Session 3. Implementation Support, Monitoring and Cost per School

Support is part of the practice

• The EEF guide to implementation treats implementation as a staged process: prepare staff and resources, then support staff, monitor progress, solve problems and adapt during first use. A one-day training followed by nothing is not implementation. In a network, support must reach teachers you cannot see every week.
• A support package has five parts: (1) a launch session where teachers DO the practice, not only hear about it; (2) coaching, an observed lesson with three points of feedback within two weeks; (3) ready materials tied to the state textbook units; (4) a named contact who answers within 48 hours; (5) check-ins at weeks 3 and 6.
• Who coaches? Lead teachers with release hours, methodists, or a buddy teacher in the next school. Each coach needs the same recipe card as the teachers and a short observation guide, otherwise coaching becomes opinion. Count coach hours in the budget: they are the cost most often forgotten.

What a pilot hides about cost

• Pilots look cheap because costs are hidden: the champion's evenings, borrowed copiers, the head's goodwill. At scale every hour has to be paid by someone. Count five groups: design (one-off), materials, training, support and coaching (yearly), and monitoring and management.
• Write the cost over THREE years, in money and in hours, as in course 14.5, then divide by the teachers and pupils reached. Cost per school differs: a small village school has fewer pupils, so cost per pupil is higher, and a coach's travel may cost more than the coaching itself.
• Ask the affordability question early: when project money ends in year 3, which budget line, school or district, pays for coaching and printing? If nobody can say, either design a cheaper version (for example peer coaching instead of travelling coaches) or do not scale yet. Do not promise a cost you cannot repeat.

Monitoring that a district can keep going

• The EEF guide suggests tracking implementation outcomes: fidelity, acceptability, reach, feasibility and cost. It advises robust but practical measures, because simple, quick data collection is more likely to be sustained, even if it is less exact. Review the data regularly, for example as a standing item at leadership meetings.
• A one-page monitoring sheet with five indicators is enough: REACH (how many classes used it this month), CORE MOVES SEEN (of the card's 5, in a five-minute visit), TEACHER VIEW (one question), PUPIL EVIDENCE (one work sample or exit ticket) and HOURS SPENT. Decide who collects, how often and what threshold triggers help.
• Say clearly that monitoring is for support, not for punishment. If a teacher is reported for 'low fidelity' without help, the sheet will fill with comfortable fiction. Show teachers their own data first, remove pupils' names, and follow every red signal with an offer of coaching.

Support that fades, so schools take over

• Plan the withdrawal at the start. Coaching can fall from fortnightly to monthly to on request as the monitoring sheet shows the core moves are secure. Hand over the materials, the observation guide and the sheet itself to the school, so that it no longer depends on the project team.
• Check sustainability at 6 and 12 months with one question: 'If nobody visited this term, would the practice still happen, and what would stop it?' Common stoppers are a new timetable, a teacher moving school and a lead teacher with no hours. Fix those, not the teachers.
• Treat new teachers as a permanent cost. Every year some teachers leave and others join. A simple induction (the card, one observed lesson, a buddy) costs far less than retraining the whole school later. Put it in the three-year budget.

A coaching conversation that teachers accept

After a five-minute or full-lesson visit, hold a 15 to 20 minute conversation with three parts. First, say what you saw against the core moves, as facts: 'Four of the five pairs explained the steps aloud; the checklist was used by two.' Second, ask one question that invites the teacher to think: 'What made the checklist easier in the first group?' Third, agree one next step to try before the next visit.

Keep the order. If you start with advice, teachers defend themselves; if you start with facts and a question, they usually find the next step themselves. Coaches need the same recipe card and a short observation guide, and they need to be coached too: a coach who is observed once a term learns how teachers feel. Write only what you saw, not a judgement of the person.

Cost per school, cost per pupil and the small school

Some costs belong to the school however many pupils it has: a coach's journey, the launch session, a monthly visit. Others grow with pupils, such as printed sets. A village school with 18 pupils carries the same journey cost as a town school with 40, so its cost per pupil is higher. Reading only the average hides this and can push leaders to leave small schools out.

Do not decide on cost per pupil alone; read it with benefit and access. If small schools are the ones that most need the practice, look for cheaper delivery before dropping them: one visit that covers two schools, a day of peer coaching in a nearby school, a phone check-in between visits, and printing at the district centre for several schools at once. Record each saving and what it cost in quality.

Try it tomorrow

• Plan a 20-minute visit and conversation with three parts for one colleague and ask afterwards what was useful.
• List the fixed costs per school and the costs that grow with pupils for one practice.
• Write the one-line trigger on your monitoring sheet that makes you send help, not a report.