Leading effective goal pursuit in schools–making the right tweaks Dr Linda Bendikson, Dr Frauke Meyer and Dr Deidre Le Fevre
Every year schools submit a copy of their annual plan to the Ministry. For many this means little more than changing the date on the front. In fact, we can say from many years’ working with schools and in the Ministry of Education, some even forget to do that! So, some leaders do not work on their plans, but rather, see them as an act of compliance. Could these plans be more useful? There is no convincing evidence that suggests written plans can immensely support schools’ improvement processes. However, there is quite a lot of evidence from general management studies (Mintzberg, 2009) that clarity of direction and the continual adaption of strategies in response to data on progress towards a few clear targets, does help. This requires an analysis of what is working and why, and what is not, before committing to a few key targets and most importantly, a few agreed key strategies (i.e., a plan). Mintzberg (2009) carried out longitudinal studies on organisations and found that not many made big shifts in strategy; rather they tended to tweak and continue to craft their approach incrementally. This also seems to be true of effective schools; they tweak what works, address what doesn’t, and take the next step in getting a better result each year; they are systematic. We have been working closely with three schools over a twoyear period to map and support their actions and successes in goal pursuit. Some of what we have learnt from our study about goal setting and improvement processes in schools is no surprise and well supported by research (Locke & Latham, 1990), for example, the advantage of reducing your goal focus to one or two key targets at a time. Other findings may be more surprising for schools or at least raise some questions as to the effectiveness of their own planning and implementation practices. Below we outline six key findings that might help others to get the shifts in achievement that they hope for. One or two very clear targets in areas of high need are more effective than multiple targets. While certainly not overloaded with goals and targets, the schools we are working with are refining their focus more and more, though they are already much clearer in their focus than many schools. For example, do high schools really need to target all levels of NCEA plus UE? Or do they need to maintain the good progress they have made in the past in some areas and truly focus on their next major area of need? With primary schools, do they really need to have a target for reading, writing and maths – or just one area of high need, and then learn and generalise from that? We would argue, the latter.
AGGS at work
We realise this is a tension when schools do not want to ‘drop the ball’ in an area they have had some success in, but we think it is important to be clear to staff about the next area of challenge that they are working on and not overload them. In our, view, you should clearly target the priority area of achievement for your school and concentrate on getting a big shift in that whilst maintaining practices that have already proved effective in other areas. If you try to ‘target’ too many things, all you do is drown your staff with meetings and ‘initiativitis’ (Hargreaves, 2008). A tight improvement focus will involve refining core pedagogical and organisational practices that will impact all areas of the curriculum if done well. Middle leaders need to agree with the target areas and be committed to them. This implies they must be involved in setting the targets and strategizing about what needs to change to reach them at an early stage. The schools we are working with have successfully made this a priority and are getting the pay-off as middle leaders see themselves as having a stake in the successful pursuit of the goals. More typically, however, middle leaders seem to be ‘told’ or ‘sold’ the targets, but how deeply they ‘buy-in’ may be another matter. Given middle leaders are the ones who need to engage teachers with the strategies for improvement to their teachers, we feel their level of involvement in target setting, problem solving around the target area, and strategy development may need to be re-thought by senior leaders in many schools. Middle leaders need to be a real part of both identifying the problem and the solutions if they are to effectively lead their teams in the improvement effort. The importance of the middle leadership role needs to be emphasised and overtly supported by providing professional
development on how to run meetings, how to analyse data, how to talk about data, how to support teachers – and so on. The challenge for all schools is that these leaders are extremely busy already, so finding a way to give them the time and support they need to learn leadership skills and to practise them can be quite a challenge. Without their commitment, the best of efforts will fail. The leaders we have worked with have made developing middle leadership a strategic priority.
helps promote the other (developing quality teaching). The key is to not have multiple interventions operating so that people are overwhelmed, but to have a few well thought out new strategies that build coherence and refine what is done at the level of teaching and leadership. This clarity about what the teachers and leaders need to do is becoming clearer and more refined as time goes on in the schools we are working with.
Refine business-as-usual Agreeing on a few powerful practices strategies that teachers and In addition, leaders found they needed leaders can apply to improve to refine organisational structures and outcomes is critical. practices to get improvement. This Like targets, there need to be very involved reviewing and refining roles few, but clearly agreed, strategies and responsibilities on the structural put in place that focus on specific level and as a result, in people’s job classroom and leadership practices. descriptions, so they were clear on For example, all teachers may be the focus of their role. Furthermore, Mangere College at work working on providing high quality if necessary, leaders changed meeting feedback, a strategy that is known to be very effective to structures so the right people were meeting and had a dedicated increase student achievement (Hattie, 2009). There may time to discuss progress on targets and make the required tweaks also be a focus on developing middle leaders who are the in strategies to get better outcomes. Development of effective key drivers of the improvement strategy. Two ‘strategies for meeting practices can increase focus and accountability. In improvement’ such as these may well be enough. In this case, these schools, we saw much of the improvement being driven by one strategy (developing the middle leaders’ meeting skills) strategic changes in ‘business-as-usual’ processes such as use of meeting time (by ‘doing the work in the meetings’ – not talking about the work) or by changing the work of team leaders or senior leaders. This was often achieved by tweaking procedures and expectations, as opposed to large scale changes in the way the school operated. Interim results need to be closely monitored during the year if there are to be no bad surprises at the end of the year. It is not the creation of targets and strategies that cause schools to succeed, but rather the focus on them and the feeling of accountability for them. Probably the most important improvement strategy is tight monitoring of, and reacting to, the data (Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010). Everyone needs to be focusing on progress and responding to the data by tightening procedures or changing improvement strategies during the year. This is often done well in industry; they watch sales targets closely throughout the year and respond appropriately. In schools, however, this checking for effectiveness during the year is the most challenging part of the inquiry, learning and action cycle (Timperley, Kaser, & Halbert, 2014). Close tracking of the interim results relating to the target is typically not done well, but in the schools we have been working with, this has been critical to their success. To do this well, we found: someone needs to be in charge of tracking the data on each target ■■ departmental or syndicate meetings need to be strongly focused on reviewing the data, and problem solving and supporting each other to get these results. ■■
If the data does not come in regularly, it is too late to address
a need for a student or group of students. Not surprisingly our major finding is that target achievement is closely related to the tightness of the monitoring term-by-term and the collective accountability for those results: the senior leaders with their team leaders, team leaders with their teachers, and teachers with their students. Schools with collective responsibility get results because their joined-up focus helps to create a better-coordinated effort and a more coherent environment (Lee & Smith, 1996; Robinson, Bendikson, McNaughton, Wilson, & Zhu, 2017). Principals and senior leaders also need to learn and change. Finally, but not unimportantly, we found that the principals themselves and other senior leaders had to commit to personal changes to build trust with and commitment in others. Sometimes, this can be challenging but their role in improvement is pivotal. They must be prepared to put the time into planning, implementing and actively leading this work. They must also be prepared to change the way they do their job in response to data that they are not happy about. We thank the principals we work with for their openness to our critique and support. So, does planning make a difference? We think so, but only if it involves deeply analysing what has worked and what has not, and then making the necessary ‘tweaks’ to gain improvement in a closely targeted area and co-ordinating cross-team ownership of results. Ultimately, a good plan is a very simple one. It reflects strategic thinking, not a wish to comply (with plan-writing requirements) and is only as good as the focus, effort and commitment of the leaders to get improvement.
BBP at work
About the authors: Dr Linda Bendikson was the Director of the Centre for Educational Leadership at the University of Auckland until 2019 when she started working as an independent consultant trading under the name LB Schooling Improvement. Dr Frauke Meyer is a lecturer in educational leadership at the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education and Social Work and leads the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative that this article is drawn from. Dr Deidre Le Fevre is a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education and Social Work and is academic programme director for graduate studies in Educational Leadership
References: Bryk, A. S., Sebring, P. B., Allensworth, E., Luppescu, S., & Easton, J. Q. (2010). Organizing schools for improvement: Lessons from Chicago. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Hargreaves, A. (2008). The coming of post-standardization: three weddings and a funeral. In C. Sugrue (Ed.), The future of educational change: International perspectives (pp. 15-33). New York, NY: Routledge.
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Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. London: Routledge. Lee, V. E., & Smith, J. B. (1996). Collective responsibility for learning and its effects on gains in achievement for early secondary school students. American Journal of Education, 104(2), 103-147. Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting and task performance. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Mintzberg, H. (2009). Managing. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Robinson, V. M. J., Bendikson, L., McNaughton, S., Wilson, A., & Zhu, T. (2017). Joining the dots: The challenge of creating coherent school improvement. Teachers’ College Record, 119(10). Timperley, H., Kaser, L., & Halbert, J. (2014). A framework for transforming learning in schools: Innovation and the spiral of inquiry. Victoria, Australia: Centre for Strategic Education.
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