Making it safe(r) to fail in teaching 

By Jade Garratt, Director of Education, Iterum

Years ago, I was lucky enough to teach in an amazing secondary school English department. Teachers’ enthusiasm for developing their practice was infectious and there was a buzz about working there. It was completely acceptable to pop into another teacher’s lesson to see what they were doing, and get a bit of inspiration or advice. In fact, it might have been considered more strange if you didn’t do that. 

It’s fair to say that this is not the case in every school. Although, at its best, teaching can be a collaborative, creative and supportive profession, in too many schools and departments, teachers are so scared of “getting it wrong” that they prefer to keep their classroom door literally and metaphorically closed. All classroom visits, however well-meaning, are seen through the lens of inspection, and therefore assumed to be judgmental and potentially punitive. 

Recently, many teachers and school leaders in England have been speaking out about the damage the inspection system does to teacher wellbeing, psychological safety and ultimately performance. Establishing a culture of psychological safety is difficult when the systems in place appear almost designed to catch you out. But there are approaches, behaviours and practices that can help teachers to feel psychologically safer. This article will explore a couple of these, with a focus on professional development for teachers. We’ll delve into psychological safety in the classroom itself in a future piece.

Encouraging experimentation and learning

On the wall of my old English department’s staff room, alongside the usual school trip photos, certificates and post-its, was a list of ‘teaching challenges’. It was full of creative ideas to incorporate into your lessons – everything from the difficult (don’t say a word for the first 10 minutes of the lesson) to the thought-provoking (share a poem you’ve written yourself) to the wacky (use balloons). When you attempted one you could write your name next to it and cross it off the list, ideally adding a new idea to the bottom. 

It encouraged us to think more creatively about our teaching, coming up with memorable hooks and engaging activities. I realise now, it also made it safer to fail – the challenges were experimental by design, so there was no judgement in returning to the staffroom and sharing how one of the ideas had fallen flat or missed the mark – this was all good learning. Crucially, it helped teaching to feel lighter and more fun, something which I suspect will have had a positive impact on the students we taught too. 

Joint Practice Development

A more formalised way of engaging in some of this creative, collaborative teaching development is a practitioner-led continuing professional development (CPD) practice known as Joint Practice Development (JPD), a term first coined by Fielding et al in 2005 in preference to the then more commonly used “transfer of practice”. There are lots of models of this but the one I’ve used with teachers across the Midlands has a 4 step approach: 

1. Pair up teachers from different schools with similar development aims.
2. Have them collaboratively plan a lesson – they will likely need to tweak the plan to suit their students, but the point is that the lesson plan is a joint endeavour, something they have created together.
3. Each teacher in the pair takes it in turns to teach this lesson in their own context, with the other teacher observing (in real life or remotely using video).
4. After both have taught and observed, they share reflections, feedback and discuss next steps. 

The reason this is so powerful and such a departure from more traditional, top-down models of CPD for teachers is that it’s driven by the teachers themselves, and it’s collaborative. Not only does this mean the teachers can learn from each other, it also makes the observation process feel safer and less threatening. Because they share ownership of the plan, it’s easier for the feedback to be about “the work” rather than “the person.” If one of the pair is more senior or more experienced, it can also reduce the power gradient that may otherwise arise – by experimenting with something new together, both have something to contribute and something to learn. 

A note on investment

For any model of JPD to work, it requires an investment of teacher time, which needs to be funded. Expecting already overloaded teachers to also find time for joint planning, teaching and reflection as well as their “standard” workload is unrealistic. But investing in teachers by giving them time to engage in what is effectively practitioner-led research, is arguably far more empowering than bringing in yet another expensive expert to tell them how to do better, a model of CPD many teachers will be all too familiar with. 

Tackling the Myth of Perfection

Even Ofsted has stopped grading individual lessons, yet the legacy of this practice persists, with many teachers feeling the pressure to make every lesson perfect. Of course this is unrealistic – even a superhero teacher with the “ideal” lesson plan on paper cannot control every aspect of how this plays out. In the real world, a scuffle on the corridor might delay the lesson start, leaky ceilings can interrupt focused writing, or student crises at home might distract them from their learning. Perhaps worse than that though, when you’re striving for consistent perfection, there is no room for experimentation. And when there’s no room to experiment, we play it safe, we follow only the most tried and tested formulae and we miss opportunities to develop and grow. If we’re primarily concerned about not failing, instead of wildly succeeding, we find ourselves slowly descending into safe mediocrity rather than striving for excellence.

This isn’t what we teach our students. We don’t tell them to only write, or revise, or study in one particular way. We encourage them to challenge themselves, step out of their comfort zones and try new things to see what they might learn. We tell them they might be surprised at just how much they are capable of. If we want schools to be true learning organisations, we need to learn how to define what is safe to fail, and then step back and allow for experimentation, failure and learning to become part of the culture. 

References: 

Fielding, M, Bragg, S, Craig, J, Cunningham, I, Eraut, M, Gillinson, S, Horne, M, Robinson, C & Thorp, J, 2005, Factors Influencing the Transfer of Good Practice, Nottingham, DFES Publications 

Sebba J, Kent, P, Tregenza, J, 2012, Joint practice development (JPD) What does the evidence suggest are effective approaches? Nottingham, National College for School Leadership

Further Links:

Psychological Safety Practice Playbook – Education
Psychological Safety in Education, Academia and Teaching
Psychological Safety 22: Education and Teaching
Sir Martyn Oliver has said Ofsted had to ensure high standards but admitted it could also be “far more empathetic”
Teachers and head teachers call for Ofsted to be replaced
78% of all staff experienced at least one behavioural, psychological or physical symptom linked to their work

Psychological Safety in Education Workshops

How do we create psychological safety for students and teachers? Join our upcoming Psychological Safety in Education workshops where we explore what psychological safety is, why it matters and how to build it in schools and educational institutions. These are our first open-enrolment sessions designed specifically for educators and those who work in education. They’re packed with practical tools, strategies, and insights designed to help you foster psychological safety in your educational setting. Whether you’re focused on students or educators, you’ll leave with actionable ideas to implement right away. Choose the workshop that suits your needs, or attend both for a 10% discount. Plus, you’ll receive a certificate, a digital badge, exclusive resources, and access to a private alumni group.

Find out more here.

Psychological Safety in the World

I was lucky enough to be invited on to Marcel Schwantes’ podcast “Love in Action” podcast a while ago on episode 101, and Amy joins Marcel in this episode, for a fabulous discussion on failing, learning and humility.

Here’s a great piece by our community member Jonathan Cohen; Achieving a Successful Patient Safety Program with Implementation of a Harm Reduction Strategy. Jonathan advocates with clarity for a “Just Culture” that balances accountability between individuals and systems, suggesting that we should focus efforts on designing resilient systems rather than eliminating human error. He highlights the need for training anaesthesia professionals in safety science and partnering with safety professionals to understand and improve complex systems, advocating for a shift in focus towards systemic changes that can prevent harm.

This is a wonderful podcast episode of “Space Spiels” with Paige Kaufman, featuring community member Patrick Cates, talking about psychological safety in aerospace. A great episode, featuring the Columbia disaster, and the Air France 2009 disaster that could have been prevented if the junior pilot felt safe speaking up to power. And thanks for the shout out too Patrick! 

I love this piece from another community member, Sarah Powell, who reflects on the ecosystemic and emergent properties of culture in organisations. “Organizational leaders can co-create espoused values and policies, which serve as cultural artifacts. But those leaders also have to walk the walk and talk the talk. What ends up really mattering is what tacit norms, practices, and explicit behaviors emerge. All three are set in motion by top-down and bottom-up mechanisms.“

Only tangentially related to psychological safety, but really interesting, is this piece by Julia Wise on parenting in the eve of AI. Julia reflects on the pace of societal change, and advocates for a parenting approach that emphasises happiness, health, curiosity, and adaptability over traditional career-focused aspirations. She suggests fostering attributes like high self-esteem, optimistic outlook, problem-solving skills, emotional intelligence, and hobbies that bring joy. If we don’t know what the future holds, maybe we can at least maximise our children’s chance of enjoying it.

This week’s poem:

Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman?”

I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal. I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it.

I am as strong as any man that is now. As for intellect, all I can say is, if a woman have a pint, and a man a quart – why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, – for we can’t take more than our pint’ll hold. The poor men seems to be all in confusion, and don’t know what to do.

Why children, if you have woman’s rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won’t be so much trouble. I can’t read, but I can hear. I have heard the Bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well, if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again.

The Lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and the woman who bore him.

Man, where was your part? But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.


This is the version published in the Anti-slavery bugle, June 21, 1851, Page 160. There are actually two rather different versions of this speech, neither of which was actually transcribed when Truth gave it at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention, on May 29, 1851. On May 2, 1863, Frances Gage, a white abolitionist, published an account of Truth’s words in the National Anti-Slavery Standard. In this version, Gage wrote that Truth used the rhetorical question, “Ar’n’t I a Woman?” to point out the discrimination Truth experienced as a Black woman. In later years, this slogan evolved into “Ain’t I a Woman?”, reflecting the belief that as a formerly enslaved woman, Truth would have had a Southern accent. Truth was in fact born into slavery in Ulster County, New York, with the name Isabella Baumfree. She escaped with her daughter in 1826 and chose the name Sojourner Truth. She later successfully sued a slaveowner for custody of her son, becoming the first Black woman to take a white man to court and win.

Truth also facetiously described the predicament of white men, who were “surely between a hawk and a buzzard” with both women and African Americans demanding equality. Truth condemned not only sexism and racism, but also the indifference of her fellow feminists at the time, and her speech is both one of the earliest works of American feminism but also an early example of intersectionality, more than 150 years before it became a well-known term.

Listen to Poet Alice Walker reading the 1851 version of Sojourner Truth’s speech.