How To Tell Your School's Story: The 4Cs and The 4 Time Periods

Someone walks into your school - an Ofsted inpector, say - and you pray that they see all the good that you know exists. You worry that they won't get it. That they will have no clue about all the hard work that has gone into making improvements to curriculum, to lunchtimes, to behaviour. About the plans you have for further development.

How could they possibly, in such a short time, know all that there is to know about where you've come from, where you're at and where you're going next. Can the data and documentation and a few hours in classrooms and corridors really tell them all of that?

No, it won't. You know that, they know that. And that's where you (and your staff, and even your SEF) come in. You can tell your school's story.

You want a visitor to get the best picture of your school possible. You want them to see what's going well. But you also want them to know that you know exactly what's going on too. That you know what's not going well, what you're currently working on, and what you're planning to do next. You want them to be confident in your leadership.

Remember that question we used to get asked after a lesson observation? How do you feel it went? Forget the bit where you tried to second-guess what the feedback was going to be, and focus on the intent of that question: a reflective teacher who can correctly identify strengths and weaknesses is way less of a problem than one who thinks a terrible lesson went really well.

How To Tell Your School's Story: The Storytelling Leader

And that's the leader you've got to be: the one who can accurately reflect on how things are going. Crucially, in this scenario, you've got to be the leader who can articulate how things are going. Any visitor who walks through your school doors is the perfect audience for your story. The one telling the story is the one who controls the narrative. When no strong narrative is put forth, onlookers will fill in the gaps themselves.

So, how well can you tell your story? Perhaps at the moment you don't feel confident enough to tell it well.

In this blog post we'll focus on getting ready to tell your story using:

• 4 Cs of storytelling

• 4 periods of time

And in another blog post we'll look at getting ready to tell your story by thinking about:

• Your Fairytale Ending

• Setting the Scene

How To Tell Your School's Story: The 4 Cs of Storytelling

Causality - How are all the different 'events' (things that have been done, are being done and are going to be done) in the 'story' of your school connected? How did one thing lead to another?

Conflict - What has prevented you from meeting your goals for your school so far? What have you had to overcome in order to develop your school?

Complications - What new problems have arisen as you have overcome other barriers?

Character - You are one of the main characters as a leader, but there is a cast of other characters too: pupils, parents, teachers, other leaders - knowing and explaining how they all fit into the story will bring it to life, connecting the listener to the people involved.

How To Tell Your School's Story: 4 Time Periods

When telling a story about an area of responsibility, such as a curriculum subject, there are 4 useful time periods to think of: past, present, future and future future.

Past – everything that has gone before. This could be usefully split into distant past and recent past as you tell a story chronologically.

Present – could be this week, this term, or this year; just be careful to clarify what you mean by the present when telling the story of your school.

Beyond '...and they all lived happily ever after.' we don't normally think of the future when telling a story. But in school improvement the future is a very important part of the narrative – your story is ongoing and unfolding.

Future – that which you hope to achieve, based on your current hopes and aims. Involves an element of justification as to why your priorities have been chosen.

Future future – things that you know need to be addressed at some point, but which aren’t currently priorities. Communicate these to ensure that the full extent of your knowledge about your school is made clear.

How To Tell Your School's Story: Mapping It Out On A Storyboard

Have a go at mapping this out. Get together with fellow senior leaders, with teachers, with governors, parents and children - get as much input as possible on it. It's so easy to forget (especially when you're always focused on what's next and what's not good enough yet) all the things that have already been acheived (read my blog post 'School Leadership: The Importance Of Focusing On Now' for more on this). I recently worked on this with a headteacher who forgot to mention until late in the day that her school warranted a visit from Catherine, Princess of Wales as a result of some of their excellent achievements!

I've created a downloadable storyboad which brings together the 4 Cs and the 4 time periods, along with some simple prompt questions to get your started on mapping out your school's story. You can download it for free here:

Telling Your School's Story Storyboard Tool

£0.00

Buy Now

Once you've begun to storyboard, you will begin to think more of everything you see and do in terms of where it fits in the narrative. Don't create your storyboard and then leave it to gather virtual or literal dust. Return to it - keep it open on your desktop (either digitally or physically as a print out) - add notes to it. You'll never get everything on to the storyboard in one sitting - the benefits of doing this piece of work ahead of, say, an Ofsted visit, is that you can take your time over it. Doing it as a one-off exercise will have the same outcome of being unprepared to tell your story: you'll forget some of the best bits, like the headteacher I mentioned earlier! Take your time over the storyboard, add to it, come back to it - write that thing on it that you remember whilst on lunch duty.

How To Tell Your School's Story: Clear and Confident Storytelling

When you know your story, nothing a visitor sees will come as a surprise. When they ask you "What will we see when we go into this classroom?", you'll be able to tell them, and you'll be proven right. And even if what you see isn't going well, the fact that you as a leader had the measure of that classroom is a plus point for your leadership.

When you know your story, you'll feel confident to tell it - proud, even. You'll have clarity on all the important points and these will come across loud and clear to anyone listening. You'll not be leaving anything to chance - you'll ensure that every part that needs to be told is part of what you say.

Although you're the one with all the inside-intel on your school, it can be difficult to know where to start. I sit down with school leaders, ask all the right questions and then help them to make sense of the answers. Together we could bring clarity to your school's story, leaving you feeling confident to tell it. All you have to do is:

1. Drop me an email

2. We'll arrange a phone call

3. We'll get a date in the diary to work together