County & School Selection and Change Lens Methodology

This Appendix sets out the methodology for:

• selecting the ten founding counties
• selecting one founding school within each county
• ensuring the founding cohort reflects materially different Kenyan education contexts
• completing the One Big Change Change Lens
• identifying school strengths, barriers and implementation priorities
• distinguishing evidence from perception
• protecting schools from inappropriate ranking or comparison
• translating diagnosis into practical action
• using the founding evidence to inform the proposed Year 1 national programme

The methodology is designed to ensure that the founding phase tests the One Big Change model across different operating environments rather than simply selecting ten convenient or high-performing schools.

The ten counties should collectively expose the programme to a broad range of implementation conditions.

Each county should contribute a distinct contextual learning opportunity.

The county framework therefore uses education context, not ethnicity, tribe or political affiliation, as the basis for selection.

An initial working long-list may include:

These counties are proposed for validation. They are not presented as final founding counties until:

• appropriate Kenyan stakeholders have been consulted
• school-access considerations have been assessed
• logistical feasibility has been reviewed
• contextual diversity has been confirmed
• potential founding schools have been assessed

Alternative counties may be substituted where they better meet the founding objectives.

For programme-management purposes, candidate counties may be assessed using a simple internal matrix. Each criterion may receive:

The scoring matrix is a decision-support tool. It is not intended to create a public ranking of counties.

The final decision should combine:

Within each selected county, one founding school will be selected. The school must be capable of participating meaningfully in the entire 90-day programme while contributing useful implementation evidence.

The objective is to select schools that are:

• sufficiently ready to engage
• sufficiently diverse to test the model
• honest about barriers
• able to act on an agreed priority
• willing to gather evidence
• willing to learn with other schools

Eligible schools may then be assessed against the following criteria.

A school may be deferred where:

• leadership commitment cannot be confirmed
• programme participation is likely to create excessive burden
• safeguarding concerns cannot be appropriately managed
• required evidence cannot be accessed ethically
• implementation cannot reasonably occur within the timetable
• participation is being sought primarily for prestige rather than implementation
• the programme would duplicate substantial existing intervention without additional value
• a conflict of interest cannot be appropriately managed

Deferment is not a judgement of school quality. It simply means the school may not be suitable for this particular founding phase.

School selection should involve appropriate consultation but remain sufficiently controlled to protect programme integrity. Potential inputs may come from:

• relevant public institutions
• school networks
• education leaders
• Advisory Committee members
• universities
• local education stakeholders

An introduction does not guarantee selection.

Every proposed school must pass the same readiness and suitability process.

The Change Lens is the core school-level implementation diagnostic used by One Big Change. It is designed to help schools answer:

What is working, what is getting in the way, what matters most now, and what support would make the greatest practical difference?

It is not:

• an inspection framework
• a compliance scorecard
• a league table

It does not replace:

• Government inspection
• curriculum
• assessment
• quality-assurance functions

The Change Lens works through the sequence:

This is the operational heart of the One Big Change model.

For public communication, the framework may also be summarised through four broad pillars:

The detailed ten-domain diagnostic sits underneath these broad public-facing pillars. This allows the programme to communicate simply without oversimplifying the implementation work.

Where practical, a material finding should be supported by more than one source.

For example, a statement that teachers lack confidence in CBA should not rely solely on one leadership interview. Evidence might combine:

• teacher questionnaire
• teacher discussion
• professional-development records
• implementation observation

Triangulation helps distinguish perception from repeated evidence.

The Change Lens will not produce:

• an overall school percentage
• a national ranking
• a county ranking
• a public league table

A school may be strong in one domain and face significant constraints in another. Reducing this to one score would obscure the very information the programme needs.

The Change Lens may identify several barriers. The school should normally select one primary One Big Change priority during the founding phase. The priority should satisfy most of the following conditions:

• important to implementation
• meaningful to the school
• capable of action within the founding period
• measurable
• supported by leadership
• relevant to learners or staff
• capable of producing useful learning
• not already adequately addressed by another intervention
• potentially sustainable
• potentially useful to wider national learning

Every selected priority should translate into an implementation pathway. The pathway should contain:

Where programme-funded resources are required, access to the School Implementation Activation Fund should follow the evidence. The sequence is:

Funding should not precede diagnosis merely because a school requests equipment or services.

Experts follow the same needs-led model. The process should be:

The programme should not import solutions merely because international experts are available.

Change Lens findings feed directly into MicroSummits.

The cross-site analysis should not say:

"County X performs better than County Y."

It should say:

"Across the ten founding contexts, these implementation patterns repeatedly appeared, while these challenges were context-specific."

The focus is implementation learning.

The Change Lens should collect only information reasonably necessary for the agreed implementation purpose. The programme should avoid unnecessary collection of:

• personally identifiable learner data
• health information
• safeguarding information
• special-category data

Where such information is legitimately required, appropriate legal, ethical, safeguarding and data controls must apply. Detailed requirements are contained in Appendix 6 - Risk, Safeguarding, Data Protection & Ethics.

Before finalisation, the school should have an opportunity to:

• review factual information
• correct errors
• provide missing evidence
• challenge unsupported interpretations
• confirm the selected priority

This does not mean the school can remove uncomfortable but well-supported findings merely because it dislikes them. It means the diagnostic should be accurate and fair.

Across the ten schools, the Change Lens should produce:

• one ten-school evidence dataset
• one cross-site implementation analysis
• one common-barrier map
• one contextual-barrier map
• one strong-practice library
• one capability-needs map
• one resource-needs matrix
• one Traction Partner opportunity map
• one potential Hub-readiness picture
• one set of recommendations for Year 1 methodology

The founding programme may also examine whether individual schools show characteristics consistent with future Hub leadership. Possible indicators include:

• stable leadership
• strong implementation ownership
• willingness to support peers
• useful practice to share
• sufficient coordination capacity
• evidence discipline
• positive peer relationships
• commitment to train-the-trainer
• geographic/logistical suitability

Hub identification during the founding phase remains provisional. No school should be promised Hub status simply by participating as a founding school.

The programme may use digital tools to support:

• data collection
• evidence upload
• school dashboards
• progress tracking
• resource matching
• implementation plans
• RAG reporting
• Hub learning
• partner reporting

Technology supports the methodology. It does not replace professional judgement or school conversation.

No recommendation for national scale should rely simply on:

• testimonials
• attendance numbers
• photographs
• stakeholder enthusiasm
• number of meetings
• amount of partner interest

The Decision Gate should examine:

• completed baselines
• implementation actions
• before/after evidence where appropriate
• school-level outcomes
• capability development
• cost
• resource mobilisation
• contextual differences
• implementation failures
• methodological limitations
• sustainability evidence