Bragging rights

I first came across bring and brag when I worked with an RSC scholar, Ryan Ashton, who was my NQT mentor. It’s a very simple premise.

In your week, identify a technique or idea that has worked really well and you think your colleagues should know about. Bring the technique or idea to the weekly department meeting, and brag about it.

What is a brag?

Brags can range from a lightbulb moment and steps you took to support your class in grasping a tricky concept, to having practised something you learned in CPD and how you might have tweaked it to suit a particular class. The important bit is what you did.

An example brag is: ‘I did a rate of reaction practical this week. I got my class to revise resolution by asking them about the resolution of their conical flasks and measuring cylinders. I haven’t done that before. I extended it when we practised with model data by revising range and uncertainty calculations. They struggled with this in a recent assessment. I’m going to do this whenever I do a practical where we use equipment that has a scale. I’ll add in a question about resolution, range and uncertainty to their next assessment to check that I’ve closed the gap.’

Be prepared to bring and brag yourself. Every week. And don’t give up.

This bring and brag is actionable by colleagues and can be measured to see if it’s worked. In this example, it’s still a work-in-progress. I made a note to check in with that colleague in a few weeks and see what the result of the question in their assessment was. Assuming it’s positive, I’ll be asking them to discuss the class test results in a future session. If it was unsuccessful, we can talk about next steps.

How to bring your brags

If you are leading your department meetings and want to give it a try, expect a lot of colleagues to claim they can’t think of anything. Let them know it’s coming and maybe put them on a rota.

Be prepared to bring and brag yourself. Every week. And don’t give up. Even if you feel like you’re pushing against a locked door. Because, six months later, a colleague will bring you their brag privately, and you can start to encourage them to brag during meetings.