Episode 186: Long term planning and strategies in Schools

Andy Psarianos

Hi. I'm Andy Psarianos.

Robin Potter

Hi. I'm Robin Potter.

Adam Gifford

Hi. I'm Adam Gifford.

Andy Psarianos

This is The School of School podcast. Welcome to The School of School podcast.

Adam Gifford

It's another episode of The School of School podcast. Robin and Andy, they are on the other side of the world to me, but they're looking sharp. They're looking good. How are you both?

Andy Psarianos

We're good. Well, I'm good.

Robin Potter

We are feeling good.

Andy Psarianos

I have no idea about Robin. I'm good.

Robin Potter

Well, thank you. Actually, I am also good so that makes two of us, Andy. And, Adam, you're looking good too.

Adam Gifford

Hey, thanks very much. That's what I was fishing for. I was fishing for a compliment actually, Robin, so you've ticked that box. That's an excellent start to the day. Look, something came up the other day and I thought... I was having a conversation with a couple of schools and school leaders and something came up and I thought, "Gosh, this is really, A, an excellent conversation. B, oh, this doesn't happen very often." Then when I reflected on it, I thought, "Why does this not happen very often?"

And basically the long and the short of it is this. I've talked to some school leaders who have spent time discussing a long-term strategy to their professional development needs and investment in time and energy and their finances and time to talk to us about it and just to say, you know, "Here's what we want to do." And certain elements within it, like mapping out the path of their professional development, but also considering what the sort of evaluations are. What are they expecting to see as this takes place? And committing to a plan over two or three years with succession planning built in, with developing leadership and those sorts of things. And I just thought when these school leaders were talking about it, that seems eminently sensible to me.

But I'm not sure how often these get sort of thought about in any walk of life. And this is what I'm throwing out to you two, surely it's that planning, because like learning, it's something that we've got to build on. We've got to be quite considered with the elements that go into it, the sort of length of time in between, the types of things that we need to look for and assess to make sure that the first elements are working. I don't have those conversations anywhere near as often as I should.

Andy Psarianos

You know, first of all, I don't think it's just about professional development and about schools. I think any institution or organisation or even individual needs to always have this balance between, I guess, long-term direction and short-term survival tactics, right?

Adam Gifford

Sure.

Robin Potter

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

And I think all too often the problem is the short-term survival tactics take over, become overwhelming, and at the detriment of long-term planning, right? And schools are really susceptible to it. And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that they're largely measured on short-term outcomes, right? It's like always a do or die kind of situation in a school. It's like what's going to happen this year is what they're being judged by, right?

Robin Potter

But the irony of that, Andy, you bringing that up, is they are focused and perhaps rewarded on short-term goals. And yet, if they did long-range planning, if the school was doing long-range thinking and saying, "Okay. We need to say, 'keep the training up and do these courses.'" Or do whatever, wouldn't that also benefit the short-term?

Andy Psarianos

It benefits the short-term in the long run, right?

Robin Potter

Yes.

Andy Psarianos

So that's the problem.

Robin Potter

Yes.

Andy Psarianos

And so, look, I remember just before the financial crisis, 2008, I was sitting on a train and I was reading back in the day, this was in England, the old sort of newspapers that were always laying around in trains, right? There's always a newspaper and you never bought newspapers. You just walk in a train and pick one up off the seat and start reading it, right? I don't even remember what it was. And there was this thing and it said, it was... Okay. The numbers are wrong. I don't remember what the numbers were, but they were shocking. It was something like 60% of homeowners in England had paid for their mortgage with their credit card at least once in the last 12 months, okay?

This was just before the financial crisis, right? Like, whoa, whoa. What's going on here, right? But that's an example. But you can find analogies of that kind of behaviour in any institution that's up against it, right? And for sure, schools are no different, right? So schools will make all kinds of short-term decisions that are survival based. It's like, "Oh my God, I have to pay this somehow." What's the equivalent in a school? "I have to get these results somehow, therefore I will do all these short-term things." Right?

Robin Potter

Mm-hmm.

Andy Psarianos

And those are usually done at the detriment of the long-term effect, right?

Robin Potter

Mm-hmm.

Andy Psarianos

It's kind of like, if only I can get to that other stage where I don't have to do that, then I'll be able to start doing... But you never do, right? Because you're making all these horrible last minute decisions. I know I'm really off on a tangent here, but I think at the heart, it's an indication that this fear of losing, whatever that is, the short-term loss is stronger than the desire for the long-term gain. Losing something in the short-term is worse than winning something in the long-term. And I think that's just people.

Robin Potter

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

People do that all the time, right?

Robin Potter

Right. It's not just a school problem.

Adam Gifford

No, and I think it must be, and I think it's inherent, and like you're saying everyone is doing it, so it doesn't surprise me. I think the part that surprises me in schools and businesses is that you have to present some sort of plan and you'd think that that would make you feel secure in knowing that these are the elements that are going to, in the long-term, make your school better. But again, it's the kind of here's what we've got now. This is what we've got to do right now, and let's just get that done and we'll get through this, and then we'll create some time at some point down the track to think about what we do next. And then you're sort of 10 years down the track and that's not taken place.

Andy Psarianos

Well, and the thing is that there's all these false incentives. So even though you have to fill out a plan, the goal of filling out the plan, in most people's minds when they're making a plan, is not to have a good plan, okay? It's to meet the requirement of the person who asks you to make the plan, which is to make the plan. So you need a good plan. You don't have to follow the plan. You just need a good plan, right?

Robin Potter

Right.

Adam Gifford

Yeah.

Robin Potter

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

So the focus goes on the short-term, let's make the plan. And not the long-term, what's in my plan and can I actually achieve these things, right?

Adam Gifford

Yeah, absolutely. And can we evaluate along the way and see whether or not the plan's working? I think that's the other part too is it's kind of like getting the thing done today, whatever it might be, a course or a payment or whatever, once that's done, now I can breathe. I don't need to think anymore. That's just done. It's not evaluating whether or not, so use your credit card analogy, that's paid today. I'm not thinking about whether that's cost me more money and put me more in trouble next month. All I'm thinking about is it's given me the breathing room today. Next month will take care of itself, but at least we're done. So I think it's that evaluation part as well that seems to be missing in that we've done this, but we've not asked ourselves, well, there might be the why, but the implications of what happens seems to get missed and amongst it not being able to see, what am I doing it for?

Andy Psarianos

Yeah. Well, exactly. Why do you make a long-term plan? You make a long-term plan because somebody asked you to, right? It's like that's the motivation, right?

Robin Potter

Sure. And even if it was your plan and you came up with it, you've got to hold yourself accountable and that often seems to falter at some point. And I'm sure I am guilty of that along with many other people. But I guess the point here is if we're stepping back, looking again from the school's perspective, so step one, everybody makes a plan that includes continual lifelong learning. But when it comes down to it, did the teachers actually sign up for the courses and did the school actually agree to support them by paying for these courses or doing something to support the teacher? And there seems to be some stumbling blocks along the way because, I don't know, Adam, you do so much training. You see all kinds of people from different schools. And I'm sure you have teachers you've seen multiple times who continue their training and some that are maybe new and then you never see again. So from your perspective, what's the biggest stumbling block or what do they need to do?

Adam Gifford

I think that it's the joined up thinking. So if someone thinks this is wrong to, I don't know, I'll just make something up for argument's sake. So the school says the children are having problems with fractions, right? So quickly, let's do a fractions course just to get that done now. And then next time it's something else and something else, and that might be the wrong one. And actually what may have been better is understanding, I don't know, just sort of the fundamental approach to teaching and learning mathematics first. That might actually play a part. There might not have been an issue with that. And so that sequential learning and sort of saying, "Okay, do we know that we're doing this part right?" And understanding in the same way that we wouldn't just teach a child who comes into year one or just any little wee child to apply year one to anywhere, grade one. You're not going to teach them to be multiplying three digit numbers because they've got lots to learn beforehand.

So we might not say, "The problem is that they can't do this quickly. Teach them how to do this." You might be able to do it. You might be able to really struggle and teach them how to do it over a long period of time, but you've not done them any favours because they've still not got this other part. So when they get to something else, it's still troublesome. And I think that the schools that I work with that seem to have the best outcomes in terms of their children are the ones that say, "We're doing this as part of an approach and we know that we need this in the first instance. But not only that, we're going to look for indicators that this is working, the conversation's going to continue as we work through this and we're going to evaluate and evaluate." And what we've got planned here, we might be ready to be flexible and say, "Actually no, we're not ready for this yet. That might need to go a little bit further." Or, "We're making better progress against this. We know what's coming next and now they're ready."

So in the same way that we know that children learn best when we apply the right elements, we give them time to practise, and their assessment data tells us, "Okay, I'm ready for the next piece of new learning." I think it's the same approach. And I think in those schools where the conversation continues, so it's not just a tick box exercise. "Oh, yeah, we said we're going to do this in a year, just get it done. Away you go. You come back and we're going to assume that everything's going to be fine." I think it's about all the other parts that feed into it that then become really important. You know why you're doing it. You know what underpins it.

Andy Psarianos

You brought up fractions, right? So if your pupils can't do fractions, they're struggling to understand some of the fraction concepts when you're, let's say, doing, I don't know, addition of fractions because addition of fractions, it's ugly, right? It's common denominators and all that nonsense. So it's a messy process, right? So if they can't get that, it's probably not because of anything that you're doing wrong. Well, it might be, but it's just as likely, maybe even more likely that somebody did something or forgot to do something in year one or year two or year three, right?

Because everything builds on top of everything. So if they can't understand a concept in year five, it's because... And that's the whole problem, right? So if you didn't do it right in year one and year two, you're forever plugging holes later on, right? And that's the problem. And it's the problem whether you're talking about educating children or educating teachers or you're talking about your personal finances, I mean, those analogies carry through all the time. As long as you're stuck in your short-term, what's the shortcut to stop my immediate problem? Pay my mortgage with my credit card, right? That stops, because guess what, "Hey, the bank lent me money in a different way now. One where I pay higher interest, but it can solve my other problem." Right?

Robin Potter

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

Do you understand what I'm saying? And as long as you're making decisions like that, and in the math classroom, the equivalent would be I'm just going to teach them the trick to get the answer with no effort going into why it works or why you would even do this calculation, right? So it's just like, you want a write answer? This is the trick. And as long as you do that... And you know what? And when you're training your teachers, it's the same thing. Should I send my teachers on this expensive three-day course where I have to get somebody else to cover their classroom and whatever? Or do I just download some free resource online and let them work with that? The second one has a lot more immediate beneficial qualities, but in the long run, you'll be plugging for a long time. But schools or the education system has no one to blame but itself for that because it's all completely hardwired for these short-term wins, right?

Robin Potter

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

Write down to the student level. So look, let me give you a student example, okay? So I had this discussion just recently with my son who's in university, okay? So my son has worked as a software programmer for several years and he's worked with some of the best computer scientists that I've ever known. Needless to say, his skills are pretty good and he's doing a degree that's in computer science and physics right now. And he's crushing the computer science courses, like he's just crushing. It takes him no effort. It's like, yeah, I was doing that three years ago at work, right? For him, it's that simple.

He probably knows more than his professor about a lot of the things that they're doing in the classroom. Then there's these other courses. So right now he's struggling because taking this general relativity, right? And it's hard. It's really difficult or so counterintuitive, right? Let's say, common sense would say, "Why don't you take more of the easy courses, the things that you find easy? Because you're going to get better grades. And then if you want to go off and do a degree later on, you'll have all these fantastic grades and you'll look like a genius and everybody will want you. And why are you torturing yourself with these really difficult courses?"

Well, hold don a second. Why are you going to school? Are you going to school to learn or are you going to school to generate good marks, right? So the incentive is wrong because any sensible person who understands how the system works will go for the easy courses. But actually they'll do a tremendous amount more learning in the things where they're uncomfortable and almost on the verge of failing all the time because it's questioning their whole belief system. That's where they should be. That's what we're paying for, is that uncomfortable learning environment, right? That's where it works. That's where you gain. You don't gain in your comfort zone, right? So what else do you need to say? The whole thing is rigged the wrong way, right?

Robin Potter

Mm-hmm.

Adam Gifford

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Robin Potter

Yeah.

Adam Gifford

And unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a very clear structure, like you're saying, that points these things out in terms of expectation in schools. So I know, I'm just going back to primary schools for a moment, is that a coherent joined up plan for professional development exists by and large in a teacher's first or second year of teacher. Outside of that, it's kind of guesswork or educated guesswork, informed guesswork or not. I mean, because there's options out there to talk to people who know, but by and large, there's not considered, if you surveyed 100 schools and said, "What is the plan? What is a reasonable plan to develop enough knowledge to teach your children really well?" I'm not convinced that you would get 100 similar plans.

Andy Psarianos

And it's so lethal, especially for teachers, because teachers are so isolated in their jobs, right?

Adam Gifford

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

They spend their time with kids, right? They don't really spend that much time with their peers when you sit and... I mean, they do, but not nearly as much as most people who work, right? And imagine that you had some horrible disease that was going to kill you, right? And you went to see your doctor and he was like 65 years old and the only training he ever had was when he went to school to learn to become a doctor and had not ever spoken to any colleagues or informed himself whatsoever about new techniques or new treatments or anything, right? And how comfortable would you feel about some guy who learned everything that he knows like 40 years ago?

Adam Gifford

Mm-hmm.

Robin Potter

Yeah, a bit concerning.

Adam Gifford

And I think, but the other factor in that, Andy, and I was talking this to a group of teachers last week and sort of saying, the reality is, you talk about that isolation, is that, again using the doctor analogy, imagine it was a child that went to see him and they didn't have a parent or a guardian with them to say, "Hey, this isn't working." Because I think that over time, the other thing too is that our children very rarely hold us to account if we're not doing the job in the classroom. Ultimately, there'll be sort of checks and balances that we hope if there's really significant gaps, but I was saying this to a group because if I put them in a position where they think they need to do some teaching in front of their peers at that given time, unrehearsed, unplanned, and it makes you feel a bit edgy because you're about to present to people who can hold you to account, adults.

Children don't tend to. I've taught plenty of classes with my children. I could have been doing a terrible job, and my children would've sit there and really tried to make sense of it and really tried to learn. So I think on top of it is that, just as you said, like you've got that idea about there should be an expectation that there's ongoing improvement, which isn't just going to come from experience. Because the one thing we know about relying on experience is it makes your good habits more ingrained, but it also makes your poor habits just as ingrained.

Andy Psarianos

If all your experience is bad then going off your experience isn't necessarily-

Adam Gifford

It's a disaster.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah, exactly.

Robin Potter

Yeah. So we agree that ongoing, whatever it is, is necessary, whether it be training or staff moves or whatever it is. I mean, so that's important. We agree. So how do we get there? How do we make the long range planning the number one versus the short-term gains?

Andy Psarianos

I think it's a leadership question, right? And I think that, again, a big part of it has to do with leadership training, right? Again, a lot of it has to do with professional development. A lot of people who are leaders in schools don't come from a role of leadership necessarily, right? So they kind of learn it on the job. Building a culture for long-term success is really, really hard, okay? It's really, really hard. And I think we often underestimate how hard it is. And I think at the heart, that's the problem, because you need people who are strong enough to say, "I'm willing to make an unpopular short-term decision for the long-term benefit." And that's very counterintuitive, very counterintuitive for people.

Robin Potter

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

Right?

Adam Gifford

Yeah, I agree with that. And I think that, I don't know what the vehicle is, but more leaders who have got experience in that and they've shown that it works, sharing those stories and talking about the outcomes and supporting those other leaders in those positions. Because like you're saying, Andy, that is the reality. The vast majority of people who go into school leadership, they've come from the classroom, you know? And we've discussed this many times before. And of course there's elements of leadership there, but there are so many things that are learned in leadership and that-

Andy Psarianos

Yeah. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they shouldn't come from the classroom.

Adam Gifford

Oh, no, no, no. Not at all.

Andy Psarianos

I'm saying you have to develop them to be leaders.

Adam Gifford

I agree with you that that skill set as you move through leadership, it's a learned skill set. You might have some of it, you might've seen it from other people that you've been in, but I think that is simply the reality. And I've spoken about my own personal experience. Of course, I needed all sorts of elements to be supported because I was running an organisation. I'd gone from running a class and then having a small group of teachers, all those sorts of things. Again, those elements need to be well-thought-out in leadership too, as you're saying, in the same way we've just discussed throughout this podcast, because it is, it's the truth. Most of us come from classrooms and there's things that we are dealing with, particularly at the top end of leadership in schools with trusts that we just simply wouldn't have had the experience of dealing with previously.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah. And leadership, what does leadership look like? And I think the person who described it the best ever for me was Elon Musk. And I know he's not... I'm not saying we should all be Elon Musk. That's not what I'm saying.

Robin Potter

But he might have a good quote.

Andy Psarianos

But he has a good quote. He said, "It's like eating glass and staring into the abyss." Okay? And he went on to explain that. He basically said, "Eating glass is a horrible experience. It hurts."

Robin Potter

Sounds like it.

Andy Psarianos

"And you're staring into the abyss. You actually don't know what's going to happen." Right? It's just a bunch of uncertainty in front of you and you got to suffer the whole way, right? And that's what leadership really is. And if you're not the kind of person who gets off on that, the short-term fear of losing will always win to the detriment of the long-term. Yeah?

Robin Potter

Gain. Mm-hmm.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah, it always will because it's stronger. And that's the eating glass bit, right? Because you're not going to be popular or you might be popular, but you're not going to be confident about. It's just hard.

Robin Potter

It is.

Andy Psarianos

Eating glasses and staring into the abyss. Just imagine what that's like. That's kind of what being a good leader is like, right?

Robin Potter

Wow.

Adam Gifford

It's a tough one.

Andy Psarianos

It's a tough one, right?

Robin Potter

Well, that's something to ponder.

Andy Psarianos

Why does everybody want to do it?

Robin Potter

I think the conversation though has at least inspired me to now think about what my course of action will be for my next learning. So now I'm keen to look. I have it figured out.

Andy Psarianos

Get a great mentor. Everyone should have a great mentor. Everyone should have someone who's done it before and you look up to.

Robin Potter

Mm-hmm.

Andy Psarianos

You should have that person in your life and then just ask them the question to help you solve that. What should I do next? Because you know what? They might not be right, but they'll have some good ideas. They'll get you thinking anyway.

Robin Potter

Mm-hmm.

Adam Gifford

Mm-hmm. Agreed, agreed.

Robin Potter

Well, we haven't solved the world's problems today, but I think it was a very valuable conversation.

Andy Psarianos

If it was up to us, we would've solved all of the world's problems by now.

Adam Gifford

Easily. We would've had five minutes left over, easy.

Robin Potter

All right. Well, nice to see you both. Until next time.

Adam Gifford

It's been a pleasure.

Andy Psarianos

Always a pleasure. Thank you for joining us on The School of School podcast.