Improving teaching: scripting
Scripting is useful for new teachers getting to grips with staged, clear instructions and solidifying classroom routines. But it’s also fruitful in pushing experienced teachers, who may be looking to improve the way they explain a complex concept or expertly cohere different strands of knowledge in a pivotal moment in a lesson. As we look to build a really strong culture across our school, scripting can also be useful in generating consistent and positive responses to children and help all teachers model the interactions we want to see from students.
What is — and isn’t — scripting?
Scripting asks teachers to jot down exactly what they’re going to say before they say it. It gives them a set or sequence of phrases which teachers use in certain situations and it requires teachers to make conscious decisions about the best choice of language to have the desired result.
Some might argue that scripting feels mechanistic, or can destroy spontaneous responses to classroom activity. But it’s important to remember that scripting isn’t one person telling another exactly what to say, or forcing us to stick to the same dry lines day in, day out.
Instead, it’s about asking teachers to plan in careful detail the best way to do something, and to then deliberately practice it.
Why scripting?
Schools are busy, energetic places, and this energy can sometimes verge on the chaotic. Scripting allows teachers to prepare and practise carefully considered language in advance, so that less is left to impromptu stress-fueled responses which can often go wrong. Anything that reduces the enormous cognitive load that teachers often navigate has to be helpful. So scripting is the deliberate writing down of short bursts of speech that preempts difficult moments.
We probably do it instinctively: we run through an upcoming difficult conversation in our heads to find the right tone; we consider the order to explain a topic to smooth over any potential points of confusion; we might even practice a positive way to correct behaviour moments before teaching a challenging class. Scripting with teachers embeds these helpful processes into a conscious system which helps teachers get better.
Scripting allows us to reflect carefully on what works.
Scripting for classroom practice
In my training sessions with new teachers, we do a lot of scripting. During a 30 minute fortnightly training session, it normally works like this:
- Choose a common teaching scenario, e.g. lining up children outside your classroom, starting a lesson or giving merits.
- Model how you would do it (or watch a recording of an expert colleague).
- Ask teachers to write down how they would do it.
- Get teachers to share their scripts and give feedback. What would work well? What might be unclear?
- Ask teachers to get up and practise.
Scripting in this way forms a core part of the instructional coaching approach used in the Early Career Framework. It’s brilliant at demystifying common teacher processes and allows new teachers to master the building blocks of instruction early on. Where my early career teachers have had specific problems with lessons or classes, I meet with them one-to-one and we work on scripting together. It’s allowed them to take charge of the situation and make the changes which provoke rapid improvement. It clearly exposes the power the teacher in creating postiive and calm learning environments.
And whilst the benefits of scripting for new teachers are easily recognised, I would argue they are also vital in helping experienced teachers to grow. Here, scripts will be more subject specific; they’ll focus on the very best way of instructing a class in a complex part of the curriculum. They’ll be written collaboratively as part of a department meeting so that specialists can learn from each other.
This example script comes from a discussion with English teachers about the challenges of getting pupils to write clear, concise essay introductions. We wrote our scripts, shared them, discussed what we heard, and used what we learned from one another to improve our scripts. I learned a huge amount from hearing how other teachers achieve complex outcomes through their explanations, but you might notice how the language in my script is still noticably mine. The benefit was equal to having observed seven other teachers in their lessons, but took a fraction of the time.
Scripting for school culture
Like all schools this year, Covid has caused us to change our school systems, and the movement of pupils around the school site is completely different from before. The development of these new procedures has been a real collective effort: every single member of staff has been vital in everything working smoothly. At the start of the year, we knew that all interactions with pupils must:
- Be clear and concise;
- Be positively phrased;
- Reinforce our school values.
What was the best way to achieve this consistently across the school? Scripting.
Staff CPD would therefore go through the new systems, give examples of the language that will work and grant time to teachers to write down their versions and suggest others. Phrases that have become part of our school shared language include the following:
- Calmly and quietly…
- Show me you can…
- Let’s maximise our learning time by…
- We’re so impressed by [name/group] because they are…
- [Name/group] is exemplifying our school values by…
- Thank you for…
- We now need to see you…
Subsequent briefings and meetings are used to echo the language that has the biggest impact, and it’s been lovely to see a potentially chaotic new set of school systems be implemented so calmly and positively by all members of staff. Children have undoubtedly responded well to the consistency of our shared scripts.
In the next post in this series, I’ll take a look at how filming can be used alongside scripts to support teacher development.
