Three little words .......................
Leadership is what we are about at Cor ad Cor and at the risk of sounding as if I am about to bite the hand that feeds, I think we over complicate leadership at times!
When working with aspiring school leaders whether at local authority or in schools or indeed lecturing at university level, I always include this activity:
If I visited your school what THREE words would you want me to use later to describe my impressions when discussing the school with others?
The responses rarely surprise, although as you might suspect given that we are teachers, some take the liberty of posting more than three!
The common words given over many years are:
Safe Happy Alive Welcoming Inclusive Exciting
And of course, as a teacher I ask the next question. How would these characteristics have manifested themselves in your school so much that a visitor there for only a short time could say it’s ‘safe’; it’s ‘welcoming’’, it’s alive and exciting?
This encourages the aspiring headteachers to think and focus on the words they submitted and how these could be seen, heard and of course, felt in their school.
They then talk of office / reception staff greeting the visitor with courtesy and a smile. Identities are checked and security badges issued. Children and young people the visitor encounter in the corridors and classrooms are smiling, are polite, hold doors open and can talk with enthusiasm about what they are doing and about their school. These all exemplify safe, happy, welcoming and exciting schools
So far so good, you would say. However, the next words out of my mouth are “These things do not happen by accident.” This leads us to explore what actions, what policies and procedures has the headteacher invested in to get these outcomes? This is the crux of school leadership: understanding that policies, processes, sections of the GTCS Standard for Headship and the actual modus operandi of the headteacher all go together to make this school alive and safe and happy and achieving etc.
A safe school has clear health and safety policies, clear child protection polices, anti-bullying and positive behaviour strategies. It is a school that embraces Getting it Right for Every Child – and family and community (GIRFEC.FC). Every child has a ‘guidance’ teacher who knows them well, and is able to provide support. The headteacher and other senior staff are visible in the yard, at the buses and in classrooms. Teachers are outside their classrooms welcoming children into class while ensuring safety in the open areas.
A happy school is one where everyone – pupils, staff and parents and carers have opportunities to be involved. There are functioning school improvement groups that staff are involved in – not talking shops but empowered groups tasked with real developments to improve the teaching, learning and/or health and wellbeing. There are clear policies for parental engagement, for pupil voice, for community learning and for partnership working both within and beyond the school gate.
An achieving school has a curriculum that is planned and designed to meet the needs of all. The curriculum plan has been discussed and co-created with teachers, other staff, pupils and families. There is a broad range of programmes and careful monitoring and evaluation of same. Teaching and learning and pupil progress are the first items on all agenda when staff meet with each other and when meeting with parents. There are clear tracking and monitoring polices, clear processes for identifying success and those at risk of falling behind.
A school that can be described as ‘alive’ is one where there are calendars of events, wide range of activities offered by a wide range of staff and partners.
All of these actions, approaches and polices sit very clearly within the GTCS Standard for Headship Professional Skills and Abilities, enacted since August 2021. For example:
3.1.1 Work with the learning community to design and build a shared vision to provide a curriculum informed by theoretical principles of curriculum design and purposes of education
3.2.1 Agree, share and enact the vision, values, ethos and aims of the learning community with colleagues, learners, parents/ carers and families and wider community
3.2.3 Actively establish, enable and sustain trusting relationships with parents/carers and families
However, safe, happy, achieving, alive and all the other descriptors can only happen and can only be sustained when they are embedded. To ensure that, the headteacher must participate, must model the behaviour wanted and ensure that policies/processes are evaluated and reviewed and modified when necessary. In this way, the headteacher can demonstrate Standard 2.2.2 of fully understanding and demonstrating self-awareness to inspire and motivate others.
However, it is important to remember that above all, leadership is about people. Staff, children, families, and partners need to know that the headteacher has their interests at heart. You cannot do that from your office. The work of the headteacher is underpinned by values and these must be lived and demonstrated.
But that’s another chapter.
Watch this space.