How do we achieve classroom consistency (better teaching) without reducing teachers to compliance?
Having faced this challenge myself as a school leader, I recognise that the problem is about perspective. Too often, schools chase consistency when what they really need is coherence.
I’ve written before about why perspective matters in schools. The same is true for teaching and learning.
If school leaders view the problem as “teachers are not doing the same thing”, they often reach for monitoring, policies and checklists, or question why consistency is not yet happening. This problem can often be compounded by external inspectors using poor proxies for (learning) evaluation.
If they view the problem as “teachers are not working from the same principles”, the solution becomes more professional, more intelligent and more sustainable.
Consistency Vs. Coherence
The second issue is that many teaching and learning policies fail to land. They may be well-intentioned, but they often become too theoretical, too lengthy, or too fixated on surface features.
Instead of helping teachers make better decisions, they can become documents that describe what leaders want to see.
That is not the same as improving teaching.
Inspired by my own research and writing in Mark. Plan. Teach., I often argue that consistency is not the goal for teaching and learning. The goal is coherence.
By coherence, I mean this: if I join your school, what is the hymn sheet? What do we believe great teaching looks like here? What do we want pupils to experience in every classroom? What professional language do we share? What makes learning in this school distinctive?
If teachers are clear about these principles, they have something to hold on to. Teaching staff can then use these principles, ideally guided by research, and adapt them to suit age and subject. Great leaders do not reduce teaching to a checklist. They keep returning teachers to purpose, values, evidence and the collective effort required to improve.
If you spend your time chasing consistency, you will always be disappointed.
Accountability Vs Professional Absence
One of the ideas I explored in Just Great Teaching was that schools often face the same broad priorities: behaviour, attendance, exclusions, teaching and learning, staff wellbeing and recruitment. Yet every school experiences these pressures differently.
The same is true for teaching and learning.
External pressures often shape the culture: inspection, parental expectations, funding, workload, curriculum change, recruitment and leadership decisions. Some schools respond by tightening control. Others step back too far and call it “trust”. Neither is enough.
The danger is that schools can lose their autonomy very easily. When classroom doors are closed, when professional dialogue disappears, and when teachers opt out of shared development, this is not professional freedom.
It is professional absence, and fragmentation.
Absence looks like no dialogue, no interest, closed doors and limited engagement in professional learning. Teachers may work hard in isolation, but the school loses its collective capacity to improve.
Accountability sits at the other end of the scale. It is often driven by compliance, frequency, monitoring and external pressure. This may create movement, but not always improvement. Teachers may do what is asked, but without belief, skill or professional ownership. This can be heavily influenced by the latest examination schools, parental pressures and the latest inspection demands.
What leaders should protect?
Autonomy requires efficacy, regular CPD, research-informed practice and a culture where open doors are normal. It gives teachers professional room to think, but it also asks them to participate in a shared culture.
This is the leadership challenge.
How do we create enough agreement without producing compliance? How do we protect teacher judgement without tolerating isolation? How do we build shared expectations without pretending every classroom should look the same?
Great teaching will always look different across subjects, phases and settings. An early years classroom, a Year 6 writing lesson, a GCSE science practical, a key stage 3 history discussion, or a further education construction workshop should not look identical. But they can still be coherent.
Teachers can share a common understanding of attention, explanation, modelling, questioning, practice, feedback and behaviour. They can use different methods while working from the same evidence-informed principles. This is why coherence matters more than consistency.
Consistency asks, “Are teachers doing the same thing?”
Coherence asks, “Are teachers making decisions from the same professional principles?”
That is a much better question.
Schools do not improve because every teacher performs the same routine. They improve when teachers understand the shared purpose, participate in professional dialogue and have the confidence to adapt intelligently for the pupils in front of them.
And that is where school improvement starts to feel less like monitoring, and more like trust.
