TDF evaluation consultants, Pat Cochrane and Vicky Storey, speak with three senior leaders from recent Teacher Development Fund programmes to explore their role within the evaluation of their projects. Together, they discuss how senior leaders can lead and sustain evaluation processes to shape programme development and enhance professional learning outcomes.
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The importance of securing active involvement by senior leaders in the design and delivery of effective professional development is well evidenced within TDF projects and wider research. How senior leaders are effectively engaged is often explored within TDF project evaluation and provide rich insights into the challenges and opportunities connected to the role of senior leaders are emerging. In this post, we talk with three school leaders who all played a key role in evaluating their TDF projects to explore how they managed the process, what the benefits were for their projects and advice they might have for others in securing senior leader engagement in evaluation.
We know that Headteachers and members of senior leadership teams have busy schedules and therefore, committing to an additional role leading a TDF evaluation feels like a significant ask. So how and why did these senior leaders do this?
Kerri Sellens explained that she carved out and dedicated set times within her working day. She admits that it was a significant piece of work, and it did roll over at times, but “I actually enjoyed the process and I wanted to do a good job of it.” Alice Littlehailes describes how the evaluation was planned and woven in carefully from the beginning, so the workload felt manageable because it was continuous from the start. Bernie Furey was able to commission two experienced evaluators to work closely alongside her on the project. Bernie and Alice both shared Kerri’s enthusiasm and all three spoke with passion about how much they gained from being directly involved in the evaluation process. Taking such an active and lead role created valuable professional development opportunities for themselves as school leaders — both in evaluation skills and in their own understanding about the challenges and opportunities for their teachers within the programme. Bernie describes her learning experience within the evaluation as ‘ruffling her feathers’.
Being open-minded and recognising that things might not go the way you want them to means the findings are not always comfortable to hear. While Alice and Kerri led the evaluation themselves, Bernie’s project chose to commission an external evaluation team. Bernie explained that she wanted the challenge of an external perspective, and she welcomed critique and different viewpoints.
At the end of year one, the external evaluators had interviewed all the headteachers, and when some findings emerged which Bernie described as ‘uncomfortable’, she was able to rapidly rethink the project design going into year 2. The three senior leaders, all with project management and evaluation roles, described being able to ‘follow through’ quickly and effectively when issues emerged. Alice reflected that some artists were used to working directly with pupils, with very specific expectations, and so found standing back and taking on more of a consultancy/advisory role challenging. As soon as Alice realised this, she was able to arrange additional mentoring training for the artists.
“If we hadn’t been evaluating as we’ve gone along, and we didn’t have that oversight of being a school leader, we wouldn’t have picked up on that in the same way.”
Bernie had a similar experience and delivered an additional session with artists on mentoring and teaching. Kerri brought in a drama specialist from a local theatre to deliver an extra training workshop, developing teachers’ presentation skills before a planned TeachMeet in Year Two.
“As a school leader, you can be sensitive to your teachers’ needs, and actually adapt and bring in some more teacher training as you need.”
Because of their position within networks in the region, each of the projects has been able to carry forward the legacy of the project. All three were proud of the impact and the learning coming from their projects. Their central role within the evaluation meant they were brilliantly positioned to share this across their networks and within their localities, ensuring a legacy for the learning. In addition to sharing their final written reports, all three projects also commissioned films and have found these valuable for advocacy. You can see examples on the TDF Comms Padlet.
They were all very clear, however, about how important it was for the film to capture the learning of the teacher. While a filmmaker may instinctively want to focus on children and an arts organisation might want a film focused on advocacy, the three school leaders ensured that the films firmly centred the teachers and the factors that enabled them to adapt arts-based approaches within their teaching.
Alice and Bernie both met with headteachers termly and described regular communication as critical, “if they couldn’t come to us, we went to them. It can’t be an add-on or afterthought.” While it may be easier for school leaders to gain access to their peers, it’s still really important to make sure evaluation conversations connect to decision makers in all settings to ensure they understand the ongoing learning and the potential implications for their staff and the wider school.
Ensure you are sharing how teachers’ confidence is increasing and the impact they are seeing on the children throughout the process to connect with the Headteacher priorities — personal connection is critical to maintaining headteachers’ interest and commitment.
Finally, Alice leaves us with an insightful reminder about why Headteachers should consider an active role in the TDF evaluation:
“because you are going to learn so much more about how to develop your staff, and by being part of the evaluation, you’ll gain a deep understanding of what’s impacted the most on teacher development.”
Sarah Eastaff, Director of Creative Learning at darts, and Helena Honeybone, Headteacher at Town Field Primary School, reflect on the benefits of their collaborative approach to their Teacher Development Fund evaluation, sharing their learning from the process and its ongoing impact on their organisations.
Pat Cochrane and Vicky Storey, evaluation support consultants for rounds 3–8 of the Teacher Development Fund, reflect on the differing approaches to evaluation across TDF projects and share some of the ways that colleagues have enabled genuine exploration and learning as an integral part of the process.
