Building Educational Leadership and Resilience

1. Welsh Future EducationLeaders ProgrammeResidential 3Building individual and organisational resilience 16th – 17th January 2018 Village Hotel Cardiff, 29 Pendwyallt Rd, Cardiff, CF14 7EF Welcome!

2. Introduction to Residential 3 Anton Florek, Chief Executive, The Staff College

3. Day One

4. Last time……………

5. The international perspective: growing interest in understanding education systems as systems, and greater recognition of the role of the middle tier ‘As the school systems we have studied have progressed on their improvement journey, they have increasingly come to rely upon this mediating layer between the centre and the schools for sustaining improvement.’ (McKinsey, 2010) • Strategic direction • Performance management • Skills, leadership capacity, human capital • The middle tier has played a key role in: • Implementing reform • Co-ordinating practice • Facilitating collaboration • Its role was not always part of the original vision – some systems have strengthened their middle tier, others have created new ones • Targeted support • Facilitate communication and collaboration • “Buffer” • Lead and deliver classroom instruction • Drive improvement • Engage community

6. There are different types of middle tier organisations

7. Recently, there have been new drivers of reform of the middle tier, and new pressures and trends to whichthe middle tier has had to respond

8. Characteristics of systems that have moved from good to excellent Poor to fair - ‘Achieving the basics of literacy and numeracy’ Fair to good - ‘Getting the foundations in place’ Good to great - ‘Shaping the professional’ Great to excellent - ‘Improving through peers and innovation’ • Providing motivation & scaffolding for low skill teachers • Minimum standards • Getting students in seats • Sharp analysis & accountability • Financial & organisational foundation • Better teaching & learning • High quality teachers & leaders • School based decision making • Building system capacity • Creating additional support mechanisms for professionals • System-sponsored experimentation and innovation across schools

9. ISOS field work identified three developing key ‘roles’ emerging for local authorities in a more autonomous education system

10. Key messages emerging about leadership fromlocal authorities where promising practice is emerging • Seize the agenda, rather than be apologetic and wait for instruction. • Treat schools as partners and leaders in the education system and develop the governance with and between schools so that good relationships have a life beyond the particular individuals involved at any one time. • Be clear about the local authority role in establishing and driving partnership working.

11. Collective moral purpose A further enabling condition draws on the concept of moral purpose, or that which motivates and sustains teachers in their professional commitment. It is not primarily for financial reward or for social status that teachers do what they do, but rather because preparing the next generation to be fully realised individuals and to create a better society are at the heart of what education is for. In the most successful school partnerships known to me this already happens: the principles and practice of system leadership of system leadership get distributed. But there is no common term for this. Initially I coined the obvious phrase distributed system leadership for the phenomenon, but the term is, however, unfamiliar and somewhat technical, and I now prefer collective moral purpose (CMP) • David Hargreaves (2012)

12. Social capital Social capital consists of two connected elements, trust and reciprocity. Reciprocity thrives as long as people can be persuaded to collaborate with one another to improve professional practice. Trust, however, is a more subtle concept and is established much more slowly. David Hargreaves (2012) There are key questions to be asked about trust within and between organisations: • How do individuals become optimistic enough to risk the co-operation that often leads to trust? • How do they initiate trust relationships with others? • How do they maintain trust relationships once they have started? Hardin (2002)

13. Collaborative capital

14.  All children and schools in Lincolnshire are our collective responsibility Every child and school is known, valued and supported to achieve No school is more important than an individual child’s needs Lincolnshire Learning Partnership Board will: All schools will: Commit and contribute to supporting each other’s improvement Share and act upon evidence to improve learning Build networks and work together to serve children and their communities Welcome challenge from each other to ensure no school fails • Champion learners and leaders to shape their own futures • Promote successes, innovation and evidenced practice to benefit all • Empower schools to meet the need of the communities • Challenge all schools to keep getting better

15. Key pointers for the middle tier • Develop a long-term vision and strategy for Teaching and Learning that moves beyond compliance and to which all partners sign up. • It might include: • Prioritising changing the culture of LA staff and schools and developing a more adaptive leadership approach.Growing system capacity. • Focus on growing the number of outstanding schools and system leaders, as well as supporting lower-performing schools to improve. • Supporting Teaching Schools‟ development and effectiveness, particularly around leadership development, teacher recruitment and induction. If there is more than one Teaching School you may want to encourage specialisation to increase effectiveness. • Encouraging schools to ring fence funding for professional development, if necessary, by dropping less important activities to make space. • Develop a framework for school-to-school support, covering: • An agreed data-based system for categorising all schools‟ performance as a basis for planning supportRecognition of schools‟ autonomy to choose which middle tier bodies they join and the way that they develop for NLEs • Funding to ensure capacity for leadership and intervention, produced by redeploying resources in schools and the LAA mechanism for holding the operational network and strategic partnership to account for delivery against agreed objectives. • NFER. (2013)

16. Embed evaluation and challenge Encourage – and support capacity building in – individual schools to embed evaluation and challenge through a common approach to developing teaching and learning, including peer-to-peer support and challenge, use of data and CPD. Leadership teams are critical in modelling the right behaviours, which can then extend across schools. If necessary, have a mechanism for undertaking the challenge role if the schools feel they cannot. NFER. (2013)

17. Examples…….

19. Ontario is committed to the success and well-being of every student and child. Learners in the province’s education system will develop the knowledge, skills and characteristics that will lead them to become personally successful, economically productive and actively engaged citizens. Ontario will cultivate and continuously develop a high-quality teaching profession and strong leadership at all levels of the system. Our education system will be characterized by high expectations and success for all. It will be responsive, high quality, accessible and integrated from early learning and child care to adult education. Together, we will build on past achievements and move forward with ambitious goals.

20. All partners, individually and collectively, have agreed to uphold and model the principles of collaborative professionalism: • share a vision of professional collaboration and a clear sense of purpose of the work of all education professionals; • engage all education professionals at all levels in fostering and sustaining the conditions for collaborative professionalism; • share ideas for the streamlining and enhancing of initiatives and strategies; • shift from an initiatives-based approach to a coherent system-wide approach to change; • mobilize research and evidence on effective practices; and • engage in ongoing reflective practices.

22. The Newcastle Promise A city where we all share responsibility for providing the best educational opportunities for all our children and young people. • We will: • create the sense of belonging in our schools, where children are proud of the present and ambitious for their future • support and challenge each other so that no school or child is left behind • drive improvement, seeking excellence through equity • work creatively, beyond institutional boundaries, to raise standards and maximise the learning opportunities for all • build a collaborative learning community, sharing our success, innovation and evidence-based practice.

23. Session 1 - Leading for social change: developing community resilience for improved outcomes Anton Florek

24. This creates dependency particularly in the most vulnerable They stop believing change for them is possible Belief: our users are passive recipients of services The need increases The public sector spends more and achieves less

25. What is Social Capital? Social capital refers to the institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society's social interactions. Increasing evidence shows that social cohesion is critical for societies to prosper economically and for development to be sustainable. Social capital is not just the sum of the institutions which underpin a society – it is the glue that holds them together. World Bank

26. Social capital is about the value of social networks, bonding similar people and bridging between diverse people, with norms of reciprocity. Dekker and Uslaner (2001) …the web of cooperative relationships between citizens that facilitate resolution of collective action problems. Brehm and Rahn (1997)

27. Collective rather than individual social capital: • place based social capital • citizen capital

28. What is co-production? • Investing in strategies that develop the emotional intelligence and capacity of local communities. • Devolving real responsibility, leadership and authority to ‘users’, and encouraging self-organisation rather than direction from above. • Offering participants a range of incentives which help to embed the key elements of reciprocity and mutuality.

29. The cultural change needed for this • recognising people as assets – start by asking what people can offer • building on existing capability • mutuality and reciprocity – creating expectation and opportunity for people to support each other • blurring distinctions between professionals and users • the local authority facilitating rather than delivering.

30. The challenge in co-production Recognising that some expertly staffed and well-run services don’t deliver the best results for the people they should benefit because the services do not reach them, see them as hard to reach or as having deficits. The need is to believe that residents have aspirations and resources but can feel powerless and stigmatised by the way we provide services and that this unintentionally reinforces social isolation. The key challenge is to fundamentally shift the nature of the relationships our services have with our citizens so we also shift the balance of power.

31. Implementing co-production This requires complementary cultural shifts in: • the way staff work across agencies, specifically the way they interact with service users and residents, by replacing the passive dependent citizenship with a belief that residents have strengths and resources to bring to the table • how services and new models of delivery are developed by nurturingmuch closer interaction between the community and professionals and encouraging the design and delivery of localised solutions embracing public sector, commercial and voluntary contributions.

32. ..a means to delivering public services in an equal and reciprocal relationship between professionals, people using services, their families and their neighbours. Where activities are co-produced in this way, both services and neighbourhoods become more effective agents of change. Boyle and Harris (2009) “The Challenge of co-production” Nesta Redefining co-production

34. Human capital is created in diverse contexts, in the family and home, in communities, in the workplace and in many other social settings. The arena for policy intervention is therefore wide. OECD (2001)

35. Jennifer Pahlka video

36. From a Whole Systems Leadership perspective, change doesn’t take place one person at a time. Instead, as Margaret Wheatley notes, it happens “as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what’s possible”. Drawing from the lessons of complexity science, Whole Systems Leadership recognises that when many interconnected individuals and groups take many small actions, a shift happens in the larger patterns of communities, organisations, and societies. University of Minnesota and Life Science Foundation (2010)

37. What is Social Prototyping? • Social prototyping can be thought of as a process of design through trial and error, conducted transparently and openly. • profoundly “social”, in partnership • collaborative trial and error • at the level of action, moving beyond the table/studio/desk.

38. Social Prototyping Traditional planning approach Static participation, ownership and quality Implementation Research Design Launch Initial idea Design (Re) design (Re) design Reframe Reframe Reframe Test Test Test Increasing participation, ownership and quality Social prototyping approach

39. Card Sort Exercise

41. So what is the work we now have to do?

42. Welsh Future EducationLeaders ProgrammeResidential 3Building individual and organisational resilience 16th – 17th January 2018 Village Hotel Cardiff, 29 Pendwyallt Rd, Cardiff, CF14 7EF Lunch

43. Session 2 – Leadership in context Helen Borley, Head Teacher, Mount Stuart Primary School, Cardiff

44. Leadership in context Helen Borley Head Teacher Mount Stuart Primary School

45. Mount Stuart Primary – this is us • Butetown next door to Cardiff Bay – 2nd most deprived area (WIMD) • FSM 26.25% and this is dropping year on year • There are approximately 469 pupils on roll which includes a Nursery unit • The school is a diverse community with 94% minority ethnic pupils • EAL 78%, 26 different languages- Arabic and Somali • 28% of pupils are identified as having special educational needs. • Pupil numbers have increased significantly since the school was built in 1996. The school is valued and trusted by the community. • The school had a dip in attainment in 2016 and alongside this had a 2 day strategic review that highlighted some weaknesses in practice especially in Foundation Phase. • The school was then categorised as “amber” needing support, support was then brokered by the LA

46. But this is also us • High parental engagement – 95% attendance at parents evenings and all events are always well attended • Huge community involvement: sports, arts, culture • Globally aware: regularly raise £600 plus for charity work • Active school council, learning council etcetc • High attaining – 8th most deprived in our benchmarking group but came up 1st or 2nd in all indicators • Progress is very strong – our children do very well from their starting points • School is well respected, trusted and works well with the community

47. 2013 Estyn Excellent for many areas – double excellent overall • Performance • Prospects for improvement • Outcomes • Care, guidance and support • Learning Environment • Leadership and Management

48. The term before… • June 2016 2-day review led to intensive support • Outcome data • Head Teacher recruitment – July 2016

49. Challenges in January 2017 • Look for the good • Coming from a different framework • Build and form new teams • Judge quality of teaching and learning • Make an impact – quick wins

50. Where to look for help • CSC – challenge adviser • Research • Governors