Building a culture of trust in schools

Post by Ruth Luzmore @RLuzmore

(A version of this was presented at New Voices 2018)

When we are asked about why we do our jobs, for those of us working in schools, the appropriate answer is always the children.  For me though, if I am truly honest, while I do absolutely love working with children and their families, they come and go over the years. What actually keeps me working in schools are the adults.   It is those individuals who make up our teams which make me want to continue to work in schools at the times when I have felt like a career change may be a good move.

Sadly, I know intelligent, generous and dedicated teachers who have left the profession over the last 15 years or so working in schools.  Brilliant teachers who were tired of being patronised, told what to do or forced into ways of working in order to satisfy a middle or senior leader who could tick off whichever box was on their school improvement plan.  I too have also felt all those things at times.  But mostly I have been made to feel confident, supported, challenged and capable.  It is possible to create working conditions for teachers to feel this way.  I was not particularly able to label why this was, until during my MA in Leadership I began to consider how an culture of trust within an organisation could be the key.

So what is trust?

I read somewhere once that having trust is rather like being in love.  You know when you have it, you know when you don’t have it.  But pinning it down is tricky.  

But I’m going to go with this definition that trust is the belief in the reliability, truth or ability of someone.

We need trust because we need to be able to rely on other people to do as they say they will and that we will too will act as we say we will.

Onara O’Neill (2002) asks us to consider whether we do place trust in others, or in fact rely on others.  In some cases, we don’t have many other options than to trust institutions e.g. nearly all of us drink water provided by water companies and eat food sold in supermarkets.  There is no way of opting out of public goods.

The development of accountability structures and standards is perhaps then a reaction to this lack of control we have creating a culture of suspicion.

O’Neill speaks here of an

‘unrealistic hankering for a world in which safety and compliance are total and breaches of trust are totally eliminated.  Perhaps the culture of accountability that we are relentlessly building for ourselves actually damages trust rather than supporting it.  Plants don’t flourish when we pull them up too often to check how their roots are growing…professional life too may not flourish if we constantly uproot it to demonstrate that everything is transparent and trustworthy.’

There is research which demonstrates that a culture of trust in a school setting is beneficial.

When trust is established betweenn people, it allows for people to be vulnerable and take risks as they have confidence in those they are working with (Hoy & Tschannen-Moran 2003).    Where trust is not present, people cannot be open with one another.  The presence of trust amongst leaders and teachers and teachers and teachers is one of the biggest predictive factors in successful collaborative working (Supovitz & Tognatta, 2013) and student outcomes (Bryck & Schnieder 2002, Day et al, 2009; Finnigan & Daly, 2012; Leithwood et al, 2010).   

Trust manifests itself in a school in number of ways:

•       Valuing strong relationships with and between staff

•       Staff feel secure to be open about their practice without fear of judgment linked to accountability.

•       Leaders being a visible presence around the school

•       Leaders delivering consistent messages about what is important and valued

•       Leaders delegating responsibility to staff (though reserve the right to be cautious with some individuals)

So what did I do?

What I read about trust resonated with me and the experiences I and other teachers I knew had experienced.  So when I consciously decided that building a culture of trust between staff at my school was an aim. 

These were the things we practically started with:

1.     I told them about my values and the things I consider important

2. I showed them the school as I had seen it as an outsider and asked for their opinion about whether I had judged it correctly in terms of improvement areas.
3. I asked and listened to what they were proud of and was working well and they did not want to change
4. I asked and listened to what wasn’t working as well and what they didn’t want to continue with
5. Being clear on what I insisted on from them and what was open for debate and discussion
6. I began to find out where their strengths were

From this we began building a vision which we continue to debate, tweak and adjust. 

Next we began to think about the professional development as it was and where we wanted it to go. When I arrived it looked pretty standard

•       Weekly staff meetings

•       Graded lesson observations

•       Book looks for marking

•       Book looks for progress

•       Learning walks (focused and unfocused)

•       Planning looks (medium term and short term)

•       Display checks

•       Classroom organisation checks

•       Homework checks

Where we have moved it to:

Lesson observations:

Yes we still watch lessons.  Why?  Because it is fantastic CPD.  But it is only fantastic CPD if other teachers can get out there and watch them!

•       No grading

•       Two observers usually a member of SLT and another teacher

•       Teachers request the curriculum area/teacher they wish to go and watch for their own development

•       Conversations afterwards with other observer while looking at the work

•       Moving away from tight paperwork so lesson observatuons are a write up of conversation and what might influence the observer

Book Looks

•       No grading

•       Subject leader looks at the books first

•       They report to me and deputy what they have seen – areas of strength and areas of concern. This allows us to guide whether there needs to be support or what questions need to be asked.

•       Subject leader working alongside teacher to go through what they saw

•       Feedback to whole school about general areas of strength and areas to work on

Staff meetings

•       We have breakfast together on Friday morning and discuss the diary for the next week so that the staff meeting is not taken up with admin

•       We do not have meetings every week only when we have something planned in

•       If what is being covered in the meeting is not relevant you do not have to attend

•       We have joint staff meetings with local schools to look at moderating subjects, curriculum planning overlap and best practice

•       Staff who have been on an external course share what they have learnt

•       We use them to write, tweak and debate teaching and learning policies together.  Policies which are shaped by staff gives them some control over them.  It is also a way of having transparency an openness in how the decisions come about.

No other written up checks take place any more.  Everything else is through conversations.

Challenges

There are some key challenges when it comes to building trust within a school

Building relationships takes time.

Some people are not able or willing to hold a mirror up to their own practice. Recruitment of the right people for the right job here is essential.

Building networks with other schools requires trust building with other school leaders, this requires time spent on working on relationships and reciprocal generosity. Our network of schools is doing some excellent work on this.

Sometimes I as a leader get the fear.  What if actually I am wrong to trust people?  What if? And sometimes I’m impatient.  It is easier to just do onto people than to work with people.

Ultimately though the effort is worth it.  How do I know it?  Come and meet the teachers in our school.