CADAP 2016 - If I knew then what I know now ...Linda Tame

Linda Tame, ex Principal Lincoln High School, MoE consultant. 

Some things to think about - 

1 Know yourself ( and how your team works) 

2 Relational Trust 

3 Strengths  based approach 

4 Other observations 

1 What's my way of operating?  - many models to choose from. What process do you use to understand your behaviour? 

 Eg Hermann Brain Model 

Important to know how the people in your team 'ticks'. Cheryl Doig as an evaluator if this. Need to put time aside for this. 

Why am I senior leader? What is your moral imperative? 

 'it's about us changing not the students changing?' 

2 Relational Trust  (Vivianne Robinson) 

Don't just expect it happen! 

Deliberate strategies can be used to build trust - chaos if no 'genuine' trust! 

Interpersonal Respect 

- genuinely listen - challenging 

- not allowing inappropriate behaviours - eg behaviour at staff meeting/ student interface 

- valuing people's professional work 

- actually have system to value what the staff do

Personal regard for others

- the class for senior leaders are the teachers!  

There needs to be a DELIBERATE drive to build relational trust. 

The only way you know how you're going is to get anonymous feedback, at least once a year. Essential. 

Perception is reality! It may or may not be true, but the perception is there. So acting on this is essential. 

You need to have relational trust in the bank when things go wrong! We are all going to make mistakes, but we need relational trust to get through. 

3 Strengths based approach 

- believe that we all want the best for the students 

- all have positive intentions 

- let's look at what is working well - and do this deliberately 

Great quote - we tend to focus on the wrong

4 Other observations 

- who do you talk to about the big things at work - it's quite lonely for a Principal 

- we need to manage up, as well as manage down 

 

CADAP2016 - if I knew then, what I know now! - Neil Hayward

16 months into the job - what have I learnt? 

Not much would have prepared me for the role! 

Management vs Leadership - how do you keep the balance between leading and managing? 

Be brave - can I have the difficult conversations? 

1st Challenge - building relational trust - how do we go about this? 

- be seen 

- show that you care - look after them 'RHS' family

- be on top of the portfolio ASAP

- staff assume you know everything admit that you don't know everything - and that mistakes are made from learning 

 Relational Trust 

- respect everyone's role 

- listen

- have competence 

- act with integrity 

Establish the Priorities 

- what are the priorities - what is the current vision? 

- individual 15 mins with every staff member - what do you like, where do you want to be? 

- being visible

- get involved 

- open transparent communication 

What is 'part of the furniture' here? 

Building the Team 

- loyal

- supportive 

- believe in the vision 

5 Dimensions of Leadership 

Goals

- simple

- manageable 

Resourcing Strategically 

- who I employ vs who I have to work with that's existing staff?

- are meetings the right meetings? 

Ensuring quality teaching 

Leading Teacher Learning and development

- focus on teacher inquiry 

Ensuring a safe and orderly environment 

- protect teacher time 

Change Management - biggest challenge

Kotter's 8 steps of Change

The MindLab Session 8 - Leading Change and Robotics

This week session is focussing on school transformation and leading change. The practical part of this session focuses on robotics. 

Practical activity - Robotics 

Arduino - a basic robotic micro-controller board - much cheaper than Lego robotics 

MBlock programme similar to Scratch programming -  easier to use - well that's what we were told. 

My robot time - 

Input - infra red sensors 

Outputs - motors 

Totally out of my comfort zone of knowledge here!!!!

Aim to programme the robot to follow the black line and stay inside the box! 

My brain is fried already!!

Apparently it's important to always highlight end before you go to the next command - they need to be mashed together every time you change the programme. 

I hope someone else in my group is following this!!

Reflection - thank goodness the other two in my group knew about coding! Very happy for them to take over leadership because they had the knowledge!! 

Now try to think this to leadership theory! Each situation might need a different leadership theory and style. 

School Transformation 

How do we ensure education evolves to reflect the needs of today and tomorrow? 

What does this mean for us in practice? 

- regularly reviewing things like vision 

- broadening our view 

- how do we make those changes in our school 

- how do we get that 'leadership lens' into our schools - and become a thought leader 

Self review - why do you teach? What do you stand for? What do you hope to achieve as an educator? 

Social media has opened our world to views that we may not have ever looked at before - different world views and educational viewpoints. 

Ramsay Musullam 

This video on sparking student learning is underpinned by ideas of student centred learning, personalsation and differentiation - not all students being on the same page at the same time. Inquiry over content. 

I liked his final statement - new paradigm - cultivators of curiosity  - rather than delivery of content. 

https://www.ted.com/talks/ramsey_musallam_3_rules_to_spark_learning?language=en

Educational Philosophy 
What is an educational philosophy? 

What is my personal educational philosophy? 

Draw a concept map of your own educational philosophy that analyses the political, social, philosophical and economic assumptions that underpin that philosophy. 

Quite like this set of questions - http://www.edulink.org/portfolio/philosophies.htm
to help frame a philosophy statement. 

Leading Change 

Change management - change does not happen in a vacuum
It happens in the context of 
- multiple stakeholders (who are they in education?)
- strategies (what is your school's strategic vision?)
- evidence (how do you find the evidence to support and monitor change?) What evidence do I need to gather and how do I gather it??
How do I know whether my change is successful? What are the measurable outcomes.

How do we communicate change to our school community?

This particularly relevant at the moment - considering that our most recent community consultation only 5% of the community responded!! 

Seemed like a long session today!!

Features of Leadership

This is a fabulous list of aspirational descriptors of leadership - I'm thinking that for my appraisal work, I will create a table of these for staff to comment against - I'm sure that I can get them to align to the RTCs - project on the way!!

Mike Ardagh - Leadership by Accident and Emergency - CADAP - 2014 - Hanmer Springs

Research into the effect of seismic events ,

Leadership is easy and successful if - 

Planned

Practiced

Clear roles

Structured

Skilled team

What if.....,? 

What if it is a crisis and a decision is required?

Other leadership qualities help 

- decision making - situation awareness ; clarity of thought ; decisiveness 

- communication - clear and not questioned

- creates followership

Stages of change 

Victim

Anger

Acceptance

If leadership requires followership, follower ship requires trust ergo leaders must be trustworthy.

Other qualities 

- respect

- trust

- decisive

- collaborative

- authoritative

Clearly defined lines or hierarchy of leadership essential in crisis situation.

 

Clear decisive leadership - well communicated. 

Post disaster mental health psychological well being - initially  higher after event - gets worse 3 years post event - but after 5 years better off than pre event baseline data. 

Dr Stuart Middleton - Keynote 1 - CADAP - 2014 - Hanmer Springs

Slightly different feel to edchatNZ#

Opening Keynote - Dr Stuart Middleton 

Leading for a change or same old?

'enormous respect for the DP and AP group - still connected to the school and students'

Key Questions -:

What was the role of leadership?

What could be the role of leadership?

How would you use these solutions ?

Never be surprised at who could become a leader!

The promise of the dream if education since 1877 - on their first day at school - the life education would open for you! 

Do we still fulfil that promise? 

The value of education to prepare you for the world YOU 

Management and leaderships are not the same thing

Management -systems and organisation

Leadership - inspire and nurture and enhance

Peter Drucker - management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right thing

Personal values have to underpin leader - cannot have two sets of values.

What are your values as a person - can you stand up and say this is how they are visible on my work?

Seven tasks of leadership

1 personal values reflected in your values as a leader

2 lead others in changing lives - not just results driven - cultural values - you don't know the impact you are having - 'serendipitous interventions' !! - liking that phrase !!

3 trust intuition and feelings - my gut instinct is to ......do something about it - ask the question 'what do you think you should do?' 'What's the benefit?' - then do it!!! Don't hand it over and then expect it done the way YOU want!! A decision is not made just because something is handed on.

4 take a risk and be entrepreneurial

 - but don't go in unprepared - have time to reflect BEFORE the intervention not just after - can't have one level of intensity for every aspect of the job - risk is at the heart of leadership

- risk and opportunity different side of 

same coin!!!

5 focus on big picture - 

6 change manage - take risks and accept mistakes - 'do you end up in a different space?' - you have to accept the mistakes that others make?

-what's the damage?

- how do we recover?

-how do we ensure it doesn't happen again?

We stubbornly hang onto the 'dead horse' - many metaphors around this !!

In society most things have you changed - banking; stock exchange; business

However for many education is frozen in time!!!

MIT Tertiary School - history and research - check it out here -

https://www.manukau.ac.nz/about/our-faculties/school-of-secondary-tertiary-studies

Worldwide trends in education - disengagement; early exit ......

Western structures - underlying issues?

Why is age 14 crucial moment?

Collaboratively working with local high schools - looking at targeting Yr 10s who are likely to become alienated

Tertiary site - early access to vocational training - Level 2 NCEA minimum.

'In school but not at school'

http://i.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/manukau-courier/8263494/Tertiary-High-changes-lives

Why the need for a target group? 

- despite many funded interventions there had been no change for the target students - priority learners - 1st in family at a Tertiary Institution. 

Fact - if you can one member of a family through tertiary, it can change a family.

'Pursue the idea that a good idea can ot be beaten by a better idea  - what's your idea?????'

Blurring and ignoring sector boundaries - interests of students are paramount - strong vision, strategy and plan.

Transitions

All transitions are problematic - major points of 'leakage'. The need to blur the lines between transitions. 

We need to manage these - regard for what's gone on before and what is to come. 

Transitions need to be categorised by choice. 

Disengagement

- made possible by school structures

- it is a process

- family partnerships crucial

Factors of disengagement do not develop at an even rate - need to identify what is the factor that is leading to disengagement .

Different factors require different rates of intervention.

Disengagement chart - factors, levels  and interventions.