Vision
My old secondary school principal once said: "if you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there". For the past few years, we have used the first day of the school year as an opportunity to share our vision for the school year and to get buy-in from staff. We were fortunate our school review took place at the end of 2019 and provided us with some solid feedback and a clear direction about where we needed to focus our energy and efforts for 2020.
SETTING THE SCENE
Our Leadership Team met for 2 days prior to school starting to develop our plan for the day. We spent 1 day planning with the other day generating the content and support materials (handouts, slides, posters etc...)
READY, SET, GO!
We started the day using a video that we were shown at a DET Principal Forum from the previous year. The video compared two racing car pit crews; one from 1950 and the other more recently. After showing the video to our staff, they worked in teams to compare the differences between the teams and note what had changed and what was different.Some of the key messages we focused on were:
Work as a team
Everyone has a role and each role is important
We’re all linked and contribute to achieving the goal
If someone doesn’t do their job, it impacts on others
Precision is important
It’s a process - can’t skip or leave stuff out
Continuous Improvement - Just because it was good in 1950 doesn’t mean it’s good now - It’s not about ‘best practice’ it’s about ‘improved practice’
Findings from our School Review
The video was a nice segway into sharing some of the feedback we received in our school review report. We focused on celebrating our achievements and the positive elements identified by the review panel and then spent some time summarising the areas of opportunity that the review panel identified. We then gave some time to discuss and share their feedback on these findings. What emerged was that were no surprised in terms of the areas for improvement we were all in agreement with their findings.We then shared what we had identified as a Leadership Team as some 'quick wins' we could implement early on that would generate a shift and help to drive improvement moving forward. Some of these included greater principal involvement in curriculum development, planning and review, establishing action teams to share the load, build staff leadership capacity and to allow for succession planning and establishing more 1:1 meetings and conversations to support the performance and development process and leadership development. We identified two key 'words' or 'themes' based on the review that centered around 'consistency' and 'precision'. We then spent some time unpacking the definition of these words.
To achieve consistency and precision, some of our actions will focus on:
common timetabling of reading and maths to allow for collaborative teaching, peer observation, learning walks and coaching.
Establishing a common file and document naming structure for teams to use in the Google Drive as each area of the school was using a different folder structure making it difficult to find things.
A consistent school-wide process for storing student assessment data to help facilitate conversations around individual student and cohort data at PLT (Professional Learning Team) meetings.
A greater focus on the curriculum at staff meetings (rather than administrative tasks)
An agreed approach and format for student bookwork.
This then led in to a brief discussion about our Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) goals and targets for 2020. For the past few years, we have provided staff with a 1 page summary of the AIP that they need to display in theclassroom\office. This ensures that the AIP remains visible and not some document gathering dust.During our middle session, we spent time talking about the individual impact each staff member plays on school improvement. This was challenging for some as they believed that as they were not 'teachers' they did not see themselves as impacting on student achievement data. We then shared with them a short video that demonstrated how small interactions we have with students each and every day can make a big difference.For the past few years, we have used quotes as our 'theme' for the year. This year our quote from Haim Ginott focused on the role and power of an individual to set the tone.
Me-We-The
This then led in to what we referred to as the 'ME-WE-THE' model.This activity saw staff identify and record the impact they have on 'Improving Student Outcomes' as an individual [me], as a member of team [we] and as a member of our staff [the]. This activity will form part of our Performance and Development Process for the upcoming year.
Are you laying bricks or building a cathedral?
We finished the session by sharing the story of a traveler who came upon three men working. He asked the first man what he was doing and the man said he was laying bricks. He asked the second man the same question and he said he was putting up a wall. When he got to the third man and asked him what he was doing he said he was building a cathedral.Each person was all doing the same thing. The first man was completing a task. The second man had a project. The third man had a vision.In 1961, US President John F Kennedy was visiting NASA. Whilst there, he asked every single person what they were doing. Each replied to him "I'm helping to send a man to the moon".Everyone has to play their part for success.We finished by posing the following:
Do you see the vision\end game in what you do every day?
How do you see your role in that vision?
Can you see the big picture in your daily actions?
Do you realize what a difference you are making?
Putting Faces on the Data
Our final session for the day focused on linking our AIP Targets to cohorts and classes in the school with staff spending time looking at their class data and identifying students who would require additional help and support and who had the potential to be extended further. This led to staff making predictions about where they believe there students would be at the end of the year.The AIP requires us to state our targets in the form of a percentage, but this is often hard to visualise and conceptualise. The aim of this task was to get staff to consider our goal of more students achieving greater than 12 months of growth in one year and considering who these students could potentially be.
The 1% Difference
We finished the day off by sharing an idea we had heard at our Network Principal's Conference the previous year from Lee Wannabee Crocket. In his presentation, Lee discussed the idea of small improvements each day, sustaining these and adding upon them gradually each day.We shared with staff a video that told the story of the British cycling team and how, through small incremental improvements, they ended up winning the Tour De France.We then spent some time collaborating and brainstorming a list of small incremental changes we could make that could lead to big improvements.
The Wash Up
I was quite astounded and surprised by the level of positive feedback we received following our presentation. This was not the first time we had done a presentation like this before, so I was keen to 'dive deeper' and unpack with staff what made this different.I shared my thoughts and posed this question to a few staff the next day to gain an insight into their thinking:
"It didn't feel like you were 'telling us' what to do. It felt like we were involved and got to contribute."
"For the first time, it all made sense to me. I could see the connection between the school review, the AIP and what it means to me. Sometimes I felt like we were doing all these things and I was never really sure why but today's session helped connect the dots"
"At times, I feel like we are rushing through to 'cover content' and 'get stuff done'. Today I felt like we actually had time to have deep, rich conversation and get feedback from everyone rather than just the odd one or two."
How do you 'set the scene' with your staff for the year ahead?
Do you use a theme or quote or focus word for the year?