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Session 5. Monitoring, Reporting and Sustaining Gains
Objective. Run a short review cycle with pre-agreed decision rules, tell an implementation problem from a theory problem, write a one-page honest report for the education department and a plain note for parents, brief a senior audience in five minutes and plan for sustaining gains.
A review that only describes what happened wastes everyone's time. A good review tells the school whether the plan is being carried out, whether it is working and what to change, and the report that follows tells the department and parents the truth in a form they can use. This lesson gives you ways to separate an implementation problem from a theory problem, to brief a senior audience in five minutes and to make a gain survive the person who started it.
Key ideas
A review rhythm
- Review every four to six weeks, briefly, with the owners and one or two others. A short regular review catches a problem in November; an end-of-year report finds it in June, when nothing can be changed.
- Use the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, a tool from improvement work in health care that suits schools: predict, try, compare with the prediction, then adopt, adapt or abandon. The IHI worksheet has these four steps on one page.
- At each review ask three questions in order: Is it happening as planned? Is it working? What do we change? Do not ask 'is it working' before you know whether it is happening.
Course-correcting with rules
- Agree the decision rules before you see the results: continue, adapt or stop, and what would trigger each. Rules made in advance protect against both quitting early and clinging to a plan that fails.
- Tell an implementation problem from a theory problem. If the routine is not being used, fix delivery. If it is used well and the leading indicator does not move, question the theory. The EEF guide advises adapting only once the core is secure.
- Keep a one-page dashboard with a few indicators, a colour and one line of evidence each. Reward early bad news: a leader who punishes a red light will see only green ones. Some barriers are outside the school and must be escalated.
Reporting to the department, board and community
- Write one honest core report and adapt it for each audience. The Scottish guidance on annual reporting recommends one multi-purpose report rather than separate documents, which reduces duplicated work. Parents need plain words; the department needs numbers and the ask.
- A useful one-page report has: headline; what we aimed for (baseline and target); what we did; results with the numbers and their limits; what we learned; what we do not yet know; next steps; what we need from the department or board.
- Be honest about limits and context: small numbers, a changed test, a new intake. Course 12.2 covered gaming and blame safeguards; apply them here. Never put pupil or teacher names in a report, and follow the rules on personal data.
Sustaining gains
- Gains fade when they depend on one person or one burst of energy. Put the new practice into routines: the timetable, a written one-page procedure, the induction pack for new teachers and the agenda of regular meetings.
- Name the risks to sustaining: the owner leaves, funding ends, novelty fades, a new instruction arrives. For each, write one safeguard. The EEF guide asks schools to plan for staff turnover and funding changes from the start and to keep recognising good practice.
- Close the loop: at year end decide what becomes routine, what stops and what needs another year, then return to self-evaluation (session 1) with new evidence. Improvement is a cycle, not a project with an end date.
Plan-Do-Study-Act for a school review
Implementation problem or theory problem?
Two questions give four cases. If the routine is used and the leading indicator moves, continue. If it is used and the indicator does not move, question the theory: the cause may be wrong. If it is not used and the indicator does not move, fix delivery before judging the idea. If it is not used but the indicator moves, something else is at work and the plan should not take credit.
Set the decision rules before the data arrive. For example: continue when the leading indicator is at least 90 percent of the milestone and no major implementation gap exists; stop when two reviews in a row show no movement although the routine is used well. Some barriers, such as a bus timetable, belong outside the school; write the request and the date it was sent.
The five-minute brief and honest uncertainty
A senior reader remembers little. Open with a headline of one sentence, give the two or three numbers that matter with their size and limits, and end with a clear ask: a decision, a letter or a resource. Say what you do not yet know in plain words. 'We do not yet know whether the gain will hold in spring' is more credible than silence and protects you from being held to a claim you could not support.
Write one core report and adapt it. The Scottish annual reporting advice recommends one multi-purpose report in place of separate documents. For parents, use three sentences: one fact, one goal and one thing they can do. For the department, keep the numbers and the ask. Never put names of pupils or teachers in any version.
Examples from the classroom
Three classes out of six in Jizzakh
Scene. At the February review a Jizzakh school sees that the contact rate is 70 percent against a milestone of 90. The first reaction is that the idea has failed. The deputy asks which classes use the routine: three of six. Two class teachers say they never received the one-page guide and a third is on leave. The group fixes delivery: the guide is handed out, cover is arranged and the review is repeated in four weeks. By March the rate is 88 percent.
Insight. Separate whether it is happening from whether it is working; the fix was delivery, not the idea.
Amber in the report to the department
Scene. A school near Andijan sends its one-page report with two amber lights, one for a contact rate of 86 percent against 90 and one for a lesson sample of only 12. In the ask section the head requests a decision on the Monday first-lesson start time. The department replies within two weeks and arranges a meeting with the transport office. The honest amber led to help that an all-green report would never have received.
Insight. Honest limits and a clear ask give the department something it can act on.
An induction pack in Qarshi
Scene. In Qarshi the deputy who started the contact routine is about to move to another school. Before she leaves she writes a one-page routine, trains a second teacher, adds it to the induction pack for new teachers and puts review dates into the school calendar. Three months after she leaves the routine is still running, and Monday attendance has held at its new level. The head tells staff that the routine now belongs to the school and not to one person.
Insight. Written routines, a second trained person and calendar dates make a gain outlast its founder.
Common pitfalls
- Judging a plan as failing before checking whether it was actually carried out.
- Writing a report in which every light is green so that nothing can be questioned.
- Presenting a change in a small sample of 12 lessons as a proven result.
- Letting a gain depend on one enthusiastic person with no written routine or second trained person.
Mid-Year Review, Honest Report and Sustaining Plan
- Trios (5 min): open the Kit. The sample school is at the February review. Table A gives the milestone targets and actual results for its two priorities. You are the review group. Agree a chair, a time-keeper and a reporter.
- Trios (15 min): run the Plan-Do-Study-Act review (Table B) for each priority. Answer in order: Is it happening? Is it working? What do we change? Apply the pre-agreed decision rules (Table C) and decide continue, adapt, stop or escalate.
- Trios (15 min): fill the one-page dashboard (Table D) with a colour and one line of evidence for each indicator. Be honest: if you hesitate between green and amber, choose amber and say why. Mark one barrier that is outside the school.
- Part B (15 min): write the one-page report to the district education department (Table E) with the numbers and their limits, and a three-sentence plain note to parents. Keep pupil and teacher names out.
- Briefing role play (10 min): the reporter gives a five-minute briefing (headline, evidence, ask) to another trio who play department officials. They ask three challenge questions: why only this figure; could easier pupils explain it; what do you need from us. Swap roles if time allows.
- Trios (10 min): complete the sustaining checklist (Table F): name at least three risks to keeping the gains, write one safeguard for each and decide what becomes routine, what stops and what needs another year. Compare with the key.
- Alone (15 min): write your leadership task from the Kit: when you will run a review in your own school, the decision rules you will set in advance, the audience for your report and one routine you will embed so that the gain survives.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Where did the data tell a different story from the first impression, and what did you do with that?
- How did it feel to write 'we do not yet know' for a department, and what would make that safe in your system?
- Which gain in your school would vanish if one person left, and what routine would hold it?
Reflect
- What does your department or board really want to see in a report, and what would be most useful to them?
- When did your school last stop a plan that was not working, and how was that received?
- Which practice from last year's plan is now just 'how we do things here'?
Try it tomorrow
- Before your next review, write the decision rules for continue, adapt, stop and escalate on one page and agree them with the owners.
- Write your next report with a one-sentence headline, two numbers with their limits, one thing you do not yet know and one clear ask.
- For one gain in your school, write the risk that it will fade and one safeguard, such as a second trained person or an item in the induction pack.
Further reading and links
Review briefly every four to six weeks, decide by rules agreed in advance, report with the numbers and their limits, and turn each gain into a routine that does not depend on one person.