Our Impact Team Consultants are highly qualified leadership development coaches and serve as Analytic Partners in the work. As former principals, principal supervisors and department executive directors, our consultants spend extensive time in schools. They are doing side-by-side work with principals, leveraging their proximity as ‘analytic partners’ to the improvement work. The On-Site Support Visits are intended to make these practices part of the school’s infrastructure to effect lasting change. The consultant’s role is one of accountability, in the truest sense, as Richard Elmore describes it: “For every ounce of accountability, there needs to be an ounce of support.” Consultants support and monitor increasingly higher levels of implementation throughout the year, while also helping assess impact.
A critical purpose of the On-Site Support Visits is to develop the principal’s leadership capacity. That is, the principal’s learning about instructional leadership alongside their Impact Team Consultant is critical for sustained success: they are the leader of leaders, which means as their team observes, models, provides feedback to teachers, they are doing the same thing for those leaders. Deepening leadership capacity of any member of the Instructional Leadership Team who coaches teachers creates coherence and alignment across the school and even the Collaborative.
Our On-Site Support visits often build upon systems learning from a more intensive “kick off
session” such as our 3 Day Systems Academy, usually held during the summer. The primary goal is to provide embedded support as leaders implement new systems and instructional leadership practices at an increasingly higher level, while also assisting to monitor impact.
As Instructional Leadership Team members learn how to best support teachers, the principal must continuously identify how s/he will support the ILT. Thus, Consultants support principals in their coaching of instructional and leadership practice; tracking and monitoring progress of adult practice and student achievement goals; and prioritizing structures such as the Weekly ILT Impact meetings, Daily Huddles in their schedules. Together, consultants and principals observe classrooms and plan for feedback using our Reflective Feedback tool (proprietary).
Our consultants also observe the principal’s work in facilitated/ collaborative planning, help them plan for ILT meetings, as well as observe ILT sessions to support the principal’s leadership development. Being deeply familiar with the practices, structures and barriers at the principal’s school, our consultants are able to bridge theory to practice, reinforcing the learning.
Overall, Impact Team Consultants are collaborative and analytic partners, aiming to build capacity in the school leader so that significant gains are not only achieved, but maintained over time. In our experience, by deepening systems implementation and coaching principals to become strong, supportive instructional leaders, the result is rapid and enduring change.
We also train Instructional Leadership Team members on maximizing existing standards based curricular resources through unit planning and lesson internalization for daily lessons. By modeling and walking ILT members through our planning templates (e.g. Unit Planning, Text First; proprietary), we equip them with the tools to lead these conversations about curriculum and instructional strategies effectively. Similarly, another structure critical for underperforming schools is the data analysis meeting. Using our Data Meeting template (proprietary), we support the school from the identification and creation of the task for the data meeting, including an exemplar and rubric, all the way to analyzing student work, identifying the common gaps in below level work, and identifying the consequent instructional strategies to move these students to grade level. As needed, we provide additional professional learning sessions, specifically targeting the most representative gaps and best practices to accelerate progress. To double down on goal setting, and ensure progress is tracked, data are recorded on charts to maintain a visual display of student progress.
Finally, The Impact Team Consultant co-leads professional learning at the school with the ILT member responsible. The focus of these learning sessions are planning, assessment tasks, instructional strategies and data analysis. Beforehand, our consultants co-plan the session with the ILT member to address trends in teacher practices or student outcomes. Afterwards, consultants focus on supporting the ILT members’ coaching of teachers to ensure strong teacher implementation. This involves identifying the right coaching approach, as described above, but also the structure of their own schedule to ensure the level of coaching needed (frequency, type and duration) can be sustained by the leader.
The benefits of our ‘analytic partner’ approach are that it is both cost-efficient and leverages existing roles in the school, building the capacity of Teacher Leader Coaches, APs and Principals. By working closely in leaders’ contexts, Consultants help create enduring change and develop leaders’ metacognition and sense of efficacy, as ILTs understand how to become better instructional leaders and how to work with various types of educators for a positive culture that gets results.
On a monthly basis, instructional coaches are brought together, along with their Assistant Principal/Dean and/or Lead Teacher, depending on the school, to deepen learning and implementation of the core systems involved in significant impact for adult practice and student results. These full day sessions, facilitated by The Impact Team’s Managing Partners and Content Specialists, dive into unit planning; backwards mapping assessments to identity instructional and formative assessment needs; and data analysis to calibrate the leaders on mastery and how to drive instruction afterward. The purpose is to build capacity within a distributed leadership model, ensuring priorities communicated by the principal are echoed and reinforced from all corners of leadership. Instructional coaches have a unique role to play in school transformation situations. Their side-by-side work with teachers, while also being privy to the strategy and keys to unlock dramatic and lasting results, means many more teachers are reached than by the principal alone.
As with any learning experience, a gradual release of responsibility ensures the learner has had the necessary support in place before they fly solo. With Instructional Coaches this can take various forms. It may be that the Consultant builds capacity by co-planning with the teacher, because there is already some strong practice but some adjustments are needed. Or, the teacher may need it modeled with her/his students before they can give it a try. Or, a leader may be ready to start implementing, so they would benefit from observation and feedback to know what is working effectively and what pinpointed areas would positively shift results. Or maybe co-leading a lesson planning session would be best, so they can understand in real time the shifts to make. In other words, The Impact Team shows up to support all leaders who coach teachers as they need us to – as with good teaching, we are responsive to each leader’s growing edge.
A common thread is our focus is on transforming the expertise, effectiveness and impact of the ILT, because we believe ultimately, that is what transforms classroom instruction. In our Summer Academy, we conduct professional learning on observation and feedback, data analysis and lesson planning, but afterwards, we commit to supporting ILT members intensively so they internalize this new learning and strengthen their practice as leaders, which fundamentally changes schools. As described above, we provide targeted professional development for STLs and ILTs, but back at the school, Impact Team Consultants serve as the analytic partner by going deeper with the systems learning as well.
Specifically, we model for them how to observe classrooms using Elmore’s “instructional core”, as well as plan for and facilitate coaching conversations with teachers. That is, we hone in on the three elements of classroom practice: teachers’ knowledge/skills; engagement of students; and rigor of task. Further, we may also provide real-time coaching as ILT members follow these same steps, in order to maximize effectiveness and have them receive timely feedback. They are also taught to use a Reflective Planning Protocol (proprietary) to consider how to coach the teacher after an observation. As The Impact Team walks an ILT through coaching sessions, members learn how to identify next steps for both the teacher and the leader to maximize lasting change in practice. They also learn the most effective methods to coach teachers, considering how to adjust the amount and type of support provided, according to the needs of the teacher.
We also train the ILT on unit planning and lesson internalization for daily lessons. By modeling and walking ILT members through our planning templates (e.g. Unit Planning, Text First; proprietary), we equip them with the tools to lead these conversations about curriculum and instructional strategies effectively. Similarly, another structure critical for underperforming schools is the data analysis meeting. Using our Data Meeting template (proprietary), we support the school from the identification and creation of the task for the data meeting, including an exemplar and rubric, all the way to analyzing student work, identifying the common gaps in below level work, and identifying the consequent instructional strategies to move these students to grade level. As needed, we provide additional professional learning sessions, specifically targeting the most representative gaps and best practices to accelerate progress. To double down on goal setting, and ensure progress is tracked, data are recorded on charts to maintain a visual display of student progress.
Finally, The Impact Team Consultant co-leads professional learning at the school with the ILT member responsible. The focus of these learning sessions are planning, assessment tasks, instructional strategies and data analysis. Beforehand, our consultants co-plan the session with the ILT member to address trends in teacher practices or student outcomes. Afterwards, they focus on supporting the ILT members’ coaching of teachers to ensure strong teacher implementation. This involves identifying the right coaching approach, as described above, but also the structure of their own schedule to ensure the level of coaching needed (frequency, type and duration) can be sustained by the leader.
The benefits of our ‘analytic partner’ approach are that it is both cost-efficient and leverages existing roles in the school, building the capacity of all instructional leaders. By working closely in leaders’ contexts, Consultants help create enduring change and develop their metacognition and sense of efficacy, as coaches understand how to become better instructional leaders and how to work with various types of educators for a positive culture that gets results.
The Core Purpose of the Summer Systems Academy is to build or transform
an analytic and instructional infrastructure.
The Impact Team offers a three day Systems Academy, usually held during the summer, for principals, and ideally all members of the Instructional Leadership Team who provide instructional coaching and support to core content teachers.
To develop an Analytic and Instructional Infrastructure, participants in the academy experience deep professional learning on several key systems to jump start the school year.
Two main areas are transformational Instructional Leadership Teams (ILT) and comprehensive coaching cycles. Participants learn how to conduct high-impact weekly ILT meetings, sharpening their skills around supervision of instruction so they can strategically deploy and distribute leadership. They learn tools and protocols for ILT meetings, including The Impact Team’s weekly ILT Impact Meeting agendas (proprietary), Daily Impact Huddle questions (proprietary), and supporting tools to capture action steps and progress (co-created with schools as they learn). Further, principals and attending ILT members lay the foundation for their coaching cycles, work alongside an Impact Team consultant to establish key planning structures, set up observation and feedback schedules, prepare for data-driven instructional cycles, and establish strong adult and student culture systems.
During the Summer Academy, The Impact Team trains principals on comprehensive data systems and the Data Meeting Protocol (proprietary). We foster the understanding that analysis without action has no meaning. Equally, though, acting without effective analysis is peremptory at best and futile at worst. In unpacking and teaching our Data Meeting Protocol, we illustrate what analysis and action planning look like. To ensure internalization, and maximize implementation, we also provide real data and writing samples, so that principals can practice and are coached on how to use the Data Meeting Protocol effectively within a safe, supportive space before the school year starts.
We also share with them our comprehensive data system and progress monitoring systems, so they have an understanding of what they are creating and why. The initial exposure to the tracking and monitoring tools, as well as observing how they are used by The Impact Team, prepares leaders for key systems they will implement for rapid and sustained growth. This catalyst for school leaders’ focus for the year also promotes calibration and alignment across the school and the Collaborative around which data tools, how they are used, and how they measure impact.
