The vision-setting staff training was delivered. Everyone left feeling fired up and raring to go. The change was going to happen. But by week three, all carefully laid plans were forgotten, lying crumpled at the bottom of the ever-extending to-do list. It got harder and harder to maintain as the initial enthusiasm was lost.

As soon as something unexpected occurred, everyone started having doubts about the new method. Slowly, but inevitably, teachers slipped back into old habits and ways of thinking. Without a doubt, it is hard work improving what we do.

So, how might we take those carefully planned ideas and ensure they are translated into sustained improvements? Education researcher Dylan Wiliam once compared teacher professional development to Weight Watchers. Getting better at teaching and learning, he suggested, is about changing our habits. We need to get into better habits in the classroom so that, at points of instant decision making, we rely on the new successful habits we have formed.

Anyone who has tried to change their habits knows just how hard that is, how long it takes and the effort it requires. As with Weight Watchers, having colleagues around to celebrate successes and share challenges helps enormously. As school leaders, we can help our teachers change their teaching habits, ensuring we make it as easy as possible. Drawing on ideas from experts in changing habits and behaviours can help us understand a little more about what might be helpful.

One model, developed by Susan Michie, health psychologist and director of the Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London, is the COM-B (capacity, opportunity, motivation leading to behaviour) model. Essentially, it suggests that to change and sustain behaviours, we need to develop the capacity of people to engage with the behaviour, provide the opportunities to enable it to happen and ensure they are motivated personally and as a group to engage with the behaviour change. Just knowing we should do something is not enough.

Let’s consider that in relation to the introduction of a curriculum model across a school. The capacity development is relatively simple: teachers need to learn about the new model (the knowledge) and understand what it looks like, feels like and sounds like in their classrooms (pedagogical content knowledge).

Developing this capacity will take time, so they will need opportunities to revisit and develop their understanding of the new model, and ongoing support to help them understand how it works. Let’s call this the “what?” of behaviour change.

In addition, it is important to make it easy to use the new model, creating the opportunity. This might mean ensuring there are no distractions that might prevent teachers using the new curriculum and making sure all the resources and materials are accessible and ready to be used. This is the “how?”.

Finally, we need to consider the “why?” - the motivation to make and sustain the changes. Teachers need to understand why the new curriculum model is important and be totally committed to making it work. Motivation starts with the vision-setting staff meeting that explains the moral imperative and persuades all of reason to change. But it needs to be sustained and topped up - nothing kills motivation faster than discouraging feedback or obvious signs that something isn’t working.

At moments of difficulty, we all need the support of our colleagues to help us through, drawing on formal and informal ways of sharing and learning together.

The COM-B model emphasises that changing our habits relies on many strands working together, and takes time and effort from everyone involved. By focusing on the “what?”, “how?” and “why?” when we plan to change our practices in school, we have a better chance of making it stick. Without doubt, it’s hard work improving what we do.

Megan Dixon is director of literacy at the Aspire Educational Trust

This article originally appeared in the 1 November 2019 issue under the headline “Best-laid plans focus on the ‘what?’, ‘how?’ and ‘why?’”