Thread by @richspencer1979

I've led teaching and learning (in various roles) for a decade now. Below is a thread outlining 10 things I think can work best. I've implemented some more than others, succeeded more with some than others, but seen all of them work. I have changed my mind; I will change my mind.

1. Prioritise expertise. Reassure teachers that the development of their subject-expertise is your priority. Calendar time with their teams to work on this and improve their curriculum. Build networks with other schools to support this. Limit lonely actors.

2. Establish focus. Whole school teaching and learning priorities remain an important collective driver. Review the evidence and form a working party to establish four/five key whole-school focus areas. Then promote strongly the implementation and evaluation of those strategies.

3. Find your leaders. Who are your examiners, who are your bloggers, who are your future leaders, who are your researchers, who is active in their subject association, who is ready for a new challenge, who will radiate the change you seek?

4. Sample, don’t scrutinise. Learn about the student experience through appreciative inquiry. Review students’ work and talk with them about what is working well. Do not audit books for compliance or expect rigid consistency – that way lies mistrust and a workload crisis.

5. Eschew gimmickry. The strategies that work will not be expensive or require days of consultancy to implement. Don’t invest in out-sourcing this work or expect a motivational speaker on an INSET day to change the culture. Buy everyone books instead.

6. Appreciative inquiry. Seeking good practice will develop trust and help proliferate collaboration. Eliminate high stakes observation. Normalise frequent low-stakes lesson visits. Do not allow appraisal policy to either dominate or limit your work on improving teaching.

7. Consistency is a futile aim, but coherence is critical. Most of us teach some weak lessons amidst very effective ones. All of us have bad days. Make it clear that there is no shame in failed endeavour at times. Promote radical candour within a culture of reflective sharing.

8. Coaching can be key. While highly effective, it is an investment and takes time. It also requires bravery, trust and can have unintended consequences. Leaders struggle with it because it is not a process they can easily track, audit or evaluate. Do it anyway.

9. Don’t offer inclusion lip-service. Make it everyone’s responsibility to know more about and to adapt more to the particular needs of learners with SEND. This applies at subject level and whole school. Look for the barriers and build the bridges.

10. Share, constantly. Monthly bulletins, blogs, teachmeets, collaboration, lab classrooms, inquiry projects, reading groups. Show your teachers: your agency is great, but so is the capacity to do harm. So stop, collaborate and listen to each other. Articulate sky-high standards.