What great schools do

The reading this week is a 2024 report from TNTP in the United States. It shares the key areas that create ‘trajectory changing schools’ – or schools that support their students in social and economic mobility.

The study included 28,000 schools with a student average below the expected level and explored the characteristics of the top 5% of performers. Essentially, it looks at what schools need to do to change the lives of their students.

Key points

• Trajectory changing schools focus on doing three core things well:
  • They create a culture of belonging,
  • deliver consistent grade-level instruction, and
  • create a coherent instructional program.
• Educators and system leaders continue to be inundated with new and competing priorities, these three focus areas offer schools much-needed permission to simplify.
• Belonging—the experience of being accepted and respected—is a prerequisite for learning
• Students at trajectory-changing schools were more likely to say that they felt supported and cared for by their school and challenged by their teacher than students at schools with average rates of learning.
• The most effective schools had schoolwide structures like a strong shared curriculum, structured collaboration, and focused feedback. Everyone holds the same high expectations and works together to improve.

What this means
Great schools don’t need extraordinary programs. They need high quality teaching, consistency and the community working together.

What you can do
Ask these questions of your school:

1. How do we build belonging in our school? (Coaching, Conversations, Rituals)
2. How consistent is our instruction? (Consistent curriculum, consistent assessments, consistent examples)
3. What does a coherent instructional program look like in our school? (Playbooks, Ongoing development, coaching, feedback loops using data)

The full article is here.

Happy coaching,
Mark

Some upcoming events:

1. April 3-4: Flinders 2025 Science of Learning Conference
2. May 19-21 IBSC Conference Perth: (Registration – International Boys’ Schools Coalition