In the book ‘Legacy’ (2013), James Kerr highlights the key contributors to England’s Rugby World Cup success in 2003. One such contributor was Humphrey Walters, a consultant from learning and development company ‘MaST International’. Walters heavily influenced coach Clive Woodward’s thinking in the journey to success; particularly in changing a culture and creating the ‘critical non-essentials’ or ‘marginal gains’ environment that was to prove to be critical in achieving their goals.
Walters wisely told Woodward, “You can’t fire a cannon out of a canoe”. Woodward understood that Walters was explaining that you can have the dream, the perfect vision and the desire but you are unlikely to achieve your goals if you do not begin from a stable base and getting the fundamentals right. What was required were wholesale changes to the environment in English rugby, with every minute detail being thought about to support the overarching goals. Every aspect of the England players’ experience would be planned and implemented ‘from driveway to driveway’ – from the moment they left their house, to the moment they returned home after representing their country. Walters’ experience in combination with Woodward’s domain specific knowledge told them that this structural planning would provide and strengthen the core fundamentals: all of the critical non-essentials that the team would require were accounted for, to enable them to be the best version of themselves under pressure, providing the focus and mindset to develop their skills and understanding of responsibility, teamwork and loyalty .
The events of the past few weeks and days have had me reflecting on this. Whether it is world cup winning rugby teams, developing strength in fitness, or running a business, school or Government department – you can’t fire a cannon out of a canoe.
The Department of Education has been trying to fire their cannon over and over again in recent weeks and are seemingly scratching their heads as to why they keep failing. Now, admittedly, the canoe is sitting in really choppy waters which makes the whole shebang very problematic. None of us are pretending that trying to balance the needs of the nation in terms of health, the economy and in the DfE’s case, education, is anything other than formidable, demanding and challenging, however, there are certainly huge amounts that can be done to stabilise the core and by design, stop failing as spectacularly as they currently are.
I’m no physics expert but the issue in our canoe problem is that due to the small and unstable base of the canoe in the water when you put that cannon in the canoe and fire you will get a big explosion BUT not a lot of distance or accuracy on your shot. I am sure the Physicists will delight in the detail of Newton, motion, momentum, inertia and velocity however the central basic point here is that canoes are problematic in this scenario because they are narrow and unstable. So, the solution is to provide a much more stable base from which to achieve your goal. The choppier the waters, the more important this becomes.
For the DfE the stable base comes from listening to (and trusting) school leaders and educationalists. Unfortunately, they apparently lack domain specific knowledge and therefore have an inability to recognise the needs and potential outcomes of their decision making. This, often leads to a big explosion of an announcement with Ministers engaged in a cannon measuring contest, seemingly with themselves, to confidently make the next big promise or fix.
However, when tested against reality and educational expertise, combined with leaks and inevitable U-turns, this results, time and time again in an impotent shot towards their target goal that lacks the distance (longevity) or accuracy that is so required.
We know that we are dealing with some contentious issues. Whether it is a move to remote learning, examinations or who should be allowed in schools there will always be some sort of debate with a range of views. However, the default position is that school leaders and teachers want what is best for their students. This means:
schools being open to as many students as it is safe to house;
an assessment process that is fair and doesn’t exacerbate the gaps for the most disadvantaged
flexibility in providing remote learning that best meets the needs of the individuals in the group, minimizing the impacts of not being in school.
With this consensus amongst educationalists (and I’m yet to see any arguments within education circles against these 3 aspects), there is an opportunity in all elements to devise an effective path forward. However, these are opportunities that continue to be missed by the DfE as in order to provide the stable base required, schools and the organisations that represent teachers and leaders, need to be trusted. They keep loading their massive announcement cannons onto the tiniest of canoes.
There is also a responsibility for those of us in schools to ensure that we provide a stable base internally once the big external decisions have been made. The everchanging guidance and lateness of delivery makes this problematic but there are things that we can do to support our staff and students to ensure our core is strong. This lockdown hasn’t crept up on us; we have had the advantage of expecting it and with that the time to get our critical non-essentials (and essentials) in place. We have known that remote education will be with us forever in some form and so we have had since the summer to increase the confidence and competence of staff, work at improving IT infrastructure and resourcing, and practice. We have known due to the variable experiences nationally that exams will be unlikely to take place in their ‘normal’ form and so have put in place contingency plans to gather data throughout the year. It would be advantageous to leave the decisions on who is safe to be in school to the experts in health, science and data, if only they were listened to.
Moreover, we must continue to learn the lessons of the past. There is a danger that over the next few weeks we will pile all of our staff into narrow delivery mode canoes and ask them to fire the progress cannon. In a situation where the choppy waters remain this will be at best ineffective and at worse disastrous for student progress and staff well-being. It is essential that our centralised pedagogies leads our thinking and that the technology supports this rather than drives it.
My view is that we trust teachers. The same teachers who we work with and trust day in day out when in school to meet the standards and expectations we have of them. The same expert teachers who deliver high challenge and utilise explanation and modelling to impart knowledge and express ideas and concepts. The teachers that provide opportunities for deliberate practice to reinforce learning and support this through questioning and providing feedback.
None of us trained as teachers of remote learning and so, while in this global pandemic, we remain in choppy waters as many aspects of our environments will be new. The speed at which we have all adapted and upskilled to this new working environment has been impressive. Of course, we will get better at it as we follow the learning process ourselves. Over the coming days and weeks we will learn the tricks, tips and short cuts that make life a little bit easier but we must be careful not to rock our canoe so much that we overturn and become submerged in the murky waters of quick fix, fun, techno-gimmickry and gadgetry that offers little to the teaching of or learning gained by students. Whilst we need to enable the process of moving to an online environment to happen, the fundamentals don’t change. It is perfectly acceptable (perhaps preferable) to tell them what they need to know and let them practise…lots.
At this time, as school leaders we cannot just heave our progress, attainment and welfare cannons up onto the shore and have them set and grounded by running a school as we always have. However, we can load them onto the great big, wide-based fundamentals warships of care, challenge and, teaching and learning. Those core elements that are designed to cut through and provide stability in the choppiest of waters. This is our stable base, and if we do this, the accuracy and reach of our progress cannons will ensure our targets are met regardless of the stormiest of seas.
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