Assumptions underpinning the Next Practice methodology

The role of professional practitioners

There is plenty of evidence pointing to the difficulty of incentivising and empowering practitioners to engage in innovation, especially in tightly accountable systems based on performance targets. Yet in education we know there is no shortage of energy and expertise, and certainly no lack of commitment or moral purpose amongst practitioners. How could we support them, and give them the creative space and incentives they need to be innovative? What sort of interventions could both release professional imagination, whilst encouraging work that is disciplined and system relevant? How can the system learn from the resultant innovation and its process characteristics so that these can be taken to scale?

Fostering an outward-facing disposition

How can busy, performance-driven practitioners become aware of approaches and techniques which are emerging in other sectors - private and voluntary, as well as across public services more widely? It is enormously difficult in practice to be fully alert to developments and methods outside one's ‘zone of operation' (and sometimes even within it) which offer improvement potential. Some school leaders do manage to scan other horizons for ideas with transfer potential. How far can this be done on their behalf, to shortcut the investment of time, and also optimise the scope for adaptation?

Methodology and Evidence Base

The combination of a methodology derived from the available evidence base, with a mobilised group of empowered practitioners motivated by a compelling purpose, supported by an arm of government in partnership with the key national agencies, will result in emergent Next Practices which will have system significance.

The 'right' practitioners 

The right group to work with will be drawn from those practitioners who are already pushing at the boundaries of current practice in a chosen area. They will be well aware of practice deemed ‘best' - will perhaps have generated/adopted/adapted it. But they will be conscious too of its limits, and will have experienced the need to push on further, or in new directions. Skilled and self-confident, these are likely to be practitioners whose deep immersion, and success, in their work gives them the platform upon which to contemplate risk and to lead others. Visionary and energetic, their ideas spring from immersion in practice: not in theory or in ideology. They may well be alert to and interested in such fields, but the practical applications for their own ‘day jobs' are paramount. Indeed, it is likely that they have a wide field of vision. They will have a lively interest in the overall direction of the service in which they work, and be constantly scanning the environment for ways in which both to influence and exploit it.

Such an innovation programme holds great potential. If we want a powerful innovative culture in schools which is self-sustaining we have to empower system-aware practitioners, working ever more closely with the service users, to create it. And to avoid simply creating interesting but isolated pockets of experimentation, we have to design in collaborative ways of learning and enquiry between professionals - a ‘pull' rather than ‘push' approach.