Whose Friend Are You?

If the learner is supposed to retain ownership, whose purposes is the critical friend actually serving?

The question becomes more tangible when someone invites a colleague into a classroom. What have they invited that person to do? Who gets to decide whether the visit has been useful?

In Farrell’s (2001) account, a teacher in Singapore initiated the inquiry, chose the lessons and methods of reflection, and authenticated his interpretations. She wanted another perspective on her teaching. Farrell also had a purpose: developing his understanding as a researcher.

Ownership here had practical expressions. The teacher helped determine what would be examined and had a part in checking the account made of it. Two people could gain from the work without having identical reasons for taking part.

But an invitation does not settle every question about authority. A passage retained under MacBeath’s (1998) name, attributed to page 119, suggests that a critical friend’s effectiveness may depend on “whose friend you are seen to be”.

Seen to be asks something beyond good intentions. The person offering help may understand their loyalty one way while those receiving it understand it differently. A school leader’s trusted adviser might be encountered by a teacher as someone representing the leadership. The same question could sound different depending on who seems to stand behind it.

This also makes the word learner less simple. When the work concerns a whole school, whose learning gives the relationship its direction? The headteacher’s, a colleague’s, the staff’s? And where are the pupils whose learning the work is meant to serve? Individual ownership cannot by itself settle these shared responsibilities.

The folder retains a distinction from Swaffield and MacBeath (2005, p. 249). Voluntary self-evaluation for improvement gives the critical friend considerable room to work. When self-evaluation is required and subject to external inspection, the role becomes more political and the stakes increase.

Both arrangements may use the language of support and improvement. Yet the freedom to choose a question differs from the responsibility to answer one already set. Who defines success—and can that definition itself be questioned?

Reporting brings those differences into the relationship. Swaffield’s study of School Improvement Partners (2015) examined headteachers’ experiences of a national programme in England. Its publisher abstract reports varied experiences, influenced by partners’ expertise and conduct. It also identifies tensions between trust and the requirement to report to local authorities and governors, alongside concern that the prescribed agenda concentrated too heavily on data rather than learning and teaching.

Who receives the account is part of what the conversation is for. A headteacher considering what to disclose must also consider where that disclosure may travel. Asking for more trust leaves that reporting responsibility in place.

Swaffield leaves two readings available: an entitlement to support and challenge, or a means of surveillance and discipline. The former deserves attention. An institution can make help available; accountability need not be a concealed intention. The difficulty lies in understanding how these purposes meet, and who can negotiate their terms.

There is resistance to an easy verdict elsewhere in the folder. Wright and Adam (2015) describe a new secondary school in New Zealand where critical friendship was encouraged by leaders and carried an appraisal responsibility. A newly appointed teacher was the principal’s critical friend. Authority itself could be opened to scrutiny.

Their exploratory case also involved recruitment for alignment with the school’s vision. This gives us a more difficult possibility: shared institutional purpose may help people examine their practice while still setting boundaries around what they are working towards. How much room is there to question the purpose itself?

One school cannot settle that question. It does, however, make it harder to assume that appraisal and critical friendship cannot coexist. Nor can we infer from their coexistence that every participant experienced equal freedom to dissent.

These accounts suggest that critical friendship is shaped partly by the arrangement around it. They do not establish that institutional design matters more than personal judgement. But they leave us with questions that goodwill alone cannot answer: who owns the question, who authorises the challenge, and who ultimately judges the work? Calling someone a critical friend does not tell us how those responsibilities are shared.

And choosing the arrangement leaves work to do. Returning to Farrell, the teacher’s control had not meant an explicit agreement about the visitor’s role. Negotiation was a recommendation emerging from his reflection on the experience. Permission to participate had not made the relationship straightforward.

Even when people agree what the relationship is for, how do they actually learn to challenge one another well?

References

Farrell, T.S.C. (2001) ‘Critical friendships: colleagues helping each other develop’, ELT Journal, 55(4), pp. 368–374. doi:10.1093/elt/55.4.368.

MacBeath, J. (1998) ‘“I didn’t know he was ill”: The role and value of the critical friend’, in Stoll, L. and Myers, K. (eds.) No Quick Fixes: Perspectives on Schools in Difficulty. London: Falmer Press. Passage consulted through Critical Friend Literature, attributed there to p. 119. A Google Books record is available for a later reissue; the original chapter page remains uninspected.

Swaffield, S. and MacBeath, J. (2005) ‘School self-evaluation and the role of a critical friend’, Cambridge Journal of Education, 35(2), pp. 239–252. doi:10.1080/03057640500147037. Passage consulted through Critical Friend Literature, p. 249.

Swaffield, S. (2015) ‘Support and challenge for school leaders: Headteachers’ perceptions of school improvement partners’, Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 43(1), pp. 61–76. doi:10.1177/1741143213494884. Publisher abstract consulted.

Wright, N. and Adam, A. (2015) ‘The “critical friend” role in fostering reflective practices and developing staff cohesion: A case study in a new secondary school, New Zealand’, School Leadership & Management, 35(4), pp. 441–457. doi:10.1080/13632434.2015.1070821.