Case study: Lynn Grove Academy - The Power of Rehearsal

Lynn Grove Academy, part of Creative Education Trust, is a large secondary school situated in Great Yarmouth on the east coast of England. We have around 1,200 pupils on roll of which 35% are eligible for the Pupil Premium.  

I joined the school nearly five years ago as Vice Principal for Teaching and Learning. Until then I’d spent my career in inner-city London. During that time I’d become ridiculously passionate about instructional coaching and the impact it could have on all teachers at all levels. I’d seen teacher practice soar as a direct result of working with expert coaches.

It’s no secret that my first impression of Lynn Grove was that it needed to catch up a little! Dedicated but tired teachers worked with lovely but passive pupils. My first note to pretty much everyone on learning walks was to build in a call for attention that avoided 3 minutes of constant shushing.  

I knew we needed to do this consistently and that the best way to achieve it was to write a routine and have everyone rehearse. Together! This was not something that the majority of staff at Lynn Grove had had exposure to before. I was, therefore, slightly terrified of being laughed out of the training room. I genuinely spent hours writing a script to ‘sell’ the concept of routines, consistency, and the magical power of rehearsal. I wanted everyone to know that they would have feedback on this routine until we all got it right. And that we needed to do it the same way for it to have impact. I noticed in my script how many times I referenced the idea of their dedication – not only to get them onside but also because I recognised their willing, above everything else. This helped me hone the idea that they ‘deserved’ feedback. They deserved to have better classrooms. They deserved development. And rehearsal was going to be our vehicle for this.  

The first group rehearsal was a car crash. Obviously. Despite my attempts to define it as anything but, staff misinterpreted it as 'role play'. A phrase that makes me (and most other PD leads) shudder. But I tried to lean into their humour and enthusiasm.

The second time we rehearsed en masse (same routine for a LONG time) – I got out the tennis star analogy. We wouldn’t expect the superstar tennis player to try out a new serve in a match; the stakes are too high. She needs to practice, get it wrong in a safe environment, then go again. Just as we do in our classrooms. This seemed to hit home, and I saw staff begin to open up and be slightly less awkward.

I was absolutely relentless about rehearsal until there emerged some bright spots. Teachers who were really starting to ‘get it’. They could see the impact of these small action steps set against the success criteria for a clear routine. They could then see their partner improve incrementally in front of their eyes. And best of all, once it was ‘live’ in lessons – it just worked. I had the beginnings of a coaching team.  

A huge part of getting the culture around rehearsal right was to constantly mirror back the impact. And then attribute it, in a large part, to effective group or paired rehearsal. Staff had seen the impact of everyone at Lynn Grove doing a consistent call to attention (no more shushing). They could see the value of the broken-down steps and the low-stakes practice. There was such a tangible improvement in their classrooms that they were immediately open to the next one. Within a year we’d established 8 consistent and non-negotiable routines that staff were hungry for, wanted to rehearse, and were quick to advise new colleagues that they really should adopt quickly.  

Fast forward 3 years and I am immensely proud to be the Principal of Lynn Grove Academy. Once rehearsal took off we then introduced multiple iterations of a coaching model before partnering with Steplab. Steplab was exactly what our programme needed: greater clarity around action steps, PD for our coaches, and careful criteria for rehearsal.

We continue to have those 8 routines and re-train the team on them every year. But our group and paired rehearsal is so established that we are able to use it in increasingly sophisticated ways. For example, my coach and I recently used rehearsal to script a complex grammar explanation to my year 11 Spanish class that just wasn’t landing. Getting feedback from someone who has no other agenda than ‘I want this to be the best it can be for you and your class’ creates trust and empowers us to be better.  

Rehearsal is now so integral to our work at Lynn Grove that our staff expect it as part of all our PD, regardless of whether it has a teaching and learning focus. We’ve been training our staff on effective restorative conversations; we know that a rehearsal cycle, with success criteria and feedback is the best way to ensure these are high quality.  

I’m so excited about the continuation of our PD journey with Steplab. My advice will always be to begin with culture and to hammer home the point that our teams deserve great PD. Because they do. But please never let anyone call it 'role play'!  

We're proud that Lynn Grove are now a Steplab Hub - our centres of PD excellence. Want to see their PD programme in action? Join them at a forthcoming Hub Day.

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