Five Keys for Building and Maintaining Sustainable School Momentum David J.C. McKenzie
Introduction Let’s face it. We all want our school’s to grow and be better places from when we first started to when we leave. When we leave we want people to celebrate the successes of our time there and not celebrate that we will no longer be there. As a new appointment to a school, quick change can be easy. There will automatically be style differences, personality shifts and perspective changes. It is commonly known as ‘the honeymoon period’. The weaknesses of the previous Principal become your first point of focus and so we get quick runs on the board by working in those areas. Yet leadership is not about quick fixes, easy runs and only hanging around a few years until it gets tough and then you’re out of there. Schools need more than that. Teachers need more than that. Children deserve and require more than that. True leadership stays the course and hangs in there through thick and thin. True leadership is resilient, persistent and committed. So how do we grow our schools when the new broom has swept clean, when the honeymoon is over and when all the easy runs have been scored? Therein lies the challenge to us as Principals. How do we build and maintain a sustainable forward momentum for growth for our schools after five years, ten years or even fifteen years? Here are five keys to building and maintaining sustainable momentum. Key Number One: Manage Professional Learning We as principals need to be strategic around how we manage professional development and that we don’t give our staff Prodevitis. Prodevitis is where we can overwhelm our staff with so much professional development, so many courses, so many conferences, so many visiting facilitators, that there just isn’t enough time in the day or week for our teachers to teach properly. Teachers become so busy with days away, after school meetings, readings for this, preparation for that, observations for yet another visiting facilitator, well, the children begin to suffer. Teachers can only take so much. The very thing that we think produces momentum, professional development, when undertaken too much, when over-used, produces the exact opposite, burn out, over-commitment, brain freeze and worst still resentment towards your leadership. Prodevitis is a momentum killer. A good professional development formula to follow includes . . . ■■
Whole staff: Participate in only one school wide, whole year, professional development focus for all teachers. This provides a unity of focus and in depth work. This generally can be maintained through a staff meeting structure so teachers will not feel overwhelmed with additional commitments.
Passion PD: Support teachers to grow in their passion subjects. We want them to become experts in what they love doing so that they can lead others. A staff full of a diversity of passionate curriculum experts is very energising, very supportive and very affirming. Passion PD is not burdensome to staff. They lap it up and love it. ■■ Responsibility PD: Provide opportunities for teachers to grow in their areas of responsibilities. Growing them in their skills shows that they are valued and appreciated. As they grow, the capacity within the school grows. ■■ TOD: Utilise Teacher Only Days for whole staff professional development for practical areas such as First Aid Certificate renewal or visiting another school in operation. A TOD acknowledges that staff are busy people and allows a unity of focus. ■■ Here’s another idea. Provide your staff with course reflection time of ½ for each course. When we had spare banked staffing this was a very practical way to show to staff that their PD was valued as you gave them time to reflect and begin to implement their learning. ■■
Key Number Two: Encourage Staff Stability Staff turn-over is inevitable. There will be OEs for BTs, LTR for maternity leave, retirement, promotion, spouse shifting etc. It happens. Sometimes it happens in waves. It is part of having staff. It is part of the job. In fact, a certain amount of staff turnover can be healthy for momentum as it maintains a freshness and richness within a staff, it brings in new skills and new dimensions. Yet there is a tipping point for staff turn-over when it becomes detrimental to the momentum of the school. Put bluntly excessive staff turn-over is a momentum killer. With excessive staff turn-over the energies of a school turn inward. They have to. Staff need to be inducted and supported into the school systems, culture and community. A good portion of that energy comes directly from us as principals and our management teams around us. The big question that needs to be asked is how much is too much staff turn-over? Where is the tipping point where the school’s momentum wavers, stifles or worse still shrinks? Manageable: In terms of teachers, a turnover of one in four, or one in five is natural and manageable. This equates to 20–25% per year. As stated above this can be healthy and useful providing a fresh feel to the staff each year. ■■ Wavering: Between 25% to 50% momentum begins to stagger as there is more possibility for tippage. If you have up to 50% new staff then that is an increased portion who do not know each other, do not know the children, do not know the parent community and are unaware of school systems. Mistakes will ■■
occur more regularly and it’s your door they are knocking on itself. This can be celebrated in increments of 5 years. We for the fixes. can go deeper and acknowledge personal events such as engagements, weddings, marriage and births. ■■ Stifling: At two in four (50%) or three in five (60%) new ■■ Acknowledge Efforts: Staff, all of staff, support staff and appointments in a year I believe school momentum for teachers, work hard to keep everything in a school ticking growth is stunted. Here there can be less than half of a staff over. The contributions of many staff members move into left from the previous year. This throws onto those remaining what is known as the realm experienced staff, whether they of discretionary effort. They want it or not, the strain of As leaders there are significant effectively ‘go the extra mile’. This leadership and organisation of events. This consumes and drains realms that we can influence adds value to a school and needs to be acknowledged. Staff could be their energies. At this point organising events such as camps, we have to be careful that our to help build and maintain taking children to extension experienced staff don’t leave due sustainable momentum for the activities, running lunch time to excessive workload. With this coaching sports teams, scenario so much time is going schools that currently are under activities, catering for some difficult children’s into just doing the day by day needs etc. When we acknowledge there is no capacity for forward our care. these efforts we send a strong signal momentum. that we value and appreciate our ■■ Shrinkage: Beyond 60% (three out of every four, or four out staff. This is a very positive and affirming environment to of every five) and I would argue that organisation knowledge work in and staff enjoy such a working climate. has been heavily compromised and the school will go ■■ Maintain transparency: Staff appreciate transparency. They backwards. With next to no staff from a previous year it is want to know that there are no hidden agendas, that they are hard to build on experiences, reflect on past school learning part of the process, that they will be consulted about things and then move things forward. that impact upon them, that we will treat them honestly and The obvious question that needs asking after saying all that fairly. Dodgy staff politics, perceived lying and deceptions is the following: can we as Principals encourage and influence are killers to staff stability. They are toxins that will drive staff healthy stability within our staff? I believe that we can but it is away. Driving staff away is a momentum stopper. not a science. It is a way of operation that produces a positive ■■ Have fun: Staff spend a lot of time at school, sometimes more staff ‘family’ culture that human beings enjoy being part of and than they may spend with their families, especially during want to remain in and contribute towards. term time. We want them to come to work and enjoy this To encourage staff stability and so secure on-going momentum experience. Having fun is part of that. There is an appropriate here are some ideas. place for humour, jokes and laughs. There is a place for ■■ Listen and Act: As my years of principalship mount up I relaxation and just enjoying the company of each other. Here find myself listening, with my eyes and my ears, more and are some examples. • One day we learnt that staff member who didn’t like gnomes more to what people are doing and what people are saying. (as cute as they are). Mysteriously, the day after this was Staff have good ideas for improvement that need to be seen discovered, pictures of a gnomes appeared in different places and heard. All our school communities, even with some of around the school, including the staff toilets! their criticisms, can promote thoughts that then build towards • Laughing at ourselves and our personality quirks helps new initiatives. By listening with our eyes and ears we can keep things light. I’m a precise, it is openly known amongst gain valuable ‘next-steps’ for the school. When staff see that the staff, so it might as well be a joke as well. My office is their ideas have been noticed, genuinely heard then brought tidy. I like the staffroom kept tidy. I like things in on time. through into actions they know they are in a place of mutual It is just who I am. I can’t escape it so I might as well respect. This encourages stability. laugh at it. ■■ Celebrate Milestones: The milestones that occur within a • On Wednesday it is Soup Day. The staff have put together staff can be many. An obvious one includes registration for a roster and a different person each Wednesday bring some beginning teachers. We can also celebrate length of service soup and bread. It’s just fun seeing what surprise there is within the school or length of service within education for lunch on Wednesday.
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• At the end of each term, on the Friday, we have either a shared lunch or get someone to cater using the staff social fund. It is a great way to end the term. • At the end of the year we play ‘Angels and Mortals’ where we each pull a staff members name out of the hat and have to buy them a gift of less than ten dollars that is placed under a Christmas tree in the staffroom. Then at a morning tea in the last week we get to open our gift and guess our ‘angel’. ■■ Set the Pace of Change: We want our schools to grow and become better and this requires change. Too much change can overwhelm staff members as it unsettles certainties. When certainties shift staff can take time to settle. When there are too many uncertainties we have effectively taken our staff into a metaphorical swamp. They don’t know where solid ground is any more. They begin second guessing themselves. They come back to us all the time for confirmation of how to do this and what should be done for that. It is up to us to manage the pace of change to ensure that there is enough solid ground to maintain trust, support initiate and preserve confidence. ■■ Expect Professional Excellence: Being a teacher is professional occupation. It requires tertiary study to obtain a degree and there is time, two years, where a teacher must prove that they are competent enough to be fully registered. It is our professional duty as principals to acknowledge the professionalism of our teachers and work to maintain this consistently across a school. Communicating, discussing and debating together what this looks like is a positive and healthy part of a school. Teachers want to be part of something that is of quality and that has standards. The challenge with this is to still trust, still respect and still encourage flair. We need to be careful that we don’t lock down excellence into a one dimensional picture created in our minds only. Each teacher needs to be given enough freedom to be who they are and be excellent as a teacher in that.
Key Number Three: Maintain a Balance of Experience within Our Staff To maintain momentum we need to keep an eye upon the level of teaching experience within the whole of our teaching staff. Teaching experience does count. Teaching experience is needed within a school. I would argue that teaching experience within the profession and at a particular level within the school could count as much as up to one stanine for a child’s learning achievement. That is significant. Our appraisal system even acknowledges this by having teachers progress through several stages – Beginning Teacher, Fully Registered and then finally Experienced. As with staff turnover, there are very similar thresholds relating to the level of experience within a staff. Of particular attention is the number of beginning teachers / overseas trained teachers (BT / OTT) a school can manage without eroding momentum. Manageable: In terms of BT /OTT one in four, or one in five is manageable. This equates to 20 – 25% of a staff over two years, as registration is a two year process. ■■ Wavering: Between 25% to 50% BT /OTT over two years, can cause a school to stagger as this is, on the maximum of this threshold, has only one experienced staff member to each BT / OTT. Given that the experienced staff members will most probably be the tutor teacher, that means every experienced staff member is a tutor teacher. Busy! ■■ Stifling: Two in four (50%) or three in five (60%) BT / OTT over a two year period, is where I believe school momentum ■■
for growth is stifled. At the upper end of this thresholds there will have to be one staff member overseeing at least two BT / OTTs. The level of meetings, observations and support that this requires adds considerably to that experienced staff members workload. Potentially the Tutor Teacher will also be an AP, DP or Lead Teacher and the things for them begin to be stretched. There then begins to be co-ordination issues around, release teachers, release time and release space. ■■ Shrinkage: Beyond 60% (three out of every four, or four out of every five) BT / OTT over two years and I would argue that organisation strength has been heavily compromised and the school is in danger of entering a difficult downward spiral. The level of experience has become too low and children’s learning could well be at stake. All we would need as a Principal is an ERO visit and then watch the stress levels spike to dangerously high thresholds for our health.
Key Number Four: Get the Right Thinking in the Right Place The New Zealand school system is designed around a model called, way back in the late 1980, ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’. This model created multiple tiers of responsibilities, each with a different functions, in order to enable our teachers to do the job that they are trained to do. Of particular importance to us are the functions of the BOT, our roles as principals, and the role of the service staff. Each tier requires a different way of thinking. Failing to get the right thinking in the right places can cause momentum to waver, stifle or shrink. ■■
Governance Thinking: Governance thinking is future thinking. In order for our schools to operate well we need governance thinking. The role of governance thinking is vested in the Board of Trustees. This thinking is future
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focused, big picture, strategic, priority orientated, vision directed. It is thinking that is reflective and proactive. It listens, observes, considers and analyses. It looks for trends and patterns. One of the common flaws within a BOT structure is that the Board effectively functions like a superPrincipal causing the Principal to functions a super-Secretary. That type of operation will only maintain a school, it won’t grow it. ■■ Leadership Thinking: Leadership-thinking is people focused. As Principals we need to be leaders of people. Leadership of people requires us to think how we would like to be treated and then act that way towards our staff. Leadership thinking means we embody the vision, values and beliefs of the school in order to provide a human example of what we would like others to follow. Leadership thinking means that we work incrementally, bit by bit, day by day, through people to improve the school. We plan out the weeks and terms. We ponder on the complaints and gossip. We tirelessly positively promote the children, staff and school to the community. ■■ Resource Thinking: Resource thinking is support thinking. As Principals we need to be managers of resources. When we think about resources we need to think about storage and retrieval systems. We need to think about keeping up to date with changes in technology. We need to think about maintenance of buildings and development of the infrastructures to support learning. We need to think about the money needed to make all this occur. All this is geared towards supporting our children and staff to undertake their key roles. ■■ Service Thinking: Service-thinking is client focused thinking. The Service Centre within our schools is crucial. Getting the right thinking in this domain can solve so many problems. The office manager (and all other office staff) need to have efficient and effective parent focused systems. There needs to be strong communication links. Office staff need to be asking themselves so many questions. What is the right way to do this? Who needs to know about this? When does this need to occur? A deeper question that a service centre needs to consider is . . . ‘Is the level of service we provide to and for parents accurate, timely and friendly?’
Key Number Five: Grow You If you are like me, you’re thinking about school more times than you are physically on the premises. It could be 2.00am in the morning where you are pondering a difficult situation. I do a lot of thinking about school on my morning run between 6.00am and 6.50am. It’s a physical blow out and a mental reflection time. The one thing that I have learnt is that the growth of the school and the growth of my thinking are inextricably linked. The other way to put this is that I don’t know what I don’t know and since I don’t know it, it is unlikely to occur. We as principals need to go to the NZSTA courses, attend leadership courses, attend the conferences, go to courses with our staff, be part of the whole staff PD. At each one we need to be looking for that one idea, that one improvement that we can take back and make our places better places. I work on the concept of one good idea per hour of PD. It’s like gold mining. There is a lot of excess material to work through to find the nuggets but when you find them they are very precious and add value/momentum to the school. This growth within us is not limited to our knowledge and skills. It is important that we grow as healthy, well-adjusted human beings. In fact, as leaders we need to be the most welladjusted and together people on our staff. A lot rests on our
shoulders. The more we know ourselves the more useful and strong we can be to others. Knowing ourselves means we know what we like or dislike, it enables us to set the boundaries for the professional playing field. It also means we know our strengths and we know our weaknesses and with our weaknesses we get people around us in those areas and allow them to shine. Knowing and growing in ourselves has several aspects. Getting Over Ourselves: The more we get-over-ourselves, the more effective we become as leaders. By ‘getting-overourselves’ I mean things such as: stop taking things personally (as hard as I still find this); knowing our weakness and laughing at them; not having to be the font of all knowledge and the originator of all good ideas; being comfortable with another’s success. I know for me there was a time where I had what I called Super-Hero Principal Syndrome. I thought I had to be all things to all people at all times. Rescue this. Solve that. Fix that. ‘Yes’. ‘Yes’ and ‘Yes’ again to everyone’s requests. I can do it because I am me. To speak like Yoda off Star Wars, ‘Foolish I was’. I had to get-over-myself so that the school could actually grow properly. ■■ Growing Our Character: Character is the chemistry of relationships. As leaders we find ourselves with people’s lives under our care. If we have personal issues, anger issues, selfesteem issues, jealousy problems, honesty issues, they will leak over all others around us. We might think we are hiding them. Don’t be fooled. Our issues will be dissected and analysed by our staff that have to put up with them. To be blunt . . . us being obnoxious prats is a quick way to drive away staff and destroy a school. ■■ Managing Our Minds: Let’s be honest. We deal with a huge amount of diverse and challenging stuff. There can be some fantastic highlights and astounding achievements. There can also be some immensely stressful situations that we struggle to see the light at the end of the table. We need to manage our minds so that the tough stuff doesn’t turn into bitterness, health destroying stress or even depression. Each one of those is a real school momentum stopper. Tips to managing our minds include: maintaining a healthy diet; keeping up the exercise; getting to sleep at the right time; keeping interests outside of school; spending time with family; and way too under-rated but possibly the most important . . . learning how to forgive ourselves . . . and learning how to forgive others. ■■
With school momentum it is one of those things that you don’t know it has gone until it has left. Sadly, once you’ve realised its left, it has actually been gone for around a year or two. Getting it back won’t happen with one silver bullet. There is no one off quick fix. We deal in a world of thresholds, constraints, margins and limitations. Yet, that is not an excuse for inaction. As leaders there are significant realms that we can influence to help build and maintain sustainable momentum for the schools that currently are under our care. I have shared five with you. You will find more, that I am sure of. Use what you have learnt and what you have discovered to grow healthy forward focused schools that are great places for staff to work in and . . . great places for the children of today and of tomorrow. They deserve that much from us. David McKenzie is a Principal with 17 years experience spanning two Southland schools – Knapdale (1996–1999) and Edendale (2000–today). Through courses, conferences, professional discussion groups and hard-won on-the-ground practical experience his understanding of the crucial role of a Principal has grown and deepened. He states that: “Quality principalship is vital for quality schools. What we as principals do and don’t do is foundational and fundamental for success.”
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