9 traits of thriving secondary schools

I’m currently working through the Marvel Infinity Saga with my children, having waited until they are the perfect ages to really take in its splendour. We just finished Black Panther (what a film!), and a quote from tech-whizz Shuri gave me an idea for a blog. More from her later, but fundamentally it made me consider: what are the top traits of the school I’ve just left as Deputy Head that have made it successful and a wonderful place to teach and learn?

After teaching / leading in secondary schools, I am moving to work in a primary school. I am of course, excited, nervous, and eager to test my mettle. But before I go, I want to impart any wisdom or experience I have about leading in secondary schools. This may amount to not very much, but we’ll see!

I’ll begin by saying that this is a tricky topic, as everyone has a different idea of what a successful secondary school looks like. And every school has a different context. I work in Surrey – a weird county given that it is very wealthy in places, juxtaposed by areas of huge deprivation. Working in Catholic schools adds some diversity, too, given the global nature of the church and its followers.

But I write this because every year, we have streams and streams of visitors coming to see how we do things. Usually they ask ‘how do you get these results?’, but I prefer the ones that start with ‘how do you build this sort of culture? ’

None of this is based on evidence, per se – just what I have found has worked at our schools. It’s not a detailed ‘how to’ guide, but I’m more than happy to chat elements of this through with people.

And finally, I have missed many things off the list of what it takes to run a great school – don’t worry about pointing those out, I couldn’t include many factors in one short post! But I have found the below hugely important in helping our school(s) thrive.

1. Culture and belonging

This year I was visiting a school (rated ‘Good’, always a positive P8 score) during the line up of a GCSE exam. The students were facing in all sorts of directions, messy uniform, loads of forgotten equipment, not listening to the teacher trying to sort out the lines at the front. They weren’t really buying in to what was going on – there was a disconnect between them and their school. When I was at my school the next day, the students were lined up quietly, focused, with all the right stuff, smiling at their teachers and nodding encouragingly on their way in. After 5 years, they were still ‘with us’, still happy to be at school and fully trusting of the teachers and staff as they entered their exam.

Schools must cultivate a deliberate culture of mutual respect, belonging, and making everyone feel part of the team with a big mission. Because educating young people is the most noble mission of all.

When students feel included in their culture and this mission, they rise to it. But this culture doesn’t happen by accident – it’s a constant mixture of talking about it, teaching it, exploring it, and then the everyday actions and moments that reinforce it. Creating a purposeful culture among students and staff means that the students will like going to your school, they will work hard in lessons, they will ask for help when they need it, and they will probably do more work at home.

2. Being clear on what you stand for, where you flex, and where you won’t budge

You can’t please everyone, and you shouldn’t try to. Schools should work out what they really stand for and be very clear about this. Uniform, mobile phones, approaches to behaviour, homework, etc. As a school, you know how to provide the best experience for your students and staff – don’t listen to the naysayers. You will be tested and questioned, but if you’ve put a lot of thought into something, listened and evaluated properly, then you know what works and will only maximise its effectiveness by communicating it clearly and moving forward with it.

3. Systems and clarity

The best schools have very clear, transparent systems and ways of doing things. Staff and students know how things work, and the school operates consistently and fairly. Systems are not ‘sexy’, but neither are they draconian straitjackets.

Attendance, behaviour, marking, assessment, administrative tasks…there should be clear, efficient systems for everything. Things will work well. Everyone is clear, and can spend time and brain power thinking about other important stuff.

4. Calm, disruption-free lessons, all day every day

I mean, this is really the main thing. We all know this, but it doesn’t get talked about enough. If you can teach for every minute of your lesson, you can cover the knowledge/ content, practise, model, flex when needed, and apply your deliberate pedagogical approaches without running out of time, or not having the attention of the room. The students can think clearly all lesson. They arrive at the lesson feeling calm, because they know that the lesson will not be interrupted – they know it’s a safe, quiet place and they immediately start learning without any extraneous worry or thought about the culture of the room. Their brains can literally focus on the work at hand. Think about when you walk towards a room that is always unproductive or full of interruption – your mind is already on the back foot as you anticipate what’s to come. Now think about the opposite: what is it like to walk to a room where good things always happen in a calm, purposeful environment? I turn up feeling at ease, and ready to learn.

As I said, this isn’t a ‘how to guide’, but I’m happy to chat more about how I’ve seen this achieved – sneak peek: it’s crystal clear systems for behaviour, partnered up with a very deliberate culture of respect and being part of a purposeful team, along with the teacher being super tuned in to learning being the main goal of the room. This environment is warm but purposeful.

5. Purposeful, embedded CPD that feeds into what actually goes on in lessons

As we know, we forget things quickly. Cognitive science helps us understand how learning takes place, so that we can design the way we teach with encoding and long-term memory in mind. Hurrah. But CPD can be quite disparate and we often fail to apply cog sci to our own practice as staff. 1.5 hours of INSET on retrieval practice. Then 6 weeks later, two hours on oracy. Then a staff meeting on SEND. All worthy topics. But without connection or sequencing, they will soon be forgotten, with no time for proper development or embedding into lessons.

At my school, we spent two years on the ‘science of learning’ for CPD, which ran through all whole-staff CPD, department time, and coaching / performance management. We kept reviewing (literally doing retrieval) previous sessions and continuing to work on them before connecting to the next one. The following year we spent more time looking at inclusion and SEND, but with connections back to the science of learning. Everything was connected, with lots of time for implementation. You can design wonderful, evidence-informed CPD, but if they are one-off events, then there will be no impact on the students in the long run.

6. Lots of time for teams to collaborate, plan, grow, and improve together

I obviously had to talk about teams. We call them teams, but do they even work together? That’s a separate post.

But our teams should work together. They should be given time to think through tough challenges, to collaborate on how they develop curriculum and lessons. How they might tweak their approach to a certain topic or revision. Time to discuss and research how to improve areas of their work, e.g. this year we’ll explore and refine how we check for understanding and use mini whiteboards, as a TEAM. Line managers and SLT should ensure that group time together is being used for activities that actually pool the collective wisdom in the team so that staff, resources, and ideas actually evolve and grow, so that, in turn, the children get a better deal year on year.

In short – are your teams actually working together? Or just meeting up for a list-like meeting? Do we utilise the many voices and expertise in our team to truly move forward as a group?

7. Love and joy

I’ve always worked at Catholic schools, and as a Catholic I do believe that every child should be known and loved. I have no problem telling them as individuals or an assembly that they are loved! But beyond that specific context, there is a sense of joy and love when you are passionate about the mission you are part of. We feel joy when we help people with their goals, when we learn in groups or take on challenging situations and overcome them. I find that successful schools are often places of love and joy, emanating from the staff to the students and back again.

This might manifest itself in the way staff and students interact around the site, but also through other enrichment opportunities throughout the year. In essence, the message is: we love working here, we love you being here, and working together is a real blessing.

‘Just because something works, doesn’t mean it can’t be improved’

Shuri, Black Panther 2018

8. Constant debriefing and asking ‘what could be better?’… ‘why do we do things like this?’

In Black Panther, Shuri is incredulous when her older brother King T’Challa questions her making him an improved suit. He likes the existing suit fine. It works well. Her response: ‘just because something works doesn’t mean it can’t be improved’.

In short, ‘better never stops’. No matter how good you think you are, no matter what your last set of results was like, the best schools constantly ask: how can we better? How can we improve the way we teach? How can we improve what it’s like to work here?

Leadership teams debate and discuss all aspects of school life with honesty, psychological safety and without tribalism over ‘my area’ or ‘your area’. Departments and other teams understand how to debrief effectively and constantly improve and learn.

Staff voice is utilised through a variety of methods so that the school understands how things are being implemented and used by staff, and what’s working and not working. The culture is a relentless drive to keep moving forward, while minimising workload.

9. Staff

Remember, there was no order to this list! But in my experience, staff flourish when they are listened to, are contributing to all areas of school life, and come to work everyday knowing that their input and expertise is valuable to the school. They understand that accountability is important, but aren’t checked on constantly about the minutiatie of some data. They are empowered to do a great job and given the tools they need to do that. They get exceptional training, and have some choice over how they grow, with a non-judgmental performance management process that helps them to challenge themselves about how they will improve, rather than it being done ‘to’ them. There’s so much more I could say here, but I fear this is becoming rather long!

What about coaching? Vision and goals? Assessment and curriculum? Pastoral teams? Yep, absolutely! We could be here all day! But the items above have contributed significantly to the success of the schools I have worked in.

Perhaps you found it obvious and there was nothing new – perhaps you agree or disagree? Let me know if I can help further!

And why wasn’t this post called ‘9 traits of thriving schools’? Well, I haven’t lead a primary school yet, so I make no assumptions or pretend that my track record extends to doing this well.

And now I head off to my new school to adapt some of my ideas and experience to a new context! Wish me luck.

Sam