Dr James Mannion is the Director of Rethinking Education, a teacher training organisation dedicated to improving outcomes for children and young people through implementation and improvement science, learner effectiveness and practitioner inquiry. Before this, he worked as a science teacher and school leader for 12 years. James is also the host of the popular Rethinking Education podcast, which features long-form conversations about how we might bring about a more harmonious, less hair-raising state of world affairs.
Why do so few school improvement initiatives actually improve pupil outcomes? In this practical guide to implementing school improvement, Dr James Mannion argues that there are two main reasons. First, school leaders arent taught how to implement change effectively - and thats essentially their job. Second, there are many problems with top-down change - and top-down change is our default model.
Making Change Stick is a game-changing approach to improving pupil outcomes in real-world contexts. Through using a slice team to drive the process of implementing school improvement, you get much better decision-making - and you get buy-in like never before ...
The impact has been huge ... As a school, moving forward, everything we try to implement will be done using this method because weve found it so successful. So go for it!
Sarah OKelly, Deputy Head, Queen Elizabeth High School