I’ve come to realise that the main purpose of my role as teaching and learning leader - and of our subject leaders - is to create conditions that allow our teachers to get on with the business of delivering effective learning, so that the outcomes for the children are the best they can possibly be.

There’s no panacea, of course, but it seems to me that clear frameworks are key to this. It’s not the most exciting idea - I mean, the word “structure” might not exactly sound inspiring - but it’s one concept I’ve seen work throughout school, whatever the subject.

A few years back, I was a bit more hesitant about setting out too many boundaries when it came to lesson planning because I didn’t want to take away teachers’ autonomy or for anyone to feel stifled professionally. But I’ve learned that when it comes to structures in teaching and learning, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing and that actually removing some decisions from teachers can lighten the load and free up their time to focus on other things.

Removing constraints

How do you know if you have the balance right? The litmus test of having certain structures in place means that we can explain succinctly how we do things at school. I was recently giving some support to a teacher from another school and realised I could do just that. Here are some examples:

Literacy

For our literacy units, for example, the basic structure is starting with immersion in quality texts and models; followed by some lessons focusing on specific grammar and punctuation relating to the genre of the unit; and ending with planning, a first draft, editing and a final draft.

This allows plenty of time in between to add in any additional elements that teachers can see are needed whether it’s drama-based, research, note-taking or something else. The spread of genres and what needs to be covered in terms of punctuation, grammar, composition and effect is also set out by our English subject leaders in the literacy frameworks they put together.

Topics

For our topics, we have a learning journey approach, which was introduced by our humanities leader. It means that every half termly topic starts with a question and has a final outcome. The knowledge to be covered is set out by teachers in each year group and then they decide how that should be delivered. The topic for each half term follows a theme throughout the school, set up by me, ensuring that there’s progression from Years 1 to 6.

Reading

Whole class guided reading starts with reading a chapter or section of the text on a Monday and a “big question” based on that chapter being introduced. The following days involve answering a variety of questions, focused on a particular aspect of comprehension, about the text and on the Friday the class’ responses to the “big question” are debated.

You can start to see a pattern: there’s room for teachers to make adjustments that they need to and tailor things to the children in their classes, as well as put their own spin on things, but there’s a very clear framework within which to work.

In terms of workload, the main benefit of having such frameworks and structures in place is that it takes away some of the heavy duty decision making for individual teachers - such as ensuring that they are covering all the objectives they need to over the year because this is built into the frameworks.

No teachers have to start completely from scratch - I know from friends who have started at new schools with no structure or clear approach set out, just how daunting that can be as well as a massive piece of work. It also ensures that things we know work, continue to happen.

It is a balance, walking the tightrope between developing structures that are supportive and not overly prescriptive, and leaders need a decent amount of leadership time to work on them, but once when they’re done right, structures that remove some decisions from individuals, can be strangely freeing and easier to navigate.

Claire Lotriet is assistant headteacher at Henwick Primary School in London. She tweets at @OhLottie