Greenaway's Three-Stage Model
Greenaway in one page
Three steps in a cycle:
- Plan: recognise an opportunity and plan a change
- Do: have an experience; run the change
- Review: analyse the results, identify what was learned, plan new improvements
Why teachers use it
- Easy to apply
- Grounded in everyday practice
- Not time-consuming
- Can be the foundation for more complex models
- Fits many parts of the teacher’s role
When to use it
- As a model for continuous improvement
- Starting a new class
- Developing a new approach
- Defining a repetitive work process
- Implementing any change
The reflective practice models that get used most are not the most detailed ones. They are the ones a teacher can actually run on a Wednesday afternoon between two classes. Roger Greenaway’s three-stage model, published in 1995, is one of these. Three steps, in a cycle. Plan, do, review.
The three steps
Greenaway’s plan-do-review framing is simple enough to fit on a sticky note.
Do: have an experience
The teaching session, the activity, the meeting with a parent. The doing is the experience that the rest of the cycle works on.
Review: review what happened and what can be learned
After the experience, the teacher looks back. What worked? What did not? What does this suggest about the next round?
The review stage is where the cycle either deepens or stays at the surface. A quick “that went okay” is a review only in name. A few minutes spent naming what specifically worked and why is the real review.
Plan: plan a way to approach the next round
The result of the review feeds the plan. The plan is the place where what was learned turns into a different approach next time.
A common framing of the cycle reorders the steps as plan-do-review, since the plan often comes first when starting something new. The cycle remains the same.
The plan-do-review procedure
Greenaway’s cycle, written out a little more fully, has a working procedure for each step.
Plan
- Recognise an opportunity to do something differently or better
- Decide what change to make
- Decide how to know whether it worked
Do
Run the planned change in the classroom or the work setting. Treat the doing as a small test, not a final answer.
Review
Analyse the results. Identify what was learned. Use what was learned to plan new improvements, beginning the cycle again.
The cycle does not stop. Each review feeds the next plan. Over a term, this produces a slow but compounding improvement in practice.
Questions to ask at the planning stage
A planning step done well asks a few specific questions before any change is made.
- What data tells me a change is needed?
- What change is going to be made?
- How do I know the planned change is appropriate? What other options are there?
- What sequence of steps is needed to put this change in place?
- Who will be responsible for each step?
- Who needs to be consulted?
- Who will the change affect?
- How long will the change take?
A teacher who skips these questions and goes straight from “this is not working” to “I will try something new” often picks the first idea that comes to mind. Stopping for the planning questions widens the choice.
Why Greenaway’s model fits busy teaching
Greenaway’s model has practical strengths that explain why it shows up so often in working schools.
Easy to apply
Three steps fit on a small card. A teacher can run the cycle without reaching for a textbook.
Grounded in everyday practice
The model maps onto what teachers already do, more or less. It adds discipline to existing habits rather than introducing a new framework.
Not time-consuming
The full cycle can run in fifteen minutes of focused thinking after a lesson. Longer is often better, but the minimum is small.
Foundation for more complex models
Plan-do-review is the underlying shape inside Kolb’s four-stage cycle, Gibbs’s six-stage cycle, and most action research designs. A teacher who runs Greenaway well can move to a more detailed model later without having to learn a new shape.
Wide application
The model fits many parts of a teacher’s role. Lesson design. Parent meetings. Department planning. Course-wide changes. Any setting where a change is being tested benefits from a plan-do-review structure.
It is small enough to actually use, and it is the underlying shape of more detailed models
Three steps fit on a card. The cycle can run in fifteen minutes. The same shape sits inside Kolb, Gibbs, Johns, and most action research models. A teacher who builds the habit of plan-do-review can move to a more detailed cycle later without unlearning the basic discipline.
When to reach for the cycle
Plan-do-review fits a wide range of moments in a teacher’s year.
- Starting a new class. Plan how to open. Do the first two weeks. Review what worked.
- Developing a new or improved approach. Plan the change. Do a short trial. Review and refine.
- Defining a repetitive work process. Plan the steps. Do the work. Review whether the steps need changing.
- Planning data collection. Plan what to record. Do the recording. Review what the data shows about which problems matter most.
- Implementing any change. A change without a plan-do-review structure tends to revert to the old way within weeks.
The cycle is not a magic process. It is a way of building the habit of treating practice as testable, not fixed.