Leadership in schools – Strategic vision and talent cultivation
How you can develop your own leadership skills and develop junior colleagues’ abilities to one day lead others themselves…
- by Teachwire
How does a school get to the top and stay there?
For those unfamiliar with Peter Hughes’ credentials, he’s the current CEO of the Hackney-based Mossbourne Federation, having worked as a maths teacher earlier in his career.
In his recently published book, Outstanding School Leadership, Hughes is nothing if not honest – extremely forthcoming with regards to what he perceives as his own personal and professional foibles, and even opens up the floor to include passages written by his workplace colleagues.
While the book hits some of the bases you’d expect – the school mission, teaching and learning and relationships all receive dedicated chapters – its substance draws heavily on Hughes’ own biographical background and experiences.
Thoughtful discussion
Born in Australia, and having experienced a challenging itinerant childhood that he describes with a disarming frankness, Hughes’ personal history is perhaps more eventful than most. Crucially, however, he uses those tales and anecdotes to illuminate compelling parallels and contrasts between then and now.
Authorities in New South Wales allowed teaching professionals to take 12-month sabbaticals for pursuing new opportunities elsewhere – maybe there’s something to be said for such a system? His account of relocating to the UK is a springboard for a thoughtful discussion of attitudes towards forward planning and managing risk.
It all adds up to a leadership in schools guide that grapples with big questions and big challenges (Ofsted, behaviour, social justice) in an admirably novel and eminently readable way. Here, he tells us about his inspiration for writing the book, and what he sees as the main factors obstructing teachers and schools from being the best they can be…
Leadership in schools Q&A
What prompted you to embark on the book?
I’d reached the stage where I felt I wanted to dispel some of the myths around education, and also around the Mossbourne Federation. I wanted to share some insights about who we are and how much we care.
I thought one way to do that was to share my unique journey to leadership in schools, and to share why I’m so passionate about education.
How hard was it to get contributors to say yes?
I’ve always believed that a school is almost an outward reflection of the headteacher’s personality. When I think about leadership in schools, I also think about the importance of really knowing and understanding yourself, so making the book autobiographical was an obvious decision. How can you lead without first knowing your own story? It’s essential.
Including voices from others is an extension of this decision. It also reflects the way I perceive leadership in schools. I am not the expert on everything, and therefore I draw on other people’s wisdom and insights. I didn’t have any problems with gaining contributors and am very grateful for that. It was important to share insights from those with different experiences to me.
“I’ve always believed that a school is almost an outward reflection of the headteacher’s personality”
My partner, Danielle Lewis-Egonu, co-authored the book’s first chapter on anti-racism. I’ve also included insights from Glen Denham, a proud Māori who shares his learnings from Māori culture in the book, and build on thoughts from Dr Timothy Wiens – an inspirational leader in the USA.
For me, this helps to highlight that you never know where the next piece of guidance or advice is coming from, and that it’s critical to understand other people’s lived experiences.
The accessibility of the book was also important. I wanted it to be practical and easy to navigate, so that readers can focus on different chapters as they wish. I chose to address the reader directly, so that it feels like we’re in conversation – perhaps even having a chat over a flat white.
What are you optimistic about?
My fellow teachers and those I see working in schools every day give me hope. I see the lengths they’ll go to in order to give every child the best start they can, and when I see that, it brings me immense hope.
My hope further comes from the fact that people will always want to work with people, and that there will always be people who are willing to give of themselves to ensure that children get a really good start in life. There’s no greater buzz than a classroom full of students learning.
What are teachers’ biggest obstacles?
Post-pandemic, the rebuilding of the social contract around school attendance that’s been broken is one of the biggest challenges we face. We’re a face-to-face profession, but we seem to be losing that in society more widely. There’s also a big challenge in terms of how we attract people into our amazing profession because more people want to work from home now.
“We’re a face-to-face profession, but we seem to be losing that in society more widely”
More generally, we’ve seen a pushback on experts. Parents are experts in their own children, but not in education provision. We need to move away from the assumption that schools are doing something wrong, and that schools have to prove what they are doing is right. You see this when considering SEND provision. We need to build professional pride and trust that our professionals know what’s best for their students – both for their learning and their wellbeing.
Peter Hughes is CEO of the Mossbourne Federation and founder/CEO of Progress Teaching
Your staff’s hidden talents (and how to find them)
Ed Carlin looks at how school leaders can develop their junior colleagues’ abilities to one day lead others themselves…
From the laying of its foundations, to the first building blocks and final structural supports, every outstanding school will foster leadership at all levels.
There are many ways of building leadership potential among school staff. My aim here is to outline those key strategies that will provide the pathways and opportunities your staff and pupils need in order to really flourish.
Trust your teachers
To harness leadership in schools at all levels, we must first develop a sense of intentionality. Make available structured programmes to those wanting to improve their skills and potentially progress to the next level. Provide staff with the right opportunities aligned with the right resources, unprompted, to open the door to more collaborative, critical and creative thinking.
A programme focused on empowering teachers and putting trust in them to take key school priorities forwards – alongside tools for measuring their impact along the way – will provide the confidence and experience needed to lead others, and see school improvements through to their conclusion.
Our schools are peppered with innovative, enterprising and creative staff who possess the ability to bring about transformational change. Too often, however, we confine talented teachers to their classrooms. They’re limited by traditional, yet blinkered approaches to cultivating their leadership skills.
“Our schools are peppered with innovative, enterprising and creative staff who possess the ability to bring about transformational change”
When it comes to leadership in schools, typically it’s only senior leaders at the helm when it comes to generating ideas for school development and improvement, implementing them and measuring their subsequent impact. We lose so much talent due to outdated structures entirely reliant on colleagues already in promoted posts leading the school improvement plan.
Yes, teachers are usually given opportunities to make suggestions and potentially join development working groups – but is that enough?
Fertile soil
Imagine instead the shift in mindset we might see when we give an unpromoted teacher a key school priority to lead on and manage. With the right support and coaching, this could amount to fertile soil in which their true potential will be given the chance to flourish.
Having agreed on the project focus, discuss any barriers that you need to address. This is so you can offset any unnecessary battles along the way. It’s always useful at this stage to follow the ‘W’ method of considering who, what, why, when and where.
Mentors should consider coaching the member of staff prior to meeting. This will help them frame the dialogue and focus on what they wish to get out of each conversation with staff they hope to bring on board with their ideas – whatever they may be.
One of the greatest barriers inexperienced leaders can face is having insufficient confidence when holding courageous conversations. Addressing problem areas and those who might be responsible for them is uncomfortable. But identifying areas for improvement will usually mean that some staff, somewhere, will need to be challenged to accept that change is needed. There can be times when this process is met with resistance.
So what advice should we give to a leader about to shine a light on what’s not working well?
What’s working?
This step is all about timing. Deciding when to meet with a colleague who you need to challenge regarding a particular issue will be pertinent as to whether the project has a successful outcome. During the meeting itself, you mustn’t direct the conversation in a way that leaves the member of staff feeling chastised or berated.
Focusing in on what’s working well could be a good way of initiating the conversation. But always remember – you’re not exclusively looking to assign fault or apportion blame. This is merely an opportunity for you to hold a professional and reflective conversation with colleagues about what you, as a school, could be doing better.
The planning process gives rise to the development and predicted impact of the project agreed on by the mentee and mentors. Having used a forensic approach to planning, by looking inward, outward and forwards a project leader can begin to network and build a team who can contribute to, and implement the action plan.
To lead, support and challenge, this team will be the foundation of all leadership skills developed throughout the course of the project. Which brings us to the essence of this article – commitment over compliance.
Find your goalscorers
I suspect that all of us have experienced the member of staff who signs up for a development group with little to no intention of actually adding any value, or genuinely trying to contribute to the action plan.
This individual may well show up for meetings, and duly nod at appropriate moments to conceal their lack of authentic endeavour. Yet when the time comes to roll out a specific task, they suddenly become very difficult to track down, to the point where they seem to vanish into thin air – at least for the purposes of my CPD records…
Worse still is when school operates a mandated approach. This is where they expect all staff to be part of one development group or another. In this instance, our difficult member of staff will likely comply with the demand, but still offer very little in return.
As a project leader, it’s therefore important to quickly identify who will be most effective at securing gains for your team. After all, it’s better to give the ball to the person who stands a good chance of actually scoring, than simply allocating responsibilities based on members’ titles or perceived ‘status’.
Building great teams ultimately means selecting great people – but guess what? Great people are only attracted to great leaders.
In terms of leadership in schools, this means that leaders need to deliver on their vision, purpose and aims if they want to attract people who can in turn deliver on the tasks they’re charged with.
Also, be aware that when someone agrees 100% with a given project’s aims and values, that’s when you get truly unshakable commitment that outperforms compliance every time…
Leadership in schools
In my experience, good leadership in schools is about having the ability to build trust in your followers. Good leaders promote self-belief. They encourage individual team members to contribute to the collective efficacy of the team as a whole.
“Good leaders promote self-belief”
When each member understands the specific role they have to play and feels a healthy sense of accountability, those ambitious plans can quickly turn actions that have visible impact.
By the time a project is in full flow the leader should be fairly hands off, and only called upon when inexperience or unexpected barriers present themselves.
An outstanding leader will have all the mentoring, coaching and collaboration skills to re-empower the team member, identify what the problem might be, and play a part in finding a to the solution.
Great leaders equal great teams – and great teams equal great outcomes.
Ed Carlin is a deputy headteacher at a Scottish secondary school. He has worked in education for 15 years and held teaching roles at schools in Northern Ireland and England.
