everything is a miracle New eyes for new landscapes

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everything is a miracle! New eyes for new
landscapes
Dudley MBC Deputy Assistant Headteachers
Conference 2008

• Michel Laurent-Régisse

Never doubt that a small group of committed
citizens can change the world, indeed it is the
only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead
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What are we doing?

• Perhaps our work must become the positive
  revolution we want to see in the world?
• Albert Einsteins words clearly compel
• There are only two ways to live your life. One
  is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is
  as though everything is a miracle.

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The Three Fields of Knowledge
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This thing called change
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It was 20 years ago..
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And now.
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Then.
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And now..
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Then..
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And now.
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Then..
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And now..
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Why would we be doing this anyway?
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A new definition for CPD

• . is about brokering resources and people,
  creating public spaces for people to learn and
  work together as a norm, and being
  entrepreneurial about what might be an important
  tool, proposal or idea to be developed by the
  group.
• Ann Lieberman

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Leadership issues

• Seven strong claims about successful school
  leadership

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Seven strong claims

• Summary of a literature review
• Theory built up from empirical evidence a
  strong claim
• We know a great deal about school leadership
• Leaders want to get it right
• Its a pace thing
• Its also about locking into known and tested
  successful school leadership practice

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Claim 1 influence on pupil learning

• Qualitative evidence from successful schools
  demonstrates the causal link
• Leadership accounts for 5-7 of the variation of
  in-school achievement. Classroom factors account
  for more than 1/3 of variation
• 10 improvement in pupil test scores could arise
  from improvement in demonstrated leadership
  capabilities
• Transformational school leadership has a positive
  effect on pupil gains
• Unplanned succession has a negative effect the
  search is on for talented leadership

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Claim 2 the repertoire of leadership practices

• Central task is to improve staff performance, and
  good leaders do this by influencing the culture
• There are 4 sets of leadership qualities and
  practices
• Building vision and setting direction (shared
  purpose, group goals and fostering high
  expectations)
• Understanding and developing people (integrating
  the functional and personal)
• Re-designing the organisation
• Managing the teaching and learning programme
  (monitoring and buffering)
• Not all done all the time see this as a
  framework

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Claim 3 response to context

• Context matters, but its all in the balance!
• For example turnaround schools
• Crisis stabilisation urgent short term
  priorities
• Late turnaround crafting and revising direction
  building ownership
• Understanding and developing people critical
• Re-design practice is central to the process
• Managing teaching and learning in difficult
  circumstances requires flexible and sensitive
  leadership
• Its about responsiveness to, rather than
  dictation by, the context of the school

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Claim 4 influencing

• Pupil performance staff motivation, commitment,
  capacity (skills and knowledge) and school
  conditions (environment and culture)
• Its about lateral transfer building capacity
  in others
• Specifically about curriculum content knowledge
  (USA - instructional leadership) but not as
  hero leader
• Leithwood and Jantzi study (2006) of the
  implementation of the National Strategies
  explains some variables

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Claim 4 influencing
weak influence
moderate influence
strong influence
Capacity
Pupil learning
Motivation Commitment
Altered practices
School Leadership
Working conditions
The effects of school leadership Leithwood and
Jantzi 2006
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Claim 5 distributed leadership

• That provided by many possible sources / the
  combined influence of leadership from many
  Total Leadership
• Exhibits a balance of autonomy, authority and
  accountability
• Total leadership effects on pupils were studied
  by Mascall Leithwood (2007) and accounted for
  the significant variation in pupil outcomes
  within schools, though the evidence suggested
  that much was an indirect effect
• Total leadership accounted for 27 of the
  variation of student achievement across schools
  2 to 3 times higher than that reported in studies
  of individual headteacher effects

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Claim 5 distributed leadership
Factors
.46
-.38
Capacity
.25
.65
Motivation Commitment
Total Leadership
Pupil learning
.80
Working conditions
.55
Total Leadership effects on teachers and pupils
Mascall Leithwood 2007
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Claim 6 some patterns of DL are better than
others

• Evidence shows that distributed rather than
  single-person leadership has a greater effect on
  value-added student achievement
• Schools with highest levels of achievement
  attribute this to high levels of influence from
  all sources of leadership

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Claim 6 some patterns of DL are better than
others

• Headteachers were rated as having the greatest
  (positive and negative) influence in all schools
• There is evidence of different patterns of DL but
  little to tell us which are most effective,
  though evidence from commerce suggests that more
  coordinated patterns of leadership practice have
  more beneficial organisational outcomes

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Claim 7 personal traits explain the variation

• Some are more expert in developing leadership
  capacities in others
• There is little school-based evidence to tell us
  what personal characteristics work best
• But
• A clear focus on pupil learning and achievement
• A commitment to data-based decision-making
• A set of 360-approved traits / characteristics
• provided a leader with a sense of efficacy
• This in turn shaped their practice and affected
  results

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Claim 7 personal traits explain the variation

• And the key traits / characteristics are
• Open-mindedness
• Willing to learn from others
• Flexible rather than dogmatic thinkers
• Act within a clear set of core values
• Persistent (in pursuit of high expectations
• Resilient
• Optimistic

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Leadership and hope

• Hope is the knowledge that we can choose that
  we can learn from our mistakes and act
  differently next time.
• (Jonathan Sacks)

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• if you want to be a leader, you have to be a
  real human being. You must recognise the true
  meaning of life before you can become a great
  leader. You must understand yourself first.
• in this sense, the cultivated self is the
  leaders greatest toolIts the journey of a
  lifetime.
• Senge 2004

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Song of the Open Road

• Here is the test of wisdom,
• Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,
• Wisdom cannot be passed from one having it,
• to another not having it,
• Wisdom is of the Soul, is not susceptible of
  proof, is
• its own proof,
• Applies to all stages and objects and qualities,
  and
• is content,
• Is the certainty of the reality and immortality
  of
• things, and the excellence of things
• Something there is in the float of the sight of
  things
• that provokes it out of the Soul.
• Leaves of Grass
• Walt Whitman

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Becoming a Leader

• As Bennis and Goldsmith (1997) express it
• the process of becoming a leader is much the
  same as the process of becoming an integrated
  human beingleadership is a metaphor for
  centeredness, congruity and balance in ones
  life. (p8)

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Becoming a Leader

• For Taylor (1991) authenticity is about
  developing a personal integrity
• Being true to myself means being true to my own
  originality, and that is something only I can
  articulate and discover. In articulating it, I am
  also defining myself. (p29)

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Understanding Personal Authenticity
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Becoming an Authentic Person

• Understanding self in relation to others, living
  and working through social relationships
• Growing through the multiple manifestations of
  loving and being loved, through family life and
  friendships (social and spiritual)

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Becoming an Authentic Person

• A sense of having the potential to achieve
  self-actualisation
• The ability to be creative
• The engagement with beauty in art and nature,
  from mindscapes to landscapes.

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Ubuntu a person is a person through other
persons.

• A person with Ubuntu is open and available to
  others, affirming of others, does not feel
  threatened that others are able and good, for he
  or she has a proper self-assurance that comes
  from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater
  whole
• Archbishop Desmond Tutu
• I am because we are.

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Learning, Authenticity and Complexity
Personal Experience
Emergent Development
High
Learning
Training
Academic Study
Low
Low
Complexity
High
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A Typology of Helping Strategies
Friendship
Non-directive
Counselling
Coaching
Mentoring
Training
Directive
Generic
Personal
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• The first discovery
• My ideal self
• Who do I want to be?
• What metaphors and images do you use to describe
  your ideal self?
• (Richard Boyatzis in Goleman, D. (2002) The New
  Leaders)

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Activity What makes a good leader?

• Please look at the Activity handout
• I would like you to use 6 minutes of protected
  silence to reflect and put your thinking down on
  the sheet on note form / bullets or mind-maps
• You have only 2 minutes to visualise your
  thinking into each section
• When the time is up we will join in partner
  learning conversations

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Activity Good leader Learning conversations
6 minutes

• Partner with an adjacent colleague and share your
  thinking notes
• You have 2 minutes to tell the story of your
  thinking.
• Your partner will take notes of additional
  questions they would like to ask about what you
  have said
• After 2 minutes, swap roles
• Then use the remaining 2 minutes to ask your
  questions of each other, but stop when the signal
  is given!!

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• The Second Discovery
• My real self
• Who am I?
• What would your closest friend describe as your
  greatest strengths and weaknesses?

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• The third discovery
• My learning agenda
• How do I build on my strengths and reduce the
  gaps between my ideal and real self?
• How well do you understand yourself as a learner?

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• The fourth discovery
• Experimenting with new behaviour
• What strategies can I put in place and how do I
  develop mastery?
• How rich is your portfolio of developmental
  strategies?

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• The fifth discovery
• Developing supportive and trusting relationships
  to make change possible
• Who can help me?
• What have been the most significant learning
  relationships in your life?

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Reservoirs of hope

• Relationships
• Reflection
• Resilience
• Rejoicing

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Cutting edge leaders are characterised by

• A vision of reform that encourages risk-taking in
  a safe public learning space
• The creation of a community of practice which
  respects practitioners knowledge
• Ideas that challenge teachers
• Opportunities for teachers to co-construct
  knowledge and new practice
• Discussion of problems that may not have
  agreed-upon solutions
• Organisational forms which may be independent of
  LA or HEI links, and which work across school,
  political and geographical boundaries

• What are you doing in each respect?
• What could you do more of?
• What support would you need?
• What change(s) would you need to your current
  working practice?

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Building the Future
Based on Peter Senge The Fifth Discipline
Dependence upon the capacity for leadership of
the few
Required capacity for setting common goals and
openness to learning
Required capacity for leadership amongst the many
Degree of active involvement of all
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Synchronicity

• Standards plateau well being, standards and
  social justice
• Social context learning context
• User customer focus parents, children and
  young people
• Personalisation spaces , places and times
• PISA study high excellence and low equity
• Schools federated / extended / core social
  centres / learning hubs
• New professionals remodelling
• Making a difference locally 5 outcomes
• Schools as public spaces

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A thought ...

• In a rowing eight there are 8 people going
  backwards as fast as they can without speaking to
  each other. Steering is in the hands of the one
  person who cannot row, because you put someone in
  charge who cannot do the job.
• Source Charles Handy

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but what the oarsman said

• How do you think we can go backwards so fast
  without talking to one each other, unless we know
  each other very well, unless we have total
  confidence in each others ability to do the job
  we are supposed to do, including that little chap
  who cant row, who is steering, unless we are all
  absolutely dedicated to getting to the end of the
  course before anyone else does

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Fullan 2003
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Review and reflect knew, new, do!

• Knew what was affirmed for me ?
• New what was new for me ?
• Do what am I going to do with that affirmation
  or new insight ?

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Scaffolding

• Masons, when they start upon a building,
• Are careful to test out the scaffolding
• Make sure that planks wont slip at busy points,
• Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.
• And yet, all this comes down when the jobs done,
• Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.
• So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
• Old bridges breaking between you and me,
• Never fear.
• We may let the scaffolds fall,
• Confident that we have built our wall.
• Seamus Heaney from Death of a Naturalist
  1966

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• THANK YOU
• michel.polestar_at_yahoo.co.uk
• 07711 760 132
• Polestar Education Consultancy