September’s gone! Learning and Leadership
I have always liked September. For school principals, September is the new January! Teachers and students return to school well rested and full of new ideas for the forthcoming year. Everybody looks well - new clothes, new books, new uniforms, newenergy and some very pleasant weather! For us in CSL, it has been an excellent and very varied month and we are reluctant to say goodbye to the ninth month of the year.
Most of last year was spent preparing for this year. People may have wondered what we were doing! I bumped into 3 of our Mentors in the past week in various locations around the country and was thrilled to hear that they had begun their mentoring relationships with the newly appointed principals. They all said that they had benefitted as much from the meeting as the Mentee had benefitted from them. This was music to our ears and at last we have begun to see the fruit of our labour. We are realists and know it won't always be plain sailing but the ship has finally left the harbour, the mentoring relationships have begun and we are there to help everyone should they meet the stormy waters in the darker months of the year. This month we met with our Cairde - they are a small group of Mentors who will assist us to support the other Mentors in their role. Dr Joe O’Connell joined us for the day and enabled the Cairde to come to an understanding of the important role they will play this year in supporting the Mentoring Programme. His presentation was entitled “Being a true Cara” and we are looking forward to working with these new friends of ours!
We attended some very interesting events this month - our colleagues in JCT invited us to become critical friends with them for a day! They are preparing leadership seminars for principals to help them come to a clearer understanding of the new Junior Cycle - the benefits of the new curriculum and the implications for school timetables. They asked us (and many other education partners) to look at their materials, critique the content and suggest improvements. This innovative model of involving all partners will ensure that the leadership seminars presented later this year to school leaders will be of the highest quality. Well done to JCT and good luck to Paddy Flood who is leavingJCT to take up a new job as Director of Schools in Cavan/Monaghan ETB in October. Go n-éirí go gealleat !
IPPN run an excellent day for principals at the beginning of September every year. They garner that enthusiasm that exists at this time of the year and there was a very upbeat atmosphere in the room that day in City West. Mary Nihill and Anna Mai Rooney were given the opportunity to present to the audience and reminded all that we are looking for new Mentors to train this year so that we can offer mentoring support to every new primary school principal in Ireland from September 2017. If you want to join our training programme check out our website today. They also updated everyone about the coaching service which will be available for 400 school principals this year to support them in their work. We expect to officially launch this service this autumn. IPPN always places an emphasis on the welfare and wellbeing of the leader in their events and they ended the day with a verypositive talk from Dr. Mark Rowe who at one stage in the presentation had all of us up and dancing in the room!
He spoke about the dangers of living in fear which he described as False Evidence Appearing Real (FEAR) .He left us with a series of statements to help us reflect on our own wellbeing - I particularly liked this one -
“I am a Leader in my own Wellbeing”.
I had the honour of attending a presentation by FrankAngelis former principal of Columbine High School Coloradowhen 2 students shot dead 12 of their peers and one of their teachers before taking their own lives in April 1999. You could hear a pin drop in the Mansion House that morning as he described that fateful morning in Columbine High. He spoke of the impact of that day on the school and its community particularly in the years following the incident. While most of his teaching staff remained in the school for 3 years after the event over 75% of them had left by 2002. The students in the school that day are now in their early thirties and many still suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. His message that day however, was one of hope. As a school they made changes and became more inclusive. Frank led the way by seeking counselling for himself and many of his staff followed his lead. He was never afraid to show emotion and this allowed the students to show emotion also. He stood up for what was right and that meant at times that he stood alone against the wishes of his district administrators. Frank has retired in recent years and he travels the world telling the story of Columbine and keeping alive the memories of those 13 people who lost their lives in the school that day. Well done to Jigsaw and their partners( including NAPD ) for organising this event which highlighted the importance of well-being in post primary schools.
We also attended an excellent presentation by John West–Burnham to the PDST Leadership Associates. John is an author and consultant on leadership development. He challenged us to think about the decisions we make in schools and asked us to consider if we use evidence to back up the decisions and choices we make. He maintained that often in schools we defer to the experienced person rather than looking at the evidence in front of us. He pointed us in the direction of Sutton Trust and suggested that we study their reports on what makes good teaching. He advocated school-based research which is a more powerful form of CPD than attending various different courses. We explored the characteristics of an evidence –based school and looked at the implications that this has for school leadership.
This month the OECD launched a report “School Leadership for Learning - Insights from TALIS2013”. I have only had a look at the report but it is definitely on my reading list for October. The results show that combining instructional leadership ( leadership of learning ) and distributed leadership( incorporating different stakeholders into decision -making processes ) and using students outcomes to develop the school's goals and professional development plan appears to be the most favorable approach to developing a professional learning community in a school. Information on this publication is available here- http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/school-leadership-for-learning_9789264258341-en.
This month was also a busy month for the Department of Education as they published their Action Plan for Education 2016-2019. We are pleased to see the Centre for School Leadership mentioned in the plan and note the reference to the expansion of the range of supports available through the Centre for School Leadership.
As we approach October I am half way through reading an excellent book “The Green Platform “by Declan Coyle.
He outlines in simple steps how to switch from negative Red to positive Green Platform thinking. On the Green platform we have vision, clear goals and plans and we are fully present and fully alive in the “now”. October may be a difficult month for some our colleagues who are leaders in post primary schools where there is threat of industrial action. They might benefit from picking up this book and reading Declan’s words of wisdom and thus approach the coming month with optimism and positivity.
A little thought this month from JFK-
“For courage, not complacency, is our need today; leadership not salesmanship. The ….test of leadership is the ability to lead vigorously”
