Leading Learning for School Improvement

Over the last couple of days I have attended the NZ Primary Principals Conference and managed to hear some (unfortunately not all) of the presenters. The key focus of the conference was 'Power to Innovate' and presenters were skillful at weaving this theme through their presentations. A summary of tweets throughout the conference is available here.

School self-review and strategic planning are particular interests of mine so I really enjoyed listening to a session with James Nottingham - Innovative Leadership - lessons from around the world.  James highlighted the purpose of creating and having and a clear vision, that is shared, owned and implemented by the people who create it. He referred to the following diagram - emphasizing the importance of always starting with the vision, not the event.

Adapted from Organising for Learning by Daniel Kim, 2010

When leaders work with their communities to identify and develop a vision they undertake a process of clarifying 'educative purpose, values and core beliefs about learning.' Part of this process provides an opportunity to unpack and understand individual mental models. This is a critical phase - as only through this phase can we gain an understanding of others perspectives. Using this process to develop shared understandings and beliefs promotes ownership and commitment towards achievement of the vision. 

Vision provides a goal, a focus and direction for future school growth and development and it is our job to turn the vision into reality. I have continued to reflect on James's presentation. As a school leader I would be asking the following questions:

• Can all members of our school community clearly articulate our vision?
• Is this shared, owned and enacted by all?
• Is our vision a constant point of reference to guide our development and  decision making?
• Is it consistently referenced and used to promote learning?
• Is it visible?

In my opinion the sign of a good conference is when you leave with more questions, thoughts and wonderings than when you arrived. The opportunity to think, reflect, challenge, question, discuss, consider is invaluable, but as Sir Graham Henry so aptly reminded us, "It is not about the game.... it is all about the people."

Leading Learning for School Improvement

Today I was privileged to attend two thought provoking presentations at the NZ Primary Principals Conference, Power to Innovate, in Hamilton.

The first presentation was from Jeremy Kedian of the University of Waikato who spoke on the importance of leadership - leaders leading learning in their schools. He asked the question - When was your last leadership failure? Reminding us that as leaders we need to be experimenting, taking risks and modeling the dispositions of learning.  He talked about leaders as architects - working with their communities, leading the design process for the physical, social, learning and future environments. He emphasized the importance of passion, creativity, growing relationships, cultural literacy and globalism and referred to John West Burnham: Seven Questions for leaders of learning.  He then drew on a quote from Leadbeater & Wong (2010) - Schools might be hitting the target, but are they missing the point?' In closing he referred to research (and I didn't capture the detail) showing that only 15% of leaders time is spent on leading, making the point that we better make it count!

I then attended a presentation by  Dr Viviane Robinson - Too much change - not enough improvement.  In the introduction Dr Robinson reminded us that change and innovation do not always lead to improvement. As school leaders we need to be discerning and have processes to ensure that the initiatives we are undertaking will generate sustainable school improvement that is focussed on raising student achievement. She referred to the issue of school leaders and schools taking on too much, too many initiatives that resulted in little or unsustainable improvement.  Dr Robinson highlighted the importance of focussed and deep learning - taking time to clearly identify the problem, establish goals, identify barriers, locate expertise, plan, strategize, monitor and adapt to generate improvement that is sustainable. This learning can then be transferred, promoting a strategic and sustainable process for improvement.

On reflection - both presentations highlighted to me the importance of vision? Do we know what type of learning environments we want to create? Do we have shared understanding about learning -what is powerful learning and what is powerful to learn?  I think when we have clearly identified this - we have a point of reference for where to next. The key is planning how to get there!