School Improvement - Dr Jake Madden

End of Year Reflection

As such, the end of the academic year is an exciting time for a school community. While everyone is looking forward to the summer break, the effective principal will use the time to focus on school improvement planning for the following year. At some point the principal will take stock of the year and spend some serious time reflecting on the events of the school year. Reflection is a critical practice of the effective leader.

It is hard to believe that I have completed my first academic year at Dar Al Marefa. It feels like yesterday that I arrived in the Dubai to take on a new leadership position in a new country. The personal learning has been immense and very rewarding both personally and professionally.

Most reflections begin with a meditative approach, looking back and remembering the events month by month. This offers the principal with the timeline of the school. Completing the first year of a new school this process helps to focus on what’s important, what’s valued by the staff and school community. While each event has it’s mini evaluation after the fact during the year, recalling the various activities allows the principal to pinpoint what our school stands for. Looking at the events of the year questions like the following can be asked:

Do the events of our school reflect our vision & mission?
Are the events simply annual activities that we do……..(because that’s what we do?) Do the same people do the same things year in and year out?
What innovations have we introduced to the school?

For me, there are a few key questions that arise to guide my reflections as a principal leading the school. As leader this year have I:

Shared a clear understanding of what I stand for in teaching and learning?
made explicit the school action plan and its implementation?
Supported staff in their efforts to improve their instructional practice?
Increased the focus on student achievement? Has the student engagement increased?
Instilled confidence and fostered individual teacher aspirations
Value added to staff development? Did I delegate and empower or did I listen but made my own decisions?
Acknowledged the achievements of staff?
Celebrated success?

Such questions are great discussion starters to have with your staff, leadership team, students and parents. By doing so the effective leader is able to rate the climate of the school. It can be quite sobering to find out what staff say about your leadership of the school. (What does it say about the leader who doesn’t ask the questions?….) This is an important consideration because the Gallup’s 2013 Global Workforce Study found that only 13% of people in 142 countries reported they were engaged in their work, while nearly a quarter reported they were “actively disengaged.”

When leaders speak about their key achievements as leader of their school, the community is not wanting responses on your personal milestones (eg I completed my first marathon this year). Although important to the well being side of leadership they are looking for some depth from the professional sphere. Furthermore, they are not looking for generic type answers either.

Focusing on your action plan should give you plenty to talk about when someone asks you……have you made a difference this year?

Raising Student Achievement: The work of the Internationally Minded Teacher

One of the unique benefits of working in an international school is the opportunity to engage with a mix of cultures. One of the challenges is the drawing together of a diverse staffing demographics. Raising student achievement is the goal of each individual teacher.

While there is diversity within the student population it is also true within the teaching population. Given the research ( declaring the constant turn over of staff within international organisations of between 20-25 percent each year, the need for continuous induction of staff reveals a number of challenges for the principal and leadership team of the school. How do you sustain learning and not “waste” time inducting and re-inducting staff?

As explained in an article titled “Raising Student Achievement: The work of the Internationally Minded Teacher” (which can be found online at the International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change) the challenge for leaders in the international sector is to continue to meet the learning needs of educators. A targeted professional learning program is required. More precisely, a collaborative professional learning program. One that is focused on improving teacher practice more than learning how to implement a “program” of instruction.

This is where the coaching and mentoring aspect of the leader’s role comes into play.

The Role of the Educational Leader?

Recently I finished re-reading one of my favourite reference books by Fullan and Hargreaves, “Professional Capital – Transforming Teaching in Every School”. It has, as its central message, putting teachers and teaching at the forefront of school improvement. Through the path of breaking down the barriers of classroom isolation and engaging in a collaborative culture of learning, raising teacher status will improve student achievement.

Without doubt we need to set the bar higher in our schools and I believe this starts with the teacher. Even a poor teacher will inevitably produce some improvement in students’ learning over a year. What role does the educational leader of your school play? Are they visible? Do they complain of bureaucratic endeavours hiding behind their desk (is the door open?) or are they in the trenches along side their colleagues. There are many views on the role of the educational leader in the contemporary learning environment but the high performing schools have the teacher at the heart of providing an effective learning platform.

Fullan and Hargreaves discusses the need for colleagues to work more collegially and to bring leaders to account for their actions. They urged teachers to become a true pro. Not just a good teacher. This is where you need a strong educational leader to nurture the talents and guide the professional learning.

Educational leaders need to be focusing on the things that our best teachers do which make a difference to student learning. Its simply not best practice in expecting teachers to improve by handing resources to them. Professional learning is an active intention not a passive one and needs active engagement by all members of the school. Improvement, and more importantly, sustained improvement comes from teachers thinking differently about teaching and learning. It is having professional conversations about their practice, learning from each other and then implementing the teaching strategies that work.

Re-reading “Professional Capital” reinforces my view that the unfortunate reality is that many schools still promote leaders based solely on performance in roles vastly different from the one they’re being promoted into. Unfortunately, with less aspiring leaders about, too often managers are thrown into executive leadership duties without the skills and guidance required to excel.