
I’ve spent much of the last ten years researching and writing the Making Change Stick programme.
The title was suggested to me by the late, great Sir Tim Brighouse, advice I happily accepted (at that point, it was called ‘Implementation Science for Schools’ - ugh!)
The book is the culmination of 10 years of research and development in many schools around the world, and I’m delighted to report that it has been incredibly well-received so far:
A fabulous and unique book. Every school leader should have a copy. I loved it. (Professor Steve Munby)
James balances the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ beautifully. (Dr Debra Kidd)
If you read one book this year, read this. It exudes practical wisdom. (Sir Anthony Seldon)
The feedback from a national pilot study in Wales was also extremely positive, as you can see in the following excerpts from interviews with school leaders:
It’s super exciting to be approaching the point of publication after such a long time. in preparation. The ideas in this book have the potential to unleash a step change in terms of improving educational and life outcomes for children and young people.
In an attempt to scale these ideas far and wide, the book will be accompanied by an online training suite. Both will be published in January - more details to follow soon!
In this inaugural post, I’d like to explain how I came to spend the best part of ten years working on this project.
‘The practitioner is the intervention…’
One bright morning in July 2014, I walked into a room that would change the course of my life – and, as it turns out, the lives of countless others…
I was doing a PhD at the time, and I happened to be in university on the same day as a conference called Implementing Implementation Science: The science of making interventions effective in real-world contexts. Intrigued by the idea of a ‘science’ dedicated to implementing change effectively, I decided to stick my head in the door. And my goodness, I’m glad that I did.
The keynote speaker that morning was Dr Barbara Kelly, an educational psychologist at the University of Strathclyde. Dr Kelly opened her presentation with a bold claim:
Implementation science is remarkable for two reasons: few people have heard of it, and most need it immediately!
It’s fair to say she had my attention from the outset. But then she said something that really made my ears prick up:
The practitioner is the intervention.
At the time, I was halfway through an eight-year study of a self-regulated learning initiative called the Learning Skills Curriculum (LSC). Initially a taught course for Year 7 pupils, by now it was developing into a whole-school approach to teaching and learning.
We had assumed that if we just explained some key concepts to our colleagues and shared one or two examples of what self-regulated learning looks like in practice, all would be well. What Dr Kelly helped me realise that day is that implementation not just a conceptual problem – it’s a people problem. As well as focusing on key concepts and classroom practices, we also needed to think about our colleagues:
What’s workload like among staff?
Are they ready for this change?
How can we engage early adopters to lead the way?
And so on. There’s a lot more to implementation science than the idea that ‘the practitioner is the intervention.’ But thinking about implementation as a people problem is a game-changing insight that has important implications for how we think about leading change in schools.
Note to self
Listening to Dr Kelly that day, I could immediately see how implementation science might increase the likelihood of a successful outcome for the LSC. But I could also see the potential of implementation science as framework for school improvement more generally. I wrote a ‘note to self’ in my pad, using capital letters and double underlining it to show that I meant business:
After the PhD, GET INTO IMPLEMENTATION SCIENCE!!!
Thanks in part to my emerging interest in implementation science, the LSC had a significant impact on pupil learning outcomes. The first cohort, who took part in more than 400 LSC lessons over a three-year period, went on to achieve the best results the school had ever seen by a significant margin. Furthermore, the disadvantage gap narrowed by 92% from one cohort to the next.
These results are all the more remarkable when you consider the fact that the control cohort took part in over 400 more lessons of subject learning, compared with the LSC cohorts. And yet the LSC cohorts significantly outperformed the control group in subsequent measures of subject learning. Because they had become more confident, effective, self-regulated learners, pupils in the LSC cohorts were able to learn more effectively in fewer lessons.
Developing the Making Change Stick programme
When I finished my PhD, I held true to my ‘note to self’. I started reading everything I could lay my hands on to do with implementation science and change management. By this time, I was working as a bespoke programmes leader at the Centre for Educational Leadership at the UCL Institute of Education, where I was able to research and develop these ideas with schools.
One thing I learned was that implementation science does not provide a complete account of ‘how to make interventions effective in real-world contexts’. There are several related fields of study – most notably, improvement science – that also provide important pieces of the puzzle.
To date, most of the work around implementation and improvement science has focused on healthcare. However, in writing this book I have trawled the change management literature from many other fields, including education, business and manufacturing, engineering, social psychology, sociology, cognitive science, political science and behavioural science.
At its core, the programme is a systematic, collaborative, and agile approach to school improvement. Over the past decade, I’ve worked with hundreds of schools worldwide, refining the programme to ensure it addresses the complexities of educational change. And as we’ve seen, the feedback - and the impact - have been incredible.
Getting out of the way
The Making Change Stick programme can be completed by any individual with an interest in school improvement. However, it’s really designed for a slice team to work through together, focusing on a real-world school improvement initiative. In this sense, the programme is rooted in a model of ‘learning by doing’. (A slice team is a change team comprising representatives from a range of stakeholder groups. This alternative to top-down change is the big idea at the heart of the Making Change Stick programme. I’ll explore this in more detail in a future post.)
Books, as powerful as they are, cannot fully replicate the dynamic, collaborative nature of the Making Change Stick programme. That’s why, alongside the book, I’ve developed an online training suite. This platform empowers schools to engage with the programme independently, ensuring the ideas can scale to reach more educators and students.
Throughout the R&D period, I would facilitate the programme, either in-person or remotely. However, it soon became apparent that if these ideas are going to be applied at scale - as I believe they should - I needed to get out of the way. And the book, although it contains all the key ideas I have learned over the last 10 years or so, cannot fully replicate the dynamic, collaborative nature of the Making Change Stick programme. That’s why I’ve developed an online training suite to enable schools to work independently, scaling these ideas to benefit more educators and students.
Alongside the book, the online training suite includes:
A facilitator guide with timings and activities.
Short videos aligned with each chapter of the book.
A playbook summarising key concepts and practical exercises.
Data collection tools to evaluate and drive the process of school improvement.
A project management system for tracking tasks, responsibilities, and timelines.
Slide presentations for use in professional learning sessions.
Access to a global community of educators interested in change implementation.
Top-up support as required.
Schools typically complete the programme over 24 hours of professional learning, spread across two or three terms. This time commitment reflects the significant challenge of implementing meaningful change – there are no quick fixes here.
The central argument
There are many ideas, tools and strategies in the Making Change Stick programme, but the central argument can be explained in three steps:
The knowledge of how to bring about lasting, positive change in real-world contexts is out there – it’s just a bit all over the place. The Making Change Stick programme draws together tried-and-tested tools and strategies from a range of sources and assembles them into an easy-to-follow framework that can be applied to any improvement initiative or setting.
It’s really important that we get better at implementing school improvement as soon as possible. If we can bring about a step change in terms of increasing the effectiveness of school improvement initiatives, the potential benefits are almost incalculable. Indeed, it is my deeply held belief that getting to grips with the ideas in this book is the key to unlocking many of the problems we face – and not just in education.
If you follow the strategies and exercises set out in this book, you will significantly boost your ability to bring about lasting improvements to the educational and life outcomes of the children and young people in your setting. You may even learn a thing or two about self-improvement along the way.
To receive future posts direct to your inbox, sign up to my newsletter Making Change Stick: The art and science of implementing school improvement. In my next post, we’ll explore the mind-blowing question that drove me to create this programme.
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