“How do we know this works?”: Ensuring your teaching methods are useful

Jon Brunskill has some suggestions how you can get the vast array of studies into teaching and learning to make a difference to what happens in your classroom day to day

On entering the profession in the 1990s I became acutely aware of a culture of excuse, blame and even ignorance regarding the effectiveness of different teaching methods. I remember sitting in numerous inset days and staff meetings being told how to teach, what to teach and when to teach it. When I challenged this with the simple question of “Do we know this works?” I would be told, with no uncertainty, “Of course it does!”. When I asked for proof I was unceremoniously marched out of earshot, where it was made clear not to question what I didn’t understand. In the late ‘90s about 30 per cent of children were perceived to be failing in the primary school system, so my questioning didn’t seem unreasonable at the time. It was at this point I decided once and for all to find out for myself what really works, and why.

A long road

Starting with such an enormous question seemed daunting, until the realisation hit me that maybe we were looking for the answers in the wrong place. Throughout university and into my initial years as a teacher I was always encouraged (told) to start by taking the curriculum and mapping the content of learning. Or, to put it another way, students’ learning was being driven by the content and not the needs of the learner. But what if failing to acknowledge the learner was having a detrimental effect on the overall outcome? This revelation was the catalyst to the research we’ve been carrying out at Hartsholme Academy, and our development of a learner-relevant pedagogy.

The years that followed brought with them much trial, reflection and rethinking of methodology. This included studying a variety of sources – including academic medical research in learning; partnering with research and development organisations; understanding what motivates and drives forward-thinking businesses (such as Google); and travelling across the globe to visit some of the ‘premier league’ schools. Then we had to codify, picking apart the principle strands of practice that had become the backbone of all these high-achieving educational and business systems, bringing it together into something we could not only understand, but carry out at a classroom level. And, of course, we had to satisfy the needs of the education system too, ticking the boxes of standardised testing and the Ofsted framework.
Finally, after piloting what we’d discovered, we were delighted to find the children made progress that was far beyond expectation. Their attitudes to learning changed; all of a sudden they were truly driving their own progress. Could this be the Holy Grail that we’d spent so many years search for?

The principles

After breaking down the elements seen within other successful schools, organisations and businesses, we codified our findings in six understandable, succinct statements that became the driver for our vision:

• A commitment to rigorous real-world learning that ignites students’ passions
• Learners engage in collaborative, self-directed learning, with their teachers acting as facilitators and enablers
• Teachers plan and design learning opportunities and teach in teams for the significant proportion of the their work
• There are strong collaborations with other schools and the wider community, sharing information and working on behalf of one another
• New pedagogies and tools are used to liberate learning from past conventions and to connect learners in new and powerful ways.

Putting it into practice

When we first discovered these principles we found ourselves scratching ours heads trying to think of a way to manoeuvre them into our already very well-established English educational systems. In the end we had to admit defeat, there was only one way to tackle this. Forget what we knew and start with a blank sheet of paper.

Planning had to change, and so did our classrooms. The way we monitored, the definition of the school day, in fact, our whole mind-set had to be more open. No more bells or set lessons, no more timetables. Instead, classrooms needed to be completely adaptable to meet the children’s learning needs – fewer tables and more beanbags, less structure but more flexibility. Staff were given ownership of the curriculum and professional time in the working day to discuss learning and design stimulating activities and challenges. Some might call it chaos, but actually it was the complete opposite – more on that in the next article.

Of course, we couldn’t enter into this without some structure. As a leadership team we set about designing a simple but effective set of values that would keep these principles moving forward. In the end, we came up with the following four methodologies (or pedagogies) that could be measured in detail, helping us to see whether or not we were on the right track.

Authentic projects

The curriculum was always driven by a project that would end in the students producing a high-quality outcome that was designed to be used in a real-world setting by an authentic audience. The project starts with an essential question and ends with an exhibition or product.

Student critique

This is a protocol that empowers students of all abilities to make accelerated progress. The power of this technique is in the opportunities the students have to peer review each other’s work, give advice on the next steps, and understand what is required to make progress.

The challenge

All learning is created within a (perceived) real challenge. The students’ learning has a purpose, and is therefore is meaningful to the child. The challenge is also designed to be deliberately difficult to solve. The students work as a collaborative group to solve these problems.

The learning ecosystem

The very fabric of how the students learn is considered. The environments are made so that there is a choice of where to learn and with whom. Consideration is given to ensure that the environment is flexible, comfortable, stimulating and safe.

After a period of intense, but careful, piloted research projects, these four basic methodologies were placed at the heart of the school’s practice. Previously, for many years, Hartsholme had been described as a sink school, being placed into special measures twice after a succession of some of lowest SATs results in the country. However, after adopting these principles, the schools’ attainment and progress rose above national averages. It became outstanding in just two years and has continued year on year to produce high-quality outcomes. It has been a truly extraordinary turnaround.

About the author

You can find Carl Jarvis on Twitter at @carljarvis_eos. In his next article he will elaborate further by breaking down the concept of the ‘interdependent child’, and what this looks like in the classroom.

Help from Hartsholme

In 2013, Hartsholme Academy was designated as a teaching school under the name of Eos Education, and now works in partnership with over 200 schools in the UK and many more across world, supporting them to adapt the principles to fit their own context. Head to hartsholmeacademy.com to find out more, or visit @hartsholmeacad and @eoseducation on Twitter.