Never Look Back

Headmaster’s Routh Assembly Address
Monday 25th January 2021

Video recording - Never Look Back 

Good morning everyone, and for those who can not be here physically today, I can tell you that the School looks a picture this morning, all cloaked in snow.

There is a story, perhaps you have heard it, of a famous Grand Prix racing car driver from the 1960’s. Not Peter Collins, our own famous Old Bromsgrovian from School House, although he probably raced against him at some stage. But an equally successful man, a fiercely competitive driver. He was most famous for psyching the opposition out, as they sat on the grid, revving their engines at the start of a race. Knowing they were glancing across at him, he would reach up, snap off his rear-view mirror, and throw it out of the car. Making the point that he refused to be distracted by the past. Nothing that was behind him mattered any more.

This is not a technique I would advocate when you go for your driver’s licence in the years to come. Or at any time for that matter. It may have pleased his fans and frightened his rivals, but it is not exactly the best advice for success in life. Certainly not academic success.

In fact, the secret to academic success is almost the exact opposite. And it’s no longer a secret. For as long as there have been schools, there have been studies into what makes them work. What enhances learning? What little tricks can you employ, what tactics can your teachers use, to ensure that you succeed?

A few years ago, a professor called John Hattie (who is a New Zealander as it happens, but that is not why I am telling you this story) decided to try and draw together every study that had ever been made, about every aspect of teaching and learning.

It was massive, global; he reviewed 50,000 smaller studies of education, research that involved over 80 million pupils from all over the world. The professor wanted to harness every mind that had ever been turned to the question of academic success. To try and identify what techniques worked and which ones didn’t.

John Hattie came up with a way to measure how much of an effect each anything has on your chances of success in learning. Here is what he discovered.

Firstly, there are a few things that actually make you go backwards. I’m not talking about the obvious things, like not attending lessons or failing to complete your prep. Hattie identified certain things that teachers or pupils sometimes do with the best of intentions, but which actually end up undoing learning.

Setting tasks that involve wandering aimlessly around the internet “researching” for instance. Studies all show that unless you have superhero self-discipline, being left unguided online actually leads most people to go backwards in their learning. Web content is mainly created by people paid to distract you. Without the clear focus in a task you have been set, they will succeed.

That is why your teachers are committing so much time and their professional wisdom to your online lessons while we are in lockdown. It would be easy for them to set you endless research tasks and then go and put the kettle on. But they are not. They are working hard to keep you engaged and it is important that you respect that.

Having identified that practices that are actively unhelpful, Professor Hattie then set about finding a whole heap of things which are benign.

Teaching tactics that don’t actually hurt, but which don’t really help either, despite what educators may have thought over the years. The use of video clips in lessons. Painting classroom walls in calming colours. Reducing sugar in your diet. All nice, probably all good for you in other ways, but studies show that they make absolutely no measurable difference to learning outcomes.

Then there were an even bigger group of things which made some small difference to results, but often not as big as teachers thought. For instance, it turns out that groupwork is no more or less effective in helping you to understand a new concept as working individually. And class sizes (big or small) or how much money a School has (rich or poor) are not as influential, for good or for bad, as many think.


Finally, and most importantly, Hattie identified the top five things that make the greatest improvement to your academic success. Five things that those 50,000 studies all confirm do make a real difference to your chances.

Two are down to you. They are the ability and the attitude that you bring to learning. In your case, half of that equation is already solved. You all have the ability. You wouldn’t have been admitted into Bromsgrove, or the course you are taking, if you didn’t. So, feel confident. As for the attitude, from what I see, especially during these challenging times, most of you have bags of the maturity and motivation necessary to succeed.

The next two of the five big effects are down to your teachers. The quality of instruction they give, and the relationships they form with their pupils, are proven to be two of the most influential factors in academic success in any classroom in the world.

And when you look at the exceptional academic results that Bromsgrove’s teachers have achieved year after year, you should have every confidence they’re doing their part. Likewise, I know that most of you enjoy excellent relationships with those who teach you. And now that those relationships are being stretched across miles and time zones, their strength matters even more.

So, two things you control, and two things your teachers are responsible for. Which then leaves one other critical element in the top five. In fact, it is the number one effect; the single thing which those 50,000 studies have consistently proven to have a greater impact on your chances than any other thing that either you or your teachers can do. And the responsibility for it lies with you both.

It is feedback. John Hattie’s meta-analysis says that the single thing that will positively influence your final grades more than anything else is:
a. how much feedback you get, and
b. what you do with it.
Which is why snapping the rear-view mirror off and hurtling ever onwards without ever stopping to look back or think about what is behind you, doesn’t work.

Feedback counts most. You must take every opportunity to find out what your teachers think about your work and how it can be improved further still. That is why, despite all the restrictions and limitations of the pandemic and distance learning, we are making sure that all our normal channels of feedback stay open. Tutor sessions. Marking and teacher comments on your work. AEO grades, due out shortly, as usual. Parent/Teacher interview evenings, by video at present, but still essential. End of Term reports. The feedback is all still there.

And if you just ignore it, pass it by without looking back, receive it, you are wasting a golden opportunity. Nobody likes to dwell upon their mistakes. To think about their weaknesses. But if you don’t reflect upon them, you are destined to relive them. As the saying goes, if we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.

So, here is my message this week. We know the importance of feedback and we know it is harder to access during lockdown. For that reason, we have created the Academic Extension & Enrichment programme on Saturday mornings. Some of which is new material, not in the curriculum. Designed to inspire you, whet your appetite for university and beyond.

But most of which is a golden opportunity for more feedback. Drop-in clinics in all subjects. Extra time to pull out that assignment or coursework that you didn’t do so well in and ask: Why?
The chance to take a hard look at things that flashed by you in a lesson, without you fully understanding. The chance to flex the relationship you have with a teacher and ask for personalised advice and guidance in a subject where you struggle.

Your teachers are taking their responsibility to give you feedback very seriously at the moment. Believe me, they have other things they could be doing on a Saturday morning. If you pass up the opportunity to use those two precious hours of personal feedback they are offering, you are ignoring a powerful advantage.

And one last thing. On the first Saturday we ran this new programme, some people signed up for sessions but then didn’t turn up. There is no excuse for that. If you chose to ignore the advantage that is being offered, that’s on you. But if you say you are going to be there, you have an obligation to honour your commitment.

Teachers spent time preparing those sessions. Just because you are at home and behind a screen not a desk, doesn’t mean you are anonymous. If you rolled over in bed that Saturday morning, switched off the alarm and thought “Nobody will notice I’m not there” you were wrong.

So, when this week’s programme comes up, think hard about what you are prepared to do to succeed. About whether you want to take advantage of all that extra, personalised feedback. Or whether you just want to let it pass you by. And please, if you do make a commitment to attend, honour it.

Have a good week.