Think about your teaching practice. How has it evolved over time? What are you currently working on developing in your practice? What tools have you used during this inquiry time?
I'll talk about an aspect of my leadership, as I move towards 6 1/2 years of being a Principal. What has been the most significant change in my leadership is the areas that I pay attention to. When I first became a Principal it was all about systems and getting things working in a way that made sense to me and for staff. While the systems in our school continue to evolve, my attention is more about how I can meet the learning needs of my staff, so our learners benefit from having "expert learners" as teachers. My role in this varies. Sometimes it's about creating the conditions or the culture. At other times it involves getting deep in the mechanics of a particular aspect of practice.
Like others on our staff, I'm employing surveys more often to inform decisions and gathering more voice.
An example of this has been around our professional learning programme where I have wanted to personalise things more. I'd wondered if this was working for staff, so put together a survey (using google forms) and asked everyone to respond. I've shared the results and we have a meeting in week 1 next term to discuss and make some joint decisions.
Like a classroom teacher, I'm constantly asking myself, if I see evidence of learning. And like a classroom teacher, involving the learners in the process and in the decisions.
I'm looking in particular at a couple of work ons from our last ERO report and asking teachers if these are areas they want to work on more. I'll need to ask our learners too and take that voice to the staff to help guide our decision.
A key question will be, "How might we meet individual learning needs through our professional learning programme?"
Thanks to who ever it was that first shared the "How might we..." questions. The first time I heard of this was from Maurie Abraham http://principalpossum.blogspot.co.nz/ -a leader who I find inspiring and challenging and whose posts I always check out.
I like the way that you have connected to what we do in classrooms to what we need to do at a teacher level too. I always find it quite interesting that we say "this is good for our learners" but revert to old ways of thinking when we work with staff as learners.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how our perception of leadership changes as we become more experienced. For me, it came about this year when I realised it was less about me, and more about letting others have their moment to shine. I love the John Maxwell quote - "Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others". My hat goes off to all the principals out there. It's not an easy job!
ReplyDeleteI like the way you are gathering surveys to inform decisions and get staff voice. Having a good PD programme for staff is invaluable.
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