Pippa Mills - An Insider’s view of the Leadership Development Programme at ISP
For any lecturer, no matter how experienced or wise, presenting a leadership development programme to a group of confident and savvy school leaders might have proved to be somewhat of a challenge. Teaching teachers is a notoriously difficult task and many still bear the battle scars of undertaking such a challenge too lightly or ill advisedly. After all, at our level within the teaching profession we would almost certainly would not have got where we are now if we had not been driven and confident individuals, comfortable within our own skins and intent upon the career path that we were carving for ourselves.
It was a varied, and some might even say eclectic, group of aspiring educational leaders that gathered for the first of three conferences in October last year. Each of us brought with us our own wish list of what we hoped to gain from the various sessions and David’s challenge was to bring us together under the one common umbrella of professional development within the educational environment.
Apparently undaunted by his quest, David Doran proceeded to outline to us, with humour, wisdom and his limitless enthusiasm for our vocation, how each of us could make a difference within our schools. The course, we were informed, would be based on a process of self-reflection and central to our common purpose were the following questions:
- Where are we now?
- Where do we want to be?
- How are we going to get there?
We learned that at the end of the final conference each of us was to make a presentation, within the sphere of school based leadership. Our remit was to identify and select a significant area for development in our school and make a presentation to the rest of the group. I subsequently decided to make the development of an appraisal policy my area of study, as this was integral to my vision for the development of learning and teaching at BSV and to the restructuring of key roles within the school. This made the course relevant to my own situation at school and, as we learned years ago at teacher training college, allowing one’s pupils to connect their area of study with real life is essential to the process of learning. Our remit was as follows:
- Why we chose this area
- What we wanted to improve
- What were the key outcomes.
- Who were the key players/drivers that would influence/impact on its success
Our presentations were duly delivered to a board of ISP directors in the third and final of our sessions and constructive feedback was given to each of us on a one to one basis.
In addition, to each of the three conferences we were asked to bring various documentation, including a description of the leadership structure at our own school, sample job descriptions, our school’s development plan and a copy of our recent inspection report. This again allowed us to connect theory to practice and maintained the common thread of relevance throughout.
Later on in the course we were introduced to another area of reflection, based upon establishing outcomes rather than maintaining intentions. Central to this topic was planning for development and improvement, by setting a common agenda, with a clear purpose and focus. Again, this we knew was integral in our remit as recently appointed senior leaders: sessions of group discussions enabled us to highlight issues within our school and seek colleagues’ views, sometimes obtaining an unexpected and alternative perspective from a non-biased viewpoint. For me, the opportunity to meet like minded professionals throughout the course was invaluable and the ensuing conversations were pertinent and enlightening.
It is all too easy in our profession to become blinkered and within the confines of our school walls small problems can become disproportionately important. Therefore, for me, one of the most important outcomes of the course was the possibility to meet and connect with professionals from similar educational establishments. We quickly seized the opportunity to share ideas and difficulties and this connectivity has continued long after the end of the formal training period. I am in regular contact with many of my fellow delegates and very much appreciate the opportunity that was provided to establish initial contact with them through this leadership course.
In conclusion, I greatly valued the possibility to participate in this course. We were led, not instructed, using a process of self-reflection which we were able to constantly relate to our own professional situation.