Every teacher needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better. Dylan Wiliam, keynote to SSAT conference, December 2012
Back in August 2011, long before I ever thought I might one day be feeling guilty about being paid for going to another school and talking about teaching, I wrote this post asking what the point of an INSET day actually was. I didn’t really answer the question.
However, I did point out this:
All too often the only requirement for staff is that they sit and listen. Either to an expensive motivational guest speaker or to a member of the school’s own leadership team. Teachers tend to be fairly intolerant of this and have a tendency to misbehave. We know that if we took this approach in an observed lesson we’d be (rightly) lambasted so we resent having it inflicted on us. Why does it happen? Cos it’s easy. The expensive motivational guest speaker will have delivered his (it’s always a bloke!) spiel many time before and can just trot out the same old same old and pick up their pay cheque.
On Monday, I’ll be the “expensive motivational guest speaker” and I cringe. Both at my own glib sense of certainty 18 months ago but also at the truth that this observation contains. I haven’t delivered my spiel often enough for it to be stale and I can take comfort from the fact that it’s rooted in my own classroom practice but still; it is a spiel. I’ve been given a loose brief but I know practically nothing about the school, its values, the people who work there or the students. Who the hell am I to tell them how to teach?
Well, I’m the guy they’ve hired and I’ve got a moral responsibility not to be crap. I know now about the tough balancing act of giving enough value for money in terms of input but also allowing staff time to think, discuss, plan and implement ideas. I know now that INSET is not the same as a lesson and the same rules don’t apply. Giving a learning objective at the start is a bit patronising and just providing some handouts and letting folks discover it all for themselves would, I am sure, not go down at all well.
And this has got me thinking about some of the entrenched views I’ve expressed on what teaching should be like in the past. I’ve come out on a number of occasions and said that group work is the approach most likely to result in students learning, and, while I’ve since qualified this position by arguing that all teaching is in fact group work of one for another, I know full well that I am there for my ‘expertise’ (such as it is) and that I will be expected (at least in part) to provide an entertaining and interesting lecture.
That said, I’ve worked hard to make my presentation interactive, thought provoking and useful. I’m not selling any snake oil and I have no particular axe to grind. I’m not even taking any copies of the book to flog.
Well known education writer and speaker, Ian Gilbert replied to my original post, all those months ago by saying:
Many schools have wasted a lot of money on me and my colleagues not because of the ‘same old same old pick up the cheque’ routine (the money-back guarantee if we’re crap sees to that) but because we’re treated as a one-off, stand-alone thing unconnected from the overall, stated and known-by-everybody (in theory) development aims for the entire school.
Teachers turning up not knowing what the day is about means SLT is not doing its job. SLT not capitalising on the new ideas, the buzz, the questions we create, is also SLT not doing its job. One or two teachers sitting there being rude where there are obviously many teachers keen to learn is SLT not doing its job. Not asking the speaker to be better or to stop before they do to much damage if no-one is listening is SLT not doing its job. Ringing up in July asking if we have any speakers for the 1st September, doesn’t matter what they talk about, we’ve only just got round to thinking about it, is the SLT not doing their job. Not asking up front for a money-back guarantee and/or refusing to pay if feedback shows the day was awful is the SLT not doing its job. And for more horror stories on how to ruin an INSET day, check out the latest blog post here.
The best follow-up to an INSET day is for the SLT to outline their clear expectation that they will be looking for ideas from the day being employed in lessons within the next two weeks, that they will be looking for evidence of conversations about the day in faculty meetings and policy, that they will refer back to it during briefings and staff meetings (don’t throw that flipchart away, pin it up!) and that the next INSET day or twilight will be led internally by a cross-faculty collection of staff sharing their successes or otherwise based on how they have used the day to move things forward.
And that’s true, isn’t it? It’s not going to be up to me to make the training I provide worthwhile, it’s up to the school. If they want me to be be a one off, stand alone sideshow then that is, ultimately, up to them. You can, as the old adage goes, lead a horse to water, but you can’t make the bugger drink.
So, what is the point of INSET days?
Headteacher, John Tomsett says in a recent article, “I take it as a given that every single one of us wants to become a better teacher” and that “only at least good teaching is good enough for our students.” He makes the point that “all teachers slow their development, and most actually stop improving, after two or three years in the classroom. But continuous professional development means that we have to reflect upon our practice regularly and systematically.” This then is the point of INSET: to give us an opportunity to reflect and develop.
And while I still can’t help but feel a little guilty about the fact I’d do a much better job if this was at my own school, planned in collaboration with colleagues and addressing our development priorities. But it isn’t and that’s really not my concern. What is my concern is to provide the very best value for money I’m capable of and then to let go of the results.
Bit like the day job really.
If all the training company offers is a motivational speaker then it is a pretty poor offer. The “woosh” of a great training day needs to be followed up with in class action research, in class coaching and follow up twilight training. INSET is a starting point for change not a one off pan flash. We have always worked as a team at Pivotal to ensure that we always offer practical, in class support afterwards. Teachers not involved in this process get free resources, tips and advice from the trainer who came in and delivered. A good training company stands and falls on its reputation for creating measurable change. The vast majority of our clients buy in projects not one offs. These are evidence based projects that use data not just anecdote to measure impact. We often turn down ‘coming and doing a bit of behaviour’ as we know that it has little impact without the follow up. There should be useful and engaging pre reading, direct access to resources that support the initial training and most importantly the difficult conversations with the SLT must be had before the day.
People who ‘train and run’ are not confident that their ideas will actually work in practice. They move onto another client and keep moving. They are rarely caught out. We stand by our ideas, they work, they transform but setting up the pre and post INSET learning is critical if you want sustainable change.
Paul
I try not to read too much into people’s body language, unless they fall asleep of course, which has happened to me more than once. Its never easy to tell from where you’re standing what people are thinking. I try to scan the room for people giving positive feedback, smiling, making eye contact – not snoring – and try to imagine everyone is being positive even if they don’t look it.
I once ran a training day for thirty teachers on curriculum design, the local authority I worked for at the time required everyone attending to fill in an evaluation sheet. The vast majority of the thirty were quite positive – one or two complimentary – but one was scathing and left me devastated. By chance I later worked with the teacher who wrote the evaluation and asked her why she hated the day so much. She was embarrassed that I remembered, but said she was not angry with me but with the authority who she felt were giving teachers a hard time. She wrote the bad evaluation, she said, not to get at me but to let off steam.
Ever since I’ve tried not to worry what’s going on in other people’s minds when I’m running Inset, its usually far more complicated than I could possible imagine.
Best wishes for tomorrow.
As a person who regularly delivers this kind of training I too wrestle with the same issues. I read up about the school and insist they give me a clear steer and lots of information about themselves. I even ask them to mix the tables a la wedding reception to dilute the inset terrorists. I work for myself and with Paul Ginnis so have an excellent role model. I also, like yourself, work in a school, as a senior leader so know what it’s like to be on the receiving end. In my school role it is essential to do the follow up and I do try very hard to ensure that all staff pledge to do something as a result. Having read the stuff by Joyce and Showers many years ago now on coaching I know that only as a result of training, modelling, practice, feedback and coaching will any inset really have the impact you wish for. As a trainer who works all over the country I can’t do the follow up but hopefully can deliver a day that inspires and gets staff to move one point up the scale of greatness – have been using the aggregation of marginal gains concept with staff development since Sir Dave coined the phrase at the Beijing games. It has been my mantra ever since.
So good luck for Monday – I’m doing an inset in Ilfracombe which I’m really looking forward. Get the staff to commit to action before you leave the hall and get them to share what they intend to do with colleagues before they leave.
I’m sure they will be grateful for your valuable input
Paul – interesting response. Clearly I have a full time job and am unable to offer any more than getting the ball rolling and providing a spark. Does that make what I will do valueless? You characterise me as ‘training and running’ and lacking confidence that my ideas work in practice but I do know they work – for me at least. Obviously, I’m held accountable by the school I work at and am always ‘caught out’ if there’s any catching required.
Thanks, David
Tim, Chris – thanks for the lovely supportive comments – they have been taken to heart.
Find it interesting the replies so far have been from other speakers.
As a teacher I use to hate Inset days to the extent I came to the view that they should be banned as cruel and unusual punishment. Any ‘buzz’ I had coming back into school would always be quickly annihilated.
I agree with Ian’s quote that it’s whoever made the booking who is ultimately responsible for whether it is a success or not. This is especially true when the main event is a colleague from within school – far too often Insets feel like they were knocked together the (Sunday) night before and just don’t work.
Going back the post, I’d have to disagree with thee arming objective comment. I never actually had the backbone to enforce the “no objectives and I walk out” approach I often discussed at lunchtime on Insets. I’m there to learn, and seeing as we are told all the time that having objectives for lessons is so important to help signpost this to learners, why ate Inset sessions any different? If objectives are important for kids, why would they be considered insulting to adults? I can’t follow the logic there.
I’d personally like to see schools take all their Inset at once. Pool the days together into one solid week of development. This would hopefully force leaders into properly planning and booking the appropriate resources, would give the whole gig a feeling of greater significance, and the time could be used to do really meaningful work.
David
I wasn’t talking about you. I am sorry if I phrased it badly. You are in an entirely different position and you have proven, classsroom based practice to share. The audience will recognise your authenticity immediately. I was really talking about speakers and trainers who refuse to do follow up work. They move from school to school hoovering up fees but never actually changing anything.
I think that agreeing 30 day action research projects with the participants before the end of the day could make the ideas sustain. You might also set up a social media group to encourage the conversations to develop.
Good luck with it. I am planning at the moment for a training day tomorrow. I am never happy and replan every time I speak.
Paul
Hattie and Wiliam say the biggest variation in teaching is between teachers not schools. Your audience will be a mixed bag, some starting out, some coming to the end, all with different skill sets and different expectations. Its hard to meet all the needs on one. INSET should make people think and reflect on their practice, you can provide the material to reflect on but you can’t make them reflect and refine practice. This comes from within, and as others have said follow up support from colleagues. On a different point I really liked your article in teach secondary, have copied it and given to all teachers at school
[…] So, what *IS* the point of INSET days? « The Learning Spy […]
Hey there,
This is really interesting and the responses have made me reflect on my personal approach to inset. As a teacher of no real repute I look forward to them, my love of learning and belief that all of us can be better, leads me to a place where I am open to anything. I want to be inspired and I want new things to do in the classroom because I run out of ideas. The exhaustion of being a full time teacher and full time parent and wife and friend etc stunts my creativity and opportunities for mental respite and time for reflection. I want strategies that are tried and tested before the day; I want to see the evidence and measurable impact of them so I can see its worth trialling in my classroom. If there is nothing to prove its going to lead to outstanding then what’s the point? I can spot a charlatan and I can sense brilliance, Phil Beadle in January at my school shamed me and my inability to mark 23 sets of books every 3 weeks, but enlivened my soul for a short time with active learning strategies. I live an inadequate life as a teacher and I want inset to tell me how to do better. The times I am disappointed are when staff do them hesitantly and clearly without care or enthusiasm. When cynical staff ridicule young and clever teachers publicly and SLT do nothing about it. When I sit there after getting up early for a run before work, deliver four kids to three different schools and still get to inset for 7.45am only to listen to my inadequacies with marking, results and reporting accuracy – as if I didn’t know I was all of the above. I want to feel the ‘buzz’ EVERY inset, we all do, and I want the follow up to be meaningful and directed with accountability to keep the level of anxiety and stress going that we try to create in an outstanding lesson. That is me, a teacher of no real repute, who wants an outstanding teacher for inset. The point has always got to be about our own contexts, how we make our kids brilliant by reflecting on how we make us brilliant first.
‘We must do that which we think we cannot do’ Eleanor Roosevelt
Thank you so much Anna. love the quote but feel saddened that you describe yourself as ‘a teacher of no real repute’. I guess that could be true of the vast majority of teachers – but the real test of our ‘repute’ is our relationship with & impact on our students.
I’ve always enjoyed INSET days and hate the cynical buggers who populate the fringes. I too want to be my best but the difference is that I think we should take control of our development and not just wait for a training day.
Best of luck, David
Thanks to you too David,
I think that I mean I have nothing to my name except that what my students say I am, on Twitter and the blogs I have no kudos, I am just a follower, but I am a huge lover of all of this pedagogy and it excites me a lot! I guess this is my way of taking control of my own development, tis true, to wait for INSET to make us better could be like waiting for rain in a drought, infuriating and pointless but the ever present hope of hydration keeps us waiting for it. And its not as if we don’t have enough to do in between to distract us from CPD!
I love this and other blogs for the immediacy it offers us all when it comes to opportunities to become better. So thanks to you and all the other bloggers and tweeters, you have a fan!
I don’t know where you all get the time but it impresses me no end and inspires me daily!
Anna
Mmm a blog of my own….could be dangerous!
[…] on a scale of dismal and seemingly pointless hours of INSET days (see a great post on this from @learningspy) right through to those memorable experiences that can offer a true and real impact on both […]
A very interesting blog. (Although not quite all INSET providers are male!)
My secret is that I don’t ‘speak’ at a training day, I ‘teach’. I want my training to model what high quality teaching looks like for other teachers. And that means I would never dream of standing speaking ‘at’ an audience of teachers, whilst telling them to make their teaching and learning interactive, multi sensory, etc. etc.
So, I use a real mixed bag of explaining my ideas, hands on activities, individual experiences, resources, volunteer tasks, differentiation, chances to reflect on their own thinking, all the good stuff that would be present when I teach the kids.
As soon as they realise I’m not going to simply read out a powerpoint, and also as soon as I tell a few jokes, about 99% of the time I can get a whole school of teachers onside.
You’ll always get the class clowns (again, just like you do with the kids), but again you can get these people onside once they know that you are not spouting theory but acknowledging their reality and giving them real and practical advice.
As other posters have said, it is of course important to stay in touch with the realities of the classroom, which is the reason why I still volunteer to work directly with children in the classroom whenever I can.
Paul is right in that ideally you want a long term impact, with SLT taking what you say and moving it forwards for their school. For me, that long term impact comes from inspiring and reinvigorating individuals. I’m not convinced that I can do much more than that in a 3 or 5 hour input. However, I actually rate that inspiration as being one of the most important long term motivational factors for teachers.
I sometimes explain this at an INSET as follows: ‘I will throw the pebble into the pond (or puddle or lake, depending on your take), it’s up to you to follow the ripples and to see where they lead.
[…] on a scale of dismal and seemingly pointless hours of INSET days (see a great post on this from @learningspy) right through to those memorable experiences that can offer a true and real impact on both […]