@TeacherToolkit
Ross Morrison McGill founded @TeacherToolkit in 2007, and today, he is one of the ‘most followed educators’on social media in the world. In 2015, he was nominated as one of the ‘500 Most Influential People in Britain’ by The Sunday Times as a result of…
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How do you know if you work in a good school?
Inspired by my latest travels to schools and colleges across the country, and the research from my book Just Great Teaching, this checklist offers teachers a series of reflections.
Reflect on your school’s culture and practices using ten priorities drawn from schools across the UK.
1. Marking and Assessment
- Are feedback strategies designed to improve learning — or just tick boxes?
- Does your marking policy cut workload while deepening pupil dialogue?
- Since new marking approaches were introduced, are you honestly better off?
- Are assessments used to shape teaching, or just feed the tracker?
- Is there a culture of assessment for learning — or just learning for assessment?
- Do your pupils know how to improve, or just what grade they got?
- Has your school moved past the obsession with live marking theatre?
- Are work scrutinies developmental — or demoralising?
- Are teachers encouraged to mark for impact, not for hours — ideally under five a week?
- Is pupil data ever used to block pay progression or performance manage staff unfairly?
2. Planning (Including EdTech)
- Does your school encourage teachers to plan collaboratively, or does isolation still reign?
- Are planning expectations realistic, or is there still pressure to over-produce?
- Does your school use technology — including AI — to streamline planning, or complicate it?
- Are teachers given dedicated time to adapt resources to their specific class context?
- Is planning driven by pupil need — or distorted by performance metrics and external pressures?
- Does your school provide guidance on using AI tools ethically and effectively in lesson design?
- Is AI seen as a tool for teacher empowerment, or as a monitoring mechanism?
- Does your school actively evaluate the impact of planning tech on workload and pedagogy?
- Are planning templates flexible and adaptive — or rigid and centrally imposed? E.g. PowerPoint teaching
- Does your school model a culture where planning is a shared, evolving conversation?
3. Teaching and Learning
- Do you feel empowered to take risks and innovate in your teaching?
- Are teaching strategies based on evidence or fads?
- Are high expectations matched with high support?
- Are you encouraged to reflect on and refine your practice?
- Do all teachers have a voice in professional development?
- Are short teaching videos (of your staff at work with your pupils) shared internally for development?
- Is there a shared language of teaching and learning across your school?
- How would you describe classroom consistency across the school?
- Does your teaching community view itself at the cutting edge of national pedagogy?
- Is there someone responsible for teaching and learning, filtering academic research into teaching nuggets?
4. Teacher Wellbeing
- Is your workload manageable and regularly reviewed?
- Are wellbeing conversations part of your staff culture or tokenistic?
- Are you recognised and supported during challenging times?
- Do you feel safe to admit when things are tough?
- Is there a clear strategy for supporting mental health among staff?
- Does your school conduct exit interviews?
- Does your school conduct stay interviews?
- Are wellbeing initiatives meaningful and well attended — or token gestures?
- Are your school governors actively seeking to reduce teacher workload?
- What are your school’s annual teacher attrition numbers? Less than 10% per annum?
5. Student Mental Health
- Are mental health conversations woven into the curriculum — or limited to occasional assemblies?
- Does your school have a clearly defined, whole-school strategy for mental health support?
- Are mental health concerns responded to consistently — not just depending on which adult is present?
- Are all staff trained to recognise early warning signs of emotional distress in pupils?
- Is the school’s pastoral system adequately staffed and resourced — or overstretched and reactive?
- Does your school avoid using isolation or punishment for behaviours that are rooted in trauma?
- Are external mental health professionals involved regularly — not just when a crisis emerges?
- Are referral pathways to CAMHS and other services clear, timely, and followed up?
- Are SEND and SEMH needs properly differentiated — or treated as interchangeable?
- Are families supported in managing children’s mental health, or left to navigate it alone?
6. Behaviour and Exclusions
- Does your school apply behaviour policies consistently, or does it depend on who’s in charge?
- Are expectations made crystal clear to both pupils and staff — or left open to interpretation?
- Is behaviour management treated as everyone’s job, or left to “the usual suspects”?
- Are teachers supported with systems that work — or left to firefight alone?
- Does your school rely on isolation rooms — or relationships?
- Is leadership visibly present during behavioural incidents — or conspicuously absent?
- Is exclusion treated as a last resort — or a routine tool of control?
- Does your school monitor who is being excluded — and ask the hard questions about why?
- Are SEND and trauma-informed practices part of behaviour policy — or conveniently ignored?
- Is behaviour data used to support early intervention — or simply to rank departments?
7. Supporting Students with SEND
- Are students with SEND meaningfully included in all classroom learning — not just physically present?
- Does your school support teachers to adapt teaching proactively, or only after problems arise?
- Are teaching strategies differentiated by design — or left to individual interpretation?
- Is SEND training regular, practical, and tied to actual classroom needs?
- Are all staff clear on their responsibilities under the SEND Code of Practice — or is it seen as “someone else’s job”?
- Is SEND leadership visible, responsive and influential in shaping whole-school decisions?
- Are SEND pupils’ voices heard in policy and practice decisions?
- Is there genuine collaboration between classroom teachers, TAs, and the SENCO?
- Are parents of SEND pupils treated as partners — or as afterthoughts?
- Are students with SEND achieving both academically and socially — or just being managed?
8. Curriculum
- Is your curriculum broad, balanced and rooted in the local context — or imposed and generic?
- Are pupils consistently exposed to knowledge that is powerful, challenging, and relevant?
- Does curriculum planning happen collaboratively — or behind closed doors?
- Are cross-curricular links encouraged, or is each subject its own isolated island?
- Are staff clear on the why behind what is taught — or simply told what and when?
- Is curriculum sequencing guided by principles from cognitive science — such as spacing, retrieval and interleaving?
- Are schemes of work designed to support long-term memory — or packed with disconnected content?
- Does your school explore the use of AI to support curriculum mapping, diagnostics, or adaptive teaching — or ignore it altogether?
- Are AI tools evaluated critically for their ethical use and educational value?
- Is there a culture of sharing planning and schemes — or are resources hoarded, politicised, or withheld?
- Are curriculum documents living tools that inform teaching — or static files stored for inspection?
9. Research-Led Practice
- Are you encouraged to engage with current educational research?
- Does research inform policy decisions at school level?
- Is there a named leader translating research into bite-sized strategies for staff?
- Does your school avoid cherry-picking research to justify pre-made decisions?
- If education research does inform school policies, how is it evaluated?
- Are critical conversations welcomed about “what works”?
- Are staff trained to evaluate the reliability of research claims?
- Are research findings turned into actionable teaching strategies?
- Are staff supported to trial, reflect on and iterate research-informed approaches without fear of failure?
- Is research engagement supported with time — or expected on evenings and weekends? E.g. reading teaching books
10. Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
- Is CPD personalised or one-size-fits-all?
- What does professional development look like for your support staff, or is it a last-minute thought?
- Does your school protect 0.1% of its overall budget for staff development?
- When last did pupils attend your school’s INSET day so that staff could hear their views?
- Are you given time and space to implement what you’ve learned?
- Are ALL staff able to lead or influence CPD sessions?
- Your Headteacher attend all professional development meetings/training? If not, why not?
- Do you have access to high-quality external expertise nationally, and internationally?
- Is CPD viewed as compliance or development?
- How is professional development evaluated in your school so staff can reflect without fear?
If you found yourself hesitating, pausing, or answering “no” to several of these questions — don’t panic. This checklist isn’t about judgement. It’s about reflection, direction, and meaningful dialogue.
Why not pick one area as a focus for a staffroom discussion or professional development session? It could be the start of something great…
Let me know how your school is doing – share your reflections on social media using #JustGreatTeaching or tag me @TeacherToolkit.
