New Beginnings ….New Leaders …...

It’s almost September 1st ….. The birthday of CSL. ! We will be one year on the road tomorrow. It has been a fantastic year for the three of us and we are now looking forward to Year2!


CSL wants to wish each and every school leader a good year for 2016/2017.  This year in particular we want to extend a warm welcome to all the new leaders. We had the privilege recently of attending Misneach (Post primary) in Portlaoise, Táiniste (Post Primary) and Misneach (Primary) in Athlone. All in all, we met and addressed over 220 new leaders. Most of them were excited, overwhelmed and a little anxious but they were all really looking forward to the challenge!

We, in CSL were also excited by the prospect that almost 200 of our new principals will have mentors this year as part of the Misneach programme. What has been for us in the past year but a dream, is now a reality!  We are working hard trying to get the perfect match for each mentee and that has cost us some sleep in recent weeks. We finally finished stage 1 of our matching process and over 100 letters will be going out to new principals this week telling them who their mentor is. We have always liked the quote from the Wallace Foundation which says -


“Good Principals aren’t born, they are mentored! “


It has been a busy summer. The office of government procurement published two tenders for us. One is the tender for the coaching service and we really hope that within the next few weeks that we will be able to launch this initiative. There is no need for me to tell you how powerful coaching can be – you only have to read my previous blog to get a sense of that. Look out for information about coaching for school principals on our website over the next few weeks.  The tender for the new aspiring leaders programme was also published and during the autumn we hope to announce details of the programme which will be offered to those of you out there who wish to take on leadership roles in your school.  Watch the website!


Yes, we have a brand new colourful website and our aim this year is to populate it with resources that would be useful to leaders at all stages of their career in education. This is our next big task and one that we look forward to as it will be a new challenge for us. We were thrilled last week when we reached over 1,000 followers on Twitter. If you are not following us, then please help us get to get to our next milestone - 1,500 followers @cslireland .

We have being reading some interesting books on Leadership this summer and my favourite one was Leadership Matters by Andy Buck. I know only too well how busy teachers and leaders are and I know how limited your reading time is but you can dip in and out of this book and choose the topic of specific interest to you as the need arises. In Andy’s introduction he states “ The approach of the book is to take an evidence-based look at what great school leadership looks like and allow you to translate this into the context you are working in “.  He refers many times to the importance of creating a “no blame” climate in schools. Experimentation, risk-taking and learning from mistakes should be encouraged in our schools. Staff should feel that it’s okay to try out new ideas! This is an excellent book, full of everyday examples which for the most part are very relevant to the Irish context.  Enjoy!


We look forward to new challenges which 2016/2017 will inevitably bring. Here is something to ponder on this month:
“The Pessimist complains about the wind. The Optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.“(John Maxwell)


CSL is funded by the Teacher Education Section (TES) of the Department of Education (DE)
This service is managed by Clare Education Centre.