Editor
We cater for aspiring leaders through the ‘National Aspiring Principals’ Programme’ and support newly appointed principals through the ‘First-time Principals’ Programme’ but what about the leaders in the middle? Where is the professional learning development (PLD) for them? Middle leaders have sometimes been described as the ‘engine room’ of the school. They work closely with other classroom teachers and thus have the potential to make the greatest difference to student achievement. They are most likely to be full time teachers in a classroom and although they constitute a diverse group, they quite possibly will be leaders in a curriculum subject. They are usually team or syndicate leaders and in some cases might have whole-school responsibilities such as information technology, literacy, mentoring or special education. Their leadership role may cover both pedagogical and administrative domains and they may well have volunteered for these roles to gain experience to apply for higher leadership positions. Denise Torrey, principal of Somerfield School in Christchurch, and currently national president of the New Zealand Principals’
Federation, recognised the PLD gap for middle leaders and was determined to fill it. Her own sabbatical studies led her to examine the literature on middle leaders and especially to investigate New Zealand based research and the ‘Best Evidence Synthesis’. Denise found that one of the most effective forms of leadership to achieve pedagogical change, improve outcomes for students and engage parent communities is to share responsibilities. Nurturing middle leaders is one way of achieving these important goals. She also found ample confirmation that middle leaders can indeed have the most direct impact on teacher practice thereby influencing student achievement. Armed with this information, she embarked on a series of school visits from which surfaced practices that are most strongly linked to student achievement. These included using achievement data to improve teaching practice, peer coaching, sharing best practice through professional conversations, being consistent in planning and having the time to plan, observing one another’s practice and having robust learning assessment practices. She then developed the basis of a programme to develop
Middle leaders listen intently at the group inquiry presentations
Mel Stockforth, Sue James and Maire Bowler, the three facilitators for the programme
middle leaders and used her own school to trial her ideas. Her programme was based on a ‘leadership inquiry’ model and asked teachers and leaders to inquire into their practice. This meant de-privatising practice, having teachers question each other, holding honest professional conversations about practice, reflecting on the observations of colleagues and accordingly, making changes to practice. Ultimately, the measure of success was whether the programme would have any significant effect on raising children’s achievement levels. Encouraged by the progress in achievement the trial generated in her own school, Denise was determined to share this success with the wider community of schools in the region. Some four years later Canterbury schools now have a credible and well supported middle leaders’ development programme. ‘The programme is funded by the Canterbury Primary Principals’ Association (CPPA) and we now have twelve schools involved,’ says Denise. There are two directors, Denise herself and Jenny Washington. Jenny, alongside Denise and a third Cantabrian principal Mel Stockforth worked together to further develop the initial trial programme. ‘We had to have a more structured approach if other schools were getting involved,’ said Denise. One area they identified as needing strengthening was facilitation. To address this issue, Maire Bowler and Sue James who had both been involved with the Somerfield School trial, joined Mel Stockforth to assist other schools in their critical facilitation work. The three now share their growing expertise with all twelve participating schools by coaching them in how to facilitate their own school middle leaders’ groups. ‘It is critical that each participating school involves all of their middle leaders in the programme. That way they are all involved in the changes that the programme inspires,’ said Denise. Schools pay for the release time out of their PLD budgets so that their middle leaders can attend four meetings a year to share their inquiries with the whole group. They also fund release time for teachers to observe each other at other times
within the school. I visited one of the Canterbury group’s quarterly meetings to see first-hand how the programme works and whether the children are making the expected gains in their learning outcomes.
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The Rangiora Borough School’s visual plotting of children’s assessment data
Chris Walsh opened the session on behalf of the Rangiora Borough School middle leaders. With the brief introductions over, the Rangiora School group broke into a light-hearted ditty which they had collaboratively authored and which celebrated the Rangiora community. It was a novel way to contextualise the audience. She summarised the work of the Rangiora Borough School group of middle leaders saying that their goal was to lift the achievement of a target group of children not succeeding in mathematics. To identify the group, they used cross class data, collected through a process of triangulation which added strength to the validity of the data. They concluded that some twenty-six percent of children consistently and across time, were not succeeding in mathematics as expected. The triangulation initially involved focussed classroom observations, examining books and tasks, peer and selfassessment; secondly, it involved learning conversations, questioning, explaining, discussing, observing the children’s contribution to group work and practice activities, and finally formal assessment results. A range of formal assessments using different tools for different year groups were applied including PAT (Progressive Achievement Test) in Maths, GLOSS – strategy (Global Strategy Stage), E-asTTLe (electronic – Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning), NumPA (Numeracy Project
Rangiora middle leaders examined the ‘Basic Facts Knowledge’ base to analyse where each of their children should be placed
Assessment), JAM (Junior Assessment of Mathematics) and IKAN (Knowledge Assessment for Numeracy). The data gave a robust indication of what stage and competency level each child had reached for the different mathematics skills. A visual representation of the mathematics profile of the children was then constructed. Competency levels included advanced, proficient or beginning and these were attributed to each mathematical skill within the child’s stage level. An individual student may be assessed as being quite advanced in certain skills at a particular stage and at a beginning level for others. The next challenge was creating the right conditions within the school so that teachers would be receptive to using this data for improving practice. That meant a culture change, achievable only with expert facilitation. It was the middle leaders’ job to lead the change since they were the ones working most closely with the teachers. The Rangiora team explained that some teachers held preconceived notions and expectations that had to be addressed honestly through rich and reflective conversations before progress could begin. Parents also had expectations that were not always reflective of reality and sometimes not based in truth. Unrealistic parental expectations could create fear in teachers about how to engage with the parents to help them support their children’s learning at home. Beliefs such as ‘I teach all the lowies’ or ‘That’s just typical . . . all of that family have learning problems’, or ‘How am I going to explain these results to that family?’ were unhelpful and created barriers to making a difference for the children’s progress. Middle leaders played a critical part in changing those beliefs and modelling a new kind of questioning which led to richer and more constructive conversations amongst the teachers. The middle leaders asked questions of the data such as ‘What does this tell us?’ ‘What are our concerns?’ ‘Who are our concerns?’ Children were then grouped according to their needs, their strengths and their weaknesses, which were carefully defined. The middle leaders then discussed with their teachers how to focus attention Triangulated data contributed to the Rangiora on strengthening the identified areas of Borough School’s assessment process weakness. for identifying just where each child was functioning
The Rangiora Borough School middle leaders team presents to the wider group
Middle Leaders receiving certificates for successful completion of an inquiry
The Rangiora group told us that this is where the conversations to use them. The Rangiora group engaged CORE Education to between teachers, observations and feedback came into play. support this learning. They said it was a gradual process of de-privatising practice. As the teachers came to trust the process and feel comfortable It was about opening the classroom door and sharing practice in the new teaching culture they were more inclined to call on with other teachers rather than shutting the door, operating in each other where and when they needed help. The more this isolation and keeping problems hidden. It was about welcoming happened, the more the culture change at Rangiora Borough observation from colleagues and learning to embrace their School accelerated. Teachers and middle leaders together took feedback. It was leading teachers to see constructive criticism the responsibility for the successes that followed. The process is as a learning opportunity to improve their practice and not an continuous and the role of the middle leaders remains to keep exercise in fault finding. It was about teachers feeling more valued, the culture on track as new teachers come on board and as new more engaged and part of the decision making process. The children present fresh challenges. Rangiora group found that planning became a more collaborative Each of the twelve schools undertaking the PLD for middle activity and teachers started using ‘Google Docs’ to share leaders had similar success stories to tell. Without fail, they their planning ideas. all spoke of culture Sometimes teachers change within had to adopt new their schools, and teaching approaches like Rangiora and group children B orou g h S c h o o l differently so that they were celebrating decould have optimum privatised practice opp or tu n it i e s to and high levels succeed. To achieve of collaboration, all of this the teachers irrespective of the needed the time and subject of inquiry. the support to adapt Denise Torrey is to the new ways optimistic about the of pl an n i ng an d programme’s future teaching and it was and its capability the middle leaders to r ais e stu d e nt who provided that. achievement. The group also ‘My dream is to explained the further have the programme dimensions required adopted countryto achieve this culture wide,’ she smiles, A group of middle leaders gathers round to share in another school’s inquiry change and ensure ‘so that all schools its sustainability. They included setting realistic goals and in New Zealand can share the success and optimism we are expectations for individual children’s progress and recognising experiencing in Canterbury,’ she said. that some children may need extra time to acquire the necessary The successful Somerfield School trial and subsequent success skills to move on. It also meant evaluating the way teachers were of the programme for twelve Canterbury schools does makes a currently teaching and re-examining the existing mathematics compelling case for extending the programme’s reach. curriculum. It meant managing resources and recognising that to achieve progress extra help might be needed in the classroom in the form of parent helpers. Some teachers needed different teaching tools and a learning development programme in how