Sensemaking in Schools

Every now and again, you get that brilliant moment when listening or reading something that changes how you see an idea you thought you knew a fair bit about. That ‘aha!’ moment. Until recently, I thought of a ‘vision’ as a fixed entity, unmoving and steadfast in a sea of change. However, having listened to a recent talk and followed this up with some reading, I am not so sure. This as implications for how we lead schools.

I attended a conference a couple of weekends ago and heard the brilliant @eleanorbernardes.bsky.social talking about her EdD thesis. As part of her talk, she referenced Hoyte et al.’s research on sense receiving. This wasn’t a phrase I’d heard before, but I knew it sounded pretty interesting and was worth following up. It got me thinking about how central the process of how we make sense of our individual, team and school values is to running a school (or any organisation really) effectively. Additionally, how we revisit and evaluate the work we are doing against that vision means we are going to be working in more aligned or move effective teams.

If you’re new to my writing, (hello!) I try to link academic literature to the work we are doing in schools. I am both an assistant principal and EdD student and so am both an early career researcher and school senior leader. As such, I have ended up writing this piece as if I am talking about a school’s senior leadership team. I am also doing my NPQH, so a lot my thinking is around headship at the moment. If this isn’t your area of work, I still think there are learning points in the literature and you may find this useful to reflect upon as a middle leader and classroom teacher too.

So, onto this idea of sense making and sense sharing/receiving. Hoyte et al.’s 2019 article focuses on the processes through which five entrepreneurs navigate conceptualisation, problems as they occur and communicate with others as part of their ventures (Hoyte et al., 2019). Whilst not education based, this study is useful for us in schools as if we replace the term ‘venture’ with ‘vision’ we very quickly get to the issues of headteachers, senior leaders and middle leaders and their need to communicate their vision for what the school/department should look like, operate and how to deal with issues as they arise.

Making sense of sensemaking

There are 8 aspects of sensemaking according to Weick (1995, quoted in Hoyte et al. 2019):

1.       Identity Construction - Who we are, what we think and how this relates to how others present themselves

2.       Retrospective – how social interactions and events shape us after the fact

3.       Enacting environments

4.       Social - language, social and cultural norms

5.       Ongoing – continuous process

6.       Cues – what we ignore and what we notice

7.       What ‘makes sense’ even over what is true

8.       Action – a loop of doing, then thinking, then doing again

In essence, there is no fixed state of conceptualisation. Ideas are evaluated, reflected upon and adapted (rightly so) through a constant loop of introspection and social interactions. This makes sense as human memory works in a very similar way. For example, when you remember a past event, you are not remembering the event itself, but the last time you thought about it. This means over time, our recollections adapt and change to suit new situations and obtained values (Paul, 2012). This has implications for how we communicate in schools as a vision we hold is not a constant unless we are very careful to make it so. The way in which individuals, groups and whole staff bodies understand and enact values shifts and as such, so too must the way we engage with the business of core school values.

So, what does this mean for schools?

Values, values, values

As Weick has outlined for us, the business of creating values is not fixed. It is an ever moving and shifting reality within our own heads, so how can we expect others to keep up? Values, therefore, need to be revisited regularly and clearly. Nothing could be more frustrating and counterintuitive to teamwork than members not knowing what they’re working towards. Rather than assuming shared purpose – actively share your thinking. Getting together as a whole school to discuss vision regularly might not be practical or even a desirable use of time when teachers and support staff have so much on their plates already, but there are ways in which SLT teams can create and share the work they are doing on vision and culture. If you are getting frustrated as people within a team don’t seem to ‘get it’, how certain are you that your version of ‘it’ has remained the same since you gave them the brief? A favourite example of mine comes from Rachel Johnson (2023) who does a great job of contextualising Razzetti’s ‘culture design canvas’ for the context of school leadership. An activity like this may bring out some painful, but important dissonance in teams, but will lead to clearer alignment later on. Which leads us nicely onto our next point…

Focus on alignment

I am a really big fan of the phrase ‘clarity is kindness’. Rather than assuming people know what the core values are or know how to action in any given situation, give as many examples and guidance as possible.

This can be from simple things like outlining the dress code to new staff ahead of induction day to pausing at the beginning of a meeting once a fortnight to check in that the goals we set out are still our goals and if we believe our actions still align with what sits at the heart of our vision. Sam Crome covers this in his chapter on purpose in his book The Power of Teams and also outlines how learning together is an opportunity to develop and grow as a group (Crome, 2023).

Keep it simple and regular

My argument would be that the response of school leaders to the complexity of creating and sharing core messages is to keep it simple. We see this in the messaging we share with students; school mottos are usually no more than three core values for a reason. Another example I heard shared by Rachel Johnson in a talk to our teaching school last year was from Netflix. When individuals at the organisation need to make a decision, they do so by asking the same question ‘what is best for Netflix?’.

It follows that as the way in which we think about schools is constantly changing, we must explain these changes with confidence. Lekha Sharma (2023) reminds us of the importance of the language we use in schools, citing the difference between ‘expectations’ vs ‘non-negotiables’ for example. It’s obviously that our words have meaning, but ensuring we are selecting the right words at the right time is key. When you’re in the thick of HT2, its raining and suspensions are through the roof, it may feel like splitting hairs, but finding time to think about the language used in core messaging is key (and probably best to be planned for the first week back…). Books like Atkin’s The Art of Explanation are a useful way of understanding the art of clear communication, which is central to sense sharing.

Voice

I suppose the simplest way of ensuring that all colleagues understand the core messages is to ask. Whilst chatting to a colleague from another region recently they mentioned that if you were to ask different people in their school what the vision was, you’d get as many different answers as people you asked. This is interesting and did make me wonder… do we ask? A subtle change to the staff voice most schools undertaken anyway would be leaving an open text box asking each member of the school team to outline with the school vision is and what our key priority is for this year.

Reflective Questions:

1. How regularly do you pause and revisit your vision and values as an individual/group?

2. How have you revisited your values as a team recently? When do you plan to do so again in the future?

3. How regularly do you communicate the continuity and change in your school/team vision?

4. How much detail do you go into your use of language when planning your messaging?

5. How do you check with colleagues that your sensemaking has turned into sense receiving?

References

• Crome, S. (2023). The Power of Teams; How to Create and Lead Thriving School Teams. John Catt Publishing.

• Hoyte, C., Noke, H., Mosey, S., & Marlow, S. (2019). From venture idea to venture formation: The role of sensemaking, sensegiving and sense receiving. International Small Business Journal, 37(3), 268-288. https://doi.org/10.1177/0266242618818876

• Johnson, R. (2023). Time to Think; The things that stop us and how to deal with them John Catt Publishing Ltd. .

• Paul, M. (2025) 'Your memory is like a telephone game' Northwestern Now Your Memory is like the Telephone Game - Northwestern Now Accessed: 17/07/25

• Sharma, L. (2023). Building Culture; A handbook to harnessing human nature to create strong school teams John Catt Publishing Ltd.