A Continuous Development Framework

An introduction to the idea of the Continuous Development Framework, and to consider this as a proposed starting point for a school looking towards continuous improvement.

Part 1: The Background

Where the world is going and what we need to do about it as educators.

The Future Belongs To The Comprehensivist

As we move inexorably into this new century, the only thing we can be certain of is that change will happen increasingly rapidly for all of us.

I believe that anything that can be done by robots will be, and by robots I mean automated systems, programmes, software, machines etc. In essence, my conjecture is that many jobs performed by humans today will not be available for today’s students.

Many schools are preparing students perfectly for a job in 1970. But the world has changed and we can either compete for an ever decreasing slice of the old world, or we can start going after the huge abundance of opportunity that has not yet even been conceived.

Do we think there is likely to be the same demand for accountants, lawyers, politicians, journalists, teachers, architects, engineers over the next 50 years as the last 50? It’s certain that much of the routine side of even these ‘professional’ occupations will be taken care of by technology. But every change brings opportunity for those who are prepared. Medicine, Transport, Energy, Biotech — these are all industries that are wide open for innovation and we need to train people how to get involved.

I am confident that humans will always be required to apply their creative genius to situations which are uncertain, indeterminate, or at the very least ‘not determinable by the current set of available evidence.’ The people who are able to see the bigger picture will be those that thrive in the future.

Thus it appears to me to be self-evident that the future belongs to the comprehensivist, not the specialist. A comprehensivist is a person who can connect the dots, who can see the bigger picture, who can look beyond their individual specialism and ‘see how it all joins up.’ It seems reasonable to assume that an individual who retains the capacity to connect the evidence from a wide variety of sources and piece together what it all might mean for the future, will be highly successful in such a rapidly changing world.

Let us have a look at the animal kingdom for a second: organisms became increasingly specialised in order to adapt to their environment. This made tremendous sense when the environment was changing slowly, since a particular adaptation would confer specific advantage upon the organism. This situation would then result in a virtuous circle, whereby the more successfully adapted organisms would survive for longer, breed more frequently, and therefore thrive as a result.

However, we can observe many examples where over-specialisation has been a disaster for organisms. For when their environments changed and their adaptations were no longer so advantageous, they dwindled in numbers and in some cases even ended up becoming extinct. Dinosaurs, pandas, sabre-toothed tigers…

This characteristic of specialisation is particularly relevant in an environment which is changing very rapidly, such as the one in which we find ourselves today.

There certainly was a time where an individual could become skilled at a specific operation and remain valuable for the duration of their working life as a result of this particular skill. We don’t have to go too far back in history to consider the case of a blacksmith who was an expert at making horseshoes, or to look at the technician who devoted her life to becoming expert at manufacturing vinyl in a record-producing plant.

I suspect that it is highly unlikely that we will return to a situation where humans can expect to remain in a single career for the duration of their lives, and therefore it seems sensible to conclude that training people up to become specialists is probably not going to serve them adequately over the duration of their professional lives.

Consequently, we believe that we will best serve the students of today by preparing them to position themselves as comprehensivists, as people who can join up the dots, who can see the bigger picture, who can see where things are going, and who can anticipate where they might add the most value both to themselves, and/or to their employer, and/or to their community.

I believe we have a duty to train students in such a way that they continually seek out what this means at a higher level, that they search for how they can contribute in a design–thinking way to where this will end up.

We will be serving our students most effectively if we can train them to see the world as an exciting place for those who are prepared to look at the bigger picture and to abandon the idea of becoming a specialist, one who masters a specific skill or body of knowledge and becomes expert in such a narrow field.

The key practice we must adopt is not to know one thing the best, but to be able to learn new things the quickest, and to be able to anticipate the benefit of doing things in a way which might be still 10 years away from becoming mainstream.

Part 2: The Importance of a Learning-centred Curriculum

The learning institution has to have learning as its core focus for all stakeholders, and we have used the Sutton Trust EEF Toolkit research findings from 2012 to select the following 6 learning characteristics as central to our curriculum.

Exceptional Learners are:

1. Independent
2. Systematic
3. Enquiring
4. Collaborative
5. Growth-Oriented
6. Reflective

I propose that we all consider what role we have as teachers, guides, and facilitators in making sure that our students acquire these characteristics.

For me, it is quite simply that we must all ‘be the example’ of everything that we want to encourage. If we want to develop independence then we should be independent ourselves. If we want students to be collaborative, then we must be great collaborators ourselves. If we expect students to be reflective learners, then it seems prudent to become models of reflectivity ourselves. If we want students to architect their own future, then we must demonstrate this trait and assume responsibility for designing the future that we want for ourselves.

Hence the importance of a continuous development framework for all members of the institution. Consequently, we have exceedingly high expectations for everyone with responsibility for advancing students along their learning journey.

Part 3: What are we looking to measure?

We will be encouraging teachers to take responsibility for the three following broad aspects in their role as educators:

1. The distance travelled along their students’ learning journeys.
2. The experience of students while travelling along this journey.
3. The extent to which teachers are ‘being the example’ of the characteristics we want students to adopt.

This composite of three factors is the essence of how this process will determine how effective you are in your role as an influencer.

Metric 1: The Distance Travelled

How far have students travelled along their learning journeys in the areas for which you are responsible?

In simple terms we are concerned with the ability of a particular student to travel an appropriate distance along their learning journey under your jurisdiction as their learning guide.

This is not purely an output measure, as it takes into account the starting points of all students. It’s a progress tool and incorporates the idea of ‘value-added’ although this can be a misleading description.

For example, the fact that a student achieves a B in their GCSE Spanish is not an indication of quality. For some students a B would be a great disappointment, for others a magnificent achievement: it all depends on the context, the starting point, the progress made. We call this the ‘distance travelled.‘

Metric 2: The Student Experience

The student experience is determined by feedback from the students and their parents — our customers!

If you get consistently great feedback from students and parents as well as satisfying Metric 1 (the Distance Travelled), then it is a good sign that students are not only making appropriate progress but also that they are enjoying the journey.

This is a good thing. If we keep our customers happy then we have the right to stay in business!

Metric 3: Being The Example

The third measure is that of “being the example”.

This is a bit like charisma — if you aren’t sure whether you’ve got it or not, then you don’t have it.

Now, while it is tricky to measure in a meaningful way, it is not impossible and we have proposed the following approach: we can look at the qualities that we are trying to inculcate in our students and we can seek evidence that demonstrates how staff members have exhibited these characteristics.

The most important characteristics are those highlighted earlier as the characteristics of exceptional learners and it is through ‘being the example’ that you can influence students the most.

Part 4: The ‘HOW’

So, this is all great, but I’m sure that you will now want to know HOW we are going to do it.

Given that the world is changing at an ever-increasing rate, we favour the ‘learning by doing’ approach to actually getting things done: Do — Investigate — Adapt.

DO. Try it, provided we have measured the risk and agreed that it is acceptable.

INVESTIGATE. See how it goes. Measure the results as quickly and comprehensively as possible.

ADAPT. Learn fast, changing as you go. Improve continuously.

Part 5: How will this work for me?

As a teacher you will be assigned a more senior member of staff to be your development guide to mentor you through the process. Together with your mentor:

1. You establish where you are now in your career.
2. You indicate your future career vision for yourself.
3. You identify the characteristics you need to develop in order to realise your vision.
4. You determine a reasonable plan to get better at the characteristics you have identified.
5. You implement the plan. (DO)
6. You meet with your mentor to see how it went. (INVESTIGATE)
7. You make any changes to keep you on track to achieve your vision. (ADAPT)

Part 6: The Importance of the Design of The Framework

Three characteristics seem to stand out in the most successful CPD programmes. I came to these through my own practice, and was glad to find them corroborated later by the research into effective professional development — the work associated with Robert Coe and the Education Endowment Foundation:

1. Duration — the programme had to be designed to last over some time, rather than be a short sharp blast.
2. Rhythm — the programme had a regular cadence, repetition, cyclic revisiting of the key themes on a regular basis.
3. Autonomy — the most effective programmes allowed the participants to customise the training for their specific context, rather than have delivery of generic training.

Consequently we propose that a cyclic programme will work best, with cycles of 6 weeks, and therefore 6 cycles per year. The overall concept is to do less, more frequently, in the same way as you learn a language.

However, it’s critical to note that provided the framework has duration, cadence and autonomy, there’s no ‘right’ way to implement it. It is up to the individual school to apply their own discernment to work out how these principles might be implemented to suit their own context.

For more information please feel free to reach out to me on the following email address: tom.cassidy@cambridgeleadershipcollege.com