Supporting, challenging and
embedding small class pedagogy
John MacBeath
Faculty of Education,
University of Cambridge UK
Seminar on Small Class Teaching –
Leadership for Learning
June 2010, Hong Kong
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DEVELOPING THE INNER EYE
Leadership acts are most likely to occur when attempts
are made to understand the circumstances of teachers’
work. This means starting with the practicalities of
teaching, developing a language for talking about
teaching, and assisting teachers to collect evidence about
the contradictions, dilemmas and paradoxes that inhere in
their work. This consciousness raising amounts to
developing an inner eye so as to penetrate accepted
assumptions and, in the process, isolate viable ways in
which transformation might occur.
(Smyth, 1986, p. 3)
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DEVELOPING THE INNER EYE
Leadership acts are most likely to occur when attempts
are made to understand the circumstances of teachers’
work. This means starting with the practicalities of
teaching, developing a language for talking about
teaching, and assisting teachers to collect evidence about
the contradictions, dilemmas and paradoxes that inhere in
their work. This consciousness raising amounts to
developing an inner eye so as to penetrate accepted
assumptions and, in the process, isolate viable ways in
which transformation might occur.
(Smyth, 1986, p. 3)
3
Contradictions, dilemmas and paradoxes?
Children learn without being taught
Learning is social but assessed individually
Learning doesn’t travel well from one context to another
Teaching can inhibit learning
Assessment can inhibit learning… and teaching
School leaders can inhibit learning
Why do children learn in large classes and not in small
classes?
Why do researchers find no direct effect of principal
leadership on student learning?
Why does ‘nothing fail like success’?
4
DEVELOPING THE INNER EYE
Leadership acts are most likely to occur when attempts
are made to understand the circumstances of teachers’
work. This means starting with the practicalities of
teaching, developing a language for talking about
teaching, and assisting teachers to collect evidence about
the contradictions, dilemmas and paradoxes that inhere in
their work. This consciousness raising amounts to
developing an inner eye so as to penetrate accepted
assumptions and, in the process, isolate viable ways in
which transformation might occur.
(Smyth, 1986, p. 3)
5
Untested assumptions and inert ideas
What assumptions do we have and share
about:






Learning?
Teaching?
Assessment?
Leadership?
Class size?
Change?
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Changing minds, changing practice
 Who holds those assumptions?
 How deeply embedded are they?
 How open are they to change?
 Who are the change agents?
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Testing, Using and Reframing
Inert ideas, that is to say ideas that are merely received into
the mind without being utilized, or tested, or thrown into
fresh combination
(Aims of Education, p.1)
The curriculum
A rapid table of contents which a deity might run over in his
mind while he was thinking of creating a world and has not
yet determined how to put it together
(Aims of Education, p.4)
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Inconvenient truth
What gets us into trouble is
not what we don’t know
It’s what we’re sure we
know
But it just ain’t so
(Tom Sawyer)
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HOW CHANGE WORKS
1. The rule of the vital few: A few exceptional people doing
something different start and incubate an epidemic.
2. The stickiness factor: Some attribute of the epidemic
allows it to endure long enough to "catch", to become
contagious or "memorable".
3. The power of context: The physical, social and group
environment must be right to allow the epidemic to then
suffuse through the population.
(Gladwell, 1999)
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Agency
The “sense of agency” refers to the subjective awareness that
one is initiating, executing, and controlling one’s own
volitional actions in the world. It is closely related to a sense
of ownership, an implicit sense that one is the author of an
action, movement or thought…
Good teachers refuse to underestimate their own sense of
agency and have been able to perceive the scope for radical
change within their own classrooms and within their own
schools. They refuse to collude with the victim mentality
which relinquishes initiative, self-belief and a sense of agency.
They are encouraged, supported and empowered by a senior
leadership team which understands that schools learn and
change from the bottom up. (Galton and MacBeath, 2008.115)
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THE PACE AND FLOW OF CHANGE
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11 KEY FACETS OF LEADERSHIP
• Seeks out opportunities to learn
• Acts with integrity
• Adapts to differences
• Is committed to making a difference
• Seeks broad based knowledge
• Brings out the best in other people
• Is insightful - sees things from new angles
• Has courage to take risks
• Seeks out and uses feedback
• Learns from mistakes
• Is open to criticism
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MYST routine
•
Me: How do I model learning? How do I make
my own learning and thinking visible?
•
You: How do I help you make your students’
learning and thinking visible?
•
Space: How is the environment of the school and
classroom organized to help promote learning and
facilitate critical thinking?
•
Time: What can we do to give thinking and
sharing more time in our classroom? How can we
gauge how the quality of thinking changes over
time?
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Making learning visible








Is thinking visible here?
Are pupils explaining things to one another?
Are they offering creative ideas?
Are they using the language of thinking?
Am I?
Are pupils debating interpretations?
How is assessment enhancing thinking and feeling?
Is this an environment conducive to learning?
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Joining the dots
Learning
and
teaching
Student
performance
Student
support and
ethos
Management &
Organisation
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Embedding principles:
How will you know?
• Clear statement of learning objectives
• Extended questioning during whole class
discussion
• More active pupil participation
• Increased cooperation between pupils by
working in pairs and groups
• Less use of corrective and more informing
feedback
• More use of the assessment for learning
approach
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Supporting school self evaluation
• Help create a climate for SSE
• Critique plans for SSE
• Provoke challenging & revealing selfquestioning
• Explore data gathering approaches
• Facilitate the process
• Feed back data
• Advise on analysis and interpretation of data
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Supporting school self evaluation
• Challenge in order to clarify and deepen
understanding
• Act as a sounding board for testing out
emerging ideas and insights
• Explore alternative possible courses of action
• Facilitate networking with other schools
• Motivate and reassure
• Provide readings to stimulate thought
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Observing learning and teaching









What are the students doing?
What are they learning?
What is the teacher doing?
What is she learning?
What am I doing?
What am I learning?
What questions might I ask?
What observations might I make?
What happens next?
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CONSTRUCTION SITES
Children and young people live nested lives, so that when
classrooms do not function as we want them to, we go to
work on improving them. Those classrooms are in
schools, so when we decide that those schools are not
performing appropriately, we go to work on improving
them, as well. But those young people are also situated in
families, in neighbourhoods, in peer groups who shape
attitudes and aspirations often more powerfully than their
parents or teachers.
(David Berliner, 2005)
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Using data for
self evaluation
Familiarising self and staff with
nature and uses of data.
Demystifying ‘data’.
Focusing on one or two key areas.
Teachers begin to use data
collection tools at classroom
level and seek support from their
mentors and colleagues.
Teachers are comfortable with data,
use it routinely in their day-towork, are critical and adaptable in
its use, share ideas with colleagues,
are keen to learn more.
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Decision
making
Principals make most of decisions on
their own or with support from SMT
members. Staff may get involved at
times in decisions on minor matters.
Headteacher consults with the SMT,
middle management and selected
teachers and takes their views into
account in making decisions.
There is a strong sense among staff of
inclusion and empowerment in
decision making. Staff feel they can
offer their opinions freely and are
trusted to make decisions.
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Accountability
Accountability is seen as an external
imposition and there is uncertainty as
to how to know, select and report
what quality counts.
The meaning and uses of
accountability are discussed
with staff in order to make it more
user friendly and focused on key
issues.
Accountability grows out of shared
purpose and a sense of mutual
responsibility. This is the basis for
confident reporting to ESR teams.
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START
DOING
GO ON
DOING
STOP
DOING
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Intelligence
is knowing
what to do
when you
don’t know
what to do
Jean Piaget
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Sources
Berliner, D. (2005) Our impoverished view of Educational Reform,
Teachers College Record, August
Retrieved from: http://www.tcrecord.org/content.asp?contentid=12106
Galton, M. and MacBeath, J. (2008) Teachers under Pressure, London,
Sage
Smyth, J, (ed) Learning About Teaching Through Clinical Supervision,
London:Croom Helm, 1986
Weiss, L. and Fine, M. (2000) Construction Sites: Excavating Race,
Class and Gender among Urban Youth, New York
Whitehead, A.N. (1985) The Aims of Education, London, The Free
Press
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