Building Trust

When I first began working with the school, it was important to me to establish trust as part of this work. Having recently re-read Stephen Covey's The Speed of Trust (Covey and Merrill, 2006), I was reminded of his four cores of credibility: integrity, intent, capabilities and results. I knew that, as someone coming into the school externally, I needed colleagues to have confidence not only in my intentions but also in my ability to support them effectively. I drew on my previous experience as an Assistant Headteacher leading Teaching and Learning and as a Deputy Headteacher to demonstrate that I understood the realities of school leadership, the challenges of implementing change and how to balance improvement priorities with the everyday demands of school life. I wanted to establish my credibility by being open about my experience, sharing examples of approaches I had used in my own leadership practice and explaining the evidence that informed my thinking. Additionally, I recognised that credibility was about showcasing integrity through honest and consistent professional conversations, showing that my intentions were rooted in supporting the school and following through on the commitments I made. Part of this included being professionally vulnerable about the experiences where I wish I had done things differently to showcase humility alongside credibility. It was vital for me that leaders and teachers knew that I was not there to judge their practice or tell them what to do but to work alongside them, drawing on both my expertise and theirs to support meaningful improvement.

Viviane Robinson's work on the Engage and Bypass model in Reduce Change to Increase Improvement (Robinson, 2018) also influenced how I approached these conversations. The model helped me think more carefully about engaging with colleagues' current beliefs rather than bypassing their knowledge and thinking by immediately offering my own suggestions. This meant being curious about why particular practices had developed. I found this useful when discussing teaching and learning priorities because it helped us build shared understanding before deciding what needed to change.

My first visit to the school involved spending time with the Headteacher, trust leaders, senior and middle leaders and teachers to understand the school's context, priorities and approaches to curriculum and teaching. I wanted to listen before making recommendations and understand the work that had already taken place.

I used an Assess–Plan–Do–Review approach to structure our work, drawing on curriculum conversations, learning walks, book looks, lesson observations and the school's previous Ofsted feedback to develop a shared understanding of the quality of education. These activities helped us explore how the curriculum was being implemented, how teachers were supporting pupils to learn and where there were opportunities to strengthen consistency. The conversations that followed with key stakeholders in the school and Trust were just as valuable as the visits themselves because they enabled us to reflect together and agree the next steps.

Developing a shared approach to teaching and learning

One of our early priorities was to establish a more consistent, evidence-informed approach to teaching and learning. During the spring term, planned with the Headteacher, I delivered whole-staff professional development exploring what makes effective teaching and how educational research can inform our practice. Instead of presenting staff with an already established framework, I wanted colleagues to contribute to the discussion and reflect on what effective teaching should look like within their own school. This co-creation was a key part of the school’s policy and processes, especially when establishing behaviour routines and habits in previous years.

During the session, I introduced Professor Rob Coe's work on poor proxies for learning (2014) and considered the difference between what might appear to be effective teaching and what actually provides evidence that pupils are learning. Staff also had the opportunity to review different pieces of research exploring effective teaching and learning and discuss the strengths and limitations of each. They then worked collaboratively to identify the principles they believed should underpin teaching and learning across the school. Following this, the Assistant Headteacher for Teaching and Learning developed the school's LEARN framework, drawing together the ideas and principles that had emerged from our professional learning. In the summer term of Year 1 of the targeted RISE work, the T&L framework was launched to all staff. We also delivered professional development on planning lessons for impact so colleagues could consider how the framework might inform their everyday classroom practice.

This was important because the framework was not something being introduced to staff. Colleagues had been involved in considering the thinking behind it, while senior leaders took ownership of developing and leading its implementation. My knowledge of Robinson's Engage and Bypass model (Robinson, 2018) was also important in the co-creation of this. Rather than bypassing staff expertise by presenting a finished set of ‘non-negotiables’, we used the professional development and subsequent conversations to engage with colleagues' perspectives, build staff expertise and agree what effective practice might look like in this context. We have continued to draw on this approach throughout the work, including in feedback conversations and when reviewing the next stages of implementation.

Ensuring Effective Implementation 

The Education Endowment Foundation's guidance on effective professional development (EEF, 2021) reminds us that sharing research and information is unlikely to result in long term changes to practice. Professional learning needs to be intentionally designed, over communicated with opportunities for teachers to regularly revisit ideas, receive feedback, set goals and practise specific techniques.

Using this knowledge, at the end of the spring term, I worked with the senior leadership team to consider how we would implement the framework effectively. We explored monitoring, feedback and creating the conditions for professional learning to become part of the school's everyday practice. This included developing a schedule of learning walks and ensuring middle leaders had protected time for line management conversations. The Headteacher also made changes to the timetable so that leaders prioritised regular line management discussions with colleagues, recognising that leadership time needed to reflect the school's improvement priorities.

I think this is something that can be overlooked when schools introduce a new teaching and learning framework. We can spend a lot of time developing a framework but unless we think carefully about how it will be implemented, supported and revisited, there is a risk that it becomes another document rather than something that genuinely influences teacher practice. This also connects with the EEF's implementation guidance, which emphasises treating implementation as a process rather than a one off event (EEF, 2024).

Instructional coaching: improve, not prove

During the summer term, we developed teacher knowledge and expertise further, this time focusing on setting goals and giving feedback. Therefore, I delivered whole school professional development on instructional coaching following conversations with key stakeholders. We wanted colleagues to understand how coaching could support classroom practice through regular feedback, deliberate practice and manageable action steps. I explored the importance of identifying the highest leverage action steps and ensuring that feedback was specific, observable, practicable and actionable.

A key message throughout the training was 'improve, not prove', a term coined by Vivienne Porrit, Co-Founder of #WomenEd; I wanted teachers to see coaching as an opportunity to develop their practice rather than another form of performance management. This drew on my own professional experience leading teaching and learning across a number of schools. Using Paul Bambrick-Santoyo's ‘See It, Name It, Do It approach from Get Better Faster (Bambrick-Santoyo, 2016), we considered how feedback conversations could help teachers recognise an effective strategy, identify a precise action step and rehearse what this might look like in their next lesson.

The Assistant Headteacher supported this work through a 'Tweak of the Week', using short videos and resources from Michael Feeley’s and Ben Karlin’s Teaching and Learning Playbook (2022) to model and rehearse specific techniques. As the See I, Name It, Do It model was a new idea I had introduced and suggested, I created and modelled the first Tweak of the Week on Meet and Greet to show them what this looks like. Instead of asking teachers to focus on multiple strategies at once, the intention was to introduce small changes that colleagues could practise and return to, focusing on each section of the teaching and learning framework. This was particularly important when considering teachers' intrinsic load and the need to make professional development both accessible and sustainable. 

Staff followed this by participating in peer coaching observations, sharing practice and reflecting together. Towards the end of the summer term, I returned to deliver a follow up instructional coaching session building on the earlier session. This time, the Assistant Headteacher shared a video of his own lesson focused on explicit vocabulary instruction and the Frayer model, a key part of the LEARN Framework. Staff valued his willingness to share his own classroom practice as it modelled the openness and professional trust we were trying to develop across the school.

We used the video to support colleagues to practise identifying effective teaching, selecting the highest leverage action steps from different options and rehearsing feedback conversations. A key element of this session was when I live modelled the feedback session first with a middle leader so staff could see this in action before practising the conversation themselves. This has positive feedback from staff after the session as they felt this framework not only helped them share lesson feedback but also was useful when having ‘difficult’ conversations.

Year 2 

At the beginning of September 2026, we reviewed the work undertaken during the previous academic year and agreed our next priorities. We decided to focus on checking for understanding, an area identified for development in the school's previous Ofsted inspection and which formed the next part of the teaching and learning framework.

I delivered whole staff training on Checking for Understanding: Maximising Cognitive Engagement, beginning by revisiting some of the research we had explored during our initial sessions. This was deliberate because we wanted colleagues to make connections between their previous professional learning and the next stage of implementation. We explored what checking for understanding actually means in theory and practice. We considered the importance of identifying misconceptions, planning purposeful questions through hinge questions, mini-whiteboards and cold calling, alongside the importance of participation and thinking ratios.

As with our previous professional development, I wanted the session to go beyond introducing strategies. Teachers had time to plan hinge questions for upcoming lessons, considered misconceptions pupils might demonstrate and rehearsed how they would respond to different answers. Looking back, I can see a particularly strong connection between this approach and the Teacher Development Trust's research on Didagogy, the discipline of teaching teachers (Bean, 2025). The report identifies three interrelated elements of effective teacher learning: practices, conditions and identities. In the school, the practices included the teaching strategies we introduced, the opportunities to rehearse them and the feedback colleagues received. The conditions mattered too: protected leadership time, a culture of 'improve, not prove' and space to revisit learning rather than rushing into another initiative. We also had to reflect on identities, recognising that teachers and leaders were professionals who had their own expertise, beliefs and experiences. This is where Robinson's Engage and Bypass model also connects so closely with didagogy. It has made me more conscious that we need to pay as much attention to how teachers learn as to what we want them to learn.

Impact so far

When I recently returned to the school following the September training, it was particularly inspiring and rewarding to see colleagues implementing the strategies we'd been working on together. I could see teachers beginning to embed approaches from the framework into their classroom practice and how the gradual introduction of strategies was supporting greater consistency. Although there is still work to do, it was encouraging to see the progress made over a relatively short period of time.

I also think the progress reflects the importance of a graduated approach to school improvement. We didn’t attempt to introduce everything at once. In contrast, we identified priorities, developed a shared framework and language, introduced specific strategies and created space throughout the year for colleagues to practise and revisit these through professional learning, instructional coaching and feedback. This experience has reinforced how important it is to give colleagues the time and support to embed changes instead of continually moving on to something new.

My own professional learning through RISE

Although much of this piece has focused on the work undertaken by the school, I've also been reflecting on my own professional development. This has been my first experience of supporting school improvement through the DfE’s targeted RISE programme and, despite my previous experience in senior leadership and consultancy, I've found it an important opportunity to develop practice.

Throughout the process, I've met regularly with Chiltern Learning Trust's School Improvement Advisor. These conversations have enabled us to reflect on the work being undertaken with the school, discuss priorities and reflect on my approach to supporting the school. I've valued having opportunities to receive feedback, challenge my own thinking and consider how I can continue developing in this role.

What I’m learning is that supporting school improvement externally requires you to draw on your experience while acknowledging that every school has its own context, challenges and strengths. I've learnt the importance of listening carefully, asking the right questions and knowing when to offer advice and when to create space for leaders to arrive at their own solutions through coaching conversations. 

Final note

As a sector, we have so much expertise across our schools, trusts and professional networks however there are times when competition can overshadow opportunities to learn from each other. Of course, accountability matters and improving standards and outcomes for pupils must remain at the heart of what we do but I truly believe we achieve more when we are willing to collaborate, acknowledge our challenges and support one another to improve. After all, aren’t we just trying to do the best for all young people, not just the young people we serve?

There is still more work to do at the school and we will need to continue evaluating how the changes in pupils' learning over time. However, seeing the progress made in less than a year has been genuinely rewarding, especially knowing that colleagues are developing the expertise to sustain and build on the work themselves. This experience has reinforced something I've believed throughout my career: effective school improvement depends on relationships, trust and a shared commitment to developing others. I’m looking forward to continuing this work with the dedicated group of leaders across the school in partnership with us at Chiltern Learning Trust and Chiltern Teaching School.

References and further reading

Bambrick-Santoyo, P. (2016) Get Better Faster: A 90-Day Plan for Coaching New Teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 

Bean, A. (2025) What is didagogy? Exploring the discipline of teaching teachers. London: Teacher Development Trust. Available at: https://tdtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/What-is-Didagogy-26sep-digital-ver2.pdf [Accessed January 2026]

Coe R, Aloisi C, Higgins S, et al. (2014) What makes great teaching? Review of the underpinning research. Available at:https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/What-Makes-Great-Teaching-REPORT.pdf [Accessed 2025]

Covey, S.M.R. with Merrill, R.R. (2006) The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything. New York: Free Press. 

Education Endowment Foundation (2021) Effective Professional Development. London: Education Endowment Foundation. 

Education Endowment Foundation (2024) A School's Guide to Implementation. 3rd edn. London: Education Endowment Foundation. 

Feely, M. and Karlin, B. (2022) The Teaching and Learning Playbook: Examples of Excellence in Teaching. London: Routledge

Robinson, V. (2018) Reduce Change to Increase Improvement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

‘Oracy’ is not a new concept and yet it is currently deemed to be the ‘next big thing’ in education because of the Labour government, the repor by the Oracy Education Commission and the CAR. As someone who advocates for pedagogical approaches such as socratic dialogue to be a feature in every classroom, this focus is welcome.

The term ‘oracy’ was coined by educational research and lecturer Andrew Wilkinson in 1965 to ‘significantly raise the profile of elaborated speech to being a focused and taught practice in English, rather than purely enabling wider and more detailed discussion or debate in lessons’ (Wilson, 2024).

More recently, Voice 21 defines oracy as ‘the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with others through spoken language’. Similarly, the recent Oracy Education Commission describes oracy as ‘articulating ideas, developing understanding and engaging with others through speaking, listening and communication.’ (Oracy Education Commission, 2024).

Building on these definitions, what does effective oracy pedagogy look like in a classroom across subjects?

Oracy is too often seen as the same as speaking and listening which Ros Wilson challenges in her book ‘Oracy is Not Just Speaking and Listening’. For Wilson, the two should not be used interchangeably because ‘oracy brings a quality of language, phraseology, passion and performance that everyday speaking and listening does not often achieve and rarely aspires to.’ (2024, p11).

Why is oracy education important?

Oracy can:

• improve academic outcomes

• increase confidence

• foster wellbeing

• equip students to thrive in life beyond school

• narrow gaps

• Promote social equity (Voice 21, The Oracy Benchmarks)

Research undertaken by the Education Endowment Foundation found that oral language interventions such as purposeful curriculum focused dialogue and interaction have a high impact on pupil outcomes of six months’ additional progress. With this in mind, it’s important that schools seek to implement an oracy curriculum that prioritises oracy rather than sees it as another tick box exercise.

As a teacher and leader, I advocate for a whole school approach to an oracy curriculum to ensure that teachers truly perceive it as the ‘fourth R’ and are given opportunities to translate the research into practice to benefit the young people they teach. This should, however, be implemented as a staged approach rather than trying to encourage teachers to implement the research all at once.

What does oracy education look like in practice?

In their report We Need to Talk, the Oracy Education Commission, based on the work of Voice 21 propose that oracy is comprised of three components:

1. Learning to talk, listen and communicate

2. Learning through talk, listening and communication

3. Learning about talk, listening and communication.

Voice 21 through the Oracy Framework and the Oracy Benchmarks provide evidence informed ways in which teachers and schools can prioritise and implement oracy education. We will explore strategies to do this in the rest of this article.

To begin, it is important to note that the classroom where oracy is central and effectively used should be a classroom that fosters a culture of high expectations and trust. Without these, students will not feel safe enough to speak, share ideas and have their voices heard.

Learning to Talk

The first component of oracy education should be a whole school approach where students across the school are explicitly taught the skills to talk, listen and communicate. This ensures a shared language within the school community and attempts to limit inconsistency. The Oracy Framework is particularly helpful for this as it breaks these key skills down into four categories: physical, cognitive, linguistic, and social and emotional.

This could be taught as part of a form time programme with tutors exploring what each component looks like in practice during and outside of lessons. Tutors and teachers could break this down even further into talking, listening and communicating as each would require a different set of skills. For example, for the category of cognitive with a focus on listening skills, students might be taught about listening to understand rather than to respond. Tutors might share and help students practise skills to show that they are listening to understand, such as teaching them how to summarise and how to ask clarifying questions.

A fantastic example of this is from Sarah Bonnell School in East London. Leaders of oracy at the school collaborated with students to introduce a ‘listening ladder’ which defined the varying levels of listening students could showcase during a lesson. The listening ladder was initially shared in form time and subject lessons by teachers to support students in applying the skills.

As we explicitly teach students how to talk, listen and communicate in our classrooms, it is also vital that we support them in understanding the purpose of these as well as holding them to account so that students see these oracy skills as important.

Strategies such as Think-Pair-Share or Turn and Talk, which are widely known and used in classrooms to encourage idea sharing amongst students, can be ineffective because the teacher does not ensure that every student has an opportunity to share and be heard and does not insist on these being applied.

Consequently this can lead to one student dominating the conversation. To limit this and hold students to account, teachers can ask all students to allocate themselves a role within their talk partners such as Speaker A and Speaker B. Speaker A and B then take it in turns to share their ideas during the discussion time. When taking feedback, the teacher asks the students to share what their talk partner discussed and explain whether they agree or disagree and why. This ensures a level of accountability of each talk partner while also ensuring that students process their talk partner’s ideas in order to build or challenge them.

Habits of Discussion

Habits of discussion is a technique shared in Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion (2021) to instil discussion skills such as initiating a discussion, building on and challenging each other’s ideas within the discussion. If this is a new technique, teachers may wish to allocate these as roles for students in small groups to ensure that there are no passengers during the discussion, which can often happen.

As part of Habits of Discussion, teachers may provide students with sentence stems to encourage talk within and beyond their allocated role and ensure that students use the stems provided and praise them when used. As a learner using English as an Additional Language, I found sentence stems particularly important as I used them as a model to enhance my discussion skills further.

The images below provide examples of habits of discussion during an English lesson at Forest Gate Community School and a form time session celebrating International Literacy Day at Sarah Bonnell School.

Learning through Talk

As a teacher, student dialogue was at the heart of my pedagogy as it gave me an insight into some of the ideas students have on the subject matter at hand and enabled me to make more effective decisions in my classroom to support students.

In ‘Towards Dialogic Teaching’ (2020), Robin Alexander begins by emphatically stating that dialogic teaching ‘harnesses the power of talk to engage their interest, stimulate thinking, advance understanding, expand ideas and build and evaluate arguments, empowering them for lifelong learning and democratic engagement. Being collaborative and supportive, it confers social and emotional benefits too.’

The method of Dialogic Teaching has also been evidenced by an EEF study which found that children in dialogic teaching ‘children in Dialogic Teaching schools made two additional months’ progress in English and science, and one additional month’s progress in maths’ (EEF, 2017).

Dialogic Teaching ensures the teacher asks questions which move students away from simply recalling answers and invites students to develop, justify and question their answers.

A socratic seminar is a specific style of dialogic teaching I learned from my expert mentor Teresa Dunseith. Socratic seminars can take place in groups of six to eight or can involve the whole class. Students are given a topic, text or question to discuss with the teacher as a facilitator to empower students to explore their ideas. Each student in the class or group is allocated a role either as part of the discussion group or the observation group. Some students in the observation group are matched to a student in the discussion group whereas others observe oracy skills outlined in the Oracy Framework.

Socratic seminars not only work in English and Humanities subjects but are also effective across the curriculum. For example, in Science, socratic seminars can be used to engage students in a debate about the use of stem cells while in Maths, a teacher may get students to be given a Maths problem to solve while other students observe and then discuss the methods used.

As a strategy, it is adaptable and it is the teacher’s decision how they use it in their classroom. For example, in some lessons the Socratic discussion may be used as part of the ‘Do Now’ activity to hook learners, while in other lessons, it may be part of the main activity to enable students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.

Explicit Vocabulary Instruction to Encourage Effective Oracy

A key part of effective oracy practice is empowering and equipping students with the specific and ambitious tier 2 and 3 vocabulary needed for them to express ideas in a sophisticated manner.

Through explicit vocabulary instruction using examples shared by Beck et al in ‘Bringing Words to Life (2013) and Alex Quigley in ‘Closing the Vocabulary Gap’ (2018), we may identify keywords that students can use to articulate their ideas and through choral rehearsal, teach meaning and pronunciation.

Following explicit teaching of tier 2 and 3 vocabulary linked to the topic, students should be exposed to multiple examples and non- examples of the words being used in sentences. Teachers may then use strategies such as Habits of Discussion or Dialogic Teaching methods to provide students with opportunities to practise using these in class discussions to build their confidence.

In doing so, students feel a sense of achievement and success when they notice themselves using sophisticated or ‘suave’ words as Ros Wilson calls them (2024).

To conclude, oracy is not just the ‘next big thing’ but it must be our central ‘thing’ and focus if we want to not only improve academic outcomes but also positively impact our young people’s adult lives and success in wider society. It is the key skill that they will need regardless of the roles and responsibilities they will hold when they leave the comfort of school and therefore it is our duty to enhance and embed this within our curriculum.

References

Alexander: Towards Dialogic Teaching, Dialogos, 2008

Alexander: A Dialogic Teaching Companion, Taylor & Francis, 2020

Beck, Isabel L., Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan. 2013. Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. 2nd ed. Guilford Press.

The Education Endowment Foundation (2017), Dialogic Teaching. available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projectsand-evaluation/projects/dialogic-teaching/ [accessed 19 January 2025)

Gaunt A, Millard W. (2018) Speaking up: The importance of oracy in teaching and learning. Chartered College of Teaching, available at: https://my.chartered.college/impact_article/speaking-up-the-importance-of-oracy-in-teaching-and-learning/ [accessed 20 January 2025)

Jay T, Willis B, Thomas P, et al. (2017) Dialogic Teaching: Evaluation report and executive summary. Education Endowment Foundation.

Lemov D. (2021) Teach Like A Champion 3.0. Kindle Edition

Oracy Education Commission. (2024) We Need To Talk: The Report of the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England.

Quigley, Alex. (2018). Closing the Vocabulary Gap. Routledge.

Wilkinson, A. (1965) The Concept of Oracy. Educational Review, 17(4), 11–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/0013191770170401a

Wilson, R. (2024). Oracy is Not Just Speaking and Listening: The Power of School Speak Oracy in a School’s Curriculum. Robinson Web Design, p.10

Voice 21, The Oracy Benchmarks

What I have learned is that leadership is not just a title to be held, proud of and used to demonstrate one’s authority but it is, in fact, a responsibility and a trust given to a leader.

As a Muslim, I see leadership as an amanah (trust or sacred responsibility), given to me to serve and contribute to my organisations and wider community. The question I regularly ask myself to keep me aligned to this is who is being served here? Myself, my ego or others?

Having the title of a leader or SLT doesn’t mean we will be seen automatically as such. Titles mean nothing without respect or trust in those leaders. As leaders, we need to build the trust and respect not just expect it because of the title we hold.

Leaders across an organisation, I believe, have a duty to build a culture where we understand, align ourselves to and model the school values for students and staff. We need to live and breathe this in every interaction with everyone in the school community, not just staff in our team.

One way we can do this is through our 1-1 line management meetings with colleagues whether they are other senior leaders, middle leaders or teachers. In my role as an experienced senior leader and now as CTS Lead for Strategic Partnerships and School Transformation, and in my own consultancy work, I have the opportunity to work nationally with many schools.

One of the key areas I notice where quick and significant improvement can be made is through the system of line management. If we are truly seeking to raise outcomes and standards, we have to spend time as leaders regularly and intentionally meeting with the colleagues who drive these across our schools. Corridor chats are not line management meetings and though they might be great for quickly responding to a request, they will not have wide and significant impact on both the person being line managed or the wider organisation.

If we want to do that, we must prioritise line management meetings and see it as the most important tool and system in any school or organisation.

From my own experience, I think the reason we don’t prioritise it is because the impact that line management can have is underestimated by some leaders. This might be because of our own experiences of line management where we may have achieved success despite having ineffective line managers.

It might be because there is an assumption that these meetings are taking place and if they are, that the discussions move beyond the operational and towards the strategic. How can strategic discussions necessarily take place when there is little or no guidance, and/ or limited structure to the line management meetings?

How can we expect all line managers to know HOW to lead effective 1-1 meetings in areas where they might not be the expert, or where they might have limited experience of line management themselves?

How can CEOs, Headteachers and leaders utilise line management meetings as a way of developing others, upholding or improving standards and driving strategic change?

When I first became a member of the senior leadership team, I was lucky enough to be working in a fantastic senior leadership team at Forest Gate Community School. Everything I learned about strategic and effective leadership early on is through the team there led by CEO Simon Elliott and the Headteachers at the time Thahmina Begum and Charlotte Whelan.

During our SLT meetings, they would teach and train us deliberately on how to implement key systems, lead ourselves and lead others. This included how to lead effective line management meetings by understanding someone’s Task Relevant Maturity (TRM)

The term coined by Andy Grove in his book High Output Management (1983) provides a framework on how a leader delegates, monitors and manages colleagues based on their ‘maturity level’ for a particular task you want them to complete.

Grove describes TRM as:

“A combination of the degree of their achievement orientation and readiness to take responsibility, as well as their education, training, and experience. Moreover, all this is very specific to the task at hand, and it is entirely possible for a person or a group of people to have a TRM that is high in one job but low in another.”

If someone has a high TRM level in a task or aspect of their role, you might have minimal involvement and check in rather than direct them while they undertake the task independently. If someone we manage has a medium TRM, they might need a coaching conversation which both supports and challenges them before, during and after completing a task. If, however there is a aspect of the role where someone has a low TRM, they will need a clear structure, guidance, models of effective practice, rehearsal and regular feedback as they complete the task.

I found this framework really helpful when I first became a line manager because it ensured I learned more about the colleagues I line managed, personally and professionally. Understanding their knowledge and skills meant that I was able to decide their TRM level quickly for different aspects of their role and have strategic outcomes. However, where my own TRM was low in a specific task which I was asking others to complete, I needed to make sure that I understood it myself first and I also made sure I knew where the colleague might be able to seek more expert advice.

I have to admit, I found this really hard at the beginning because I thought being a leader meant having all the answers. Now, years in to leadership has taught me that this is absolutely not the case.

Along with understanding the Task Relevant Maturity level of those I managed, I also learned about how to set and lead effective line management meetings.

Here is some of my learning (mostly magpied from the best line manager I’ve ever had: yes you guessed it, it’s Thahmina Begum).

1. Set and share LM agendas with people we line manage so everyone is clear about will be discussed. Pre-populate this and ask them to do the same where possible. Clarity is kindness so there should be no surprises.

One of the challenges for senior leaders in setting the agenda for line management, is setting an agenda for an area that they might be a novice in themselves. E.g. if a new Assistant Headteacher’s previous roles have been leading curriculum or teaching and learning, they might not necessarily have a depth of knowledge, skill and expertise in pastoral leadership. The AHT’s TRM in this area may be low. So if their TRM is low, they may relay on the middle leader or colleague heavily to drive the conversations during line management. I think this is one of the core reasons why some SLT members might not have regular line management meetings; the meeting becomes more operational and perhaps even a ‘rant’ session rather than a strategic discussion.

One way to support senior leaders who may be developing their own knowledge and expertise in an area is to provide centralised and standardised line management agendas. A Deputy Headteacher/ Headteacher should lead on this as leaders who have oversight of all staff. As an Assistant Headteacher leading Curriculum and Progress, I created and centralised line management document to support strategic and operational conversations for SLT to have with the Heads of Departments they were line managing. Each week/ fortnight, there were regular standardised items that every senior leader was expected to discuss. This linked to curriculum, teaching and learning and progress. Much of this was strategic rather than operational, thinking ahead, analysing data to set actions, discussing curriculum changes needed, CPD, leadership progress opportunities for the middle leaders or their team. Many times the centralised agenda would be responsive to what we were observing during learning walks or book looks as my aim was that line management was driving improvement through these conversations and actions. I would also ask other senior leaders to contribute to the agenda, especially if my knowledge in the area was developing.

Through this approach, I aimed to ensure that all senior leaders and middle leaders were having consistent conversations that were both strategic and responsive rather than just focusing on the operational elements of the role. It also supported senior leaders in developing their own knowledge across areas. To clarify, senior and middle leaders were able to add their own agenda items too for the meetings to ensure it was context specific.

If you would like to see an example of a centralised line management, please comment below

2. In the meetings, during/ after the discussion, make a note of the discussion and specific actions. Have this clear in the formatting of your line management meeting minutes. I use google sheets for LM minutes. Do this during the meeting and not outside of it. It builds trust and accountability.

3. Ensure the document used to record line management is formatted effectively. There should be a column for the agenda item, notes of discussion, actions, person responsible for the actions and then the deadline.

Ensure each action for the agenda item is on a different row so that it’s easy to RAG (red/amber/green) when reviewing each action even if they link to one agenda item. This makes each action important but also achievable.

4. Make sure you are both clear about who is responsible for that action by adding the name at the beginning of the action. E.g. YBI to share the punctuality ladder in briefing by xx September 2026. This is important because then both you and the person you line manage are clear about who is accountable.

5. Set a deadline or completion date and explicitly say why it’s important to meet that specific deadline.

When you review the minutes next LM, it will be easy to see which actions have been completed and which are yet to be completed for each agenda item.

6. SUPPORT the person you line manage to take action! If you’re asking them to create something and they have a low TRM in this task, model it for them. Show them a WAGOLL and tell them which parts are desirable and which are necessary.
Give them a specific date when you will be asking for an update and Quality Assure (QA).

7. When you monitor and QA, ask them what they’ve found easy and what they’ve found challenging/ their barriers to completion. Based on what they say either a) acknowledge and appreciate and let them get on with it or b) support them through the we do/ you do approach.

Sometimes my superhero tendency means I want to do it for them to help them. It’s not helpful.
But it’s equally unhelpful to know that someone is struggling and to leave them to it because ‘it’s their job’ and ‘how will they learn?’

We need to support and direct. Scaffold if necessary and then slowly take those scaffolds away.
Don’t do it for them and don’t leave them to it without checking in. Care personally and challenge directly as Kim Scott says in her book ‘Radical Candor’.

I like to get regular feedback from those I line manage about what’s working well and what I could do better as a leader and line manager. It’s important as it keeps me humble, learning, growing and replicate what’s going well and improve rapidly. Try it.

I also seek honest and transparent feedback from colleagues across the school about what I need to improve in terms of my own leadership. It’s really helped me to grow and understand myself deeply as a leader and be the best version of myself for those I line manage and directly lead.

Final note

Leadership is about service and upholding values and trust and one way we can do this is through establishing and implementing effectively line management meetings where we both challenge and support those we lead so they thrive.

If you are the Headteacher or CEO, how will you make sure that these line management meetings are taking place and are effective in developing others, driving standards and improving outcomes?