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 :-)

Building capability

I recently went to a workshop on sustainable leadership run by Prof Brent Davies. I hope he will not mind my brief bit of thinking out loud which came out of my personal reflection following that day. I begin with a couple of points made by Prof Davies on the day, the following numbered points are my 'version'. Please remember that I have used his ideas here but have not necessarily repeated verbatim.

“A strategically focused school is one that is educationally effective in the short-term but has a clear framework and processes to translate core moral purpose and vision into excellent educational provision that is challenging and sustainable in the medium- to long-term.”


Rationale: enduring success; 85% of strategic plans fail because things change before you get there; we need to move away from sequential leadership towards parallel leadership. We need to get all members of the school community thinking strategically (note: thinking not necessarily writing-it-down).

Some key ideas for moving from Good to Outstanding …….

1. Identify where intervention is needed then outline clearly why, what, where, with whom and why --- consistency across classrooms, consistency in middle leaders’ approaches. How do we discourage compartmentalised thinking and encourage whole school perspectives?

2. Building capacity … letting go: delegating responsibility not tasks. Sustainability is “the ability of individuals and schools to continue to improve to meet new challenges and complexity in a way that does not damage individuals or the wider community but builds capacity and capability for the benefit of all.”

3. Reflecting on the organisation: should we set reading activities for leaders between meetings  and should all teams be having one meeting per term which is purely reflective/strategic? Consider structure of meetings … model what we want

4. Develop a culture of engagement in strategic discussion/debate. We should be using invitational language when we speak to staff, students, parents, governors, community – ‘join us on the learning journey’
5. School Improvement Process (not necessarily Plan) – this needs to be strongly tied to Performance Management and CPD (Davies' example: ask each team to produce 1 side of A4 ‘where are we now’ and 1 side ‘where should we be in 3 to 5 years time’ – this is a process not an action plan, to get people thinking strategically). If you asked any member of staff, “what are you doing this week and/or next week to contribute to the SIP?” would you get consistent answers?

6. Think carefully about recruitment and development of leaders at all levels. What demonstrates the potential for leadership? Some ideas from Davies included: ability to reflect on yourself, passion, courage – see it = do something about it, confidence and credibility, see the big picture, mastering the basics of their role quickly and look for more, don’t look the other way or walk past incidents, initiative and self-motivation, intellectual curiosity, resilience and empathy.

Thinking out loud

As usual, something sparks my day dreaming about education and here we go again.....

This time it was Steve Joyce on Undercover Boss USA  ----

Well I work in an organisation of only about 1000 or so people and everyone knows me so I could not go 'undercover' but I wonder how I would fare as any one of the following (even for an hour let alone a day):

- receptionist
- student services
- exams analysis officer
- PA
- site staff
- finance
- school business manager
- catering
- or even ..... a classroom teacher with a full teaching load!

Makes you think doesn't it? I have got to my job through a teaching route and nowadays I dabble with all of the above through liaising, line management etc. BUT could I do the job?

Of course there are some things here that I just don't have the knowledge or skills for and because there is only one person doing some of them I would slow them down and hinder them so much that even shadowing for a day is not practical.

So how could I pay forward some of the great contributions that they make? Do they know they are valued?

Food for thought again .....

(PS thanks to the colleague who gave me a great card today that reminded me yet again that we are never alone when we work as a real team.)