TEACHER DESIGNED SCHOOLS NETWORK

(In Europe: COMMUNITY DESIGNED SCHOOLS NETWORK)

An international network founded by

    John Edwards and Bill Martin.

The Teacher Designed Schools Network was founded in 2003. It is based on the processes developed and refined by Bill Martin as he led the staffs in a sequence of three schools through evolving iterations of a shared visioning process. These experiences were combined with John’s thirty years of research in schools and other organizations, to create the Network  processes. The Network began with four schools in 2003, grew to nine schools in 2004, twenty-one schools in 2005, and in 2006 has thirty-three schools. The Network currently covers five countries: New Zealand, the USA, Australia, UK and Norway.  

The fundamental belief underpinning this network is that the most powerful resource in any school is the experiential knowledge and values of  the people who work in that school, and the members of that school community. The Teacher Designed Schools process provides the teachers and community with  absolute ownership for the creation of the school they have always wanted. It is based on an acceptance that the most important decisions made in a school are those made daily by teachers and students. When these decisions are aligned to a shared vision their impact is significantly magnified.

John brings a lifetime of research in thinking, learning, leadership, change and communication. Bill brings a lifetime of practical experience working in, and leading, schools at the primary, middle school and high school level. They are both nationally and internationally recognised for their work. The Teacher Designed Schools process has emerged from the combination of their rich experiences, and is centred upon their shared passion for releasing and valuing human potential. Other program facilitators bring similar skills and experience.

The key characteristics of the Teacher Designed Schools (TDS)/ Community Designed Schools (CDS) process are:

·        The school develops a shared vision through powerful processes designed to draw on the collective intellects, experience and values of all staff, and other members of the school community whose input is sought.

·        Teachers are passionate about doing the necessary school-based preparation for action to turn their shared vision into their reality over time.

·        A long-term school development plan developed from action/ innovation tasks the staff generate themselves is owned by staff and leads them to perform at the highest professional levels.

·        The process celebrates autonomy and interdependence at the same time.

·        The process develops a culture of leadership throughout the school.

·        Teachers take ownership for their own performance and for the continuous improvement of learning and wellbeing for both staff and students.

·        The process is highly economical in that it makes financial and resource decisions very clear and provides a seamless school-wide professional development program.

AN OUTLINE OF THE TEACHER DESIGNED SCHOOLS PROCESS

There are three phases in the process:

PHASE 1 – Create a shared vision

PHASE 2 – Develop and implement the long-term school development plan.

PHASE 3 – Continuous school improvement and ongoing growth.

DETAILS OF EACH PHASE

PHASE 1 – Create a shared vision.

This phase begins with the school gathering together the contextual data which already exists in the school on their current situation and any plans for the future. These are sent to the TDS team who design a set of draft Inquiry Probes. The school leadership team select, or design for themselves, the eight most relevant Probes for their context.

Inquiry Probes are questions designed to tap the rich personal practical knowledge, and beliefs and values, of the staff and other key members of the school community. Between them, these probes are designed to cover all of the key aspects of life in the school community.

Two TDS team members spend two days in the school during Phase 1.

On Day One they facilitate an Inquiry Probes Workshop. This is done using two key processes: classic brainstorming, and a consensus-generating tool (10-4 voting). These tools extract the best ideas from those attending, to form a picture of the school they wish to create together for their community.

To do this, those attending work in teams of eight or less, and each team is led by an internal facilitator. These facilitators are pre-trained by TDS staff, a process which takes an hour. Each school chooses who to invite to join the staff for the Inquiry Probes Workshop: this can be any mixture of parents, Board members, present and/or past students, and key community members.

Overnight, three draft shared visions for the school are written, based on the rich data that is generated by the Inquiry Probes: one is written by the principal, one by another staff member, and one by the TDS team. These vision statements are about one page in length and are a rich description of what the school will be like when the vision is realised. They are written in the present tense.

We have two common processes for the second day of Phase 1, depending on what is feasible for teacher free days at the school (we have also made a number of other adaptations to meet the particular constraints under which schools operate, so a format can be designed to meet any situation):

VERSION ONE – where staff have to teach for the full second day.

On the morning of Day Two, staff are given the draft vision statements and a summary of the data collected from Day One. They then use a critique process to provide rich feedback on the three draft visions, choosing one as the basis for further development. After this the staff  continue with their teaching for the day, while the TDS team work with the broad school leadership team.

Work with the broad leadership team focuses on the key processes needed to lead the school through the next twelve months of the TDS process. We also use the staff feedback to prepare a second draft of the Shared Vision and we identify the emerging vision achievement themes that will become the focus for the school-based preparation for action in the year ahead.

At the end of Day Two, after teaching, the staff meet with the TDS team for two and a half  hours to be introduced to a summary of the last twenty years of educational research on student achievement, and they identify what this means for their school, their students, and their community.

At this time staff also identify the key vision achievement themes that must be explored to shift the school from where it is currently to the Shared Vision. They then form their Preparation for Action Teams around these themes. Commonly there are between three and seven themes, depending on the size of the school.

The TDS team have designed a school-based Preparation for Action tool: ELITAR (a six phase action learning tool: Exploration – Logistics – Information – Target - Action Learning - Review). This tool provides a structure for the year of preparation for action.

VERSION TWO – where staff can be free for both days.

In this version, the same processes are followed as for Version 1, except that all staff participate in all activities. Practical experience has shown us that this is the preferable process, if it is feasible.

NETWORK LEADERS’ DAY

Up to five members of the leadership team from each Network school are invited to an annual Leaders’ Day in each country with John and Bill. On this day key leadership skills and processes are shared, as well powerful networking opportunities are provided. Feedback on the benefits of this day have been universally positive.

The topics covered on the Leaders’ Day vary, but the following are commonly included:

·        The use of facilitative questioning to tap mental models

·        Strategies for making time for quality work in the school

·        Understanding and using the ELITAR tool

·        Short-term win strategies

·        The use of systems thinking to gather and analyse feedback  from staff

·        A process for identifying, articulating, modelling and teaching the core values of the school

·        Carefully designed networking processes

On this day a variety of thinking tools and teaching strategies are modelled. The day is highly interactive.

During this first year, the staff drive themselves through continuing action learning iterations to design the needed innovations, resulting in a set of formal recommendations for school action supported by their in-depth preparation for action. Each team appoints its own leader and has a member of the school leadership team attached as a sponsor. Sponsors ensure alignment to the Shared Vision and ensure that any necessary resources are available for the Preparation for Action Teams.

The preparation for action period usually begins with exploring internal and local resources. This then extends to exploring world’s best practice and deciding how to best bring this to your school, and have them work in your context. Often this involves small-scale trials within the school. During this phase, teacher designed innovations begin to emerge in the school.

At the same time the staff go through continuing cycles of critique of the draft Shared Vision until genuine consensus is reached, and the Shared Vision is finalised. This commonly takes two to three months.

Each school develops a set of academic excellence indicators and gathers base-line data in each of these areas to act as a bench mark for the impact of the designed developments and innovations on the school over the next five to eight years. Schools are encouraged to use the indicators that are commonly valued in their country or wider community.

The principal establishes the forms and frequency of contact with the TDS/CDS team, in keeping with their needs and their ways of working. The TDS/CDS team are personal coaches for the principal throughout the year. Leaders also receive eight newsletters from Bill and John during the year, focussing on key emerging issues in Network Schools. The school leadership team provide a progress report to TDS from the staff and the leadership team at the end of each school term.

PHASE 2 – Develop and implement the Long-Term School Development Plan.

In the second year the TDS/CDS team return for two days, one with the staff and one with the leadership team.

On Day One, Preparation for Action Teams report back on the outcomes of their year-long search. This is in the form of a set of recommendations for action, with associated documentation and justification. Based on their own explorations, and what actions they believe will best help achieve the Shared Vision, the staff provide detailed recommendations to the leadership team and their fellow staff and invited community members. They are also helped to reflect on, and learn from, their own performance over the year, as individuals and as teams.

On this day staff are also introduced to facilitative questioning and are given opportunities to practice the skill. Commonly work is also done on either teaching the school’s core values and/or an innovative approach to building a consistent school-wide behaviour management program.

On Day Two, the TDS/CDS team work with the leadership team. This focuses on processing the experiences from Phase 1, on further developing their leadership repertoire, on creating a draft Long-Term School Development Plan from the output of the Preparation for Action Teams, and on ways to design for effective implementation. The Plan is built around staff feedback, potential leverage of each task on student achievement, cost involved, implicit training needs, and the time demands of each task. The key is to develop a Plan that is realistic and achievable within the reality of balanced lives for the staff, and families. Leaders are also trained in how to conduct stewardship conferences with all staff.

Stewardship conferences are one-on-one meetings held with each staff member to agree on their individual commitment to the aspects of the Shared Vision implementation they want to work on, and to agree on what the leadership team will do to help the staff member do this work and achieve their personal vision.

An induction program for new staff, new leaders, and new community members is developed to ensure their easy transition into the on-going Teacher Designed Schools Process. Many schools and Boards have found the Shared Vision, Vision Achievement Themes, and Long-Term School Development Plan to be extremely valuable in interviewing and selecting new staff and new leaders who are in alignment with where the school is heading.

Once again there is the annual one-day Network Leaders’ Meeting between the leadership teams from each school in the country with Bill and John.

During this second year, implementation of the early phases of the long-term plan begins, as well as some ongoing implementation design where necessary. While there are noticeable improvements in the school during Phase 1, major improvements emerge as soon as implementation of the development plan moves into its mature phase. The implementation of any single recommendation by staff, backed by their ownership and commitment, always produces noticeable benefits. As these implementations start to build one upon the other, the real benefits of the TDS/CDS Process become clear.

The TDS/CDS team are personal coaches to the principal throughout this second year, at whatever level is comfortable.

PHASE 3 – Continuous school improvement and ongoing growth.

In the third year the TDS/CDS team return for their final two days with the school.

On Day One, they work with the staff on the context that has evolved. This commonly involves further broadening staff repertoires in emerging areas of focus, on better understanding of the realities of change in this particular context, and on fine-tuning the use of processes already learned so that they are embedded deeply in the everyday life of the school. This requires the processing of deep reflection on what has been experienced over the two years to date and understanding how to adjust systems, structures and mental models as necessary.

The staff learn powerful feedback processes based on the research of Chris Argyris to ensure an effective feedback culture develops throughout the school and its community. Processes for ongoing implementation of the plan, and fundamental models for understanding the change process that lies ahead, are also explored. The Shared Vision is re-designed based on what has been learned to date, and what has been designed for the future of the school. This also allows for creative input from new staff, leaders and community members.

On Day Two, the TDS team work with the leadership team on systems and structures for ongoing growth. They help the leaders to check the alignment of all school systems and structures to the Shared Vision; ensuring that rich data sources are in place to monitor the match between the espoused theories and the theories-in-use. Systems thinking processes for driving action learning forward are matched against the data emerging from the implementation experiences.

Once again there is a one-day annual Network Leaders’ Meeting between the leadership teams from each school in the country with Bill and John. The TDS/CDS team provide ongoing principal coaching throughout the year, and principals and their leadership teams also use the networking opportunities that have developed through their contacts with other Network school leaders.

The initial network will consist of approximately 68 schools. There will be approximately 16 schools each, in Australia, New Zealand, the USA,  and the UK and 4 schools in Norway. This network should be in place by 2008 - 2009 and will continue to evolve from this base.