Annex C
MANAGING THE
CHANGE PROCESS
TO TRANSFORM
THE SCHOOL
WORKFORCE
Introduction
In April 2002, the staff, governors and pupils
of Cirencester Deer Park School were invited to take part in the
Pathfinder "Transforming the School Workforce" programme.
The challenge was, and remains, to make a significant impact upon
the culture of schools to transform the learning environments
that free teachers to concentrate on teaching, reduce workload
and continue to raise standards. The retention of teachers and
the recruitment of graduates from the University marketplace are
additional core goals at the heart of the programme.
One year on, and the benefits gained from the
involvement in the project are being felt across the school, and
are being used to inform the work of the project leaders at the
London Leadership Centre and DfES as they move towards a model
of dissemination across the country. This article describes the
change management process that has been put in place at the school
and the short-term outcomes that are leading to the creation of
a more effective workforce at the school, where the balance between
professional and private lifestyles is being improved.
Managing the Change Process-Creating capacity
for Innovation
The unique feature of this project compared
with others that the school has been involved in, has been the
greater emphasis upon process. There will be 32 different "products"
that can be shared from each one of the Pathfinder schools, but
the lesson for others to learn lies in the value of a robust change
management process that builds the capacity of schools to innovate.
Developing an understanding the power of communication and effective
information systems lies at the heart of the process.
At Cirencester Deer Park School, every adult
and pupil has been involved in the generation of ideas that has
led to the creation of an implementation plan for a "school
of the future". The school employs 118 adults as teachers
and support staff, and each was invited to join one of the six
pathfinder teams looking at the core improvement goals of KS3
strategy, ICT & on-line learning, Classrooms of the future,
the School Day, extra-curricular and enrichment, and the support
for learning across the school. Staff who had ended their working
day by the time meetings were due to start were paid for their
time and responded enthusiastically to the debate. The school
gained from the richness of a discourse that took place between
teachers, administrators, learning support workers, grounds and
maintenance staff, and began the process of a shared vocabulary
and common language about the change agenda.
Each team produced a series of recommendations
for the strategic leadership team of the school to consider, and
the teams have now been "commissioned" to take one of
their core ideas and turn it into an implementation plan. Teams
have been allocated a notional budget to support their thinking.
Searching for the Quick-Win-April to July 2002
The senior leadership team was aware of the
need to find quick evidence that a reduction in workload and an
improved lifestyle balance could be achieved. By the end of the
summer term, simple factors such as the purchase of a fax machine
for the PE department, the extension of hours within existing
administrative staff and the offer of subsidised membership rates
at a local health club had made people sit up and take notice.
Starting the Sustainable Change Agenda-September
2002
The academic year 2002-03 has been pivotal for
the school in its quest for strategies that address the "freeing
teachers to teach" agenda. Here are three mini case studies
that reflect the work and thinking of the change management teams.
Case Study1: Making Classrooms Interactive
to make Teaching and Learning more effective
The school was delighted to receive a grant
within the Pathfinder project for ICT, and used the money to support
the installation of an Interactive whiteboard in every classroom
across the school. The concept of shared planning and using electronic
resources produced in collaboration with teachers from other curriculum
teams has started the process of reducing the workload of teachers
as the repetition of planning tasks is reduced. Lesson content
displayed on the interactive whiteboards in lessons is stored
either on faculty websites or shared areas on the school network
for departments across the school to use as they wish. Pupils
who miss the lesson can find out what they need to do to catch
up and supply teachers have instant lesson plans that are of high
quality. In short, the "golden moment" that characterises
the successful lesson is stored for future use.
Case Study 2: Creating the 24-Hour Learning
Environment
The staff at Cirencester Deer Park School would
be amongst the first to acknowledge that the goal of a virtual
curriculum that mirrors and extends the entire school year for
all five year groups is incomplete. However, the access that staff
and pupils now have to the school network from home is enabling
teachers to plan their time more effectively. Reports do not have
to be written in school and important folders and documents can
be accessed on the home lap-top as easily as they can in school.
Using the RM package "Easy Link", all members of the
school community can use their school password to gain access
to their own user area, faculty websites and other resources that
foster good lesson planning and preparation.
Case Study 3: Raising the Profile of Support
Staff
Cirencester Deer Park School has an ambitious
target of creating the same number of support staff as teachers
by 2004-05. This year, the school has appointed an additional
eight classroom based learning assistants. Within this team are
a number of recent graduates who aim to become teachers in the
future. Their role has been to support learning either by accepting
"commissions" to prepare resources, targeting specific
pupil groups such as pupils working towards A* grades in English,
running extra-curricular activities and creating a school based
Drama team from year 10 who have performed in assemblies, taking
away the burden of assembly preparation from Heads of Year. The
school has provided between 8-27 hours of support each week for
Literacy, Numeracy, ICT, PE, Modern Languages, Expressive Arts
and Humanities teams.
The School of the Future-September 2004
The benefits of the thinking produced by the
staff at Cirencester Deer Park School during 2002-03 will be felt
in the future. The senior leadership team believes that the process
of change management employed this year has created the framework
for sustainable change. For the coming year, the school is working
towards a new school day, where a longer contact time will support
extension activities for all pupils within the timetable that
could replace the need for traditional homework. This strategy
linked to the on-line curriculum could radically alter the working
day of staff and pupils. The trade off that is built around more
hours of teaching but less hours marking at home is one that both
teachers and pupils find attractive. The change process will be
illuminating. The outcomes could represent the start of the workforce
transformation that could herald a new dawn in education across
the UK.
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