School Leadership - A Scottish Perspective

I am just in the middle of four parent consultation evenings, two at each of the schools I lead. Having completed the first two, I have been thinking about what it is these regular events bring to the school, and the learning of the pupils? Firstly, of course, the parent evening is the opportunity to inform parents or guardians of the progress in learning of the pupils. This is a key responsibility placed on all teachers and all schools. I have always contended that, if schools have good open channels of communication with parents, there should be no surprises for parents when they attend these evenings. Any issues, successes and achievements should have already been shared by teachers. This should be an opportunity to explore the direction of travel and how the teacher, parents and pupils can work together to help the learners achieve all they can. Timings are important. We moved ours to November as we, and our parents, believe this was the best time to review and share progress of ...

In my last post I wrote about some of the key steps to consider when undertaking enquiry approaches to individual and school development. In this, I wish to share the benefits of such approaches as identified by ourselves and others. We have been using this approach for over four years now, and the reason we are so committed to the continuation of this is because of the benefits brought to our learners, each teacher and the schools in which we work. We also think there are benefits for the system of education and other schools and I touch on some of these at the end of this piece. Attainment and achievement has risen for all our pupils. They have greater understanding of their learning and this is deeper than we were previously able to evidence. Pupils are more informed and engaged in their learning and have clearer insights into their strengths and development needs. They are more able to articulate where they are in their learning and where they are heading next. They are becoming ...

For over four years now the schools I lead have been using practitioner enquiry as a vehicle for individual and school development. In that time we have transformed our attitude and practices in regard to professional development and whole school development. We are about to embark on our fifth year of enquiries into practice and we will shortly be sharing our plans with colleagues from another school as they begin their own journey with practitioner enquiry. This engagement, as well as the fact that we have new staff of our own, has led me to consider and identify the steps we have been taking in our previous enquiries. I think it is important that teachers are clear on the process of carrying out an investigation, and so I have identified the key stages that need to be followed.  It is these that I am sharing with you in this post. They come with huge health warnings. The first is that enquiring into practice should not be seen as a linear process, even though I am giving you...

As I write this I am currently engaging in a Twitter chat with educators from all over the world. The theme of the current chat is about how important is research to teachers, and whether teachers need, or should, engage with research. The hash tag for this chat is #gtcsPL so feel free to join in as this will be happening over the rest of this week, till Friday. This chat is exploring a new 'slow' format and that is why we have been encouraging people to drop in and out of the conversation over the course of five days. Being involved, the chat has felt anything but 'slow' as there has been so much interest and engagement as people have shared their views and challenged each other on many of those views. This is a perfect example of why I love Twitter. It provides me with opportunities to discuss and converse around issues to do with my day job, Headteacher, and education, both of which I remain passionate about. There was a time when our only opportunity to collaborat...

I was asked this week if my schools would take part in yet another award scheme. This time it was for sports and, yes, we could gain Bronze, Silver or Gold awards simply by jumping through some simple hoops (not literally). My heart sank. I was shown the tick-list of criteria for the awards. As usual the first two, Bronze and Silver could be achieved quite easily through self-assessment, whilst the Gold award required a lot more boxes to be ticked, including the one marked 'development plan', and required external assessment. The format was pretty familiar, as this structure was the same as found in most of the award schemes we have either been involved in, or asked to be involved in.  The Green Flag Eco award scheme was much the same. One of my schools was heavily involved in this scheme before I arrived, and had already achieved Silver awards and their first Green Flag, the top award possible at that time. The school and the pupils were now fully engaged in striving for their...

Last week schools were on half-term holiday across most of Scotland. I headed south to the warmer climes of Majorca and it was whilst there that I began to mull over some issues for school leaders. My thoughts were stimulated by some of the entertainment that was being provided by the hotel we were staying in. This consisted of one night with a tribute act to Rod Stewart, complete with gravelly voice and mullet wig. Another with 'Los Bitles', another tribute band, this time to The Beatles. Then finally a tribute to the Blues Brothers. All of these acts were very entertaining, though that judgement might have been influenced by the sangria, and they certainly new all the words and all the tunes. 'Los Bitles' even played all their own instruments, which also looked like the authentic equipment of the Fab Four. However, good though they were, myself and probably most of the rest of the audience of a certain age, were left still thinking a certain something was missing. Tha...

Last week we had a series of discussions in school around planning. I had conversations with other members of the SMT and with individual teachers, ahead of a full session with all teachers at the end of the week. Planning has long been a subject of discussion and dialogue in our schools, as in most others. I see it has been the subject of a Twitter discussion last week, led by  @Cherryl-kd, followed  by her own post on the issue. I must say it is sometimes quite shocking to see and hear of some the practices that still prevail in other settings, and the rationale that lies behind these. But, I am a great believer that all schools and staff are unique in many respects and are all at different places in their journey of development, and this needs to be seen and recognised, before they can move on. We are certainly in a different position to where we were a few years ago, and that position keeps developing and evolving. This is why we needed the discussion. I, and the other...