the creativity and variety in their teaching and be forced to follow someone else’s “style”.
To further reassure colleagues and to show that there was significant leadership support, faculty teams were allowed time over the year during meeting time and INSET to continue the focus on adapting their lessons to fit the new framework.
The impact on curriculum culture
Working together as a whole school increased cross-faculty discussion and awareness of the differing subject areas. It also increased the conversations about teaching and learning, both planned and incidental.
In addition, the most obvious impact of the South Wirral Way is that teachers and teaching assistants are supported in planning lessons by having clear principles to apply and a range of suggested activities which can be used during each stage of the learning.
Furthermore they have a more secure understanding of the research. This was particularly important and beneficial during the periods of remote teaching in 2020 and 2021. The framework provided a structure for these lessons and allowed me to work with other faculty leaders and the school’s teaching and learning lead to produce a guidance sheet for remote lessons. This reduced cognitive load for teachers who were also having to adapt to teaching in a new mode and learn how to use new technology all at the same time.
A planned aim of the project was to increase opportunities for leading curriculum development within faculties. The model we used for the implementation and development of the South Wirral Way within subject areas allowed a number of staff in all faculties to develop their leadership skills, while being coached and guided through the process. This provided high-quality professional development for a number of middle leaders and aspiring middle leaders.
The introduction of the South Wirral Way had an almost immediate effect on students. They noticed the shift in the structure of lessons, most obviously the introduction of retrieval practice at the start of each lesson. Recent student voice evidence shows that 90% of students report that they do retrieval practice in all, or almost all, science lessons. Furthermore, 60% of students understand why we do retrieval practice.
This approach helps to ensure classroom routines were clear and consistent and therefore improved behaviour at the start of lessons. Students settling more quickly to the task allowed teachers to make a defined start to the “I do” section of the lesson and in turn reduced low-level disruption.
The increased focus in lessons then also increased students’ engagements and enjoyment as has been confirmed via student voice across all subjects and through other indicators such as an increased uptake of separate sciences at GCSE during the last three years (now above the national average).
As well as increasing interest in lessons, the students are now being challenged to think hard more frequently and more consistently across all subjects. As such there are indicators, from both internal and external assessments, that students are making better progress. For example, GL Assessment data shows that the current year 9 cohort has higher attainment in English, mathematics, and science than they did in year 7. On average, the cohort has increased its scores by 4%, moving closer to the national average and now exceeding the national average in science. The current year 8 cohort is also showing improvement at a greater rate than the national average, narrowing the gap by 3%.
On-going review
The South Wirral Way is now embedded into every classroom and every subject across the school and the flexibility in the “I do–we do–you do” enables staff to scaffold learning appropriately for all students, ensuring the challenge they face in “the learning pit” (Nottingham, 2017) is of a level which “makes them think” but which is still achievable.
However, we are not complacent, and each faculty continues to review the quality of its implementation of the curriculum against the framework.
The importance of the review and development is emphasised through the inclusion in the link governor reports for all faculties and on the school and faculty improvement plans. Our The current whole-school focus is on how best to adapt the curriculum to allow fair access for all SEND students, ensuring they are challenged and make progress.
This complex task has become more manageable by chunking the adaptations based on each section of the South Wirral Way. Each subject area has been able to explore adaptations for each stage and reflect on their impact without trying to take on adaptation of whole lessons at a time and thus failing due to overload.
The school’s teaching and learning group has also adopted the South Wirral Way as a structure for its projects. For example, last summer we worked on how to ensure feedback and self-assessment were meaningful for students, as opposed to just copying the answers, and discussed how this could fit with “we do” and “you do”.
The current project is around allowing the creativity back into our teaching, for example by developing retrieval practice to ensure it does not become mechanistic. This is in response to teachers' reactions to the pandemic disruptions to their teaching resulting in their increased need to feel “back in control” and to have a routine. With some staff this reduced their use of the “you do” element of South Wirral Way in lessons.
Final thoughts
Working with a team to develop and implement the South Wirral Way has been incredibly rewarding for me personally and has had a profound impact on the whole school.
We have a common language and understanding around what effective teaching looks like and have clear professional development goals to work towards to ever improve the experience of our students.
The most important factor in the success of this project was the unerring support of the head and the senior leadership team, who offered guidance, coaching and leadership at all stages of development and implementation.
This investment was not only strategic – making embedding of the South Wirral Way a school development target – but extended to the operational side as well through a significant time investment to allow subject areas to meet and plan collaboratively.
The investment and engagement from all staff was rewarded last autumn when we were visited by Ofsted again, who this time judged the school to be “good” and was particularly complementary about the South Wirral Way offor Excellence in Teaching.
- Dr Helen Darlington is the faculty leader for science at South Wirral High School in Merseyside.
Further information & resources
- Nottingham: The Learning Challenge: How to guide your students through the learning pit to achieve deeper understanding, Corwin Press, 2017: www.learningpit.org
- Rosenshine: Principles of instruction: Research-based strategies that all teachers should know, American Educator, Spring 2012: http://bit.ly/2ZpbIqW
- See also from SecEd: I do–we do–you do: Learning more with metacognition, 2023: https://bit.ly/405vXdp