The Pareto principle and the great divide

I just scared myself looking at my last post...it was at the end of January! So far this academic year has seen just 5 posts to my blog - in previous years I averaged 1 post per week during term time. In fact I've just passed the 2 year anniversary of starting this blog and I've now written less since September 2014 than I have at any time since I started it. I think it's about time I explained why...

SLT role
Good grief it's busy as SLT! I wrote a post (here) back in October about my first month as SLT and the multitude of unexpected pressures that suck away at your time. In all honesty I've had to stop posting to my blog so regularly because I've simply been that busy that I couldn't justify any more time sat in front of a computer writing a blog post each week. I've wanted to post, in fact I've even started a decent number of them and then saved them in draft because I wasn't able to finish them to a point where I'd be happy to share them publicly. In fact half of this post was written months ago, but seems to fit with what I wanted to say today.

This isn't intended to be a whinge about workload or that kind of thing so don't worry about digging out the violins, however I do have some observations about the tensions caused by the SLT role.

Is there a great divide?
As I got closer to and then started my new role as assistant head and I became increasingly aware of the perceived divide between SLT and middle leaders/mainscale teachers. I know it's not just at my school, I've seen it at every school I've been in but it becomes really clear as you get up close to it and then jump across into SLT, I think it's particularly visible to me as I stayed at the same school.

It started with the jibes from my fellow Friday afternoon staff footballers who were counting down the number of games I was likely to be at before I become "too important" to play with them. I'm pleased to say this has stopped as I've carried on playing!

It continues with discussions about timetables where as an assistant head I teach less than half the number of lessons I did as a head of department, leading to jokey conversations about me having plenty of time to think up jobs & initiatives to keep the middle leaders and mainscale teachers busy.

The thing is the structure of a week for a member of SLT is so massively different to that of a middle leader they look like completely different jobs. Compare SLT to a classroom teacher and it's even more different - I actually teach only slightly more lessons than a main scale teacher gets for PPA.

I'm not necessarily saying its wrong, but it changes your perspective of the job massively. A marking policy that is completely manageable on an SLT timetable can become tough to manage as a middle leader, and completely impossible as a main scale teacher. Teaching a difficult group when you have loads of time to prepare/recover, plus a level of seniority to trade with, is very different to having a similar group amidst full days of teaching.

Of course much of the time not teaching as SLT is spent doing management & leadership functions, so the "loads of time" is a fallacy, but the perception is there from those outside of SLT even if it's not the reality.

I like to think I'm fairly approachable and try to make sure that I spend time talking to colleagues at all levels of the organisation, and have great working relationships across the school. A great part of that, and the fact that I wasn't always SLT at this school, means that I think some are more open and honest with me than they might be with the other members of the leadership team. I know for a fact that that some will say things to me that they wouldn't dream of saying to others in our SLT. This gives an interesting insight at times...

No time for perfection
I think the biggest actual disconnect I've discovered as part of all of this is the perception from many staff in general that all actions from SLT are deliberate, and that SLT have complete control over everything that happens in the school. Now I'm not suggesting that we go around blundering into things and have no control over what goes on, but we are a team of humans and with that comes limitations. Similarly we work in a setting that has a massive number of stakeholders with a vast array of needs and agendas, and are subject to legistative, judgemental, procedural and time constraints that limit or shape things in all manner of ways.

Sometimes the size of a team means that not everyone can be consulted properly in advance. Sometimes the speed a decision needs to be made means that only the most central consequences can be considered (see comments about Pareto below). Sometimes an element of planning falls between areas of responsibility meaning it gets missed. Sometimes a task is simply not done quite as perfectly as it might have been because a human has done it or they ran out of time. All of these are issues to be guarded against, and even planned to be mitigated, but none would be done deliberately. However I know from that the consequences of what I know to be a small human error at SLT level can be seen as a direct decision to undermine or cause issues for other staff.

I've seen a situation where a given member of SLT has been working as hard as they could on something, but due to the realities of life in schools it ended being delivered to a wider audience slightly before it was completely finished. The reception from others in the school was frosty "it's a half baked Idea", "they've not considered the impact on...", "why couldn't they have told us that weeks ago?" and so on. The expectation from the school as a body is that the SLT have all the answers and have the time to plan everything out fully. The reality is that there is so much going on that there is too often no time to complete any task fully, sometimes it just has to be good enough to get the job done.

Pareto principle for leadership
If you've not heard of the Pareto principle it stems from the observations by Italian Economist Vilfredo Pareto that 20% of Italians own 80% of the land. This has been extended to business in various ways with assertions that 80% of profit comes from 20% of your clients, or 80% of sales come from 20% of the sales team. It is also used in health and safety where 80% of injuries come from the 20% most common incidents and so on.

In my experience it can be fairly safely applied that about 80% of the behaviour incidents in a school come from just 20% of the students (you know which ones!). Similarly about 80% of the high grades come from 20% of the students. 80% of absences come from about 20% of staff, I could go on...

Furthermore another aspect of Pareto in terms of leadership is that if you consider 20% of the stakeholders in a given decision then you'll probably expose 80% of the potential issues. Due to time pressures and general day to day management constraints it is common for leaders to have to revert to this 80/20 rule in all sorts of situations in order to see the wood from the trees. Many leaders do this unknowingly, or some knowingly but rarely is it applied in a cold, deliberate way, however the Pareto Principle can be used to prioritise all sorts of things in all sorts of ways. Yes it's a rule of thumb but it actually fits reasonably well in many situations, and does force a level of perspective that can help get the job done.

Of course I'm not saying it is a good thing to be forced to prioritise like this, and certainly if you're one of the 80% of the stakeholders that is not consulted who then raises one of the 20% issues then I completely understand that you'd feel aggrieved, but that's not really what this is about. What I'm trying to say is that SLT sometimes set themselves up a little as infallible, and are often expected to perform that way by wider staff. However often what they are doing is their best given the situation they are in and the conflicting demands they have on their time. Often this means prioritising and that then leads to some people feeling overlooked.

For SLT the key thing is to acknowledge that we're doing this and to communicate more clearly with those involved. Be willing to acknowledge that at the bottom of all decisions is a human that has done their best, but may not have done it perfectly. For those outside of SLT looking in, perhaps consider if it was physically possible to do it better, or if the compromise you need to make is actually the right one for overall progress (are you one of the 80% or the 20%).

Yes SLT are paid more in order to make decisions, yes SLT have more time in the week in order to make decisions, but that doesn't change the laws of physics, and it certainly doesn't make anyone perfect or infallable. Time is finite for all of us. We all have constriants to manage, and differing perspectives.

I think the biggest thing I've learnt as a member of SLT is that I can't always take the time to be a perfectionist, but I can do the best I can given the time and resources I have available.

No, I'm wrong... the BIGGEST thing I've learnt is that once I've had to commit to something that I know might not be perfect I need to avoid beating myself up over it and constantly revisiting it. I've spent too long doing that at various points during the year and it's done me no favours. You don't needs to be perfect in order to get it right for the vast majority of the time; the important thing is to make sure that even if something isn't quite right it is still one of the least bad options!

This is just me rambling again - sharing the thoughts bouncing round my head - comments always welcome!

RAG123 as defined by the students

Our head of maths has done a piece of work recently on RAG123 that I think I just have to share...

Firstly if you've never heard of RAG123 then look here for my original post on it, and then see here for all the others I've done...

Pupil voice
So far with RAG123 I've seen teacher definitions of what R,A,G mean, and what 1, 2, 3 mean, and we've occasionally had a go at doing a student oriented set of descriptors. However it surprises me to admit it but we've never previously asked the students to define it themselves!

With my stepping up to SLT this year I have had the pleasure of welcoming and line managing a new HoD to run the maths department. Simon Preston arrived at our school, inherited RAG123 from me and then he embraced it and used it for a while. Then he had a brainwave that is so obvious I don't know why nobody had thought of it before... He asked the students to define their understanding of all the RAG123 ratings...

Simon did this by issuing a sheet like the one below and asked the students to fill in the boxes with a description of what types of work or attitudes warranted each rating. Notably he didn't just ask them to define R, A, G and then 1, 2, 3, but he got them to define all 9 combinations of letters and numbers.

What did the students say?
I have been fascinated by the responses that the students gave. Having collated their inputs and drawn together the common themes Simon has compiled the following grid, which for me now seems to be the definitive RAG123 rating grid.

I think the nuance that the students have highlighted between R2 and R3 in the root cause for the low effort is really interesting. Also like the A1 "just enough". Overall I am really pleased by the clear linkage between effort and understanding. It all comes back to the basic position where students on 3 for understanding need clear input from the teacher to move them, and those on R for effort also need a decision from the student to improve.

Involving parents
Also this week we held a parent information evening for our yr 11 students where we were briefing them on revision techniques and ideas to improve home-school partnerships. This RAG123 grid was shared with parents and students in this session. We suggested that parents could work with students to RAG123 their revision processes at home in order to help figure out whether a session was effective or not. This was really well received and we have had several positive comments from parents about this giving them the tools to help review progress with revision, particularly in subjects that they have no expertise in.

Have you done something similar?
The idea of asking the students is so obvious I'm amazed I or someone else haven't already done it - does anyone else have a similar student perspective on RAG123? If you have I'd be really keen to see it.

Once again - if you've not tried RAG123 you don't know what you're missing in terms of building linkage between marking and planning, building dialogue with students and the promoting growth mindset type linkages between effort and progress. Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

A ragging birthday!

Time flies!

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote my first blog post about RAG123 (find it here) which followed a single week trial of an idea that seemed illogical... Mark more often, but write less, improve feedback and reduce workload. Remarkably it worked - students responded positively, I felt more in control of my marking workload and my lessons were more effective. I still haven't taken a single pupil book home to mark since I started RAG123 over a year ago, but ALL of my books are marked up to date.

I've since written loads of posts on RAG123 (all found here), and tweeted prolifically on it over the past year. I know I am guilty of being a bit evangelical about it, but I do feel justified in my enthusiasm. The evidence suggests that using this approach to marking and feedback (and planning) really does have a beneficial impact both on the students and the teachers involved. I get fantastic feedback like this on a regular basis:

No going back!

As I know I can be a bit biased on this throughout the year using and developing RAG123 I have regularly asked for negative feedback or stories of people that have tried RAG123 but stopped. From the responses I have received there are only a couple of people that have stopped once tried. In these cases it was never because they didn't think RAG123 was beneficial, it was due to some external factor such as illness or a change in role. In all cases where someone said they'd stopped they followed up with a comment that they would start again as soon as their circumstances allowed. I remain open and receptive to constructive criticism of rag123 and want to retain balance on it. To be honest though negatives only really come from people who have never tried it, or haven't really understood the idea. To date the overwhelming evidence is that once you try it you will see such benefits that you won't want to go back. 

Going national and international
As well as individual teachers using RAG123, there are whole departments adopting it, and I know of a couple of schools that have adopted RAG123 as a central part of their marking policies (one has even reported it to me as a contributing factor in their schools journey out of special measures). I'm constantly being contacted by people who are sharing it within their departments, their schools or via teachmeets across the country. In fact it's also gone international, and not just in English speaking countries. I know it's been translated into Welsh (#COG123), and also is in the process of translation into Swedish...
 

So... a year later what have I learnt?
I've written, thought and learnt a lot about RAG123 over the past year. While the core idea remains exactly as described in the original post, there are a number of subtleties that I have seen and picked up over the last year. I've probably tweeted most of them at some point or other, but it's also about time I shared them all in one place. Along the way there are a couple of confessions I should make too...

Top 10 tips to get the most out of RAG123:

1. There are no strict rules for RAG123! Each teacher should take the core principle and make it work for them, their students, their school, their workload.

It makes no real difference if you use the colours or numbers for understanding or effort. It also doesn't matter if you need more than 3 levels for each aspect to fit with some other system (I know of at least one RAG1234 system being used, and there is also a RAGB123 out there). Actually you could call it anything, ABC123 would work just as well

However I do personally think colours are emotive and therefore can add to impact, which is why my preference remains RAG for effort as that's the bit I want the students to identify with the most (though for a cautionary note on colours see point 5).

2. While the process I put forward for RAG123 involves marking every day, there is no actual necessity to mark every day or every lesson. However without a doubt the more often you can manage it the more effective it will be.

Personally I try to RAG123 between every lesson but don't manage it all the time (still true even now I'm on an apparently empty SLT timetable). What you gain from doing it after every lesson is the opportunity for RAG123 to feed into planning for the next lesson, thereby improving differentiation and the impact of the next phase of teaching (for more on RAG123 as formative planning see here). I now find it much harder to plan if I've not had chance to RAG123 my books.

3. It's the 2 dimensional nature of RAG123 that brings its strength. Separating effort (student controlled) from understanding (teacher influenced) is really important.

If a student is not trying then even the best teacher will struggle to help them learn. Conversely if the student is working as hard as they can but not learning then it is the teacher that needs to do something different. This is why it's simply not the same as a plain traffic light assessment of understanding (more on that in this post). Highlighting the impact of their effort is important to students and makes direct links with other powerful things like growth mindset.

I often get asked how to measure effort, or how I decide exactly what constitutes a "green" "amber" or "red" effort? My answer is always the same - the rating should be scaled to the message you want that individual student to receive. If you think they're cruising then it's amber, if they're going flat out then it's green. It doesn't matter that one student has done half a page vs another doing four pages... If you know from the lesson that the half page struggled and persisted the whole lesson then it's green, if the four pages are all well within the ability of the student then it's amber. The brightest, best behaved students can certainly get reds if they are cruising (and they really don't like it so improve almost instantly!).

4. RAG123 doesn't and can't completely replace more detailed feedback, and I've never said that it should. Students need this, you still need to write extra at times. To help this it's good practice to aim to write an extra comment in 10-15% of books each time you mark. This hardly takes any extra time and after a week or so you can easily cover the whole class. Alternatively perhaps that feedback is verbal - which is fine too, though fails a little fouler of the dreaded "evidence for inspection". For me if you and the students are able to talk to an inspector about the feedback given (verbal or otherwise) and how it helps them to improve then that's perfectly valid feedback, but I do acknowledge that it takes a bit of confidence to fly without the safety net of written evidence. 

5. There is likely to be a colourblind student in every class group.... This was a big penny that dropped part way through the year, and I give thanks to @colourblindorg for the pointers on this. Clearly this causes tension for a system that has colours at its heart. However there is NO barrier to using RAG123 with colourblind students so long as symbols (e.g. "R", "A" or "G") are used and not simply coloured blobs/dots or even different coloured ink. Colourblindness is a big limitation for the various "purple pen of progress" or "green for good, pink to think" concepts that abound across teaching policies and #chat discussions. Using different coloured pens becomes irrelevant if colourblind students (and teachers) can't reliably tell the difference.

Colourblindness can render unlabelled R,A,G unintelligible to an average of 1 student in every classroom

The key message here is that all RAG123 posters, stickers, guidance must always have a way for colourblind people to distinguish between the colour designations - simply labelling R, A, G does this perfectly. Colours are still powerful and useful for the non-colourblind majority so I'm still in favour of using colours, but it's important we make them accessible to those that can't distinguish between them.

Just labelling R,A,G as shown above retains full accessibility for colourblind students.

6. RAG123 is absolutely a leap of faith, and sceptics take a lot of convincing!
Perhaps my biggest confession here is that despite sharing RAG123 nationally (& internationally) and even having it adopted by whole schools in other parts of the country I have not yet got it embedded across my school, or even widely used outside of the maths department.

The reasons for this are many... Perhaps I have been  being a little more shy about pushing RAG123 within my school with people who may not be actively looking for new ideas (compared to people at teachmeets, on Twitter or reading blogs who are clearly looking for and open to new ideas). There's also the fact that until September I was 'only' a head of maths and my influence only reached so far within school. Even now I'm on SLT there is someone else on the team that has the clear remit of improving marking and feedback and I don't want to step on their toes. I've spoken to them about it and actually they like the idea, but can't quite build it into a whole school position yet due to other priorities. While I do find this a little frustrating I want to emphasise that this is not a criticism of my colleague(s) across my school. They are all working immensely hard and have a real desire to do the best for the children in our care, they simply choose to do this in a different way to me and I have yet to fully do he hard sell on RAG123.

This also in no way suggests that I don't have faith in RAG123. Personally I feel my teaching would suffer massively if I had to stop, and think most people's teaching would benefit from adopting it, but I also recognise that change is difficult and it's not easy to try something like this. I know I'm not the only one that faces this challenge, Damian Benney who is the author of probably the second most read blog about RAG123 is a Deputy Head at his school but has struggled to get colleagues to try it, as detailed here. We're both completely sold on RAG123, and have had success sharing it across the country but changing minds more locally can be really hard.

7. Students need support with RAG123 to make the self reflection aspect meaningful. I've written before about how difficult reflection is so won't go into it again for this post (find more here and here), however I will emphasise that the provision of sentence starters or other scaffolding to prompt more meaningful comments really does help. It's also vital that students are given the time in lesson to review and respond to comments - if you don't demonstrate it's important they won't treat it as important.

8. Relating to the last sentence in the paragraph above... Marking & reviewing books as regularly as using RAG123 allows becomes a really powerful way to demonstrate to the students that you care what they do every lesson. This is a big point and shouldn't be underestimated. There are groups of students who don't like RAG123, when you ask them it's usually because they have nowhere to hide in terms of effort. The vast majority of students REALLY like RAG123, when you ask them it's because they know for certain that the teacher is taking an interest in what they do each day.

9. Even bad RAG123 is still quite good. I'll be absolutely honest, compared to the examples I've seen on Twitter my own practice of RAG123 is nowhere near the level that some people have adopted. In all honesty I don't know where some of the teachers that do this find the time to do anything other than school work, maybe they don't? The detail some go into with RAG123 marking is almost to the level you'd expect from a more traditional marking methodology. For me this is awesome but a little overwhelming and I wouldn't want others to think that if they can't sustain that level they are doing it badly.

What I do know is that my books are basically marked and I know the students in front of me extremely well as a result of talking to them in lessons and using RAG123 with them regularly. I also know that the lessons I plan are tuned to the progress that the students make each lesson, and therefore the marking that I do isn't pointless (see more on my thoughts about pointless marking here). I'll gladly argue my case that the progress students make is evidence that my marking and feedback is effective, even if it only results in a better planned next lesson rather than reams of written evidence in books. This will be a contentious point for many, and some may disagree completely, but that's true of so many aspects of teaching.

10. RAG123 as with all good teaching simply comes down to promoting good levels of effort from the students and good planning from the teacher. Initial users of RAG123 will often ask if a student can get a R1 (low effort, excellent understanding), or a G3 (high effort, low understanding). The answer in both cases is of course they can. For me the effort ratings should provoke the students to question what they are doing (can they try harder, can they maintain their current effort across a sequence of lessons) and the understanding should provoke the teacher to question their support/extension/differentiation for the student or planning for the class as a whole.

RAG123 and the future
So a year in and what's next. For me it's simply keeping using RAG123, I would be a worse teacher without it; I know other users feel the same. 

Sceptics will often ask for evidence that it works before trying it. I understand this but am also frustrated by it. I've tried to put together some evidence (see here) but it gets confounded by other factors, and as a result the relatively small sample size and other influences makes this limited sample ripe for taking shots at in terms of robustness of data. To accumulate enough hard data to support it (with a robust control group for comparison) would take a spectacularly long time and frankly I think it's simpler than that...

• RAG123 costs nothing - there are no subscription fees!
• RAG123 can be started and stopped overnight, all it takes is a decision to do it.

As such I'll reiterate the challenge that I issue whenever I present this at a Teachmeet... Try RAG123 with a class for 2 weeks. If you don't see a benefit then stop... If you do stop then that's absolutely fair enough, but please get in touch to tell me why as I'm keen to understand if it has limitations! Similarly if you find it useful then please spread the word by challenging others!

Comments are always welcome, happy Ragging!

First month as SLT

A few reflections on my first full month as part of SLT since I started my Assistant Headteacher role at the start of September...

If I had to give a single word summary it would be "busy", and perhaps most telling as part of this is that I originally titled this as "First week as SLT", but never even got close to finishing it; writing the title and pressing save was as far as I got! Anyway, these are some of the thoughts that crossed my mind during the past few weeks...

Am I still a teacher?

The first thing that hit me is that I'm now not teaching very much. It's almost a third of a main scale teacher's timetable, less than half of what I was teaching last year as a head of department. There are whole days when I don't have a lesson at all, I also no longer have a tutor group.

As a result as I started term I struggled a bit with the fact that I'm spending so little time in front of classes - the job balance is massively different and now teaching is the minority of my week. It almost causes me to wonder if I'm still a teacher. At the core I know I am, and the other things I'm now doing can have a wider impact on more students than I did before, even as a head of department. I'm loving the new pastoral side of my role, getting an overview of the college team I now lead, dealing with our students and seeing the progress they're making it brilliant.

Of course this light timetable is one of the things that can be quite divisive in schools, where the majority of the teaching staff see SLT apparently swanning about on a light timetable where it becomes the exception to be teaching.

In many jobs there is the visible bit that outside observers see, and the hidden bit that is only really visible to the person doing the job. All teachers have the visible bit when we're stood in front of a class teaching a lesson, but the invisible bit is planning and marking - hence the popular misconceptions about teacher working hours and holidays amongst the general public. The further the emphasis of a role moves towards leadership the more activities move away from visible "work" and more towards strategic activities that may be completed invisibly.

Perhaps naively I entered the world of SLT with the view that I was already really busy as a head of department, and that one of the things that caused me to be busy was the fact I still had a substantial timetable. I expected that my SLT workload could not possibly be bigger than my HoD workload; my mind argued that while I'll have more management work to do I'd also have more time to do it because I'd have more non-contact time. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't ever expecting SLT to be an easy time, I was not expecting to put my feet up in my office during non-contact times. I always will work hard, but I was fully expecting to be able to manage the workload within a similar pattern to that established as a head of department.

What I've discovered during these first few weeks is that the number of varied ways for the invisible or less visible side of the SLT role to burn up non contact time is incredible. As such right now my workload has massively increased as I often get much fewer of the management activities done in the time I have available.

Burning time

I might well start a day with just one lesson to teach, but it's not time to kick back and drink coffee all day; there are a multitude of things that will burn off that time and make you feel a bit frantic...

E-mails - I thought I received quite a few as a head of maths, it's doubled since being on SLT. Many of them don't need a response as I get copied on on all sorts, but I still need to read most to be able to decide on that. I have always found myself to be quite efficient with e-mails in terms of response times and keeping track if it all - but the recent increase in volume does threaten this a bit.

Meetings - wow there are lots of them as SLT! What with direct line management meetings, SLT meetings, meetings with parents, governors, other groups relating to your area of responsibility it's easy to fill up a large proportion of a week. Of course some are not that efficient, maybe some aren't needed at all, but as yet I've not figured out which ones...

Being the expert - heads of departments, classroom teachers, admin staff, all appear to expect SLT to have the answer to almost any question relating to the school, and can be visibly disappointed if you don't. In some ways I'm fortunate that I was promoted to AHT at the same school, meaning I do already know about the majority of the systems. However there are still a few changes or aspects new to me or new to the school this year that aren't part of my direct responsibility or past experience that have me scratching my head a bit. For those SLT who are entirely new to a school it must be doubly difficult.

Naughty students - I did a reasonable amount of this as a head of department but when things escalate further and reaches SLT you have to support the wider school staff as and when they need it. When this happens it's always going to interrupt time you'd planned to spend marking, planning, sorting e-mails, making plans for the core area of your responsibility, etc. There is no point arriving to a classroom to lend a hand if the student has already gone to the next lesson - you have to respond when you're needed, regardless of the impact to your workload.

Even when the initial incidents are over there is often time to be spent following up. This might be investigating an incident, finding a challenging student, talking with them, making plans for them with the pastoral teams, contacting parents.

In my second week I was required to write a report for our governors about the exam results from the summer. While on lunch duty on one of the days I had planned to get this report completed I had to deal with a fight between two students and then lost the entire afternoon in investigating it and finding the right response for the students involved. the right thing to do was deal with the students, but it blew my plans for the week to bits.

Maintaining teaching quality
In amongst all of this I'm still teaching, and with distractions and interruptions to time intended to be spent planning, marking, etc it can actually be a genuine challenge to keep on top of it and maintain the overall quality of teaching.

I have never bought into the idea that all SLT have to be outstanding teachers. They just need to be 100% reliably good teachers, and be able to bring out the best teaching in others (whether that is branded as good, outstanding or whatever). They need to follow all school classroom policies and model the behaviours expected in others.

As a result of this while I'm confident in my teaching I felt some pressure when planning and delivering my observed lesson this week. It's too easy to become lazy with planning if you only have one or two lessons in a day - other things float up the priority list and you arrive at a lesson only partially planned. This is compounded a little when your'e teaching in a multitude of different rooms and don't have a fixed/known set of resources to draw upon as SLT rarely get their own base classroom.

This all sounds fairly downbeat...
As I'm writing this it seems like I'm highlighting all the challenges of the job and you might thing I am regretting the move... That's not the case in the slightest. I'm really enjoying the job, it's just such a big step from where I was last year to where I am now. I've gone from feeling completely in control as a head of department to just about maintaining control as an assistant head, which brings with it a level of stress that isn't entirely comfortable at the moment. I like to feel that I know what I'm doing and how to do it - currently that balance isn't quite right but it's getting there. I've hit the ground running but the ground was already moving quickly! As time goes on I'm adjusting how I approach each week to ensure that I maintain control and can get further and further on top of things. An indication of this is that I've found time to write this post this week!

I've no idea if this post will be interesting to anyone other than me - frankly that's not the point of it. I'll try to update on my progress as AHT as we continue through the year, mainly to remind myself that I'm making progress! If you have any thoughts or comments I'd be keen to hear them.

Managing with colours - SLTeachmeet presentation

These are the slides I presented at #SLTeachmeet earlier today. Click here

The info shared in the presentation picks up on aspects covered in these posts:
Using measures to improve performance

Using seating plans with student data

RAG123 basics

As always feedback is always welcome...

RAG123 user survey - the results!

I posted the RAG123 survey a few weeks ago and have now collected enough responses for it to be meaningful.

Don't know what RAG123 is? see here and here.

In total 40 people responded, which I know is fewer than the number that are actually using RAG123, but it represents those that saw the tweets about the survey and found the time to complete it - for which I am grateful as I know time is precious. 40 isn't a massive number, but it's enough to draw some conclusions on...

A quick health warning - these are the results of 40 responses - any statements made refer to the views of this sample only and shouldn't be extrapolated to wider populations. Also this was a USER survey - I've not got data from non-users, that wasn't part of the exercise. I'll also be clear that one of the responses is me - I'm a RAG123 user after all.

Profile of users
I was worried at one point that lots of people I communicate with about RAG123 appear to be departmental leadership of SLT. It made me wonder whether it is truly sustainable for a mainscale classroom teacher, however 50% of respondents are classroom teachers...

Profile of RAG123 users by job function

85% of respondents first heard about RAG123 via twitter, 5% heard from others in their school, and the final 5% are Rob Williams and I, who did the first trial at our school in November.

Subject coverage

The majority of respondents teach maths (60% if you include those who also teach another subject), and the next big group is science (25% if you include all who mention science). Humanities had 5% and the remaining few are individual teachers of other subjects.

Respondent's subjects

I wouldn't want anyone to draw a conclusion on this that RAG123 only really works for Maths and Science. Notably the two blogs/twitter feeds that have been pushing this idea are mine (Maths based) and Damian Benney's (here - Science based), as such it's hardly surprising that there is a bias here. What I am pleased by though is the fact that other subjects are represented, including the notable "Whole School." I do know from twitter exchanges that RAG123 has been used in MFL, Music, and a some other subjects too - it just happens that they didn't complete the survey.

Part of doing this survey was to collect some info on who was using RAG123 so we could share tips and best practice more directly. Users that included their twitter ID have been sorted by subject and can be found in these lists.

Impact on pupils

That's what we do it for after all!!

An overwhelming 82.5% report an improvement in either effort or attainment, or improvements in both. 10% are new RAG123 users and felt it was too soon to detect any changes, and the remaining 7.5% report no change on the part of the pupils.

Reported impact on pupils following RAG123 introduction

Impact on workload

One of the things I found when I started RAG123 was it improved my workload, I was interested to see what others thought...

Impact RAG123 has had on perceived workload

55% state their workload has decreased, 32.5% say there has been no change, and 12.5% state an increase.

Notably of those reporting increased workload all but one recognise improved pupil effort and attainment (the remaining one response is a "too soon to tell"). In the write in comments all of those with an increased workload are still very positive about RAG123. For example:

"Although I am not perfect at RAG123 and still have to do STAR, it has made marking so much quicker and actually I like doing it."

"My dept and I were sceptical and only did it cos u kept tweeting no negative feedback yet!!!! But we are sold!!"

In terms of where it has had biggest impact, 68% mention marking, 53% mention Dialogue and 60% mention planning (as these don't add to 100% you'll realise that many mention more than one of these!)

Best things about RAG123

This was a free text bit of the survey and the responses ranged from a few words to much more detailed. I could try to pick and choose best bits, but in all honesty it's best just to see the full text cut & pasted in here:

Picking up on misconceptions at source and the value pupils place on such regular marking. Also the way that informs your planning. Impossible to say just one.

Dialogue and relationships with students

Although my work load has increased as I am now taking books in every lesson for checking RAG123, it is a positive increase. I am able to judge how well my lesson has gone straight away. I can use the RAG123 to set targets more effectively and cater better for the individual. As a result DIRT happens every lesson now which I hope will pay off with regard to progress over time and stickability. My students are responding positively to me monitoring their progress so closely and a better dialogue has been established. If I find a smarter way of recording targets in exercise books so there is clear signposting of what is going on for observers, my workload should decrease in the future.

Informs future planning

The simplicity of it and the ease of use.

There are many best things, and the only downside is setting aside the time every lesson to make sure students do their part in it.

Marking is very quick. Pupils marking their own work a real game changer.

I know where everyone is after every lesson and can therefore plan for this in the next lesson. No one slips through the net; misconceptions identified readily (with more certainty than other AFL techniques) - there's nowhere to hide! No chance for bad habits to develop.

Communication with students

You can fully track progress of the whole class. I can identity misconceptions earlier and check students motivation.

Improved dialogue with students

Simple self assessment

It helps me identify what is not making a piece of work G1 and able to then identify where to improve.

Enables frequent marking and formative feedback.

Ability to plan effectively the next lesson and show progress.

quick whole class overview of progress and understanding

The students know that I am looking at the books very regularly and can write me messages that I will read.

I also get them to hand in their books in RAG123 piles so I can start with/spend more time on the students who need more help.

Students are getting used to assessing their own understanding, which I think will help with their revision.

I feel like I know my students better and what they have understood

Makes sure the kids complete their work - being able to keep on top of exactly what they are doing

No more marking guilt and amazing dialogue with students.

The ease, and the fact you know where the kids are after each lesson

quick feedback

Much more informed about planning. Kids love it and whilst I'm not sure any improved attainment is down to this I am convinced improved effort is. Combining it with pupils marking their own/each others work with green pens. We mark in red.

RAG123 is quick and extremely effective. I have mini dialogues with students in their books and can see patterns in behaviours as well and spot misconceptions quickly.

The best thing and what has helped me the most is being able to manage my marking load better. We have weekly book checks, one week yr7 and yr8 and the next week, yr 9 and 10. Before I was always in a mad panic about these. Now I know that although I may not be doing great at following the latest marking policy, my books are marked and feedback is there. (Especially those which I have still kept on top off!!) I know I'm not RAGging properly as I'm trying to squeeze too much feedback in, but it's much better than the paragraphs I wrote before! 

planning for next lesson, allows me to monitor how the students are doing on a regular basis. They self-regulate their effort often.

student focus on their own progress and effort

Checking work after each lesson and before the next one!

The opportunity to have dialogue with pupils. They enjoy doing it too..

Pupils are excited to read and respond to my feedback each day. The impact it's having is worth the extra effort!

It's instant and instantly useful. Supports using LO/SC in all lessons.

I know how everyone is doing and what they need to do to improve or correct misunderstandings.

Quick, easy for both learner and teacher. gives you indication on how class doing, useful for ensuring tailor made lessons.

Regular monitoring, review link to lesson objectives, planning response better informed.

Simplicity, focus on student involvement and it's evidence based system.


The easiness of marking. It helps me to keep on top of it. I now feel a lot more knowledgable about all of my classes.

The worst things about RAG123

For balance I also need to include all of the negatives - this is an unedited cut and paste of "the worst things" - I'll try to address some of the comments in another post:

It can be a pinch if you have parents' evening/meetings after school. Can be overcome though!!

That more people aren't using it!

Nothing! What I want to do is print the RAG123 criteria on a sticker and have it at the front of exercise books. That way I can then have the success criteria on the board linked to 123 which is something I have not yet been doing. I also need to get students to improve their justifications which will come once I have linked the RAG123 criteria to the success criteria.

Colleagues' reactions when you say you mark after every lesson.

Have to remember to mark after every lesson for it to be effective

Nothing

The students who don't mark work or RAG it. 

Those who just go for A2 every time to save actually thinking. Part of the reason that we are going to try red/orange/yellow/green so you are above or below half way.

Having so many books around at school, because I am not tidy and when I lose 1 book (no doubt student put in wrong pile) I have to look for it as I know that they handed it in. (Student then says oh yeah I forgot I have it because I didn't hand it in - grrrrr)

Not sure yet

It doesn't encourage students to make subject specific comments

Needs to be done very regularly.

Sometimes hard to summarise effectively into RAG123 categories

effort grades, personally I don't use them. Grading effort is unreliable.

Not found one yet.

not too sure yet

We also have to give SWANS feedback at least every three weeks, so I have to do that as well as RAG123.

It is sometimes difficult to get the books marked before the next lesson but it's worth it

Some students really don't like it"

Marking the books everyday

Making sure you do it before you go home...

Not sure yet

Still struggle to find time to mark after every lesson - but I put that down to pastoral responsibilities - those pesky kids and parents stop me doing most things when I plan to!!!

If I set homework then I miss a lesson or two with some classes. Maybe I could think about giving separately homework books, but my experience with these has not been good.

The pressure I feel when I've had a bad week and fallen behind. Have five lessons out of six most days, and sometimes struggle to RAG everyday before the next lesson. This is because I've not got it right yet, but I get very stressed and then fall even more behind!!

Need to make more of a glance and RAG123 thing. Have started timing myself now!!!

Doesn't work if you can't keep up checking every lesson - I've fallen victim to this.

students overestimating their understanding

Probably feeling the pressure to check after every lesson, especially when there are after school commitments like parents evenings etc

I have found that it doesn't lend itself to every lesson. 

I sometimes struggle to find the time for the students to do it properly so it ends up being rushed.

Daily expectation! We have probably gone a step too far with it! Setting individual questions, activities even card sorts etc. Viewed as an investment in next lesson rather than a quick response to previous. We are worried about sustainability though.

Sometimes harder to use in English where you're not always working on something as discrete as maths.

Can't think of any. It's easily the best thing I've done in my teaching career.

No real.negatives. some year 11 boys just sat A1 as it relates to breaking bad!

It doesn't record the volume of quality verbal feedback given in maths - but then neither do other written systems, the major issue with ofsted's version of marking and feedback monitoring.

Apathy of some to look at the benefits. Mainly, "you got this from twitter!" What do Ofsted think, well now I know.

I sometimes struggle to mark books every day. Especially on one week where I teach 4 days without a free period or lunchtime or after school.

So there you have it...

There is a bit more analysis to do, and I still need to sort out the top tips bit - there are some gems in there. However I wanted to get this post published this weekend...

Notably for me all of the worst bits are things people struggle with, not reasons to stop. Yes it can be difficult to do every day, yes it takes time for students to respond to it - we need to train them in how to use it and learn how to use it ourselves.

Still sceptical of RAG123? Give it a try!!!

How do you do RAG123 so quickly?

Whenever people start off with RAG123 they take too long marking. It's not their fault - they're used to taking longer and struggle to do it more quickly. When I say a full set takes 15 minutes I am often greeted with incredulity. I thought I'd prove it... (video run time 3 mins - all the rest is explained...)

(In case of trouble streaming the video you can download a copy here http://bit.ly/RAG123video)

While the set of 26 books marked in the video took me 15 minutes 30 seconds you can see that I write an extra comment/response in almost all of them - for me this is the longest that a RAG123 set ever takes. Sometimes a full set can take less than 10 minutes if I'm not writing extra comments. As part of recording this video I actually filmed myself marking 3 full sets of books - that's 86 books and they were all reviewed in 38 minutes.

Not just about whizzing through books
I really want to emphasise though that RAG123 is actually a whole teaching approach, not just about blasting through a set of books in 10-15mins. The real strength comes from responding to what you see to shape how you approach your next lesson. It informs planning, it makes differentiation better, it helps you to get to know your students better.

Some people may say that "proper AFL in lesson is better than picking things up from reviewing books." To some extent I agree, but this gives an extra method of AFL, and one in which students have nowhere to hide.

Before RAG123 I thought I was quite good at AFL in lesson. I thought I had a good handle on what each student could and couldn't do, and what each student had actually done in lesson. When I started using RAG123 every lesson I found that I was wrong. I had a partial understanding at best, and RAG123 helps me to complete this picture. The insight it gives me helps me to meet the needs of my classes much more effectively than I ever have before. I now dislike planning a lesson until I've reviewed the output of the last one - otherwise it's too much of a guessing game.

Importantly RAG123 shouldn't replace any AFL, or other in class strategy. It also shouldn't be the only form of feedback the students receive.

As always - comments are welcome, please let me know your thoughts...