This document summarizes a presentation on developing research and evidence-informed schools. The main findings of a recent report are reviewed, including that the most engaged schools had senior leaders who played a key role in integrating research evidence. An action plan is suggested for school leaders to develop research-informed schools. Strategies discussed include dedicating time, developing open cultures, supporting risk-taking, and developing research relationships. The conclusion emphasizes the crucial role of school leaders in driving change to increase research engagement.

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Dr Gary Jones - @DrGaryJones – jones.gary@gmail.com
https://evidencebasededucationalleadership.blogspot.com
Leading the research and evidence informed school:
the rhetoric and the the reality
researchED, 9 September, 2017

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By the end of this session we will
have
 Reviewed the main findings for school leadership of the recent
report by Coldwell at al 2017 on Evidence-Informed Teaching :
an evaluation of progress in England
 Suggested an action plan for school leaders wishing to develop
a research and evidence-informed school
 Looked in detail at a number of different strategies that could
be used to increase research and evidence use
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Main findings
 The most strongly research-engaged schools were highly
effective, well-led organisations within which 'research use' meant
integrating research evidence into all aspects of their work as part
of an ethos of continual improvement and reflection.
 In the most highly research-engaged schools, senior leaders
played a key role,
 The most research-engaged schools started from a school priority
and sought evidence to help meet this priority
 More research-engaged schools were leading or taking part in
external research projects
 Highly research-engaged schools supported evidence-informed
risk-taking.
 Content analysis indicated that Teaching Schools were more
engaged with research evidence than other schools, and this
engagement was increasing over time
4

5. + 'What are the key influences on the
awareness, engagement and use of EIT by
schools and teachers?’
 Developing a school research evidence culture was a
necessary factor in enabling middle leaders and teachers to
embed research evidence use.
 The strongest evidence cultures (apparent in only a few
schools) were associated with:
 dedicated time across staff groups;
 open learning cultures;
 high levels of research engagement across the school;
 strong, prioritised support structures;
 policies and guidance on EIT;
 andstrong, deep and multiple external research-related
relationships.
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Conclusion
 School leaders' support for engagement with research is the
most important driver. Whether schools are completely
disengaged or highly engaged with research evidence, school
leaders can make positive changes to increase engagement.
 Whilst some schools are strongly engaged, many are not, and
this study suggests that attention needs to be paid to each part
of the school and wider education system, including research
quality and accessibility; school processes, cultures and
leadership; teachers' skills, motivations and knowledge; and
the wider policy environment. The importance of the role of
school leaders as crucial drivers of change was a central
message of the study
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10. + BROWN, C. (ed.) 2015. “Conclusion’ in
Leading the use of research & evidence in
schools: IOE Press.
 Does you approach to research and evidence use
demonstrate your commitment as well as facilitate the
efforts of others?
 Does your own approach to research and evidence use
have buy-in throughout the school?
 Does your approach to research and evidence use have
teacher learning and practice at its core?
 Does your approach to research and evidence use ‘start
with the end in mind’ and ensure that progress towards
this end is tracked?
 Does your approach to research and evidence ensure
that the right people are in the room?

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Theme Factor Sub-action
Transformational Does your approach to research
and evidence demonstrate your
own commitment as well facilitate
the efforts of others?
• Promote a vision of research and evidence-informed school
• Make resources available
• Design and implement support structures
• Create time and space for such work
• ·Make it part of everyone’s work (especially leaders)
• Model the use of research and evidence in decision-making
• Develop an enquiry habit of mind – look for new perspectives
• Seek out new information
• Explore new ways to tackle old problems
Does your approach to research
and evidence use have buy-in
throughout the school?
• Adopt a distributive approach to leadership
• Attend to the informal aspects of the school organisation
• Identify and influence key-opinion formers and shapers
• Seek to be consensual
Teaching and
learning
Does your approach to research
and evidence use ‘start with the
end in mind’ and ensure that
progress towards this end is
tracked?
• Articulate what success would look like
• Consider what will need to be done differently
• Question how things will be different for pupils and teachers
• How will you know things are different?
• Evaluate impact of any changes
• Engage in learning conversations – develop theories of action and develop
and trial new actions
• Constantly refine processes and actions
• Stop doing some things
Does your approach to research
and evidence have teacher
learning and practice at its core?
• Continue to emphasise the importance of teacher-expertise
• Use data to help teachers refine their practice
• Create opportunities for collaborative learning both inside and outside of the
school
• Continually focus on evidence
• Draw in external experience and knowledge/theory
• Develop protocols and ways of working
• Create facilitative arrangements
Does your approach to research
and evidence ensure that the right
people are in the room
• Develop middle leaders who are interested in evidence-informed practice
• Identify research and evidence champions
• Involve people with the right mix of skills to support the use of research and
evidence
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Neeleman, A.-M. (2017). Grasping the scope of school
autonomy: a classification scheme for school policy practice
Paper presented at the Belmas Conference, Stratford on Avon,
England.

14. + Brown, C and Zhang, D (2016) How can school leaders establish
evidence-informed schools: An analysis of potential school policy
levers, Educational Management Administration and Leadership
1 – 20
 40 primary schools
 Surveyed 696 practitioners
 Data analysed potentially
successful strategies for the
promotion of use of evidence
 The existence of teacher capacity
to engage in and with research
and data;
 School cultures that are attuned
to evidence use;
 Schools promoting the use of
research as part of an effective
learning environment
(professional learning
communities);
 The existence of effective
structures, system and and
resource that facilitate research-
use and the sharing of best
practice.

15. + Brown, C and Zhang, D (2016) How can school
leaders establish evidence-informed schools: An analysis
of potential school policy levers, Educational
Management Administration and Leadership 1 – 20
 What is key is, however, is that these solutions do not
appear to be either resource intense or complex to
implement relating as they do to school leaders to:
 1) promote the vision for evidence-use (that is,
encourage its use);
 2) engage in actions such as ‘modelling’ , ‘monitoring’
and ‘mentoring and coaching’ in order to demonstrate
how evidence can be employed to improve issues of
teaching and learning;
 3) establish effective learning environments in which
learning conversations around the use of evidence can
flourish. (p15)

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The RAMMP method
 Reports – is this report to the senior team, governing body or
board of trustees necessary
 Approvals – does this decision need to be approved by so
many people, or can people have a delegated budget
 Meetings – why are we having this meeting and do we need it?
If so, who needs to attend the meeting, do they need to attend
it for the whole meeting ?
 Measures – what performance have you in place, do they
contribute to bringing about improvement
 Policies and practices – do processes such as lesson
observations or CPD events help people to improve, or do they
just get in the way
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Dept Key Stage School MAT Could it be
Reports Eliminated
Partially eliminated
Done less often
Delegated downward
Done in a less
complicated manner
Other
Approvals
Meetings
Measures
Policies
Practices

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Type of activity Examples
Research - the process of
creating new generalisable
knowledge, and which could
include both the generation and
testing of hypotheses
• Participation in an Education Endowment Foundation
randomised control trials in mathematics
Working with a university department of educations on a
study to into teachers' use of new technology
• Individual member of staff conducting doctoral research
under the supervision of a higher education provider.
Quality Improvement -
systematic, data-guided activities
designed to bring about
immediate improvements in local
settings
• Interviewing a range of colleagues about examination
performance in a particular department and production of
associated action plan
Making changes in pupil enrolment systems
• An internally devised school-based trial on a new
approach to providing individual support prior to external
examinations.
Evidence-based practice - the
making of decisions through the
conscientious, explicit and
judicious use of the best available
evidence from multiple sources in
order to increase the likelihood of
a favourable outcome.
• Undertaking a review of existing evidence - research,
school, stakeholders, personal experience - on graded
lesson observations and making a decision on whether
to move to a non-graded approach.
• Undertaking a review of existing evidence - research,
school, stakeholders, personal experience - on the
effectiveness of marking homework and adopting a new
school-wide policy.

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Distinguishing between types of
inquiry
 Pseudo-inquiry takes place where there is not a
commitment to open-mindedness and has the surface
characteristics of inquiry, it is not driven by a desire
to learn.
 Genuine inquiry requires conversations to be motivated
(either consciously or unconsciously) by a desire to
learn and to be drive by a stance of open-
mindedness (p884)

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Barriers to genuine inquiry
 Cognitive biases
 Confirmation bias
 Attribution bias
 Perceptions of risk
 Relationship
 Being challenged
 Interpersonal skills
 Too concerned with what next

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Open Learning Conversations
 Describe your point of view without assuming its truth
 Describe what your point of view is based on
 Invite the other’s point of views
 Paraphrase the the other’s point of view and check
 Detect and check important assumptions
 Establish common ground
 Make a plan to get what you both want

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Theme Factor Sub-action
Transformational Does your approach to research
and evidence demonstrate your
own commitment as well facilitate
the efforts of others?
• Promote a vision of research and evidence-informed school
• Make resources available
• Design and implement support structures
• Create time and space for such work
• ·Make it part of everyone’s work (especially leaders)
• Model the use of research and evidence in decision-making
• Develop an enquiry habit of mind – look for new perspectives
• Seek out new information
• Explore new ways to tackle old problems
Does your approach to research
and evidence use have buy-in
throughout the school?
• Adopt a distributive approach to leadership
• Attend to the informal aspects of the school organisation
• Identify and influence key-opinion formers and shapers
• Seek to be consensual
Teaching and
learning
Does your approach to research
and evidence use ‘start with the
end in mind’ and ensure that
progress towards this end is
tracked?
• Articulate what success would look like
• Consider what will need to be done differently
• Question how things will be different for pupils and teachers
• How will you know things are different?
• Evaluate impact of any changes
• Engage in learning conversations – develop theories of action and develop
and trial new actions
• Constantly refine processes and actions
• Stop doing some things
Does your approach to research
and evidence have teacher
learning and practice at its core?
• Continue to emphasise the importance of teacher-expertise
• Use data to help teachers refine their practice
• Create opportunities for collaborative learning both inside and outside of the
school
• Continually focus on evidence
• Draw in external experience and knowledge/theory
• Develop protocols and ways of working
• Create facilitative arrangements
Does your approach to research
and evidence ensure that the right
people are in the room
• Develop middle leaders who are interested in evidence-informed practice
• Identify research and evidence champions
• Involve people with the right mix of skills to support the use of research and
evidence
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To summarise
 Coldwell et al’s (2017) research there is a significant gap
between the rhetoric and reality of evidence-informed schools
 Headteachers and senior leaders are the main drivers behind
developing a research and evidence informed culture
 There are some realtively straightforward actions that HTs and
SLs can take
 RAMPP
 Knowing the difference between research, quality improvement and
evidence-based practice
 Engage in genuine inquiry –through the use of open to learning
conversations
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@DrGaryJones
jones.gary@gmail.com
http://evidencebasededucationalleadership.blogspot.com