replacing my road signs with flowers

I started the day in an unusual way (for me) with a train journey to central London. Needless to say no seats available but I managed to read most of the article about the 'no excuses' approach to behaviour in the TES from 14th Nov 2011 by William Stewart (this was despite the fact it was so crowded on the train that I had to hold the paper right up to my face which caused difficulties because most things need to be read at arm's length nowadays ....).


I then went to day one of a two day conference/CPD on leadership challenges in schools (based largely on state maintained UK schools) facilitated by Prof John West-Burnham (JWB) (day 2 in January 2012).

Interesting stuff and I filled a small notebook with ideas from colleagues there from a range of other schools, and with ideas from the Prof himself. I hope that I do not misrepresent anyone (least of all the speaker) so I put in my usual disclaimer that this is just my 'take' on what was said.

One thing I learned was that there is a road in London where they took away all the road signs and reduced traffic jams and other incidents. I wonder how that contrasts (or otherwise) with the 'no excuses' approach? Well, in some ways it's the same thing because it's about what JWB referred to as 'consensual authoritarianism'. In my school we have the Golden Rule of respect for all - when we can be sure that this rule is the modus operandum of all members of the community all the time, and not just in the classroom - then I will know that our flowers are in bloom (SMSC).

I am sort of working backwards through my thoughts during the day. Oh, and also throwing some thoughts I have been having recently (probably mentioned elsewhere on this blog!) about management and leadership. I think I've written recently something I discussed with a colleague when she asked me what is the difference between management and leadership: for me the difference is that leaders are able (albeit with some difficulty at times) to 'let go': to delegate responsibility and not just tasks. The diagram below is just me thinking out loud - is it right, what do you think?

Referring back to a recent post, I was thinking again about parallel leadership as opposed to sequential leadership and School Improvement Processes as opposed to a School Improvement Plan (who can write plans when things around us change so rapidly? - any thoughts?).

Something that exercises a lot of thought amongst school leaders is how we will demonstrate and evidence leadership capacity for Ofsted? How can we ensure that every member of the school community (teachers, other staff, students, parents, governors) contributes to the leadership of learning, and to the school improvement process? Is everyone on the bus? Do we all know the destination? The route? Is it a bus or a tram - i.e. on rails.

Prof West-Burnham said (hope I've got this right), "Government hands over to professionals and then professionals hand over to the community." Is this actually part of social evolution? ("One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room, it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it can change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world. Your voice can change the world." Barack Obama)

What are the collective moral leadership responsibilities that we face as educators and education leaders? Please comment :-)