Every school has their own identity, and this is shaped by a range of contextual factors. This identity is manifest in the various policies that a school has in place. School policies are often documented and shared publicly online. The policies are designed to support leaders, teachers, support staff, students, and parents. They can help the school community understand the school requirements, expectations, and procedures that are in place; they play an essential role in the day-to-day logistics of school life.
Unlike the legal and practical required policies (e.g., safeguarding, health & safety, attendance, etc.), schools have some flexibility and autonomy to set teaching and learning policies. Should school leaders consider implementing such policies? Or might they be better served by broader teaching and learning principles?
If we consider principles to be essential ideas that embody shared values which guide practice, their advantage over strict black-and-white policies quickly becomes apparent.
This isn’t to say that teaching and learning principles should be ill-defined, noncommittal suggestions! A school or multi-academy trust may adopt specific approaches that influence their teaching and learning principles. For example, one focus of a teaching and learning policy could be for instruction to be driven by evidence-based practices. Such a principle can be clearly defined, exemplified, and rationalised—without becoming prescriptive or reliant on exact practices or specific strategies.
A great example highlighting the advantages of principles over policies lies with effective feedback. School leaders might be tempted to set a policy about feedback (perhaps disguised as a marking policy). The intention may be admirable—for example, to promote consistency in the feedback communicated to learners. However, for feedback to be effective, context trumps consistency.
Consider the feedback that may be observed in a primary school. What is communicated to young learners (e.g., less than five or six years old), will be vastly different to the feedback students receive in Year 6. There, pupils are older and have vastly more prior knowledge and literacy skills. Compare this to even older students in a secondary school. Feedback in a mathematics classroom differs from an English classroom or technical subjects. The differences continue when considering further education; there, courses can vary significantly in terms of the curriculum content, core skills, and requirements. A one-size-fits-all whole-school feedback policy seems not to be a best bet!
Instead, the key principles with feedback remain the same: feedback should focus on learners reflecting and making progress. How that feedback is communicated and which specific techniques used should vary significantly to suit the context.
There are many other examples of guiding teaching and learning principles serving better than strict policies.
One additional example can include homework. Schools can decide their key principles with homework; but then departments can decide how to adopt and embed those principles, ensuring it is effective for the key stage or subject. Retrieval practice is another teaching and learning strategy that has been widely embraced by schools. But once again, there should be a recognition at a whole-school level that it is an effective method—but that teachers should use their professional expertise, experience, and judgement to decided how and when it is implemented.
Policies are absolutely important, but in terms of teaching and learning, there should be a recognition of nuances and contextual differences. Teaching and learning principles are a way for a school to lay out expectations and shared understandings that are applicable to all. At the same time, they can be adapted by the experts in each key stage or subject: teachers.
Are you interested in developing your school’s teaching and learning principles? Create your Great Teaching Toolkit free starter account here.
You can download and read a range of free eBooks, including topics mentioned in this article (Feedback and Retrieval Practice: Myths, Mutations and Mistakes), from the Great Teaching Toolkit Resource Library.
