Appreciative inquiry – Why and how to embed it in school
Leaders will often prioritise fixing negatives – but for more meaningful school improvement, we should also examine what’s working well…
During the 1980s, academics focused on leadership in the United States established the ‘appreciative inquiry framework’. This sought to identify and build on strengths, rather than focus on negatives.
In the years since, this leadership paradigm has increasingly found a place in school improvement. It’s an approach that’s empowering, ethical and sustainable.
What is appreciative inquiry?
At a time when leaders are often under intense scrutiny, discussions around school improvement can quickly become deficit-focused, highlighting those areas that are lacking. This is rather than celebrating what’s working well.
Appreciative inquiry offers an alternative approach to change that is collaborative. It’s centred on identifying the ‘positive core’ of a school and enhancing its impact.
It’s an approach that seeks to explore past successes and existing strengths. This is in order to create a vision for the future.
Appreciative inquiry is underpinned by the belief that organisations grow in the direction of what they study and talk about.
If schools spend all their energy focusing only on problems, they can risk becoming disheartened or reactive. In turn, this creates a culture of blame as leaders search for answers with increasing frustration.
However, when teachers and leaders engage in dialogue about what is working and why, it can foster a culture of hope, creativity and collective responsibility.
This isn’t a ‘soft’ or ‘naive’ approach. It’s a rigorous and structured framework for enabling change that harnesses the power of positive thinking, shared experiences and collaborative visioning.
It avoids the dangers inherent within a change process driven mainly by coercion or manipulation. Instead, it focuses on those elements that can be observed when a school community is at its best.
It can inspire meaningful, sustainable improvement that builds on the strengths of all involved.
Advantages of appreciative inquiry
There are many advantages to adopting appreciative inquiry as a model for school improvement. One key benefit is how it can facilitate the building of trust and ownership among staff.
Traditional, top-down models of change can often lead to resistance or apathy. A fundamental tenet of appreciative inquiry is that all voices are valued. That’s everyone from teachers and support staff, through to students and parents.
It acknowledges that those closest to the work often have the most valuable insights into precisely what works and why.
For instance, providing opportunities for collaboration and observing practice outside of a classroom or faculty may lead to more frequent conversations and the sharing of good practice. Both of these can often be overlooked in typical school structures.
The benefits of this collaborative process go beyond purely pedagogical benefits, to providing practical and emotional support for teachers, reducing stress and providing affirmation as professionals.
Appreciative inquiry closely aligns with what we know about effective professional development. It encourages reflective dialogue, shared problem-solving and the recognition of expertise already present within the school.
A school will be more effective when good practice is shared and utilised in a more consistent way. Utilising the expert teachers already within a school will help to support any improvement efforts by building on that school’s existing strengths.
This approach can also remove dependency on a small number of teachers and foster a culture of shared excellence, thus making it a more cost-effective way of supplementing a professional development programme.
Cultivating excellence
A further benefit of appreciative inquiry is its promotion of sustainable, values-driven change.
Narrative is important in schools. Using appreciative inquiry can help shift your own narrative from one of ‘fixing underperformance’ to one of ‘cultivating excellence’.
For teachers, this can have a significant impact on their motivation and how valued they feel. It promotes a developmental approach, rather than one in which ‘accountability’ becomes synonymous with ‘culpability’.
Amid times of change – whether responding to inspection feedback, rethinking curriculums or improving student outcomes – appreciative inquiry can be a constructive and empowering model.
Finally, at a time when rates of teacher burnout remain at record highs, appreciative inquiry offers a solution to the persistent issues of demoralisation and apathy.
Centring professional conversations on ‘value’, ‘contribution’ and ‘collaboration’ helps foster a sense of purpose and belonging.
When staff feel recognised for their strengths, and can see themselves as part of shaping change, their levels of motivation and commitment to the school – both factors closely linked to teacher retention – will often increase.
This also aligns with broader goals around equity and representation, where shared ownership of improvement can reveal hidden strengths in school communities.
And yet, while appreciative inquiry promotes positivity, it mustn’t be misused to mask genuine issues or avoid having difficult conversations.
The strength of the approach lies in how it reframes problems as opportunities for growth, but it certainly shouldn’t become a mechanism for denial or complacency.
Build and enhance
For appreciative inquiry to be truly effective, it ought to be paired with rigorous evaluation and a commitment to honest reflection.
This will ensure that any identified challenges aren’t ignored, but rather explored through a lens of possibility, empowering stakeholders to address them constructively within a strengths-based dialogue.
Appreciative inquiry is fast becoming a core feature of forward-thinking approaches to school improvement – most notably the Laboratory Schools movement.
Far from disempowering staff, it celebrates the various strengths that all practitioners bring to the workplace. In doing so, it builds and enhances, adding to what’s already there, rather than diminishing and disengaging staff.
It offers a sustainable and ethical approach to school improvement – one which can make staff and students alike become more active participants within their learning communities.
How to embed appreciative inquiry
Train staff, build awareness
At a whole school session, introduce the appreciative inquiry framework to staff. Then have colleagues question each other about what their best day at the school was and why, and what conditions needed to be in place to make that best day possible.
Create opportunities to celebrate success
Try opening future staff meeting with colleagues by sharing success stories. You could also create platforms for parents to share their own positives when visiting the school for parents’ evenings, and provide a facility for doing this via email or other electronic means.
Review performance reviews
Change the purpose and methodology of your performance management process away from just identifying deficits, to also exploring what’s working well and how existing strengths can be built on.
Centre appreciative inquiry
Rather than having your central school improvement efforts focus on looking for negatives, try identifying any particular areas where the school has grown, or find out what’s energising the school at that particular moment.
Consider the student experience
Communicate the appreciative inquiry framework to your students, then provide curriculum opportunities for them to reflect upon themselves and identify strengths that they can develop further.
Professor Geoff Baker is a professor of education and Craig Lomas is a senior lecturer in education, both at the University of Bolton. They are both former senior secondary school leaders.
