ABSTRACT
Building shared understanding is crucial for working in alignment, building psychological safety and for developing practice.
There’s a psychological tendency to think that things are clearer than they are – “It’s clear in my head and I’ve told you so you must have the same thing in your head now” – NO!
We need to seek the development of staff to make their own effective decisions, and avoid “managerial creep” and “patches.”
It’s useful to ask about the nature of the areas we are seeking to build a shared understanding of – straightforward, binary areas such as fire escape routes typically warrant a different approach to areas of judgement such as quality teacher explanations.
Developing shared reasoning is key – it’s not enough for staff to just be able to parrot a set of headlines or surface features – we need a shared understanding of why these headlines or features are so important.
Shared exemplars and reference points, e.g. summary documents, are useful in developing shared understanding, but neither can replace discussion and feedback.
Questions for personal reflection and/or group discussion.
