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Session 5. Evaluating, Embedding and Reporting a Change
Objective. Evaluate a change with three questions, decide to adopt, adapt or stop using a rule agreed in advance, build an embedding checklist that survives a change of leader, and present a one-page decision brief.
The end of a change is where leaders usually stop paying attention, yet it decides whether the effort was worth it. This session helps you judge honestly what happened, learn even from a change you stop, and write the routines and handover that keep a good change alive after you or your champion leave. You will also practise telling the story in a page for a board that has little time and good questions.
Key ideas
Three questions to evaluate a change
- Did we do it? Count reach (how many of the intended teachers and classes) and quality (how closely the core was followed). Did it work? Compare with the baseline you set in session 1: the outcome measures AND the balancing measure, such as teacher time. What did it cost? Count hours, money, goodwill and what was stopped to make room.
- Be honest about limits. A school pilot usually has small numbers, no comparison group and other changes at the same time, so you can say 'results moved in the direction we hoped' but rarely 'this caused it'. Collect voices as well as numbers: a few pupils, parents and support staff. Look for effects nobody planned, good and bad.
- Judge against what you promised in the case for change, not against a new, more flattering standard. Report results by group, never by named teacher or pupil. An evaluation that blames a person will teach the staff to hide the next one.
Adopt, adapt or abandon
- The 'Act' step of the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle has three outcomes: adopt the change as it is, adapt it and test again, or abandon it. Use the rule you agreed before the pilot (session 4). Abandoning is a result, not a failure; recording what you learned is what makes it valuable.
- Before you extend, name the core and the flexible parts. The EEF implementation guidance for schools speaks of what must stay fixed and what may flex. In the feedback-comment policy the core might be 'one comment per class per week that names a next step'; the flexible parts are length, language and whether pupils write in pairs.
- Treat wider rollout as a new implementation, not a copy: other teams, other classes, other readiness. EEF's four stages (explore, prepare, deliver, sustain) apply again, and course 15.6 (Scaling Innovation Across a School Network) goes further. Fewer things done well is the aim; stopping something is the other half of starting something.
Embedding: make it outlast you
- Ask: 'If I and the two other champions left in June, would this still happen in two years?' Embedding means the change is part of ordinary routines, not of someone's energy. Kotter's last step is to anchor the change in the culture: people say 'this is how we do things here' because they have seen it work.
- Use a checklist: a one-page written routine; the change in the handbook, calendar and timetable; a named owner (a role) and a deputy; an induction slot for new teachers every September; a protected time allowance or budget line; a review date within a year; the data in the regular report (course 14.4); the old way officially closed so there are not two systems.
- Guard against drift. A routine slowly shrinks to a tick-box if nobody looks. Plan an annual 'refresh' conversation: what is still the core, what has drifted, what can be simpler. When leadership changes, give the new leader the case for change, the evidence and the one-page routine on day one.
Report and present: the one-page decision brief
- A decision brief for the school board or education department has seven parts: the recommendation in one sentence; what we did; the evidence with its limits; the cost; the options (adopt, adapt, stop) with trade-offs; the risks; and exactly what we ask for. Put the recommendation first, so a busy reader gets it in ten seconds.
- Use plain numbers with their size ('21 of 30 pupils checked'), say what you do not yet know, and leave out names of pupils and teachers. Prepare for three board questions: How do you know it worked? What did it cost others? What happens if the lead person leaves? An honest 'we do not know yet, and here is how we will find out' builds more trust than a confident guess.
- Finish with an after-action review for yourself, in four questions: What did we expect? What happened? Why was there a difference? What will I do differently next time? Lead the next change with what you wrote. Policy-level questions about systems and policy come next in course 15.1 (Education Policy & Systems Thinking).
Three outcomes of the Act step
Adopt
It works as it is
- Write the routine
- Name the owner
- Set a review date
Adapt
Works with changes
- Keep the core
- Change one flexible part
- Test again
Abandon
It does not serve pupils
- Announce with respect
- Record lessons
- Free the time
Learning from a change you stop
An after-action review takes thirty minutes and four questions: What did we expect to happen? What actually happened? Why was there a difference? What will we do differently next time? Hold it with the people who did the work, include one outsider such as a critical friend, and write the answers on one sheet. The tone is curiosity, not blame; the question is 'what in the design or support did not work', not 'who failed'.
When you stop a change, announce it with respect for the effort: what you tried, what you learned, what you keep (often a part of it) and what the pilot teachers contributed. Teachers who see an honest stop will take part in the next pilot; those who see a silent disappearance will not. Report stops to the district as findings, not as failures.
The handover pack for the next leader
Leaders move, retire and are promoted. A change that depends on one person's memory will end with them. A handover pack is five pages at most: the case for change; the one-page routine; the measures and last results; the owners (roles) and their deputies; and a list of known problems and promises made to staff. It is kept in the school office and shown to every new deputy or head in the first week.
Add the 'promises' list on purpose. A new leader who does not know that the weekly report was closed for the pilot teachers may reopen it and lose all the trust the earlier leader built. Brief teachers also: tell them what was promised, so they can remind the new leader politely. Review the pack once a year at the 'refresh' conversation.
Examples from the classroom
An honest stop in Bukhara
Scene. A Bukhara school piloted weekly peer-marking for Grade 8 mathematics. After eight weeks, the gate rule failed: only 3 of 6 teachers kept it up, time stayed at 90 minutes and pupils' errors did not fall. The head, Dilnoza, holds a 30-minute after-action review, then tells the staff: 'We are stopping the pilot. We learned that pupils need a model first. We keep the answer-key idea in the homework check.' Two of the pilot teachers volunteer for her next pilot.
Insight. An honest stop with lessons learned earns volunteers for the next pilot.
A handover pack in Namangan
Scene. When the deputy head who led a feedback routine in Namangan accepted a post in another district, she spent her last two weeks writing a four-page pack: the one-page routine, the last results, three open problems and a list of four promises to staff, including 'the weekly report is closed'. The new deputy reads it on day one. In September she keeps the promise and, a month later, teachers say that nothing changed after the handover.
Insight. Writing promises into the handover pack protects the trust that took a year to build.
Three board questions in Tashkent
Scene. Aziz presents his brief to the school board in Tashkent in three minutes. The first question is 'How do you know it was the policy and not the new teacher in Grade 7?' He answers: 'We do not know for sure; one class, one check, and a strong teacher. We will check three more classes in February.' The board chair writes the date down and approves the extension to one more grade only, with a review in March.
Insight. An honest 'we do not know yet' with a date earns a smaller yes that can be kept.
Common pitfalls
- Claiming that the change caused a result when the evidence is one class, one check and other changes at the same time.
- Moving the standard after the pilot, so that the result looks like a success.
- Embedding the change in one champion's energy and not in documents, roles and calendar.
- Letting a stopped change vanish without a word, which teaches staff to wait out the next one.
Evaluate, Decide, Embed and Present
- Pairs (15 min): open the Activity Kit. Table A is a sample evaluation pack for a six-month feedback-comment policy for 30 teachers. Write three findings in plain words, each with its limit, and two things the data cannot tell you.
- Trios (15 min): Table B gives the gate rule agreed before the pilot. Compare the data with the rule, decide adopt, adapt or stop, and divide the policy into core and flexible parts. Write the message to staff in three sentences.
- Trios (15 min): Table C is an embedding checklist with the status of a sample school. Mark which items are weak, write three actions with owners and dates, and name the biggest risk if the main champion leaves in June.
- Part B, alone (25 min): write a one-page decision brief (Table D) for a real change from your school (a past or current one) or, if you have none with data, for the sample change. Recommendation first, then the six other parts.
- Trios (10 min): a three-minute presentation of your brief to two 'board members', who each ask one question from Table E and one of their own. Answer honestly, including 'we do not know yet'. Swap roles.
- Alone (5 min): write your final leadership task from the Kit and note which course documents you will keep for your portfolio.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- What did your data show that you could say, and what did you have to leave out because you could not support it?
- Which embedding item is weakest in your school, and who would notice if it slipped?
- What was the hardest board question, and how would you answer it truthfully?
Reflect
- Which change in your school died when a person left, and what could have kept it?
- What would you stop doing so that the best change of this year has room next year?
- Which of the five sessions will change how you lead the next change?
Try it tomorrow
- Run a 30-minute after-action review of one change from the last year, using the four questions and one critical friend.
- Write a five-page-maximum handover pack for the change you lead, including a list of promises made to staff.
- Rehearse the three board questions with a colleague, and practise answering 'we do not know yet, and here is how we will find out'.
Further reading and links
Judge against what you promised, decide by the agreed rule, and write the routine down so it outlasts you.