A shared plan on paper is not always shared practice.

I know this because I have sat in two very different kinds of curriculum planning meetings over my years in teaching.

In one team, someone could look at the planning and say, “I don’t think we can teach all of this well in the time we have.” That comment did not derail the meeting. It started a useful conversation.

We talked about what mattered most and what the Victorian Curriculum actually required. We also considered where students might need more time and what we could actually get rid of. We disagreed at points, but no one had to pretend that the original plan was perfect. By the end, it belonged to all of us because we had shaped it together.

I have also been in planning meetings where the conversation sounded agreeable. Everyone was ‘nice’, but the real discussion happened afterwards. People nodded in the room, then quietly admitted later that they did not understand the plan, did not think it would work or intended to do something different in their own classroom. We left with a shared unit plan on paper but not in practice.

The difference was not the expertise or commitment of the teachers. It was whether people trusted that they could question the plan without being seen as difficult, negative or less capable. Those experiences changed the way I think about trust in teams. Sometimes trust is visible in something as ordinary as whether a teacher can say, “I don’t think this will work for our students,” and know that the conversation will remain curious rather than defensive.

A small leadership practice I have found useful is to resist defending my position, explaining the plan and its research base or closing down the conversation when someone questions it.

Even when I feel uncomfortable, I try to pause and make space for others to ask questions to get clarity, poke holes in the idea and discuss possible changes and solutions. It helps me to see what I might be missing.

The plan might take a little longer to develop, but we are far more likely to leave with something people understand, believe in and will actually use.

Reflection question: Where do you make opportunities to allow others to safely ask questions and discuss options?