Teacher Leadership and the Role of the Chartered Teacher

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Teacher Leadership and the Role of the Chartered
Teacher

• Douglas Marr 3 November
  2007

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Leadership

• Leadership. It is a term full of ambiguity and
  a range of interpretations. It is a humpty dumpty
  word that can mean just what we want it to
  mean. (Humpty Dumpty quoted in Alice in
  Wonderland)
• (MacBeath, 2004, p.2)

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Some points to consider

• Who is the best teacher in your school?
• In your opinion what makes him/her the best
  teacher in the school?
  
• How do you know?
• What impact does that person have on teaching and
  learning across your school?

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Improving Scottish Education

• Increasingly, leadership is being viewed as a
  corporate concept which relates not only to the
  head of establishment but also to the combined
  impact of all of those who have responsibility
  for leading any aspect of provision for
  learners..Leadership is therefore individual and
  shared.
• (Improving Scottish Education, HMIE, 2006, p.94)

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A shared right and responsibility

• Not simply about the HT and other senior
  managers
  
• Not necessarily associated with formal status
• Only worthwhile if it focuses on learning and
  teaching and ways of improving both
  
• Underpinned by personal beliefs and values
  associated with the nature of professionalism and
  the purposes of education in general and schools
  in particular

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Communities of Practice 1 A piece of cake or
pie in the sky?

• A word about professional autonomy. Our version
  is one steeped in professional learning
  communities in which lateral accountability (as
  teachers focus collectively on student learning
  and what it will take to get there) among
  teachers is enormously powerful. No loss of
  accountability there.
• (Fullan et al, 2001. P.23)

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Communities of Practice 2

• Leadership skills and capacity are systematically
  developed
  
• Non-hierarchical
• Leadership does not necessarily involve
  followership
  
• Positive culture, trust, common goals, awareness
  of professional roles and boundaries
  
• Professional space

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Teacher leadership and improvement

• Change and improvement takes place when
• teachers are fully engaged in the process of
  research and development and when it observes the
  three cardinal principles of responsibility,
  mutual accountability and collaboration.
• (Frost and Durrant, 2000, quoted in MacBeath,
  2004. P. 48)

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The journey to excellent leadership

• A school is excellent to the extent that
• Leaders ensure that learning is the central focus
  of school, department and stage development
  /improvement plans, and learning priorities are
  linked to classroom approaches
• Leaders are lead learners, making class visits,
  giving feedback, sharing insights widely and
  stimulating self-evaluation. They prompt an
  on-going focus on the craft of teaching. They
  share the findings of research.
• (The Journey to Excellence, HMIE, 2006. P.58

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Leadership and the Chartered Teacher

• Learning and teaching is the central driver in
  school improvement
  
• Focus on the classroom if it aint happening
  in the classroom it aint happening (Elmore,
  RF)
  
• Action and improvement plans focus on learning
  and teaching
  
• Modelling as lead learners

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Leadership and the Chartered Teacher (2)

• Chartered teachers can
• encourage and enable colleagues to reflect on
  their classroom practice
  
• engage colleagues in professional dialogue on
  learning and pedagogy
  
• share good practice
• ensure learning and teaching issues feature
  prominently on all agendas
  
• plan and lead CPD of the highest quality
• lead self-evaluation

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Challenges and opportunities 1

• Curriculum for Excellence
• On the role of chartered teachers in developing
  Teachers for Excellence, there was a view that
  chartered teachers could contribute by
  identifying new research on teaching and learning
  strategies and disseminating findings to
  colleagues. Additionally, there was agreement
  that chartered teachers should act as models of
  good practice and as a support to less
  experienced members of staff.
• (Teachers for Excellence On line debate
  summary 2007)

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Challenges and opportunities

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Challenges and opportunities 2

• Inclusion and social justice
• What are the roles of all teachers, including
  chartered teachers, in developing and delivering
  a curriculum that meets the needs of individual
  learners?
• Partnerships
• what are the roles in developing working
  partnerships with others that promote inclusion,
  social justice and better learning?
  
• Technology
• - how can technology be used to support the work
  of teachers and improve the quality of learning?
  

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Barriers to teacher leadership

• Southworth (1999) the need to eliminate
  polluting toxins from the school atmosphere
  
• - ideas rejected or stolen
• constant carping criticisms a problem for
  every solution
  
• being ignored or judged
• being overdirected
• not being listened to
• being misunderstood
• lack of action

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Removing the barriers

• Corporate professional responsibility for the
  leadership and improvement of our schools
  
• Learning and teaching is our core business and
  should be at the heart of all our activities
  
• Change is inevitable and, when handled well,
  desirable
  
• Creativity, excitement and motivation
• Professional respect, trust and space (plus time
  and opportunity!)
  
• Collaboration and partnership

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And finally.
If your actions create a legacy that inspires
people to dream more, do more and become more,
then you are an excellent leader.
Dolly Parton (2002)
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References

• Fullan, M. et al (2001) Accomplishing Large
  Scale Reform A Tri-level Proposition. Toronto
  Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
  University of Toronto
• HMIE (2006) Improving Scottish Education
• HMIE (2006) The Journey to Excellence
• HMIE (2007) Leadership for Learning The
  Challenges of Leading in a time of change

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References

• MacBeath, J (2004) The Leadership File Glasgow
  Learning Files
  
• Southworth, G. (1999) Successful Heads of Small
  Schools University of Reading School of
  Education