🚌 What are we bringing back West?
West100—London School Visits 2023
We took our pioneering cohort off to London this month to get ‘under the hoods’ of five different schools excelling in their own way.
In a very recent post, we explained the rationale behind this. In this article, we’ll do our level best to summarise what we learnt along the way—that is, what we’re bringing home with us. There was a lot—and so with Christmas breaking out in the capital, we commandeered a sleigh to fit everything in.
Five schools in three days
We had the great privilege of visiting the five different schools. Five schools at different points on similar turnaround journeys; all doing slightly different things in different ways to eradicate educational inequality in their own communities.
2 x primary schools:
Churchfields Junior School (LA—maintained) and
Charles Dickens Primary School (The Charter Schools Education Trust),
2 x secondary schools:
London Academy (both AIM Academies Trust), plus
1 x all-through school:
We are so thankful for the warm welcomes we received at each stop and the bundles of time, energy and expertise every leader offered up. We are full of gratitude. And ideas. Our cups runneth over!
Common themes
We place a lot of value in exposing our leaders to a diversity of educational philosophies and leadership styles.
But, in spite of that, what is common amongst high-performing schools? What were the common themes we observed across each visit? We humbly offer our following reflections…
1️⃣ The unifying power of ‘essential intent’
If there was one big takeaway from every school we visited, it was this: each one maintained total clarity about precisely what it was there to do, and for whom.
They were mission-focused and action-oriented. The vision and value statements they held were more than mere descriptors of what they happened to do; they drove what they did and and why they did it. They clearly defined the school’s core purpose, articulated clear aims, and enabled decision makers to align actions and disregard distractions.
AIM Academy North London, for example, exists to ensure that:
All young people will become ‘Leaders for Tomorrow’.
Leaders of themselves,
Leaders in their communities, and
Leaders in their chosen careers.
Moreover, the the school’s values are—neatly—linked to this the concept of LEADership too:
Love—We show love and respect for all members of our community in words and actions.
Endeavour—We work hard in all that we do; we know there are no shortcuts.
Act—We act today for positive change. We do not wait till tomorrow.
Dream—We dream big and know that we can determine our own destiny.
In his book, Essentialism: The disciplined pursuit of less, Greg McKeown offers the concept of ‘essential intent’ as the gold standard for unifying purpose: ‘one decision that eliminates 1,000 others’. A call to action that’s both aspirational and achievable; inspirational and concrete. This is simple to describe but furtively difficult to nail down.
He offers up the story of Martha Lane Fox who, in 2009, was appointed as the UK’s first ‘Digital Champion’.
“She had the opportunity to create a description for this newly created role. You can just imagine all the vague, uninspired, or jargony ways Martha might have tried to explain it; it was a Dilbert comic strip waiting to happen. Instead, Martha and her team came up with this essential intent: “To get everyone in the UK online by the end of 2012.” It was simple, concrete, inspiring, and easily measured. It gave everyone in the team clarity about exactly what they were trying to do, so they could coordinate their actions and energies to eliminate everything else. It empowered everyone on the team, however junior, to push back and say, “But does this new idea really help us to achieve our intent?” And it enabled them to better harness the support of partners to massively accelerate the journey.” (ibid, pp. 126-127)
The concreteness of this objective makes it real.
The realness makes it inspiring.
It offers clear answers the question: ‘How will we know when we have succeeded?’ or ‘When can we say ‘mission accomplished’?’.
Now, whether or not it’s feasible—or desirable even—to get to this level of completeness in education is an open question (and one we discussed at length through the week!) but it presents an interesting provocation to our leaders nevertheless.
2️⃣ Don’t undervalue professional wisdom
A recurring motif from all school leaders was the constant challenge of balancing unwavering aspiration, crystal clear expectations and robust systems with the understanding that they won’t always work—
“There will be moments where despite *everything* you’ve put in place, you’ll need to demonstrate humility, humanity and lean hard into your professional wisdom”.
“I loved the QA with Nick Soar at Harris Academy Tottenham and there was a lot I learnt from this. The humbling but reassuring advice about the mindset of 'accepting things won't be complete' was something that I really liked—it challenged me but helped me to understand the mindset that was needed.”
And linked to that…
3️⃣ Ensure systems tend towards intent
If you can get a school to a position whereby its ‘systems’ and ‘relationships’ support one another—that is a really good start but it isn’t the end.
Strong, trusting relationships are protective; they secure people and systems. Sometimes relationships go wrong; sometimes systems do. That should be expected but, as a school leaders, it’s important to maintain a critical awareness about how both are fairing at any one time.
“Strong systems without strong relationships feel mechanistic at best and punitive at worst.”
The grand ambition should be producing systems that iterate continuously to serve the school’s intent. Visitors to London Academy, in particular, were blown away by meticulous manner in which leaders approached change management within the school.
“The vision and implementation of the behaviour strategies and systems. Simple, clear, practiced. But also warm and human. Very special indeed!”
“The systems were very tight, over 1000 students moving around the building in near silence was fantastic. Careful thinking of these systems and their roll out makes the difference between it being impactful or ineffective. It's impressive because it demonstrates how well the school understands and values effective implementation."
“I’m shocked by how much I loved the silent transitions. It was purposeful. It felt generous.”
“Alex’s ability to edit. It was clear that he was always thinking about how to improve the school but the way he decided on the one or two things but then galvanised the team and ensured the capacity, funding, systems, investment supported the improvement was really fascinating. It made me reflect on how difficult this is and even if schools think they do this—they rarely do to this degree”.
Meticulous planning and incremental changes were highlighted as catalysts for sustainable growth. School leaders acknowledged the importance of detailed planning, avoiding over-saturation, and implementing changes thoughtfully.
4️⃣ Believe in beautiful things
The deliberate design of learning environments and embedded curriculum strategies portrays intentionality. Schools where the environment seamlessly aligned with the curriculum illustrated purposefulness in promoting a conducive learning atmosphere.
In particular, visitors were bowled over by the love, care and intentionality of Charles Dickens Primary School—and the sense of belonging it demonstrably creates. “Physical infrastructure is social infrastructure”.
“There is deliberate thought and action in everything we saw—from the nursery classrooms, to maximising the outdoor space or making the library an attractive place to sit and read (it certainly made me want to stay for hours!). Care and attention has been given to making the school and its resources beautiful. What child wouldn’t want to go here?
5️⃣ Identify and nurture talent early
Identifying and cultivating talent emerged as a crucial aspect of school leadership. Recognising potential within staff—unpicking what they really want to do long-term—and carving individualised pathways to enable their flourishing fostered a deep sense of belonging.
”Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t have to.”
Naturally, there were looooads more takeaways—little and large—that we’ve left out in a bid for some semblance of brevity.
1️⃣ The unifying power of ‘essential intent’
2️⃣ Don’t undervalue professional wisdom
3️⃣ Ensure systems tend towards intent
4️⃣ Believe in beautiful things
5️⃣ Identify and nurture talent early
If you want to hear more about the visits, please do get in touch!