Negotiating “non-negotiables”

School leaders might have the right to steer the conversation on what lessons should look like in their schools, but do they have the right to dictate it?

Non-negotiable [noun]

something that must happen or be done, and cannot be changed by discussion:

I don’t want children, and that is a non-negotiable for me in any relationship.

Cambridge Dictionary

Last year, I visited over 20 schools to work on teaching and learning (T&L) and curriculum. In almost all of them, I was told that the school had T&L “non-negotiables”: things that just “must happen” in lessons. Some of these non-negotiables were things that made some sense to me, like teachers standing in the doorway of their classrooms as students came into the classroom. Others were more questionable, like specific numbers of questions in lesson start activities, mandated lesson structures (e.g. I/We/You) or even that all lesson PowerPoints must use the school or trust branded template.

To me, the non-negotiables themselves feel like a secondary issue, and I have a number of concerns with the use of the term itself. While leaders often use the phrase with good intentions - as a way to signal clarity or ensure consistency - it is worth exploring its unintended consequences.

Objection 1: Why are we negotiating, when we could be discussing?

Whilst “negotiate” can have a non-social-interactive sense (e.g. “to negotiate a difficult turn” whilst driving), for most it has connotations of commercial and business dealing. The thing about business deals is that in a very simple sense, they involve two self-interested parties trying to maximise their own position. That doesn’t necessitate anything underhanded, but even in the best-faith negotiations the point of entering into it is to try and get the best deal you can for yourself.

In the business or commercial world, that makes perfect sense. In schools, it doesn’t. When it comes to T&L or curriculum, we shouldn’t have parties with competing interests that need to negotiate to maximise their position. Having teachers stand in the doorway during a lesson start isn’t about leadership “winning” and teachers “losing;” it’s about what’s best for the students. Everyone is supposed to come to the table with exactly the same goal, so the term “negotiate” as opposed to “discuss” or “collaborate” or even “debate” feels like a category error: using the wrong word to describe the situation.

Objection 2: Do we want to create schools where things are not up for discussion?

Another substantive objection is that other than statutory processes like safeguarding, surely everything “can be changed by discussion”? Non-negotiable, by definition, means that a thing is not up for discussion. But why not? What if it doesn’t work? What if someone finds a better way? What if it’s ineffective or unnecessary? Are we so confident in our proclamations that we think they are empirically unassailable?

Perhaps a leader reading this will argue that in their school it’s fine, because colleagues know that everything leaders ask for is for the students’ benefit, or that when leaders say “non-negotiable” they mean “something we want you to do, but you’re always welcome to discuss it with us” or even “something we discussed as a group and then agreed going forward.” It’s certainly possible that people would interpret it that way, but it seems improbable. When you choose a particular word, you can’t expect people to interpret it in a way that is at odds with its literal meaning, or at least you can’t expect them to for long.

Objection 3: Setting leaders up for failure

This relates to the reality of what actually happens in classrooms. If a leader says “a non-negotiable at this school is to stand in the doorway of classrooms”, and then - as happens in many contexts - a good number of teachers don’t stand in their doorways, that leader’s authority is eroded. It fosters a culture where what leaders say doesn’t really matter, and colleagues become accustomed to picking and choosing.

Objection 4: Do this, but why?

A final objection relates to the purpose of it all. If you say to colleagues “be in the doorway of your classrooms at the start of lessons” you aren’t communicating anything to them about why they should be doing it. Of course, you might explain to colleagues in training that we do this to ensure that students are ready to learn, or to be able to warmly greet them or any number of reasons, but the take home forever more is to “stand here.” With the passage of time and the turnover of staff, all that’s left is a directive stripped of meaning.

Objection 5: Words create culture

In light of all of the above, if you choose a word that feels corporatist, clipboardy and overly prescriptive, then you create a school culture that starts to feel that way too. Don’t be surprised when colleagues start to think of the school as somehow bifurcated between “us” and “them.”

If not non-negotiables, then what?

At TTA, we tend to use a different term: “prerequisite.” For example, the head of science might say that “a prerequisite of an effective science lesson start is that teachers stand in the doorway as students are coming into the room.”

This solves a number of problems. To start with, it removes the commercial language and sense of it being a closed issue that is not up for debate. More importantly perhaps, it grounds the activity in a wider context: by calling it a prerequisite you are not saying “do this thing, and if you don’t do this thing you are in trouble,” you are saying “do this thing, and if you don’t do this thing your lesson start will not be effective.” The very idea of it being a “prerequisite” is causative - do this so that.

“Prerequisite” helps us balance our need to clearly communicate the strategies we want people to deploy with our overall desire to not be dictatorial and to convey the meaning and purpose of our policies.

The general question here is why do we do what we do? Do we do things because they are “non-negotiables” demanded by an authority figure, or because they are prerequisite to effective lessons and purposeful learning?

The words we use don’t just describe our schools; they build them. They create social realities and norms - and if we can use better words, we should.