Workshop 1: Planning and stakeholder engagement

Workshop 1: Planning and stakeholder engagement Audience: Senior team in the school / planning committee Deliverable: Engagement plan for the year

Prerequisites for this Workshop • From the introduction workshop - key features of this workshop such as the ‘Parts’, ‘Suggested Agenda’ and ‘Overview’ are described in the introduction to the workshops which is a general guide to the workshop series. • From previous improvement cycles – most effective schools will have been involved in continuous improvement for many years. It would be helpful to have previous planning documents available during this workshop. • Data to inform decisions – for example the ITL research which examines how schools can and are transforming practice. Your school could use the survey to identify your strengths and weaknesses. Alternatively you may have produced other data reports that you could make available.

Workshop 1 of 8: Engagement Planning • There are eight broad workshops in the Innovative Schools Toolkit. • Each workshop provides ideas, activities, links to other resources, strategies and frameworks. • Please use the resources and PowerPoint called ‘Introduction to the IST workshop series’ for detailed guidance on the workshops. • Consider your local context to select the most appropriate strategies offered in these workshops. On-going Continuous Improvement

Overview • These materials will assist your senior team in planning the calendar of engagements for this year. • A calendar of engagements is needed to ensure that: • events are sequenced correctly; and • the right stakeholders are involved at the right times • Successfully engaging stakeholders takes time and a well thought out strategy which builds over years; this strategy may also require a change in ethos and processes.

Guiding Questions • When is it logical to start and end your annual continuous improvement cycle? • There are eight stages in the annual continuous improvement cycle, what date in the calendar will you set for each stage? • Who are the stakeholders you will be engaging with this year? • How are your learners partners in your innovation? • Which stakeholders are likely to resist any planned changes?

How well does your plan ensure stakeholder engagement?

Suggested Agenda for your Senior Team Meeting

Part 1. Commitment to leading change • Those engaged in leading change this year need to find the balance between control and chaos • Meaningful change is managed yet free enough to be creative and innovative • The Microsoft Innovative Schools’ Improvement Cycle is a structured programme for change. • Before even considering the cycle, there needs to be ownership and understanding of the reasons for engaging in significant change this year.

Some initial thoughts • Think about the people in your teams • Look at the materials provided by Michael Fullanon: • The process of change • Dealing with resistance • Leadership case studies • How can your plan keep people informed? • People need ownership and a feeling of personal control within the process but there must be non-negotiable areas too • There will be heated debate and possibly conflict this year • Ensure the direction is shared and agreed from the start and keep your plans open and well communicated.

Chaos, change and control • Change is disruptive - change involves emotional engagement • If the process of change is not structured enough: • Emotional threats and stress can escalate • Inequalities can occur and trust can suffer • Systems can be chaotic and fluctuating • If the process of change is too heavily controlled: • Change processes are not owned • Changes tend to be simply minor improvements • Leadership tends to stay in the hands of a few

The challenges of change Select from the following challenges, each designed to help raise awareness of the complexity of change and the importance of excellent communication and structure. • Challenge 1 – Getting the balance of uncertainty and agreement right • Challenge 2 – Predicting the size of the innovation dip • Challenge 3 – Engaging people with purpose • Challenge 4 – Widening engagement sustainably

Challenge 1Getting the balance of uncertainty and agreement right • List the people who you feel respond well to uncertainty and could produce creative new approaches. • List the people who you feel respond badly to uncertainty and may become stressed or more restrictive. • Use the following slide to consider which processes you will be controlling this year and which will be more locally determined. • Which changes need wide agreement in place to give people more certainty?

Far from Agreement • Possibilities • Growth • Innovation • Performance • Flexible deliveries Chaos • Leadership for innovation • Vision, mission and values • Relationships and collaboration • Networks / partnerships • Information rich • Identity and purpose • Trust, challenge and support • Responsible risk • Double Loop learning • Customer outcomes focus • Personal Responsibility • Flexible Budgets • Performance management • Researching for evidence Transformational Edge • Management and Operational structures • Rules, standard operating procedures • Communication systems and information management • Timetables, internal routines • Programmes and pedagogical agreements • Standards for teaching • Standards for learning • Control • Limitation • License to operate Close to Agreement Close to Certainty Far from Certainty Adapted from Stacey, R. / Napoli D.

Challenge 2: Predicting the size of the innovation dip Eventually your project will create improvement but make sure you start the next project before the previous one becomes too embedded, otherwise the gains may begin to tail off. When the Project started Success Any project that involves change may cause some initial confusion and inefficiency and could result in things getting worse not better. If you predict the extent of this initial dip, you can ensure that you don’t embark on a project that is outside of the school’s capacity. Time

Example: Eggbuckland Community College Academic Performance:Value added -0.2 • End of topic tests very poor Skills and capabilities • Semi-chaos – students do not possess even basic assumed skills for peer managed learning and use of the internet Creativity Agenda • All work by students is PowerPoint and Word • Use of ICT outside of the laptop project is limited • Only one whiteboard is being used interactively with two not used at all Student Leadership • Student assaulted while on duty • 8 managers sacked Mood: • Departments report low confidence Academic Performance:Value added 0 • Assessment buddies set up Skills and capabilities • Laptop group of 30 students set up with permanent 1:1 access to a wireless internet linked laptop • Provided all students with teacher training and set them the task of training their peers Creativity Agenda • Outcomes not method based Student Leadership • Access manager scheme introduced for student leadership Mood: • Expectation for radical change Academic Performance:Art and music results poor Skills and capabilities • Skills variety 250% • Intensive work to maintain system Creativity Agenda • TAs come under criticism and one leaves music department canvassing parents for support. • Art department faces technical difficulty Student Leadership • First smashed window, twelve teachers ban students from their rooms after direct vandalism Mood: • Open criticism of skills reporting in front of students • Department heads advising tick box Academic Performance: Value added 1.2 Skills and capabilities • Skills variety 18% • Skills value added 2.2 Creativity Agenda • Music numbers increased • Art results increased • All KS3 students produce their own music and digital video mood work Student Leadership • 150 students: 50 grade 1, 20 grade 2, 2 grade 3 and 1 grade 4 Mood: • BECTA award • OFSTED European case study • NCSL case study • First set of e-confident schools • Training School Status Academic Performance:Value added 0.5 Skills and capabilities • Parents and teachers feedback that the unreported skills of students were all significantly increasing • Replaced reports system to make it skills based Creativity Agenda • Students beginning to diversify their teaching to include the use of animation, video and music in their lesson delivery • Multimedia for all introduced • Art and music curriculum time taken • ICT teaching stops • TAs employed to inspire creativity Student Leadership • ICT student leaders self managing • Introduced room management and events leadership This is a case study of innovation spanning three years in one College of 1300 students in the UK. This is an animated slide which should be viewed as a slide show in PowerPoint.

Challenge 3: Connecting people with purpose • Read the work of Michael Fullanand consider how you will connect to the moral purpose and passion of your audience. • View ‘Shift Happens’ and think about the messages it contains. Can you use simple images and figures to make your case clearer? • View the speech by ‘Dalton Sherman’ on YouTube to connect with the purpose of education. • Teachers tend to focus on today’s issues – how do you get them to connect to their ideals so you can find out what really drives them? Perhaps base the question far into the future or on their own children and what they want school to provide.

Challenge 4: Is this change sustainable? It is important to plan for a broad emotional commitment to the reason for change from stakeholders. This will provide a platform on which to build the vision (in workshop 2). For your plan to succeed, you will need to focus on: • Establishing an urgent reason for change • Forming a visible and powerful support coalition • Having a clear plan for implementation • Effectively engaging stakeholders • Converting this process to long-term sustainable work practices for all stakeholders.

For sustainable innovation and change: • Make sure it does not go faster than you can run • Keep it continuous – teams keep it rolling all week • Keep it heading in the right direction • Take care of the distractions so you can keep your focus • Enjoy it!

The role of leadership and technology We help when we: • Assist people in setting a realistic pace • Simplify the supporting structures in order to help people focus on core issues • Help people find and maintain direction • Involve more people • Share techniques and ideas • Promote responsibility and ownership. Technology needsto be: • Applied intelligently – our first instinct may be to motorise the hoop, running the person into the ground in the process • Applied to the supporting structures to help simplify, record and evaluate the core purposes.

Sustainable change needs all stakeholders engaged in continuous habits of innovation • Innovation must be seen as part of the continuous role of all teachers: • How many teachers are currently not engaging in yearly innovation? • This engagement plan must provide all teachers with a clear view of who will be engaged, when and in what way during this year. • The innovation cycle must extend over time to include a greater number of stakeholders as active participants • For most schools the next step is to engage learners as active participants - then parents and community etc.

Feeding into a sustainable innovation cycle • Innovation has to be increased in scope and depth continuously and sustainably. Introspection Arrive at stakeholders’ common moral purpose Investigation Explore case studies and examples of new approaches and solutions Inclusion Plan to engage widely with the community Innovation Use all the information gained to date to formulate new solutions Insight Evaluate successes to continuously build the knowledge base Implementation Continuous monitoring, reflection and adjustment

Sustainable growth – start early and change habits continuously over time • Planning is essential but try and minimise the gap between planning and getting started. • Do you need to change practice before or after you change belief? • If people adopt new ways of working and see improvements over time their belief in what they are doing will increase and they will become powerful ambassadors for change – in most cases it would be extremely hard to share the belief ahead of the evidence.

End of Part 1. Commitment to leading change • After considering the leadership of change and discussing the requirements and challenges, we are committed to large scale change this year and will put in place sustainable processes for the longer term.

Part 2. Agree outline dates for the Innovative Schools’ Toolkit workshops • What is the Continuous Improvement Cycle used by the Microsoft Innovative Schools’ programme? • How does it tie in to the improvement cycle currently in use in the school? • What are the deliverables of the programme? • In which month (approximately) will we deal with each of the workshop topics?

What does innovation mean to you? Here are some common definitions of innovation: “The act or process of introducing something new or a new invention or way of doing something” - Encarta World Dictionary “The act of introducing something new”- American Heritage Dictionary “A new idea, method or device”- Webster online “Change that creates a new dimension of performance” - Peter Drucker “Innovation is a new element introduced in the network which changes, even if momentarily, the costs of transactions between at least two actors, elements or nodes, in the network”- Regis Cabral “Innovation is the way of transforming the resources of an enterprise through the creativity of people into new resources and wealth” - Paul Schumann

Microsoft Innovative Schools Program • Built on the principle that innovation is fundamental to the continuous improvement cycle • Designed to apply to schools with a wide range of access to IT and expertise internationally • Focussed on improving learning outcomes and only using technology where it helps to achieve this • Supported by: • A set of workshops • An online toolkit • Mentor schools • Virtual Universities • Events, case studies and assets • The largest and most effective resource is the network of outstanding schools internationally that work together to further the goals of the programme.

Overview of the Annual Continuous Improvement Cycle There are eight broad workshops in the Innovative Schools Toolkit. Each workshop provides ideas, activities, links to other resources, strategies and frameworks. Please use the resources and PowerPoint called ‘Introduction to the IST workshop series’ for detailed guidance on the workshops. Consider your local context to select the most appropriate strategies offered in these workshops. On-going Continuous Improvement

Deliverables for the Innovative Schools workshop Templates are provided for all of these deliverables

Additional Requirements • Schools are encouraged to maintain a blog or other record throughout the year to which numerous teachers and learners can contribute. • Schools should post a deliverable and journal entry onto the Partners in Learning community site approximately once a month). • All schools in the programme are committed to providing international support and collaboration by sharing their journeys in this way. • These entries illustrate examples that others may find useful as a stimulus for change and can be success stories from previous years if required. On-going Continuous Improvement

Schools research programme • What current practices and capacities exist within your school? Please plan to engage in this research programme to find out - follow the link for more details - www.pilsr.com

End of Part 2. Outline workshop dates

Part 3. Identify key stakeholders and the role they will play • The programme is built on the assumption that involving all teachers is a basic minimum requirement – but what other stakeholder groups should you consider? • How deeply involved should each stakeholder group be? • What are the benefits and challenges of involving stakeholders more deeply? • Would it be counterproductive to involve some stakeholders at this stage and if so, how can they be prepared for eventual involvement?

Mapping the involvement of stakeholders The diversity and involvement of your stakeholders will grow over time. Gathering ideas from people with varying outlooks will enrich and legitimise your projects but think about how you sequence this process to gain the most from it: • List the different groups of people who may have an interest in your school and its progression. Look at the example on the next slide and complete the stakeholder landscape template. • Which of these stakeholders will you involve in workshop 2? • Use the ‘degrees of stakeholder engagement’ scale to discuss how you will involve each of the stakeholder groups in workshop 2.

Your stakeholder landscape Here is an example stakeholder map. When you complete your own template, add or remove relevant groups as appropriate.

Stakeholder Engagement “The ultimate goal of change is when people see themselves as shareholders with a stake in the success of the system as whole.” -Michael Fullan • There are two powerful strategic leadership approaches to achieving stakeholder engagement: • A ‘top down’ model can be effective: • When the entire leadership team supports the transformation agenda • When the leadership has minimal resistance from staff and community regarding the transformation agenda • For incremental change. • 2. A ‘coalition’ model can be effective: • When the school is implementing a significant change • In generating broad stakeholder support quickly • In overcoming change resistant staff or community members.

A ‘top down’ approach • A ‘top down’ approach to gaining stakeholder engagement begins with the school leadership team and gradually spirals out to include more stakeholders.

A ‘coalition’ approach • A ‘coalition’ approach to stakeholder engagement still requires the Head of the school to be the project leader. • It involves engaging a range of stakeholders and external inputs from the outset and systematically moves to individual accountabilities.

Stakeholder Engagement Whichever model works best for your school, both ‘top down’ and coalition’ approaches start by establishing a reason for change. For innovation to become truly cultural, all staff must feel included and empowered in the process, whilst feeling connected to the reasons for change.

How deeply engaged are each of your stakeholder groups? • The ‘informed’ stakeholders you share information with in a one way stream • Those ‘asked’ have a chance to give feedback on the information you give them • The ‘consulted’ group can see how their feedback was considered by you • ‘Listened to’ stakeholders give their feedback in person and argue their case • ‘Involved’ stakeholders’ ideas are then consulted on by other groups. • Stakeholders can ‘co-develop’ if they are given some authority to take their ideas forward e.g. by being invited to join the project management board • Stakeholders gain ‘ownership’ when they are entrusted with the resources to drive their ideas and effect policy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Informed Asked Consulted Listened to Involved Co-developed Ownership Thinking tasks for the Senior Management Team • Where would you currently place learners on this scale in terms of helping to shape the direction of the school? • Where would you currently place staff? • Which other stakeholders would you include on this scale? • Are there any stakeholders that you think should have opportunities this year for greater involvement? • Involvement, co-development and ownership require delegated powers and increased autonomy. Which stakeholder groups are currently at this level and what opportunities could be provided this year in order to increase the number at this level next year? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Imagine 75% of your community believed children should not use the internet - what do you do? • What techniques do you use to make sure your stakeholders understand the purpose of what you are doing? • Is there a right and wrong time to engage some stakeholders? • How do you consult with new stakeholders without raising their expectation that you will be able to act on their concerns?

Engaging learners as stakeholders • Learners are key partners in transforming the school. • Roger Hart suggested that if learners are not offered progression in terms of training and opportunity then they could never progress to be trusted partners and would be too easily manipulated (see following slide for more information). • Trust has to be built, do not rush into involving learners as stakeholders if you are not able to act on their suggestions. • What is promotion to the student council based on? Ability to be a representative and trusted spokesperson?

Roger Hart’s Ladder of Young People’s Participation Rung 8: Young people & adults share decision- making Rung 7: Young people lead & initiate action Rung 6: Adult-initiated, shared decisions with young people Rung 5: Young people consulted and informed Rung 4: Young people assigned and informed Rung 3: Young people tokenized* Rung 2: Young people are decoration* Rung 1: Young people are manipulated* *Note Hart explains the last three rungs are non-participation Adapted from Hart, R. (1992) Children's Participation from Tokenism to Citizenship Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre Created by The Freechild Project - http://freechild.org

End of Part 3. Completing your stakeholder map • Now you have decided on the stakeholders to engage and the degree to which they should be engaged, complete the stakeholder engagement map template in the Innovative Schools’ Toolkit.

Part 4. Complete an engagement plan for workshop 2: Envisioning • When will you conduct an envisioning workshop? • How will you motivate people to share their moral purpose and engage with the innovation process in a positive and committed way? • When will you conduct an envisioning process with your learners and to what extent will you engage them? • What other stakeholder groups will you engage with and to what extent?

Example of an engagement plan for workshop 2 In this example the school has decided to spread the envisioning process over three events and combine some stakeholder groups into each event.

Example stakeholder map for workshop 2 An example of a visual summary of who you will be engaging and how deeply. 5 2 5 2 1 1 6

The challenge of envisioning • Each of the workshops must be carefully planned and requires you to: • Select resources from those suggested • Bring your own resources • Research background information • Contextualise the work to your teachers and your school • Develop clear goals for what you want the workshop to achieve The following four slides are examples of challenges to consider before planning the envisioning workshop. Members of the planning team should get in to the habit of challenging each other with such questions before each workshop to develop a clearer shared purpose.

End of Part 4. Complete an engagement plan for workshop 2: Envisioning • Use the blank engagement template • Add a row for each event you plan to use • Add a date for each event and state which stakeholders will be involved (and to what extent using the scale) • Briefly describe each event • Produce or select resources for each event from those provided • Communicate dates to stakeholders

Part 5. Complete an engagement plan for the year • Repeat the process you have just completed for workshop 2 for all other workshops in the series. • Combine all eight engagement plans into one document using the template provided or your own equivalent • Upload this document to the Partners in Learning Website.

Workshop 1: Planning and stakeholder engagement