Tag Archives: Teacher Leadership

The Power of Relationships⤴

from @ EduBlether

You know those children that take your breath away? The children who keep you up at night with thoughts of exactly what else you can do to help them. The sort of children who require constant curiosity to unpick and unravel their unpredictable behaviour. The children who no matter what you do, and what you try, they refuse to conform to a system that is not designed for them. I’ve been thinking a lot about those children recently.

Every teacher has worked with these children. Every person working in education has a story of a child that they can’t forget after many years have passed. We have all felt the frustration of believing we are failing a child because, despite all the effort and energy, we still haven’t cracked the puzzle of the individual and unique range of needs this child has.

This post is a celebration and recognition of those children first and foremost, but also of the team of dedicated and incredibly resilient professionals who have worked tirelessly to help these children. In the time I have been teaching and working in schools I have had the absolute pleasure and joy of working with so many children whom, for whatever reason, do not fit the traditional mould of schooling. So many children who have required a creative, flexible and alternative approach to achieve progress, success and flourishment. And the successes I have observed are incredible. Heartwarming. Life-changing.

The key to every single element of success I have ever experienced with children facing challenges like this, is relationships. Strong, meaningful and at times irrational relationships. The teachers and support staff and other professionals I have worked with who have invested heavily in these relationships have made the difference. Tireless in the pursuit of helping that particular child feel more safe, more valued, more loved.

Relationships are the keystone in the bridge between these children and them feeling like they belong. Professionals who are dedicated above all else to making the child in front of them feel loved and cared for. Someone who is willing to look past the rigid and inflexible pursuit of conformity and to see that child for who they truly are; a fellow human with their own outlook and perspective of the world. From my experience, with the gifted and incredibly talented staff I have had the pleasure of working with, it is this that makes the difference beyond anything else. When you boil it down, taking away all the strategies, interventions and different approaches, what you are left with is an adult who cares enough to care.

That adult who believes in relationships is not weak. They are not simply allowing the child to do what they like. No. Because they care so much, they are relentless in their approach to helping that child do better. They are dogged in their attempts to make that child succeed despite the challenges they face. I get frustrated when I hear a focus on relationships described as a “soft” approach. It’s the hardest thing I have ever been a part of. It would be easy to let a child do what they like and not hold them to account. It would be soft to give out high fives when being met with flying chairs.

But any teacher who has ever invested in relationships knows that in order to build meaningful relationships with children like this, the key lies in unwaveringly high expectations. Difficult conversations, consequences and accountability are a hugely significant aspect of relational practice. But these are far more powerful If that child knows that you care about them, and are holding them to account because you care too much about them to allow them to fail. These practices have much more impact if they run alongside a huge level of support, where the professionals change their practices and adapt approaches to ensure that they can better meet the needs of the child they are working with. High levels of support crossing over with high levels of expectation and challenge is where you build strong and purposeful relationships that lead to a child facing significant challenges beginning to realise their potential.
As well as the child beginning to flourish I believe that relationships also come with a significant reward for the professionals involved. I say this from personal experience. My understanding of fairness and respect has been altered by my interactions with these children. I am more aware of the impact of my decisions and the unequal amount of power I have as the professional adult in these relationships. I have a better awareness of the lived experience of children who have faced unimaginable challenges, and this has fuelled a passionate desire to create a more inclusive and understanding school and education system for them. I have laughed, cried and created memories I will cherish forever with these children. In short, my life has been changed for the better by the relationships I have formed with these truly amazing, incredible and breathtaking children, and by working alongside some truly inspirational colleagues in the pursuit of something great.

Professional Learning: Never been better?⤴

from

Through the Into Headship programme, I was fortunate enough to listen to Gayle Gorman at one of our national conferences. She spoke passionately about taking the politics out of education in what can be seen in her quote below.

Move from a politically driven to a professionally led system.

Gayle Gorman, HMIe Chief Inspector, Education Scotland (April 2018)It made me consider the importance and value of professional learning and the huge potential we have already within our education system. And made me reflect on there never has been a better time in Scottish education for professional learning.

Professional learning is at the heart of the GTCS Standards, enshrined in How Good is Our School? 4 and a key feature of professional practice across Scotland.

National Model for Professional Learning

In light of our recent move to the online world, it is now time to reflect on the professional learning opportunities available to all in Scottish education and beyond. Arguably, the way in which we engage with our learning will change as a result of organisations, charities, Education Scotland and local authorities adapting to this new world. Will we ever attend a course in person again? Probably. However, we may experience a wider range of opportunities as people are now comfortable with attending online lectures and conferences. It may in fact open up more opportunities where previously people were unable to attend.

With a five yearly focus on Professional Update and an annual review process encouraging all teachers to reflect on their learning, I do feel like we are in a good position. However, is it tokenism and does this help with our drive for high quality learning and teaching? That is a question teachers will need to reflect upon individually, however I think it does and believe that high quality PRDs link in with school improvement which in turn impacts on pupils learning.

I would argue that there is an increasing shift away from attending a course. We now have podcasts and blogs being developed at pace right across the education system. There are also pop events and conference organised by and for teachers. It is encouraging to see this organic movement but does beg the question what the formal organisations responsible for the delivery of professional learning are doing about it. For example, the recent change to the Scottish learning festival which will now be organised by the professional learning and leadership directorate instead of the wider education Scotland. And what about the role of local authorities? Teachers are professionals and are more than skilled and capable to collaborate themselves however are they being failed by the wider formal structures which should be providing a service? I’ll let you comment on that!

The focus on leadership development has also been a key focus, and remains so. With the development of the framework for leadership and the many online learning modules created to support the different categories:

Professional learning

School leadership

System leadership

Middle leadership

Teacher leaderhsip

I do think we are now at a stage where our professional learning opportunities are excellent in terms of the choice and breadth, however we do now need to consider the depth and quality of professional learning. Perhaps this is where we need to consider again a masters level approach so that each professional learning engagement is supported by a university and contributes towards something like a qualification. This would help bring coherence to our overloaded system and also support the idea of high quality in depth learning.

Lastly, we need to recognise the potential knowledge and experience within our schools, universities and local authorities as it currently stands. Each school could have specialisms which they could share their experiences in which may foster greater collaboration. We need to reduce our reliance on courses which are paid for. The reason for this is that as budgets tighten then fewer people can benefit from this and I believe we don’t always have the quality when CPD companies churn out another course with little consideration for the person attending. If we had a greater collaborative culture across schools where we could regularly share in our own in-house developed programmes, this would reduce the competition aspect within education.

Therefore, I believe we have many opportunities in the years ahead and that there has never been a better time to engage in professional learning in Scottish education.

I’ll leave you with a few questions:

1. What is needed to ensure every teacher values their own learning just as much as the learning of the young people?

2. How do we ensure effective collaboration to build upon the organic movement already taking place? Do we need organisations like Education Scotland and local authorities to fulfil the role of professional learning or is this up to individuals?

Please feel free to comment underneath the post on twitter.

Episode 25 – An EduBlether with Haili Hughes (John Catt Educational Series)⤴

from

Our first episode in the John Catt Educational Series.

In Part 1 of our John Catt series we interview Haili Hughes on her new book ‘Preserving Positivity’. This is a wide-ranging discussion all about how best to keep experienced educators in the classroom, as well as looking at the reasons why so many teachers leave the profession. We discuss some of the similarities and differences between Scotland and England to identify the similarities and differences. While dealing with complex and challenging aspects of teaching, the book is pragmatic and optimistic, as was this conversation.

This episode is kindly sponsored by
John Catt Educational www.johncattbookshop.com
@HughesHaili
@JohnCattEd

Episode 25 – An EduBlether with Haili Hughes (John Catt Educational Series)⤴

from

Our first episode in the John Catt Educational Series.

In Part 1 of our John Catt series we interview Haili Hughes on her new book ‘Preserving Positivity’. This is a wide-ranging discussion all about how best to keep experienced educators in the classroom, as well as looking at the reasons why so many teachers leave the profession. We discuss some of the similarities and differences between Scotland and England to identify the similarities and differences. While dealing with complex and challenging aspects of teaching, the book is pragmatic and optimistic, as was this conversation.

This episode is kindly sponsored by
John Catt Educational www.johncattbookshop.com
@HughesHaili
@JohnCattEd

Episode 20 – Leadership of Change⤴

from

In this new format podcast, we have stripped it back to focus on our EduBlether and we are delighted to be sharing it with you. We focus on leadership of change and talk about improvement planning, self-evaluation and change leadership. This includes pupils, parents and staff and we hope you find this episode both interesting and informative. As usual, we’d be delighted if you could rate us on your chosen podcast app and send us a tweet and engage in the EduBlether on twitter.com/EduBlether.

To listen: https://soundcloud.com/edublether/episode-20-leadership-of-change

Episode 19 – An EduBlether with Blair Minchin⤴

from

In this episode of EduBlether, we have an EduBlether with Blair Minchin, a passionate and enthusiastic Primary Teacher in Edinburgh who, amongst a range of other things, creates superb videos sharing his practice on Twitter. Please follow him on for some excellent content @Mr_Minchin We also have our usual features where we recommend the work of Jennifer Gonzalez @cultofpedagogy. Check out edublether.wordpress.com for more great content and if you like the show please rate us on iTunes.

To listen: Listen

The Line⤴

from @ EduBlether

On the back of thinking about all the small things that lead to successes in a school, I thought it would be apt to consider the other side of this. One of the seemingly small things that add to a considerable amount of disruption and wasted learning time, in all of the schools I have ever worked in, is the line. I’m going to discuss the various problems I see with this accepted norm, and then I will try to consider some alternatives.

One of the main issues I have with this is the wasted teaching and learning time that could be better spent doing anything else. The time it takes between a bell ringing and children getting into a classroom is huge. Let’s do some quick maths on this. A conservative estimate (based purely on my own experience, with admittedly no scientific rigour applied), would be that it takes at least 5 minutes once the bell has gone to have a class ready to come in at the start of the day, after break and after lunch (at least!). So this is potentially 15 minutes each day, which is about 70 minutes across the week, taking in to account the half-day! That is over 44 hours across the school year.

I don’t want you to think I am ever condoning counting minutes and seconds and making sure every possible part of time is accounted for. This would be dangerous for a large number of reasons. But when there are so many other issues, it begs the question, why are we wasting our time on a bizarre and old fashioned custom that gives nothing back?

Ordinarily, children have been playing in an unstructured and child-led way, then a bell goes (quite abruptly) and they have to stop immediately and form a line, one behind each other. We often scorn them for not being straight enough or for continuing conversations. Quite militaristic when you think about it? But this is quite difficult for a lot of children to do (I think I would struggle to be honest) especially if they have been engaging in high energy play. What are we achieving by standing in line? Efficient management of people cannot be an argument here due to the amount of wasted time. Compliance?

I don’t like the idea of continuing to do something one way just because it is the way we have always done it. I want to know what the alternatives are.

Comment below with any suggestions on alternatives to lining up.

All the small things⤴

from @ EduBlether

I have been thinking a lot recently about all the small things that I do in my job as a Depute headteacher. Now, there are a lot of high-profile strategic things that I do which are of great importance (I’m a very important person do t you k ow?). Things like having an overview of attainment for example, or working through complex pastoral concerns. Yet for me, this is not what my job is really about.

I would argue that the most important part of my job is a collection of small and seemingly insignificant things. The things that go unnoticed and can’t fit nicely on a spreadsheet. I am talking about things like standing on the school gates in the morning and saying hello to as many people as you can. Or the times I play football with the children who just want to tackle a teacher, but then I somehow managed to avoid their lunging feet and score a wonder goal. Or even something as simple as noticing when a child gets a haircut and giving them a compliment. In fact one of the easiest things, yet the thing with such a profound impact is the simple act of smiling. We don’t measure how many smiles we have managed to raise at the end of the school year, or how many times we made a child laugh, but it is exactly these things that are so important to me. I am not for a second saying that I want to start measuring these things, all I am saying is I want to spend time recognizing how important they are.

These things are so important to me because they build relationships. It is these daily interactions that build a culture in a school. It is these small moments in time that collectively add up to so much more. So it is for this very reason that I am going to embrace my misspent youth listening to Blink 182 and spend more time celebrating all the small things that I do in my job. I feel that this will allow me to appreciate the tiny successes that happen every day.

What are the small things that you do that you would like to shout about?

Episode 16 – An EduBlether with David Cameron⤴

from

In this wide ranging interview, David Cameron shares his thoughts, experiences and wisdom. An exhilarating interview.

Listen to Episode 16 – An EduBlether with David Cameron.

Episode 13 – Professional Learning⤴

from

Listen to this episode on spotify, apple podcast, soundcloud or any other podcasting app. You can also click on the picture above to listen to this episode.