leadership - Balancing Act

In some ways I’m annoyed that my last ever blog post relates to performance management instead of something more positive in terms of teaching and learning BUT as I think about this – it’s positive and has made a difference to the learning experience for Year 11s at our school.

• Talk to her subject leaders (Head of Biology and Physics, Anna acts as Head of Chemistry) and create resources and lesson outlines for active revision for Year 10 and 11. I would organise cover so that the three of them could meet together as a team. This has now been done.
• Write letters home personalised (via mail merge) to every Year 11 parent explaining which modules were yet to be taken (either for the first time or as re-sits) and which websites were useful for revision; the letter would also outline what would be happening in lessons until the exams; this would also be copied to teachers who would then be expected to follow the content in the letter. I would read the drafts of the letters and organise office admin support for the mail merge and posting. I proof read the letters on Friday afternoon and so Anna’s perfecting them in the half-term ready to pass over to the office on Monday.

Our recent internal candidates for assistant headteacher had to deliver ten minutes on ‘practical strategies to raise achievement’; they were asked to make the presentation relevant to our school.

• presentation skills
• content – innovation and sticking to brief
• timing

So on presenting skills:

• Be confident; smile, remember to say ‘good morning’ – especially if you’re in a new school
• Practice speaking out loud, I still do this for assemblies. It cuts down on some of the waffling that you do if you’re thinking on your feet. Your brain will remember more of it and that will help with the delivery.

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Timed

• Meet with parents to get them on board
• Share data with every body involved – student, parents, all teaching staff
• Meet with subject leaders to devise a diagnostic tool and individualized support programme of individual subject support for these students
• Devise a way to measure success/failure early enough in Year 10 to encourage students or to show the need to turn up the intervention.

So my other late night last week was senior team bonding.  Wednesday evening Julia, an assistant head, and I car-pooled over to Nigel the deputy’s house.  Matthew the Head and Sarah the Bursar also came along.

We each brought a dish – none of us knew what the other was bringing and so we might have ended up having to eat 5 puddings (oh how terrible that would have been!)

Originally - we were going to analyse our dishes as part of bonding process; we’d also planned to do some work on the school SEF but neither happened in the end and I don’t think it mattered because we learnt a lot about each other just  by chatting together in a relaxed atmosphere well away from staff or students. 

So what does it say about Nigel that he rang Julia and I to say he was running late at the shops buying the food for his dish.  I could have stomached this if his dish had been complicated but it was bruschetta !  Admittedly it was absolutely gorgeous, sharp but creamy buffalo mozzarella and crème fraiche with lemon zest and olive oil plus black olives on the side.  I guess as he’s the pastoral person the smooth, calming influence is about right!

I made sure my dish was hot and spicy but that’s all I’ve got say on that!

Anyway – we couldn’t help but talk about it in the staff room as we joined together for briefing and I think it came as a bit of a surprise that the senior leaders meet outside of school or that we needed to bond!  I think it’s especially important as we’re about to interview for another assistant head to 'complete' the team.