I recently wrote a piece for Tes on the need for teachers to work and plan collaboratively. While the response was overwhelmingly positive, one point kept coming up - when do we find the time to do this?
Discussions with other teachers quickly revealed that there is no shortage of meetings in schools; the problem seems to be what these meetings are used for. In a recent Twitter poll, only 9 per cent of respondents agreed that department meetings were always a good use of their time: 44 per cent felt that they rarely were (of 299 respondents). Something is going wrong.
There are several barriers to making effective use of our department meetings, but none of them is insurmountable.
- Seize control of the agenda
The first issue is control of the agenda. For department meetings to be useful for that department it is vitally important that they control how the time is used.
I know from experience that a carefully planned session can quickly become derailed as, on the day of the meeting, inboxes become filled with emails from various members of the senior leadership team, all of whom believe that it is critical that your meeting spends a significant portion of time on their pet project. The first step to reclaiming your meeting is to stop this.
Set your agenda well in advance and give it a clear focus (see step three). James Ashmore and Caroline Clay in The Middle Leaders Handbook suggest you can even set this focus for every meeting in advance for the whole year. Once you have set this agenda, send it to the department and to SLT. Anything else that then comes in can be dealt with outside the meeting. After all, the agenda has already been set.
- Bringing everyone on board
The next barrier to an effective department meeting are those people who are determined, whatever the topic, to use the time on their own pet peeve or current complaint. Teaching is a stressful job and there is often much to get off our chests, but there is a time and a place.
An agenda set well in advance helps to deal with this issue somewhat, as everyone comes in knowing what the topic is and they have had some time to think about it and ask any questions in advance. It also helps if everyone realises that they will get something tangible out of the meeting when they work together (see step three).
- It’s not about the journey
Once you have SLT and the rest of the team on board, you are left with the final, and for some the most difficult, barrier to cross: inexperience. I have spoken to many teachers starting off on their head of department role (and I can just about remember those heady days myself) and one thing that often comes up is an uncertainty about what the time in a department meeting should be used for. This leads to an agenda full of “discussion items” and nothing in the way of outcomes. You need a clear destination.
So how can a department meeting be best used?
Ashmore suggests: “Department meetings should be about teaching and learning and nothing else. Collaborate on lesson planning, quality assurance, data analysis and behaviour support.”
This might involve some of the following:
Developing subject knowledge
New specifications at GCSE and A level and constant changes to primary assessment means that the need for excellent subject knowledge has never been greater. Before you start planning a new unit of work, check that no one needs a refresher in this content.
If they do, see who is best placed to lead a session on this and ask them to deliver something at the meeting. It might be about a text to be taught in English, the finer details of urban planning in Lagos in geography, or a different technique in art. We need to be constantly developing our own subject specialism.
Collaborative planning
As I have mentioned before, I am a huge fan of collaborative planning as a way of creating excellent lessons and cutting workload. Dedicate time in your department meeting to deciding what should be taught, planning out new units of study, creating knowledge organisers or designing assessments for them.
Raising expectations
In our department, expectations for pupils’ work have never been greater. One way we ensure that this remains the case is by sharing examples of excellent work at the start of our meetings. Ask everyone to bring along the best piece of work they have seen this term from a certain year group. This is a useful starting point in creating success criteria for pupils’ work and also gives you material to be displayed around the department showcasing this.
Devising better ways of working
How will you be assessing pupils in your subject? Will you be using knowledge organisers and if so, how? When should you give feedback and what methods are most effective and efficient? There is a huge amount of literature about all these topics and so many more. Teachers need a time to read, discuss and think about them and then do something with them. That is what your department time is for.
A teacher’s time is precious and everything we do with it needs to be effective and efficient. Seize control of your agenda and make your department meetings count.
Mark Enser is head of geography at Heathfield Community College. He blogs at teachreal.wordpress.com and tweets @EnserMark
