School leadership is a constant stream of decisions. Which scheme should we adopt? Which approach is better? Which system will finally solve this problem?
I have sat in countless meetings where intelligent, committed leaders have agonised over these questions, believing that if they can just make sure they select the right option, improvement will necessarily follow.
I remember working with leaders debating at length whether we should persist with carousel-style, group-guided reading lessons or move to whole-class reading.
Hours were spent weighing up the pros and cons, consulting research summaries, visiting other schools and seeking reassurance that the “right” decision had been reached.
The underlying assumption is all too tempting: choose correctly and the problem will be solved.
Change for change’s sake
Yet in practice, this assumption rarely holds. I have seen both of these approaches to teaching reading delivered exceptionally well and I have seen both done terribly.
The difference was not the model itself but the quality of its enactment. What mattered was not what had been chosen but how well it was understood, supported and sustained.
This tendency to overvalue choice is understandable. Leadership can feel precarious, and decisions provide a sense of control. Selecting a new programme or structure offers the reassurance of action, particularly when outcomes are disappointing.
It allows leaders to say to themselves - and to others - that something is being done. The steady march of progress continues.
The wrong conditions
In reality, this focus on what to change can distract from a more uncomfortable truth: many school difficulties persist not because the wrong approach has been chosen but because the right conditions for success have eroded over time or were not created in the first place.
Weak implementation, inconsistent practice, unclear purpose and limited professional development are harder to confront than the alluring promise of a fresh start.
When things are not working, leaders often look outward rather than inward. The solution becomes a different scheme, a new initiative, a revised timetable. In truth, this often does bring a degree of short-term improvement.
There is a honeymoon period when novelty generates energy, motivation rises and outcomes appear to improve. Staff engage afresh, pupils respond and leaders feel validated briefly.
Yet this inevitably fades. As novelty ebbs, the underlying issues resurface. Without sustained attention to training, shared understanding and ongoing refinement, the new approach begins to falter just as the previous one did.
The cycle repeats, leaving staff weary and increasingly sceptical that any new initiative will endure long enough to be done well.
Over time, this pattern erodes professional trust. Teachers learn that change is inevitable and temporary, and that deep investment in practice may not be worth the effort.
How to make things right
The difficult truth is that most of the commonly used approaches in education are not inherently good or bad. As Dylan Wiliam noted: “Everything works somewhere; nothing works everywhere.”
What matters is whether leaders can construct and articulate a clear and coherent justification for the choices they have made, and whether that justification forms a professional narrative that staff can understand, explain and believe in.
Often we need to spend less time on making the initial decision: make a choice you can sell to stakeholders in exchange for buy-in.
Then redirect your time and efforts to focusing relentlessly on implementation: modelling what good practice looks like, creating shared language, providing meaningful professional development and offering feedback that improves practice rather than merely monitors it.
This work is slower, less visible and far less glamorous than launching something new, but it is where improvement is secured.
Embedding practice takes time, and progress is often uneven. There will be moments when it is tempting to abandon an approach at the first sign of difficulty.
Gradually, staff at various levels start expressing concerns about the efficacy of your once-brilliant idea. Resisting the temptation to change course is not stubbornness or an unwillingness to face the facts; it is a recognition that excellence depends on depth, not constant reinvention.
Stay the course
Of course, this does not mean leaders should never change course. Some approaches are poorly suited to our ever-changing contexts and some decisions genuinely prove mistaken.
Our field is constantly innovating, and sometimes we would be doing our schools a disservice if we failed to at least consider whether we might just be missing a trick or two.
However, change can also be used as a substitute for sustained leadership attention. We must not fall victim to the politicians’ fallacy: something should be done. (“This is something. Therefore, we should do this.”)
In the end, what we choose to do matters far less than how we do it. The challenge for leaders is not to keep searching for the right approach but to stay the course long enough to make the approach right.
Thomas Kent is a deputy (executive) headteacher across an infant school and a junior school in Southend-on-Sea, Essex
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