WILD CARDS FOR SCHOOLS – Questions that get you thinking…

I love charity shopping and I’m always looking for the ‘diamond in the rough’. Normally I buy books or clothing but every now and then you find something that piques your interest. You wonder what it is doing in a charity shop and then snap it up to contemplate later.

Recently I came across a box of cards designed by The Clearing in association with The School of Life. I’m a big fan of Alain De Botton and have read many of his books and he is the man behind The School of Life. The products they produce are designed to get you thinking about your life and making you more aware of the world around you. The Clearing is a consultancy group that works with famous businesses in order to improve their brand. They have come together to produce ‘Wild Cards‘ that get people within organisations thinking about the strengths and weaknesses of their brand.

As a Business Studies teacher, I read quite a few business books and it’s always interesting to see how theories of management can be used within a school setting. In fact it is not uncommon for something that you have taught for a while to suddenly appear within a school setting. Whether you see schools as a business is a moot point but I think it is fair to say that we can definitely learn from businesses and if we can learn from businesses, we can probably learn from the businesses that advise them.

Looking at the ‘Wild Cards’, it’s clear to see that the majority of the questions can be used to get teachers and senior leaders discussing aspects of their school that they may not have thought about before. Some are quite controversial and others will split opinions but the point is to get a debate going about what your school can do to improve itself.

Sometimes I think schools can get a bit insular. There are only so many books on schools that you can read without reading about the same case studies and the same approaches. Sometimes it might be good to (BUSINESS JARGON ALERT!!!) get some ‘blue sky thinking’ into your school and these question cards could help.

So here is a list of questions, kept in the same 5 categories, that have been adapted from the ‘Wild Cards’ set, in order to get schools thinking about how they can improve their organisation. See what you think…

WILD CARDS for SCHOOLS

Belief

• Which person in your school best represents the ethos/motto of your school?
• When should you listen to students and when is it wise to ignore them?
• What is the most offensive word in the world – in relation to your school?
• ‘The correct attitude to student insight is ambivalence’. Do you agree?
• What do the parents mistakenly believe about the school? What can you do to change this?
• What does the word ‘quality’ mean in the context of your school? Would other schools define it differently?
• Research suggests that we are driven at the deepest level with Status, Certainty, Control, Safety and Fairness. Which of these do you feel underpins – or threatens – the success of your school?
• What’s the smallest detail you can think of that makes a big difference to how your school is perceived?
• What past decision has caused the most damage to the school’s reputation?
• You must select your new Assistant Head Teacher for Learning from two candidates, one is impressively imaginative but disorganised, the other is highly effective but dry. Who do you choose?
• Is it more important for your school to be behaviour focused or T&L focused?
• What’s the biggest myth about your school?
• Is your school driven by results or wellbeing?
• Can you describe what your school will be like in five years’ time? Is that a good thing?
• Budgets are cut, your school can only invest in new training for staff or new technology? Which do you choose?
• What is your school for?
• Would you send your child to your school? Would you be happy with them taking any subject?
• Have you ever had to lie about your school in some way? If so, why?
• How would you describe an ‘outstanding’ school?

Ego

• A school should be confident in proportion to its competence. Is your school over or under confident?
• When you look at people around the school, who seems to have the most meaningful job? Why is that?
• Would you prefer your school to be seen as the most forward thinking or the most traditional?
• Who or what is your school’s nemesis?
• When is your school at its most charming?
• Does your school come across as friendly and down-to-earth? Do you want it to?
• If your school closed today, do you think the school stakeholders would miss it?
• Do the teachers see the school the same way as the parents/students?
• What does your school do that some colleagues say is completely unnecessary or inefficient but that you feel is a secret superpower?
• Could you explain to your mother why you work for your school?
• Is your school a window or a façade?
• Which other school are secretly a little bit jealous of?
• Could your school ever become too successful?
• How do you feel when telling someone what you do for a living? And then the school that you work for?
• Which of your school’s strengths would OFSTED be in danger of overlooking?
• What will past students say about your school? What would you like them to say?
• At your school’s funeral, the eulogy will make mention of…

Emotion

• Deep thinkers about educational issues are rarely breezy team players – do you have the right balance in the Senior Leadership Team?
• Would you be surprised if a teacher said they disliked working at your school?
• Can you think of an assembly or an event at school that deeply moved you? Why was that?
• Your school goes into rapid decline. Where or to whom would people assign blame?
• When was the last time you felt truly excited at work?
• In what ways does your school make students’ lives emotionally richer?
• Does anything about your school make you feel ashamed?
• What role does kindness play in your school?
• Do your students feel they have a relationship with your school that is beyond the basic functions of the classroom?
• How does your school respond to the students’ higher human needs? Friendship? Belonging? Calm? Confidence? Love? …
• How often do you embark on projects where you feel real anxiety and uncertainty about the outcome?
• If your school were a person, would they be in a happy relationship?
• Which emotion would you like people to associate with the name of your school?
• If your school were a person, would you spend time with them outside of work?
• What might your school reveal to their therapist?

Habit

• What could you eliminate from your school today that you suspect no one would miss?
• Do you add more value than your team?
• Is your school a monolith or a chameleon?
• What one word would best encapsulate the point of your school?
• In what context do you imagine your school most often crops up in conversation?
• Do you ever take shortcuts at work you wish you didn’t have to?
• Which of you schools flaws have you learned to ignore?
• Anamnesis is the process of remembering something we have always known to be true but have temporarily forgotten. What deep truth can you help students, parents or staff to remember?
• They say that work culture involves all the things you stop noticing after the first three months. What struck you most about the school when you first arrived? Has this changed since?
• The best schools ae built from the inside out. What are you doing to influence the hiring, training and development of colleagues?
• How large a gap exists between your school’s actions and its stated intentions in the School Improvement Plan? Why is that?
• How do you feel Monday mornings? Do your colleagues feel the same?
• You are called in to perform a pre-mortem on your school, you predict the cause of death will come from…
• Other than gaining qualifications, in what ways does your school help student live better lives?
• What disappoints you most about your rival schools?
• What does your school do to make the world a better place?
• Which person or group at work is most effective at sabotaging the ethos of the school?
• What is your school’s guilty secret?
• Do you have enough fun at work?

Creativity

• If your school took a lie detector test, the most nerve wracking question would be…
• List all of the negative externalities that your business contributes to. In what ways does your school try to deal with these?
• You can employ any artist, writer, musician or film-maker to produce the school’s prospectus – who would you choose?
• Does the Senior Leadership Team operate like an orchestra or an improvisational jazz band?
• You’re introducing a new policy to the school and are in need of something inspiring to say about it – would you comb the words of Shakespeare, reflect alone, consult colleagues or talk to students?
• How frequently does your school embark on something truly imaginative?
• Outside of the educational world, where do you look for inspiration for your school (e.g. art, literature, science, etc.)?
• How does you school challenge students to see the world differently?
• If money were no object, what single thing could you do to make life better for students? What about staff?
• What is your unofficial school motto?
• Who would do the voice over for a documentary about your school?
• Which fictional character best represents your school?
• When the poet Louis MacNeice was offered a job as a BBC producer, he insisted half his weekly timetable remain empty ‘for thinking’.  How much space to think do you allocate yourself each week?
• You can choose between having a great culture or a brilliant strategy – which do you opt for?
• To paraphrase William Morris, an advert should contain nothing that customers will not recognise to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. Would William Morris enjoy your Open Day?

You should randomly choose four or five of these questions at a time and then give staff time and space to respond. Hopefully their answers will be thought provoking and provide senior leaders some insight that they might not have got using traditional methods. Give it a go…what’s the worst that could happen?

*Note – I have put these questions on a randomised PPT and so if anybody would like to have that in order to use within your school, then get in touch.