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leerKRACHT (teachingFORCE)

How can we create a strong body of teachers and create a continuous improvement culture?

The leerKRACHT (teachingFORCE) foundation believes in the quality of all teachers, and wishes to give ownership of education back to the teachers. It aims to achieve this through helping schools to promote a continuous improvement culture, wherein teachers work together to improve their teaching, with school leadership being role models in the improvement process.

HundrED 2021
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Overview

Web presence

2012

Established

420K

Children

7

Countries
Target group
Teachers
Updated
February 2019
The quality of education is driven by the quality of teachers.

About the innovation

What is leerKRACHT?

The central idea of leerKRACHT is that creating a continuous improvement culture in schools is the key to improve the quality of education and thereby student results. This idea was the basis for the leerKRACHT foundation – started as a pro bono initiative of McKinsey & Company in 2012. leerKRACHT started to work with 16 schools to develop and pilot a 2-year intensive transformation programme that helps schools improve the quality of their teaching.

The goal of the programme is to lay the foundation for a continuous improvement culture in schools, where teachers work together to improve the quality of education. By further developing this approach and introducing it to thousands of schools leerKRACHT wants to be the catalyst for a movement that helps the entire Dutch educational system move from ‘good’ to ‘great’.

Six years after it began, leerKRACHT is operating in 870 schools, 10% of all primary, 1 in 8 secondary schools and 50% of vocational schools in the Netherlands.This is despite being a bottom-up private initiative, requiring particiapting schools to free up their own coach, time from the school leader and making space in the roster of all teachers in the school for 1-2 hours each week. The reason schools make this investment is that they hear from participating schools the impact of this approach on the quality of education, work satisfaction and student involvement.

Impact & scalability

Impact & Scalability

Innovativeness

leerKRACHT is innovative in that it has managed to impact such large amount of teachers and therefore students in just a short number of years.

Impact

In 2013 an independent investigation carried out by the Open University, 82% of the participating teachers indicated that they believe that their teaching had improved as a result of participating. A similar number said that they would recommend participation to fellow teachers. In 2014 the Dutch Ministry of Education funded a next round of an independent impact assessment. This time carried out by the University of Utrecht. They concluded that 1) schools carry out the programme as planned, 2) it leads to enormous enthusiasm in participating teachers and school leaders, 3) that leerKRACHT helps to build a professional culture and that 4) teachers and school leaders see and expect that leerKRACHT will lead to better student results. See this summary and links to the report: http://www.stichting-leerkracht.nl/nieuws/resultaat-van-onderzoek-en-metingen-naar-de-impact-van-leerkracht/ (in Dutch)

Scalability

leerKRACHT is now in hundreds of primary schools, 1 in 8 secondary schools and 40% of vocational schools in the Netherlands.

HundrED Academy Reviews

What is interesting in this innovation is that it targets the teacher by creating a process of improvement.The goal of the program is to lay the foundation for a culture of continuous improvement in schools, where teachers work together to improve the quality of education.

The idea of coaching alongside others to help with the improvement and impact is always an incredibly beneficial for a school. We always learn so much through face-to-face meetings, through challenging conversations and by seeing colleagues teach in different ways.

- Academy member
Academy review results
High Impact
Low Scalability
High Impact
High Scalability
Low Impact
Low Scalability
Low Impact
High Scalability
Read more about our selection process

Implementation steps

Classroom observation and feedback conversation

To get inspired, give feedback and jointly identify areas for improvement (at least once every two weeks per teacher).

Learning from and with each other is the basis for a good lesson. By regularly looking together and discussing together whether the intended goals are achieved, you get ideas about how it can be improved.
Joint lesson planning

To share experiences and jointly tackle difficult teaching challenges (at least once every two weeks per teacher).

You translate the goals you set with your team into daily teaching practice. By preparing lessons together you make use of each other's knowledge and skills and can improve and innovate your lessons.
'Board session'

This idea is taken from the LEAN movement in the manufacturing industry, where small teams hold daily stand up meetings to jointly improve quality. The approach is underpinned by forum meetings with 'Foundation LeerKRACHT schools' in the region, and by visits to companies that have a continuous improvement culture.

To jointly define objectives, track progress and impact and share improvement ideas (every week for 15 minutes for the entire team).

These are short effective work sessions, in which you discuss progress with your colleagues and school management on the goals that you have jointly set. These sessions replace the mostly inefficient meetings.

Teachers asking students for feedback

Students play a pivotal role in shaping their teachers development, through continuous open feedback.

Students are the greatest source of inspiration for new lesson goals. They can provide excellent feedback on education and thus contribute to improvement.

Spread of the innovation

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