Tweak of the Week

"IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO IDENTIFY ONE SINGLE RECIPE FOR IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF TEACHING. IT IS HOWEVER POSSIBLE TO IDENTIFY SOME BASIC INGREDIENTS". Mike Hughes.

The idea for Tweak of the Week originated from an extended LEA three day course that Ricky attended at Ferryside in 2003. The first day was led by the nationally recognised trainer Mike Hughes, and was largely based on the work that he had recently published in his book 'Tweak to Transform'. Mike's realistic views and practical strategies for the improvement of teaching as the key to genuine and sustainable school improvement, inspired Ricky to start Tweaking with staff back at the school.

Ricky Perrott

Having discussed his ideas with the senior management team and produced an action plan, Ricky then shared Mike's ideas with staff during an INSET closure day, using Mike's lesson template of the 'four phases of learning' as the starting point. Mike's template can be seen on the next page by clicking on the template button below.

In keeping with the philosophy of tweaking i.e. that people are more likely to make small changes than large ones, and that 'change' occurs through a series of small steps or tweaks, Ricky wanted to reinforce the  ideas that he had introduced to staff without creating any additional demands upon them. In order to achieve this end, he came up with the idea of identifying a single tweak to be shared with staff on a weekly basis. The identified tweak (consolidating an element within the four phase model) was included in the weekly staff bulletin. This was followed by erecting a teaching and learning board in the staffroom, strategically placed above the photocopier, in order to amplify the bulletin tweaks. From March 2006 onwards the weekly tweak will also be e-mailed to individual staff using the school's internal network.

In October 2004 Mike Hughes was invited by the school to lead an INSET day, which included teachers from partner primary schools. During the course of the day Mike introduced additional learning principles and strategies to staff.

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