Nurture 1415

There are a lot of blog posts reflecting on the last year, and while I am obsessively reflective I haven't taken the time to look at the wider picture and so this is my offering.

Looking back

1. Endings and beginnings

For me this is quite pertinent as the first point, least of all because it is the end of the year and start of another, but a lot of other things have ended and begun.  Firstly I started a new job at quite a different school.  I had been at my previous for 9 years where I worked my way through the middle management levels within the department.  I have come to look at my departure as the end of a good run and the time was right; quite simply I had outgrown the school.  My new post is at an independent school, and despite only being a term in, I have already felt a renewed drive and enthusiasm to become involved and be an integral part of the progress and development of the school - I am starting a small revolution!  Secondly, I finished, submitted and was successful in being awarded Master of Teaching with the Institute of Education.  It was a slog but the degree's structure has ignited a thirst for research at a higher level of academia that I hadn't considered before.  Thirdly and finally, my son started his own new school.  As a newly turned 4 year old this was the most challenging ending and beginning for me.

2. Public vs private: moving to the dark side

I confess that I knew close to nothing about the private sector, tending to believe the bitterness of those in the public sector about the moral and ethical views on free education, paying for grades, schools selecting the brightest and the best etc.  The opinion of many about my 'defection to the dark side' was I needed the professional respite care because it isn't 'real teaching', to be able to get my confidence back because 'it isn't really that difficult', to do the private school thing and then decide what was important to me because 'teaching is about giving something back'.  But, now that I have sold my soul, I can quite frankly say I love it!  My teaching is better than it has ever been, because I am actually teaching! The students are normal: they have just as many issues and struggles as any other young person.  I'm not proclaiming that private schools are in any way perfect, mine has its own pressures points, but I'm okay with that.

3.  'As a teacher every child matters but your own'

The TES article by Jo Brighthouse, posted by @jamie_thoms and a recent article by the Guardian's Secret Teacher really struck a cord with me.  I have always been determined to work, and I was described as feisty by the HT at my interview, but this year I have felt, keenly, how absent I am from my children.  I may finish early at the end of the term, and have longer holidays, but like every other teacher, I too have to work late during the week, commit to weekends throughout the year, attend events that don't finish until late.  I may be happier, less stressed and feel better and more confident about the profession, but I can't take my children to school, I can't pick them up from school, or attend their parents evenings.  Like other full time parents I work very hard, and my children have to learn to be independent and self-sufficient individuals which is the right thing, but it doesn't make life easy.

4. Twitter: 'underground and black market CPD'

I have been 'on twitter' for a few years now, hoping from frivolous to more professional followings.  I have to thank the professionals I follow for their oblivious inspiration for my Masters.  The idea to investigate SOLO taxonomy came from a post I saw; the work of Tait Coles @totallywired77 'Never mind the Inspectors, here's to Punk learning' (not to mention the touchy-feely cover!) shared some of my rhetoric about teaching; David Didau's blog The Learning Spy and Pam Hook @arti_choke both provided me with food for thought.  The power of twitter is remarkable and is becoming recognised as an emerging research method within the world of social media and micro-blogging.  Being able to share and develop my own PLN (Personal Learning Network) has been a significant contributor to the approached and strategies I use every day in my teaching.  Thank you Twitter!

Looking forward

1. 'Progress not perfection' Robert McCall, 'The Equalizer'

Neither my new school nor myself are perfect, but I hope to continue to progress as a practitioner and be part of the bigger picture for the school's development.  As a direct result of completing the MTeach, the trajectory of my career has changed from departmental leadership and management to whole school improvement through teaching and learning.  I have some high aspirations I want to achieve, some easier than others, but the biggest for me is to embrace research based teaching and learning: I want to be a Research Lead, set up a school improvement team which uses research to help departments develop and ultimately be part of the school's growth long term.  All this is thanks to the researchED conference led by Tom Bennett @tombennet71.  I attended the December conference at King's College, arriving late after getting lost in a bus lane, but the day was brilliant! I have signed up for the 2nd conference at Corpus Christi in March.  So excited!

2. researhED to PhD

Attending this conference was step 4 in my revolution.  Not only had we broken up for the holidays, but it was also a Saturday.  Prof Rob Coe pointed out that we were the converted, those attending the conference were the potentially the change agents for schools: that is a powerful acknowledgement.  He also made the point, as did Alex Quigley @HuntingEnglish and Carl Hendrick @C_Hendrick,  that there is no evidence that Research Leads actually make an impact: not because it doesn't work, but because this is so new, no current research is available.  I want to change this.  I have spent the last few weeks researching PhD or EdD programmes that I might join so that I can add to a body of research evaluating the impact of using research to promote school improvement.  This may be a pipe dream, but Rome wasn't built in a day!

3. 'I believe in an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out' Arthur Hays Sulzberger

Keeping an open mind was a tool I used to cope with changes and challenges from my previous post.  Now my open-mindedness is about embracing different ideas and ways of working.  When presented with a problem I solve it by accepting that I haven't got the answer, yet.  Being in a new school I am delighted on a daily basis; being a new member of staff but conversely a very experienced one I have had to keep an open mind in order to be delighted.  I hope that this doesn't change.

4. Capacity for improvement?

I can always be better than yesterday, but not as good as tomorrow.

Back to the future...

Here follows a record of the on-line posts I contributed to for the Middle Leadership Development programme with the National College, www.nationalcollege.gov.uk Sadly, the work that I did during this programme, in its current form cannot contribute as credits to my MTeach with the IoE.  And so I have to reform the material and produce a reflective and critical commentary of my 'learning journey' so that the IoE can then assess whether I have got the requisite academic insight to be credited.  it is that or write the full 20,000 words dissertation rather than the 10,000 report.

It all needs reorganising and ordering so bear with me.

• Core unit: Developing your own leadership potential

5th Feb 2012 12:03

Tags: MLDP, Module: Developing your own leadership potential

• For me growing as a leader suggests a process; there will be hurdles along the way, but if I get to the end point and learnt about the challenges then I have been active in the growing. The present participle of the verb ‘to grow' means that there isn't an end and I haven't ‘grown up' ‑ if I have, what is next?
The well‑being of the leader is also a concept that I found very interesting and quite pleasing to see acknowledged and given the importance of a think piece. I have to keep reminding myself that with my challenge it isn't about me doing it all, but leading the team so that we can all do it. If I take the full mantel and falter underneath it, then this isn't good leadership, good team management or sensible. Within the context if my challenge this has come to the foreground quite recently. I have organised and set up booster sessions to help narrow the gap in achievement in the GCSE results for English. The second week's session saw over and above 35 students crammed into my small classroom. As I battled to gain some form of order so I could speak to them, I began to realise quite quickly that this was just silly. One of the students asked why we hadn't done anything much, and I replied that I knew when I was beaten ‑ beaten by sheer numbers, but also by my own expectation that I could orchestrate a profound learning environment where they all came, learnt and then went away smoothly within an ethereal ambience!
So, rather than nailing myself to the cross, I asked for help from my team. At the time of writing, I have no offers, which frustrate and disappoints me. So, how do I need to change my own well‑being to allow me to lead? I think rather than ask for help, take the help ‑ I think that perhaps I am too accommodating and not as forthright as the situation requires‑ they clearly want me to lead them, not dance about hoping someone will join in. One example of this, which has really struck me is a colleague sent me a long email about how the afterschool sessions were taken up with lessons as well as an after school club. They could rearrange the club, but weren't sure whether the curriculum lesson should be sacrificed, and what did I think. I was frustrated that the teacher couldn't simply make a decision, but this is because they were seeking direction, direction from me and what I wanted of them in clear tones ‑ I see this now.
My next move? Ask specific people for their time based on their timetables. I cannot be resilient or sustained if I don't take the challenging route and make a direct request.

• Stimulus

8th Jan 2012 20:59
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP: Participant Community

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading change and continuous improvement

I found the reading for this think piece very interesting and incredibly pertinent.  We are constantly coping with changing landscapes as a result of the changes of government and what is considered fashionable in educational circles; change is axiomatic – it’s taken for granted.  As the reading noted ‘change if often the product if multiple competing perceptions’; are there other industries that have to juggle in this way?  In relation to my challenge, I am facing differing agendas, and ones that don’t sit well together.  There is the rhetoric of the students’ needs against the needs of SUS to meet the A*‑C expectations, against the moral implications of forcing students who are or are not capable or won’t engage to achieve the FFT projections against the agenda of all students having equal opportunities.

For me, the challenge is tied up in the results in the summer and I have to wait until then to establish whether the intervention has worked.   But, for my leadership it is the process of he change that is important if not more so than the actual outcome of the changes.

I found the differences between improvement, innovation and transformation to be critical to the longevity of the change.  The ‘impact‑leverage ratio: how much difference do you actually make for what you input?’ is also very interesting.  I think that rather than simply innovating with year 11 and the intervention programme, we need a bigger view and a wider picture to take the step to transform our curriculum delivery.  Improvement and innovation feel too temporary and in the case of the A*‑C, a little like a knee‑jerk reaction.

No change is worthwhile unless the team is behind it.  But improvement and even innovation are easy and palatable, but transformation is fearful as it requires a change of approach and direction which shakes people’s secure foundations.  The skill of the leader is to be part of the innovation and to lead the innovation – to be integral to it so that improvement and innovation can be focussed on the teaching and learning.

• Core unit: Leading people and effective teams

2nd Jan 2012 11:40
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Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading people and effective teams

It is quite clear that without a supportive team, and one that invests in the vision, a leader cannot lead.  After all, the adage that there isn’t an ‘I’ in team does ring true. 

I have been thinking a lot about the nature of teams and their leaders, and I recall the Tour de France with Mark Cavendish and Lance Armstrong.  Both riders are the leader of their team, but Cavendish manages his role differently from Armstrong.  The nature of this type of riding dynamic is that one rider is identified as the strongest and the one who has the best capability of crossing the line during sprints and team pursuits.  Essentially the team work together so that the lead rider can then be placed in a position to take the first place.  Armstrong believed that he was the most important person in his team and that they were there to ensure that he crossed the line first; whereas Cavendish acknowledges that without his team then he could not achieve the accolades that he has done – same function, but different expression of the role.  And when Cavendish was awarded Sports Personality of the Year fir 2011, he again acknowledged the hard work and dedication of his team.  Armstrong is not a team player and not a leader to inspire and motivate his team – they have a job to do, and their enjoyment and sense of achievement have been taken away by his tyrannical approach.  Whereas Cavendish may take the lime light but he shares the wins with his team.

Within this, there is the important message that just because I may be a team leader and the accountability falls on my shoulders, sharing the roles and  opportunities are as, if not more important than doing everything by myself.  With the nature of my challenge it involves the entire team to work together for the greater good of the students; I’m not going to get the accolade, it will be a group effort and for me and my team that is vital to our working together and functioning at the best level.  By inheriting a team, with its intricacies and various competencies and skills, the complete nature is characteristically unfit for purpose – this isn’t a bad thing, if anything this is the driving force to develop and engage a team; it makes it more interesting and worthwhile.  But as I lead us through the intervention, it is also my job to lead and guide the individual teachers within their own professional development – giving opportunities, and simply asking for help.

• Core unit: Leading teaching and learning

1st Dec 2011 15:20
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP: Participant Community

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading teaching and learning

I also found that part of my challenge has been motivated by the ‘find and fix' approach and hence the creation of the gap in achievement; but the best quality of leadership is to manage the reasons, create schemes of work and teaching strategies to cope with these problems, and then to write policies for the ‘predict and prevent' aspect.

Within my own context I have really struggled with the teaching and learning of a particularly challenging group.  From this I decided, after making for ideas and resources to share that there need to be a change.  As a leader I am able to make that decision, but it has also allowed my staff to see that they can also make the decisions, without any form of judgment of sense of failure.  It isn't about them, but about what we can do together as a department to give the best to all students concerned with any decision

Using the data that we now have available to us has allowed us to have a greater and more confident, stronger leadership of the change, which in turn has propelled us towards the actual strategies we are ready to implement.

• Core unit: Leading and managing the organisation

1st Dec 2011 15:17
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Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading and managing the organisation

I found that leading and managing was at the heart of everything especially within teaching and learning ‑ it's not rocket science, but takes a part of one of the key ideas of leadership and leading by example within the classroom.  Within the teaching and learning the application and development if staff to be able to adjust their teaching according to the contexts of their different groups ‑ staff need to feel that they are supported and relied upon to make those decisions.

I also found that part of my challenge has been motivated by the ‘find and fix' approach and hence the creation of the gap in achievement; but the best quality of leadership is to manage the reasons, create schemes of work and teaching strategies to cope with these problems, and then to write policies for the ‘predict and prevent' aspect.

 Within my own context I have really struggled with the teaching and learning of a particularly challenging group.  From this I decided, after making for ideas and resources to share that there need to be a change.  As a leader I am able to make that decision, but it has also allowed my staff to see that they can also make the decisions, without any form of judgment of sense of failure.  It isn't about them, but about what we can do together as a department to give the best to all students concerned with any decision

 Using the data that we now have available to us has allowed us to have a greater and more confident, stronger leadership of the change, which in turn has propelled us towards the actual strategies we are ready to implement.

• Core unit: Leading and managing the organisation

30th Nov 2011 20:32
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading and managing the organisation

There are clear differences between leadership and management, but one cannot function effectively without the other.  Management is feet on the ground, where leadership is moving forwards.  The management allows the leadership, and the leadership gives the management direction and purpose.

Within the gap that I have identified the leadership has come through the initial identification of the gap and the principles behind the strategies.  Within this there is a need to ensure that the team are on baord and motivated to follow and collaborate, which is about being inspiring.  And yet it has to be practical and relevant which is the management of the leadership's vision.  Ironically, the leadership within my gao has 2 levels ‑ the overall vision of 79% A*‑C E&M has come from senour management, and my own leadership has shaped how this vision can be moulded inorder for it to be managed by all.

My own strategies cover a wide spectrum.  Leading by example, trusting my colleagues with their assessment of the progress of their students, but then supporting them within this trust that they have made the right decision, or guiding them to make a decision they are completely happy with.  Managing the day to day organisation of our strategies from group development, to creating and developing resources for the delivery; coaching non‑ specialist staff in being able to  teach the reading and writing skills for the single award students; ensuring that there is analysis of data and constant review of strategies; asking the team their feelings and ideas so that we can all have ownership over what has been done ‑ this isn't about me!

I have allowed my Co to express his ideas within our many brainstorming meetings, rather than dominating and making all the decisions, but we have together collaborated to see more practical ideas and approaches to the delivery of booster sessions ‑  we cannot support the students if we give with one hand and then take with the other.

• Core unit: Leading in a diverse system

11th Nov 2011 20:37
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading in a diverse system

Leading isn’t just about taking a group of people from A to B.  The whole leadership landscape is riddled with complexities.  Leading in a diverse environment really encapsulates the influences in any decision that a leader has to make.  My own context comes from a department level within a whole school context, in an Academy Federation that is rated by a national agenda. 

The A*‑C scores in English and maths are a key focus for school improvement and it is this that the school is judged on – no longer is it just the 5 A*‑Cs in the GCSEs.  As a national concern, it isn’t just about the GCSE scores but a grander concern.  With this in mind the leadership approach needs sensitivity.  If anything rather than changing the approach to my leadership, it means that the focus will be even tighter – looking out for the wider context so that the inner narrower context is the strongest and has the most impact.

Being aware of the contextual implications makes this gap even more important, and the stakes higher – we will be judged nationally and not just to satisfy ourselves.

• Core unit: Leading and managing the organisation

11th Nov 2011 15:33
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading and managing the organisation

What I found very interesting was the best balance of leadershipo and management.  As per the work this morning, there needs to be elements of lots of different factors from people, purpose and principles.  An imbalance will have an impact on the overall effectiveness of the leadership; one cannot be so strong that it comes at the sacrifice of the others.  I also found intersting that management isn't necessarily leadership, but without one the other can't function.  I also like the reflection that the most effective middle leaders are those that are able to combine the personal and organisational elements ‑ principally the 'high trust with directive intervention'.  In essence adaptive and adoptove.  Do I do this?  I hope so.

One of the implications for the gap that I have identified is that there needs to be the balance struck between the leadership and management.  Inherent is the problem of the failing students as a result of the teaching and learning of the department.  But without being willing to cast blame, the initial focus has to be on solvijg the problem of the attainment, but within this are challenging questions about why. 

A key change to my own leadership and management in this project is that I cna;t do it on my own and I need to instill high expectations and a belief that my team will engage in the project.  I know there will be resitance, but in supporting those staff and encouraging them will be the hardest step.

Using data as well and being able to interpret the data and tracking mechanisms will povide the team with the power to drive the implementation.  A tight‑loose approach, giving the staff ownership and responsibility is the best balance for me.

I hope that my style won't change massively but striving to 'develop staff to create a high performance culture' whereby they embrace challenge so that we can rely on the trust element is always an aspiration

• Next steps

8th Nov 2011 19:28
Icon‑users‑30x30 Shared with Sheila Hakes

Tags: MLDP, Stage 1: Preparing to start the programmeWhat gap in achievement have you identified and why? Achievement of students at GCSE ‑ particular focus group of students at risk of not getting a realistic C What changes do you think you will need to lead in order to close that gap? Curriculum changes; delivery of skills; tracking and awareness of orderline students What leadership strategies have you identified to help you close the gap?? Motivating others to follow the focus; encouraging staff to have close tracking of progress How has your personal understanding of what it means to be a successful and effective middle leader changed? We drive the initiatives from the top so that those next down can achieve the whole school agenda. How do you think your practice will or has changed as a result of this? Rather than making this something I have to do it is my job to get the staff to be motivated and engaged so that the coherency of the team is what makes us the success.

• Using data

5th Nov 2011 16:20
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Stage 1: Preparing to start the programmeThe data specific to my challenge has been the projected attainment grades for year 11 students. There is a very concerning gap in performance of a select group of students that are at real risk of not achieving a C in English Language. I think that the key aspect for me that I gained from the think piece was the use of the data as a tool rather than a pretty picture. I Am happy interpreting data, but that Is once I have it and it is all retrospective. What I do with that learning and understanding then informs policies for the next year, but the relative comparison is not the same. The thik piece has made me consider that the best way to really track using data is to generate a 'live' set and then to use it in the present tense rather than the past. In essence, with the targetted students that I have, and in order to really have a handle on the nature of the gap is to have them produce realistic and time sensitive data as a base line and starting point. From then on in, developing interim data/ assessment points so that they'd and really be tracked and compared accurately. It is quite clear that the gap is in the achievement of a C in reading and writing skills. The projected English and maths A*‑C percentage needs to be 78% and there are 50 students already named that will be our key to getting this percentage. It may be clear by now what the leadership challenge will be. I intend to work closely to lead the reduction of students that are borderline C/D GCSE students, and to increase the A*‑C scores of students in year 11. How am I going to do this? Blood sweat and tears? I need to motivate the whole department into having a real focus and enrichment on literacy. I need to encourgae the parents to support us, so that their children can be as succcessful as possible. I want to devise monthly literacy events for these students that will enrich and test their skills; have weekly sessions that effectively train the students on how to write and how to read. I want to have data that will demonstrate their development of skills and confidence. What will happen if it doesn't work to the level that we need? Reevaluate the try again!

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Karen Dunn's blog

• Core unit: Developing your own leadership potential

5th Feb 2012 12:03
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Module: Developing your own leadership potential

• For me growing as a leader suggests a process; there will be hurdles along the way, but if I get to the end point and learnt about the challenges then I have been active in the growing. The present participle of the verb ‘to grow' means that there isn't an end and I haven't ‘grown up' ‑ if I have, what is next?
The well‑being of the leader is also a concept that I found very interesting and quite pleasing to see acknowledged and given the importance of a think piece. I have to keep reminding myself that with my challenge it isn't about me doing it all, but leading the team so that we can all do it. If I take the full mantel and falter underneath it, then this isn't good leadership, good team management or sensible. Within the context if my challenge this has come to the foreground quite recently. I have organised and set up booster sessions to help narrow the gap in achievement in the GCSE results for English. The second week's session saw over and above 35 students crammed into my small classroom. As I battled to gain some form of order so I could speak to them, I began to realise quite quickly that this was just silly. One of the students asked why we hadn't done anything much, and I replied that I knew when I was beaten ‑ beaten by sheer numbers, but also by my own expectation that I could orchestrate a profound learning environment where they all came, learnt and then went away smoothly within an ethereal ambience!
So, rather than nailing myself to the cross, I asked for help from my team. At the time of writing, I have no offers, which frustrate and disappoints me. So, how do I need to change my own well‑being to allow me to lead? I think rather than ask for help, take the help ‑ I think that perhaps I am too accommodating and not as forthright as the situation requires‑ they clearly want me to lead them, not dance about hoping someone will join in. One example of this, which has really struck me is a colleague sent me a long email about how the afterschool sessions were taken up with lessons as well as an after school club. They could rearrange the club, but weren't sure whether the curriculum lesson should be sacrificed, and what did I think. I was frustrated that the teacher couldn't simply make a decision, but this is because they were seeking direction, direction from me and what I wanted of them in clear tones ‑ I see this now.
My next move? Ask specific people for their time based on their timetables. I cannot be resilient or sustained if I don't take the challenging route and make a direct request.

• Stimulus

8th Jan 2012 20:59
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP: Participant Community

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading change and continuous improvement

I found the reading for this think piece very interesting and incredibly pertinent.  We are constantly coping with changing landscapes as a result of the changes of government and what is considered fashionable in educational circles; change is axiomatic – it’s taken for granted.  As the reading noted ‘change if often the product if multiple competing perceptions’; are there other industries that have to juggle in this way?  In relation to my challenge, I am facing differing agendas, and ones that don’t sit well together.  There is the rhetoric of the students’ needs against the needs of SUS to meet the A*‑C expectations, against the moral implications of forcing students who are or are not capable or won’t engage to achieve the FFT projections against the agenda of all students having equal opportunities.

For me, the challenge is tied up in the results in the summer and I have to wait until then to establish whether the intervention has worked.   But, for my leadership it is the process of he change that is important if not more so than the actual outcome of the changes.

I found the differences between improvement, innovation and transformation to be critical to the longevity of the change.  The ‘impact‑leverage ratio: how much difference do you actually make for what you input?’ is also very interesting.  I think that rather than simply innovating with year 11 and the intervention programme, we need a bigger view and a wider picture to take the step to transform our curriculum delivery.  Improvement and innovation feel too temporary and in the case of the A*‑C, a little like a knee‑jerk reaction.

No change is worthwhile unless the team is behind it.  But improvement and even innovation are easy and palatable, but transformation is fearful as it requires a change of approach and direction which shakes people’s secure foundations.  The skill of the leader is to be part of the innovation and to lead the innovation – to be integral to it so that improvement and innovation can be focussed on the teaching and learning.

• Core unit: Leading people and effective teams

2nd Jan 2012 11:40
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP: Participant Community

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading people and effective teams

It is quite clear that without a supportive team, and one that invests in the vision, a leader cannot lead.  After all, the adage that there isn’t an ‘I’ in team does ring true. 

I have been thinking a lot about the nature of teams and their leaders, and I recall the Tour de France with Mark Cavendish and Lance Armstrong.  Both riders are the leader of their team, but Cavendish manages his role differently from Armstrong.  The nature of this type of riding dynamic is that one rider is identified as the strongest and the one who has the best capability of crossing the line during sprints and team pursuits.  Essentially the team work together so that the lead rider can then be placed in a position to take the first place.  Armstrong believed that he was the most important person in his team and that they were there to ensure that he crossed the line first; whereas Cavendish acknowledges that without his team then he could not achieve the accolades that he has done – same function, but different expression of the role.  And when Cavendish was awarded Sports Personality of the Year fir 2011, he again acknowledged the hard work and dedication of his team.  Armstrong is not a team player and not a leader to inspire and motivate his team – they have a job to do, and their enjoyment and sense of achievement have been taken away by his tyrannical approach.  Whereas Cavendish may take the lime light but he shares the wins with his team.

Within this, there is the important message that just because I may be a team leader and the accountability falls on my shoulders, sharing the roles and  opportunities are as, if not more important than doing everything by myself.  With the nature of my challenge it involves the entire team to work together for the greater good of the students; I’m not going to get the accolade, it will be a group effort and for me and my team that is vital to our working together and functioning at the best level.  By inheriting a team, with its intricacies and various competencies and skills, the complete nature is characteristically unfit for purpose – this isn’t a bad thing, if anything this is the driving force to develop and engage a team; it makes it more interesting and worthwhile.  But as I lead us through the intervention, it is also my job to lead and guide the individual teachers within their own professional development – giving opportunities, and simply asking for help.

• Core unit: Leading teaching and learning

1st Dec 2011 15:20
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP: Participant Community

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading teaching and learning

I also found that part of my challenge has been motivated by the ‘find and fix' approach and hence the creation of the gap in achievement; but the best quality of leadership is to manage the reasons, create schemes of work and teaching strategies to cope with these problems, and then to write policies for the ‘predict and prevent' aspect.

Within my own context I have really struggled with the teaching and learning of a particularly challenging group.  From this I decided, after making for ideas and resources to share that there need to be a change.  As a leader I am able to make that decision, but it has also allowed my staff to see that they can also make the decisions, without any form of judgment of sense of failure.  It isn't about them, but about what we can do together as a department to give the best to all students concerned with any decision

Using the data that we now have available to us has allowed us to have a greater and more confident, stronger leadership of the change, which in turn has propelled us towards the actual strategies we are ready to implement.

• Core unit: Leading and managing the organisation

1st Dec 2011 15:17
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP: Participant Community

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading and managing the organisation

I found that leading and managing was at the heart of everything especially within teaching and learning ‑ it's not rocket science, but takes a part of one of the key ideas of leadership and leading by example within the classroom.  Within the teaching and learning the application and development if staff to be able to adjust their teaching according to the contexts of their different groups ‑ staff need to feel that they are supported and relied upon to make those decisions.

I also found that part of my challenge has been motivated by the ‘find and fix' approach and hence the creation of the gap in achievement; but the best quality of leadership is to manage the reasons, create schemes of work and teaching strategies to cope with these problems, and then to write policies for the ‘predict and prevent' aspect.

 Within my own context I have really struggled with the teaching and learning of a particularly challenging group.  From this I decided, after making for ideas and resources to share that there need to be a change.  As a leader I am able to make that decision, but it has also allowed my staff to see that they can also make the decisions, without any form of judgment of sense of failure.  It isn't about them, but about what we can do together as a department to give the best to all students concerned with any decision

 Using the data that we now have available to us has allowed us to have a greater and more confident, stronger leadership of the change, which in turn has propelled us towards the actual strategies we are ready to implement.

• Core unit: Leading and managing the organisation

30th Nov 2011 20:32
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading and managing the organisation

There are clear differences between leadership and management, but one cannot function effectively without the other.  Management is feet on the ground, where leadership is moving forwards.  The management allows the leadership, and the leadership gives the management direction and purpose.

Within the gap that I have identified the leadership has come through the initial identification of the gap and the principles behind the strategies.  Within this there is a need to ensure that the team are on baord and motivated to follow and collaborate, which is about being inspiring.  And yet it has to be practical and relevant which is the management of the leadership's vision.  Ironically, the leadership within my gao has 2 levels ‑ the overall vision of 79% A*‑C E&M has come from senour management, and my own leadership has shaped how this vision can be moulded inorder for it to be managed by all.

My own strategies cover a wide spectrum.  Leading by example, trusting my colleagues with their assessment of the progress of their students, but then supporting them within this trust that they have made the right decision, or guiding them to make a decision they are completely happy with.  Managing the day to day organisation of our strategies from group development, to creating and developing resources for the delivery; coaching non‑ specialist staff in being able to  teach the reading and writing skills for the single award students; ensuring that there is analysis of data and constant review of strategies; asking the team their feelings and ideas so that we can all have ownership over what has been done ‑ this isn't about me!

I have allowed my Co to express his ideas within our many brainstorming meetings, rather than dominating and making all the decisions, but we have together collaborated to see more practical ideas and approaches to the delivery of booster sessions ‑  we cannot support the students if we give with one hand and then take with the other.

• Core unit: Leading in a diverse system

11th Nov 2011 20:37
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading in a diverse system

Leading isn’t just about taking a group of people from A to B.  The whole leadership landscape is riddled with complexities.  Leading in a diverse environment really encapsulates the influences in any decision that a leader has to make.  My own context comes from a department level within a whole school context, in an Academy Federation that is rated by a national agenda. 

The A*‑C scores in English and maths are a key focus for school improvement and it is this that the school is judged on – no longer is it just the 5 A*‑Cs in the GCSEs.  As a national concern, it isn’t just about the GCSE scores but a grander concern.  With this in mind the leadership approach needs sensitivity.  If anything rather than changing the approach to my leadership, it means that the focus will be even tighter – looking out for the wider context so that the inner narrower context is the strongest and has the most impact.

Being aware of the contextual implications makes this gap even more important, and the stakes higher – we will be judged nationally and not just to satisfy ourselves.

• Core unit: Leading and managing the organisation

11th Nov 2011 15:33
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading and managing the organisation

What I found very interesting was the best balance of leadershipo and management.  As per the work this morning, there needs to be elements of lots of different factors from people, purpose and principles.  An imbalance will have an impact on the overall effectiveness of the leadership; one cannot be so strong that it comes at the sacrifice of the others.  I also found intersting that management isn't necessarily leadership, but without one the other can't function.  I also like the reflection that the most effective middle leaders are those that are able to combine the personal and organisational elements ‑ principally the 'high trust with directive intervention'.  In essence adaptive and adoptove.  Do I do this?  I hope so.

One of the implications for the gap that I have identified is that there needs to be the balance struck between the leadership and management.  Inherent is the problem of the failing students as a result of the teaching and learning of the department.  But without being willing to cast blame, the initial focus has to be on solvijg the problem of the attainment, but within this are challenging questions about why. 

A key change to my own leadership and management in this project is that I cna;t do it on my own and I need to instill high expectations and a belief that my team will engage in the project.  I know there will be resitance, but in supporting those staff and encouraging them will be the hardest step.

Using data as well and being able to interpret the data and tracking mechanisms will povide the team with the power to drive the implementation.  A tight‑loose approach, giving the staff ownership and responsibility is the best balance for me.

I hope that my style won't change massively but striving to 'develop staff to create a high performance culture' whereby they embrace challenge so that we can rely on the trust element is always an aspiration

• Next steps

8th Nov 2011 19:28
Icon‑users‑30x30 Shared with Sheila Hakes

Tags: MLDP, Stage 1: Preparing to start the programmeWhat gap in achievement have you identified and why? Achievement of students at GCSE ‑ particular focus group of students at risk of not getting a realistic C What changes do you think you will need to lead in order to close that gap? Curriculum changes; delivery of skills; tracking and awareness of orderline students What leadership strategies have you identified to help you close the gap?? Motivating others to follow the focus; encouraging staff to have close tracking of progress How has your personal understanding of what it means to be a successful and effective middle leader changed? We drive the initiatives from the top so that those next down can achieve the whole school agenda. How do you think your practice will or has changed as a result of this? Rather than making this something I have to do it is my job to get the staff to be motivated and engaged so that the coherency of the team is what makes us the success.

• Using data

5th Nov 2011 16:20
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Stage 1: Preparing to start the programmeThe data specific to my challenge has been the projected attainment grades for year 11 students. There is a very concerning gap in performance of a select group of students that are at real risk of not achieving a C in English Language. I think that the key aspect for me that I gained from the think piece was the use of the data as a tool rather than a pretty picture. I Am happy interpreting data, but that Is once I have it and it is all retrospective. What I do with that learning and understanding then informs policies for the next year, but the relative comparison is not the same. The thik piece has made me consider that the best way to really track using data is to generate a 'live' set and then to use it in the present tense rather than the past. In essence, with the targetted students that I have, and in order to really have a handle on the nature of the gap is to have them produce realistic and time sensitive data as a base line and starting point. From then on in, developing interim data/ assessment points so that they'd and really be tracked and compared accurately. It is quite clear that the gap is in the achievement of a C in reading and writing skills. The projected English and maths A*‑C percentage needs to be 78% and there are 50 students already named that will be our key to getting this percentage. It may be clear by now what the leadership challenge will be. I intend to work closely to lead the reduction of students that are borderline C/D GCSE students, and to increase the A*‑C scores of students in year 11. How am I going to do this? Blood sweat and tears? I need to motivate the whole department into having a real focus and enrichment on literacy. I need to encourgae the parents to support us, so that their children can be as succcessful as possible. I want to devise monthly literacy events for these students that will enrich and test their skills; have weekly sessions that effectively train the students on how to write and how to read. I want to have data that will demonstrate their development of skills and confidence. What will happen if it doesn't work to the level that we need? Reevaluate the try again!

Karen Dunn's blog

• Core unit: Developing your own leadership potential

5th Feb 2012 12:03
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Module: Developing your own leadership potential

• For me growing as a leader suggests a process; there will be hurdles along the way, but if I get to the end point and learnt about the challenges then I have been active in the growing. The present participle of the verb ‘to grow' means that there isn't an end and I haven't ‘grown up' ‑ if I have, what is next?
The well‑being of the leader is also a concept that I found very interesting and quite pleasing to see acknowledged and given the importance of a think piece. I have to keep reminding myself that with my challenge it isn't about me doing it all, but leading the team so that we can all do it. If I take the full mantel and falter underneath it, then this isn't good leadership, good team management or sensible. Within the context if my challenge this has come to the foreground quite recently. I have organised and set up booster sessions to help narrow the gap in achievement in the GCSE results for English. The second week's session saw over and above 35 students crammed into my small classroom. As I battled to gain some form of order so I could speak to them, I began to realise quite quickly that this was just silly. One of the students asked why we hadn't done anything much, and I replied that I knew when I was beaten ‑ beaten by sheer numbers, but also by my own expectation that I could orchestrate a profound learning environment where they all came, learnt and then went away smoothly within an ethereal ambience!
So, rather than nailing myself to the cross, I asked for help from my team. At the time of writing, I have no offers, which frustrate and disappoints me. So, how do I need to change my own well‑being to allow me to lead? I think rather than ask for help, take the help ‑ I think that perhaps I am too accommodating and not as forthright as the situation requires‑ they clearly want me to lead them, not dance about hoping someone will join in. One example of this, which has really struck me is a colleague sent me a long email about how the afterschool sessions were taken up with lessons as well as an after school club. They could rearrange the club, but weren't sure whether the curriculum lesson should be sacrificed, and what did I think. I was frustrated that the teacher couldn't simply make a decision, but this is because they were seeking direction, direction from me and what I wanted of them in clear tones ‑ I see this now.
My next move? Ask specific people for their time based on their timetables. I cannot be resilient or sustained if I don't take the challenging route and make a direct request.

• Stimulus

8th Jan 2012 20:59
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP: Participant Community

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading change and continuous improvement

I found the reading for this think piece very interesting and incredibly pertinent.  We are constantly coping with changing landscapes as a result of the changes of government and what is considered fashionable in educational circles; change is axiomatic – it’s taken for granted.  As the reading noted ‘change if often the product if multiple competing perceptions’; are there other industries that have to juggle in this way?  In relation to my challenge, I am facing differing agendas, and ones that don’t sit well together.  There is the rhetoric of the students’ needs against the needs of SUS to meet the A*‑C expectations, against the moral implications of forcing students who are or are not capable or won’t engage to achieve the FFT projections against the agenda of all students having equal opportunities.

For me, the challenge is tied up in the results in the summer and I have to wait until then to establish whether the intervention has worked.   But, for my leadership it is the process of he change that is important if not more so than the actual outcome of the changes.

I found the differences between improvement, innovation and transformation to be critical to the longevity of the change.  The ‘impact‑leverage ratio: how much difference do you actually make for what you input?’ is also very interesting.  I think that rather than simply innovating with year 11 and the intervention programme, we need a bigger view and a wider picture to take the step to transform our curriculum delivery.  Improvement and innovation feel too temporary and in the case of the A*‑C, a little like a knee‑jerk reaction.

No change is worthwhile unless the team is behind it.  But improvement and even innovation are easy and palatable, but transformation is fearful as it requires a change of approach and direction which shakes people’s secure foundations.  The skill of the leader is to be part of the innovation and to lead the innovation – to be integral to it so that improvement and innovation can be focussed on the teaching and learning.

• Core unit: Leading people and effective teams

2nd Jan 2012 11:40
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP: Participant Community

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading people and effective teams

It is quite clear that without a supportive team, and one that invests in the vision, a leader cannot lead.  After all, the adage that there isn’t an ‘I’ in team does ring true. 

I have been thinking a lot about the nature of teams and their leaders, and I recall the Tour de France with Mark Cavendish and Lance Armstrong.  Both riders are the leader of their team, but Cavendish manages his role differently from Armstrong.  The nature of this type of riding dynamic is that one rider is identified as the strongest and the one who has the best capability of crossing the line during sprints and team pursuits.  Essentially the team work together so that the lead rider can then be placed in a position to take the first place.  Armstrong believed that he was the most important person in his team and that they were there to ensure that he crossed the line first; whereas Cavendish acknowledges that without his team then he could not achieve the accolades that he has done – same function, but different expression of the role.  And when Cavendish was awarded Sports Personality of the Year fir 2011, he again acknowledged the hard work and dedication of his team.  Armstrong is not a team player and not a leader to inspire and motivate his team – they have a job to do, and their enjoyment and sense of achievement have been taken away by his tyrannical approach.  Whereas Cavendish may take the lime light but he shares the wins with his team.

Within this, there is the important message that just because I may be a team leader and the accountability falls on my shoulders, sharing the roles and  opportunities are as, if not more important than doing everything by myself.  With the nature of my challenge it involves the entire team to work together for the greater good of the students; I’m not going to get the accolade, it will be a group effort and for me and my team that is vital to our working together and functioning at the best level.  By inheriting a team, with its intricacies and various competencies and skills, the complete nature is characteristically unfit for purpose – this isn’t a bad thing, if anything this is the driving force to develop and engage a team; it makes it more interesting and worthwhile.  But as I lead us through the intervention, it is also my job to lead and guide the individual teachers within their own professional development – giving opportunities, and simply asking for help.

• Core unit: Leading teaching and learning

1st Dec 2011 15:20
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP: Participant Community

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading teaching and learning

I also found that part of my challenge has been motivated by the ‘find and fix' approach and hence the creation of the gap in achievement; but the best quality of leadership is to manage the reasons, create schemes of work and teaching strategies to cope with these problems, and then to write policies for the ‘predict and prevent' aspect.

Within my own context I have really struggled with the teaching and learning of a particularly challenging group.  From this I decided, after making for ideas and resources to share that there need to be a change.  As a leader I am able to make that decision, but it has also allowed my staff to see that they can also make the decisions, without any form of judgment of sense of failure.  It isn't about them, but about what we can do together as a department to give the best to all students concerned with any decision

Using the data that we now have available to us has allowed us to have a greater and more confident, stronger leadership of the change, which in turn has propelled us towards the actual strategies we are ready to implement.

• Core unit: Leading and managing the organisation

1st Dec 2011 15:17
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP: Participant Community

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading and managing the organisation

I found that leading and managing was at the heart of everything especially within teaching and learning ‑ it's not rocket science, but takes a part of one of the key ideas of leadership and leading by example within the classroom.  Within the teaching and learning the application and development if staff to be able to adjust their teaching according to the contexts of their different groups ‑ staff need to feel that they are supported and relied upon to make those decisions.

I also found that part of my challenge has been motivated by the ‘find and fix' approach and hence the creation of the gap in achievement; but the best quality of leadership is to manage the reasons, create schemes of work and teaching strategies to cope with these problems, and then to write policies for the ‘predict and prevent' aspect.

 Within my own context I have really struggled with the teaching and learning of a particularly challenging group.  From this I decided, after making for ideas and resources to share that there need to be a change.  As a leader I am able to make that decision, but it has also allowed my staff to see that they can also make the decisions, without any form of judgment of sense of failure.  It isn't about them, but about what we can do together as a department to give the best to all students concerned with any decision

 Using the data that we now have available to us has allowed us to have a greater and more confident, stronger leadership of the change, which in turn has propelled us towards the actual strategies we are ready to implement.

• Core unit: Leading and managing the organisation

30th Nov 2011 20:32
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading and managing the organisation

There are clear differences between leadership and management, but one cannot function effectively without the other.  Management is feet on the ground, where leadership is moving forwards.  The management allows the leadership, and the leadership gives the management direction and purpose.

Within the gap that I have identified the leadership has come through the initial identification of the gap and the principles behind the strategies.  Within this there is a need to ensure that the team are on baord and motivated to follow and collaborate, which is about being inspiring.  And yet it has to be practical and relevant which is the management of the leadership's vision.  Ironically, the leadership within my gao has 2 levels ‑ the overall vision of 79% A*‑C E&M has come from senour management, and my own leadership has shaped how this vision can be moulded inorder for it to be managed by all.

My own strategies cover a wide spectrum.  Leading by example, trusting my colleagues with their assessment of the progress of their students, but then supporting them within this trust that they have made the right decision, or guiding them to make a decision they are completely happy with.  Managing the day to day organisation of our strategies from group development, to creating and developing resources for the delivery; coaching non‑ specialist staff in being able to  teach the reading and writing skills for the single award students; ensuring that there is analysis of data and constant review of strategies; asking the team their feelings and ideas so that we can all have ownership over what has been done ‑ this isn't about me!

I have allowed my Co to express his ideas within our many brainstorming meetings, rather than dominating and making all the decisions, but we have together collaborated to see more practical ideas and approaches to the delivery of booster sessions ‑  we cannot support the students if we give with one hand and then take with the other.

• Core unit: Leading in a diverse system

11th Nov 2011 20:37
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading in a diverse system

Leading isn’t just about taking a group of people from A to B.  The whole leadership landscape is riddled with complexities.  Leading in a diverse environment really encapsulates the influences in any decision that a leader has to make.  My own context comes from a department level within a whole school context, in an Academy Federation that is rated by a national agenda. 

The A*‑C scores in English and maths are a key focus for school improvement and it is this that the school is judged on – no longer is it just the 5 A*‑Cs in the GCSEs.  As a national concern, it isn’t just about the GCSE scores but a grander concern.  With this in mind the leadership approach needs sensitivity.  If anything rather than changing the approach to my leadership, it means that the focus will be even tighter – looking out for the wider context so that the inner narrower context is the strongest and has the most impact.

Being aware of the contextual implications makes this gap even more important, and the stakes higher – we will be judged nationally and not just to satisfy ourselves.

• Core unit: Leading and managing the organisation

11th Nov 2011 15:33
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading and managing the organisation

What I found very interesting was the best balance of leadershipo and management.  As per the work this morning, there needs to be elements of lots of different factors from people, purpose and principles.  An imbalance will have an impact on the overall effectiveness of the leadership; one cannot be so strong that it comes at the sacrifice of the others.  I also found intersting that management isn't necessarily leadership, but without one the other can't function.  I also like the reflection that the most effective middle leaders are those that are able to combine the personal and organisational elements ‑ principally the 'high trust with directive intervention'.  In essence adaptive and adoptove.  Do I do this?  I hope so.

One of the implications for the gap that I have identified is that there needs to be the balance struck between the leadership and management.  Inherent is the problem of the failing students as a result of the teaching and learning of the department.  But without being willing to cast blame, the initial focus has to be on solvijg the problem of the attainment, but within this are challenging questions about why. 

A key change to my own leadership and management in this project is that I cna;t do it on my own and I need to instill high expectations and a belief that my team will engage in the project.  I know there will be resitance, but in supporting those staff and encouraging them will be the hardest step.

Using data as well and being able to interpret the data and tracking mechanisms will povide the team with the power to drive the implementation.  A tight‑loose approach, giving the staff ownership and responsibility is the best balance for me.

I hope that my style won't change massively but striving to 'develop staff to create a high performance culture' whereby they embrace challenge so that we can rely on the trust element is always an aspiration

• Next steps

8th Nov 2011 19:28
Icon‑users‑30x30 Shared with Sheila Hakes

Tags: MLDP, Stage 1: Preparing to start the programmeWhat gap in achievement have you identified and why? Achievement of students at GCSE ‑ particular focus group of students at risk of not getting a realistic C What changes do you think you will need to lead in order to close that gap? Curriculum changes; delivery of skills; tracking and awareness of orderline students What leadership strategies have you identified to help you close the gap?? Motivating others to follow the focus; encouraging staff to have close tracking of progress How has your personal understanding of what it means to be a successful and effective middle leader changed? We drive the initiatives from the top so that those next down can achieve the whole school agenda. How do you think your practice will or has changed as a result of this? Rather than making this something I have to do it is my job to get the staff to be motivated and engaged so that the coherency of the team is what makes us the success.

• Using data

5th Nov 2011 16:20
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Stage 1: Preparing to start the programmeThe data specific to my challenge has been the projected attainment grades for year 11 students. There is a very concerning gap in performance of a select group of students that are at real risk of not achieving a C in English Language. I think that the key aspect for me that I gained from the think piece was the use of the data as a tool rather than a pretty picture. I Am happy interpreting data, but that Is once I have it and it is all retrospective. What I do with that learning and understanding then informs policies for the next year, but the relative comparison is not the same. The thik piece has made me consider that the best way to really track using data is to generate a 'live' set and then to use it in the present tense rather than the past. In essence, with the targetted students that I have, and in order to really have a handle on the nature of the gap is to have them produce realistic and time sensitive data as a base line and starting point. From then on in, developing interim data/ assessment points so that they'd and really be tracked and compared accurately. It is quite clear that the gap is in the achievement of a C in reading and writing skills. The projected English and maths A*‑C percentage needs to be 78% and there are 50 students already named that will be our key to getting this percentage. It may be clear by now what the leadership challenge will be. I intend to work closely to lead the reduction of students that are borderline C/D GCSE students, and to increase the A*‑C scores of students in year 11. How am I going to do this? Blood sweat and tears? I need to motivate the whole department into having a real focus and enrichment on literacy. I need to encourgae the parents to support us, so that their children can be as succcessful as possible. I want to devise monthly literacy events for these students that will enrich and test their skills; have weekly sessions that effectively train the students on how to write and how to read. I want to have data that will demonstrate their development of skills and confidence. What will happen if it doesn't work to the level that we need? Reevaluate the try again!

Karen Dunn's blog

• Core unit: Developing your own leadership potential

5th Feb 2012 12:03
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP C2 G015592 North Bedfordshire

Tags: MLDP, Module: Developing your own leadership potential

• For me growing as a leader suggests a process; there will be hurdles along the way, but if I get to the end point and learnt about the challenges then I have been active in the growing. The present participle of the verb ‘to grow' means that there isn't an end and I haven't ‘grown up' ‑ if I have, what is next?
The well‑being of the leader is also a concept that I found very interesting and quite pleasing to see acknowledged and given the importance of a think piece. I have to keep reminding myself that with my challenge it isn't about me doing it all, but leading the team so that we can all do it. If I take the full mantel and falter underneath it, then this isn't good leadership, good team management or sensible. Within the context if my challenge this has come to the foreground quite recently. I have organised and set up booster sessions to help narrow the gap in achievement in the GCSE results for English. The second week's session saw over and above 35 students crammed into my small classroom. As I battled to gain some form of order so I could speak to them, I began to realise quite quickly that this was just silly. One of the students asked why we hadn't done anything much, and I replied that I knew when I was beaten ‑ beaten by sheer numbers, but also by my own expectation that I could orchestrate a profound learning environment where they all came, learnt and then went away smoothly within an ethereal ambience!
So, rather than nailing myself to the cross, I asked for help from my team. At the time of writing, I have no offers, which frustrate and disappoints me. So, how do I need to change my own well‑being to allow me to lead? I think rather than ask for help, take the help ‑ I think that perhaps I am too accommodating and not as forthright as the situation requires‑ they clearly want me to lead them, not dance about hoping someone will join in. One example of this, which has really struck me is a colleague sent me a long email about how the afterschool sessions were taken up with lessons as well as an after school club. They could rearrange the club, but weren't sure whether the curriculum lesson should be sacrificed, and what did I think. I was frustrated that the teacher couldn't simply make a decision, but this is because they were seeking direction, direction from me and what I wanted of them in clear tones ‑ I see this now.
My next move? Ask specific people for their time based on their timetables. I cannot be resilient or sustained if I don't take the challenging route and make a direct request.

• Stimulus

8th Jan 2012 20:59
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP: Participant Community

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading change and continuous improvement

I found the reading for this think piece very interesting and incredibly pertinent.  We are constantly coping with changing landscapes as a result of the changes of government and what is considered fashionable in educational circles; change is axiomatic – it’s taken for granted.  As the reading noted ‘change if often the product if multiple competing perceptions’; are there other industries that have to juggle in this way?  In relation to my challenge, I am facing differing agendas, and ones that don’t sit well together.  There is the rhetoric of the students’ needs against the needs of SUS to meet the A*‑C expectations, against the moral implications of forcing students who are or are not capable or won’t engage to achieve the FFT projections against the agenda of all students having equal opportunities.

For me, the challenge is tied up in the results in the summer and I have to wait until then to establish whether the intervention has worked.   But, for my leadership it is the process of he change that is important if not more so than the actual outcome of the changes.

I found the differences between improvement, innovation and transformation to be critical to the longevity of the change.  The ‘impact‑leverage ratio: how much difference do you actually make for what you input?’ is also very interesting.  I think that rather than simply innovating with year 11 and the intervention programme, we need a bigger view and a wider picture to take the step to transform our curriculum delivery.  Improvement and innovation feel too temporary and in the case of the A*‑C, a little like a knee‑jerk reaction.

No change is worthwhile unless the team is behind it.  But improvement and even innovation are easy and palatable, but transformation is fearful as it requires a change of approach and direction which shakes people’s secure foundations.  The skill of the leader is to be part of the innovation and to lead the innovation – to be integral to it so that improvement and innovation can be focussed on the teaching and learning.

• Core unit: Leading people and effective teams

2nd Jan 2012 11:40
Icon‑groups‑30x30 Shared with MLDP: Participant Community

Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading people and effective teams

It is quite clear that without a supportive team, and one that invests in the vision, a leader cannot lead.  After all, the adage that there isn’t an ‘I’ in team does ring true. 

I have been thinking a lot about the nature of teams and their leaders, and I recall the Tour de France with Mark Cavendish and Lance Armstrong.  Both riders are the leader of their team, but Cavendish manages his role differently from Armstrong.  The nature of this type of riding dynamic is that one rider is identified as the strongest and the one who has the best capability of crossing the line during sprints and team pursuits.  Essentially the team work together so that the lead rider can then be placed in a position to take the first place.  Armstrong believed that he was the most important person in his team and that they were there to ensure that he crossed the line first; whereas Cavendish acknowledges that without his team then he could not achieve the accolades that he has done – same function, but different expression of the role.  And when Cavendish was awarded Sports Personality of the Year fir 2011, he again acknowledged the hard work and dedication of his team.  Armstrong is not a team player and not a leader to inspire and motivate his team – they have a job to do, and their enjoyment and sense of achievement have been taken away by his tyrannical approach.  Whereas Cavendish may take the lime light but he shares the wins with his team.

Within this, there is the important message that just because I may be a team leader and the accountability falls on my shoulders, sharing the roles and  opportunities are as, if not more important than doing everything by myself.  With the nature of my challenge it involves the entire team to work together for the greater good of the students; I’m not going to get the accolade, it will be a group effort and for me and my team that is vital to our working together and functioning at the best level.  By inheriting a team, with its intricacies and various competencies and skills, the complete nature is characteristically unfit for purpose – this isn’t a bad thing, if anything this is the driving force to develop and engage a team; it makes it more interesting and worthwhile.  But as I lead us through the intervention, it is also my job to lead and guide the individual teachers within their own professional development – giving opportunities, and simply asking for help.

• Core unit: Leading teaching and learning

1st Dec 2011 15:20
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Tags: MLDP, Module: Leading teaching and learning

I also found that part of my challenge has been motivated by the ‘find and fix' approach and hence the creation of the gap in achievement; but the best quality of leadership is to manage the reasons, create schemes of work and teaching strategies to cope with these problems, and then to write policies for the ‘predict and prevent' aspect.

Within my own context I have really struggled with the teaching and learning of a particularly challenging group.  From this I decided, after making for ideas and resources to share that there need to be a change.  As a leader I am able to make that decision, but it has also allowed my staff to see that they can also make the decisions, without any form of judgment of sense of failure.  It isn't about them, but about what we can do together as a department to give the best to all students concerned with any decision

Using the data that we now have available to us has allowed us to have a greater and more confident, stronger leadership of the change, which in turn has propelled us towards the actual strategies we are ready to implement.

• Core unit: Leading and managing the organisation

1st Dec 2011 15:17
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I found that leading and managing was at the heart of everything especially within teaching and learning ‑ it's not rocket science, but takes a part of one of the key ideas of leadership and leading by example within the classroom.  Within the teaching and learning the application and development if staff to be able to adjust their teaching according to the contexts of their different groups ‑ staff need to feel that they are supported and relied upon to make those decisions.

I also found that part of my challenge has been motivated by the ‘find and fix' approach and hence the creation of the gap in achievement; but the best quality of leadership is to manage the reasons, create schemes of work and teaching strategies to cope with these problems, and then to write policies for the ‘predict and prevent' aspect.

 Within my own context I have really struggled with the teaching and learning of a particularly challenging group.  From this I decided, after making for ideas and resources to share that there need to be a change.  As a leader I am able to make that decision, but it has also allowed my staff to see that they can also make the decisions, without any form of judgment of sense of failure.  It isn't about them, but about what we can do together as a department to give the best to all students concerned with any decision

 Using the data that we now have available to us has allowed us to have a greater and more confident, stronger leadership of the change, which in turn has propelled us towards the actual strategies we are ready to implement.

• Core unit: Leading and managing the organisation

30th Nov 2011 20:32
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There are clear differences between leadership and management, but one cannot function effectively without the other.  Management is feet on the ground, where leadership is moving forwards.  The management allows the leadership, and the leadership gives the management direction and purpose.

Within the gap that I have identified the leadership has come through the initial identification of the gap and the principles behind the strategies.  Within this there is a need to ensure that the team are on baord and motivated to follow and collaborate, which is about being inspiring.  And yet it has to be practical and relevant which is the management of the leadership's vision.  Ironically, the leadership within my gao has 2 levels ‑ the overall vision of 79% A*‑C E&M has come from senour management, and my own leadership has shaped how this vision can be moulded inorder for it to be managed by all.

My own strategies cover a wide spectrum.  Leading by example, trusting my colleagues with their assessment of the progress of their students, but then supporting them within this trust that they have made the right decision, or guiding them to make a decision they are completely happy with.  Managing the day to day organisation of our strategies from group development, to creating and developing resources for the delivery; coaching non‑ specialist staff in being able to  teach the reading and writing skills for the single award students; ensuring that there is analysis of data and constant review of strategies; asking the team their feelings and ideas so that we can all have ownership over what has been done ‑ this isn't about me!

I have allowed my Co to express his ideas within our many brainstorming meetings, rather than dominating and making all the decisions, but we have together collaborated to see more practical ideas and approaches to the delivery of booster sessions ‑  we cannot support the students if we give with one hand and then take with the other.

• Core unit: Leading in a diverse system

11th Nov 2011 20:37
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Leading isn’t just about taking a group of people from A to B.  The whole leadership landscape is riddled with complexities.  Leading in a diverse environment really encapsulates the influences in any decision that a leader has to make.  My own context comes from a department level within a whole school context, in an Academy Federation that is rated by a national agenda. 

The A*‑C scores in English and maths are a key focus for school improvement and it is this that the school is judged on – no longer is it just the 5 A*‑Cs in the GCSEs.  As a national concern, it isn’t just about the GCSE scores but a grander concern.  With this in mind the leadership approach needs sensitivity.  If anything rather than changing the approach to my leadership, it means that the focus will be even tighter – looking out for the wider context so that the inner narrower context is the strongest and has the most impact.

Being aware of the contextual implications makes this gap even more important, and the stakes higher – we will be judged nationally and not just to satisfy ourselves.

• Core unit: Leading and managing the organisation

11th Nov 2011 15:33
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What I found very interesting was the best balance of leadershipo and management.  As per the work this morning, there needs to be elements of lots of different factors from people, purpose and principles.  An imbalance will have an impact on the overall effectiveness of the leadership; one cannot be so strong that it comes at the sacrifice of the others.  I also found intersting that management isn't necessarily leadership, but without one the other can't function.  I also like the reflection that the most effective middle leaders are those that are able to combine the personal and organisational elements ‑ principally the 'high trust with directive intervention'.  In essence adaptive and adoptove.  Do I do this?  I hope so.

One of the implications for the gap that I have identified is that there needs to be the balance struck between the leadership and management.  Inherent is the problem of the failing students as a result of the teaching and learning of the department.  But without being willing to cast blame, the initial focus has to be on solvijg the problem of the attainment, but within this are challenging questions about why. 

A key change to my own leadership and management in this project is that I cna;t do it on my own and I need to instill high expectations and a belief that my team will engage in the project.  I know there will be resitance, but in supporting those staff and encouraging them will be the hardest step.

Using data as well and being able to interpret the data and tracking mechanisms will povide the team with the power to drive the implementation.  A tight‑loose approach, giving the staff ownership and responsibility is the best balance for me.

I hope that my style won't change massively but striving to 'develop staff to create a high performance culture' whereby they embrace challenge so that we can rely on the trust element is always an aspiration

• Next steps

8th Nov 2011 19:28
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Tags: MLDP, Stage 1: Preparing to start the programmeWhat gap in achievement have you identified and why? Achievement of students at GCSE ‑ particular focus group of students at risk of not getting a realistic C What changes do you think you will need to lead in order to close that gap? Curriculum changes; delivery of skills; tracking and awareness of orderline students What leadership strategies have you identified to help you close the gap?? Motivating others to follow the focus; encouraging staff to have close tracking of progress How has your personal understanding of what it means to be a successful and effective middle leader changed? We drive the initiatives from the top so that those next down can achieve the whole school agenda. How do you think your practice will or has changed as a result of this? Rather than making this something I have to do it is my job to get the staff to be motivated and engaged so that the coherency of the team is what makes us the success.

• Using data

5th Nov 2011 16:20
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The data specific to my challenge has been the projected attainment grades for year 11 students. There is a very concerning gap in performance of a select group of students that are at real risk of not achieving a C in English Language. I think that the key aspect for me that I gained from the think piece was the use of the data as a tool rather than a pretty picture. I Am happy interpreting data, but that Is once I have it and it is all retrospective. What I do with that learning and understanding then informs policies for the next year, but the relative comparison is not the same. The thik piece has made me consider that the best way to really track using data is to generate a 'live' set and then to use it in the present tense rather than the past. In essence, with the targetted students that I have, and in order to really have a handle on the nature of the gap is to have them produce realistic and time sensitive data as a base line and starting point. From then on in, developing interim data/ assessment points so that they'd and really be tracked and compared accurately. It is quite clear that the gap is in the achievement of a C in reading and writing skills. The projected English and maths A*‑C percentage needs to be 78% and there are 50 students already named that will be our key to getting this percentage. It may be clear by now what the leadership challenge will be. I intend to work closely to lead the reduction of students that are borderline C/D GCSE students, and to increase the A*‑C scores of students in year 11. How am I going to do this? Blood sweat and tears? I need to motivate the whole department into having a real focus and enrichment on literacy. I need to encourgae the parents to support us, so that their children can be as succcessful as possible. I want to devise monthly literacy events for these students that will enrich and test their skills; have weekly sessions that effectively train the students on how to write and how to read. I want to have data that will demonstrate their development of skills and confidence. What will happen if it doesn't work to the level that we need? Reevaluate the try again!