What might Shore and the British cycling team have in common? Not much, you might think, at least at first glance. This question was put to teaching staff at the start of the year as a provocation to think about the impact that making small changes, or tiny gains, to aspects of our teaching strategies might have on the learning outcomes of our students in the form of Teaching Sprints.
For those of you who know the story, you’d be aware that the British cycling team went from being an embarrassment in the international sports arena in the 1990s to undisputed world champions who collected a swag of gold medals in the 2008 Olympics as well as winning cycling’s most prestigious race, the Tour de France, on multiple occasions. The team’s successes were attributed to making tiny gains over a sustained period of time, what is known as ‘the aggregation of marginal gains’. It’s what James Clear refers to in his eponymously titled book, Atomic Habits.
Adopting a similar strategic approach, the teaching staff at Shore have been focusing on making small changes to an aspect of their teaching practice in the form of Teaching Sprints to help improve learning for boys. Teaching Sprints form part of the Shore Teacher Expertise Programme (STEP) and have been developed in partnership with academic researchers Professor Tony Loughland and Dr Simon Breakspear from the University of NSW.
...making small, meaningful changes to our teaching practices so staff and boys can focus on being better together as a community of learners.
The Teaching Sprint model requires staff in cross-faculty teams to explore, experiment, evaluate and embed their chosen strategy or intervention. The process is cyclical and includes a review of academic research, application of intervention, classroom observations, collection of qualitative or quantitative data, analysis and review of data, and embedding of the new practice into the ‘toolkit’ of teaching practices.
Implementing inaugural Teaching Sprints is allowing us to embrace the philosophy of making small, meaningful changes to our teaching practices so staff and boys can focus on being better together as a community of learners.
Mr Matt Bentley
Acting Deputy Head, Academic