school management
As a leader , it ’ s your job to provide them with links to the most reputable sources , rather than trying to pull information from all of those places yourself .
Another thing that ’ s really come up a lot is this idea of people ’ s mental states during crisis . I think as leaders , we ’ ve got to understand for ourselves , but also for others , that things like uncertainty lead to anxiety , fear and dread .
It ’ s a normal psychological way that our minds work through things , and then unfortunately for some , depending on their circumstance , they might move onto things like hopelessness and helplessness , even denial , and then panic , and this is where we see people panic-buying toilet paper on occasions .
It ’ s essentially a cycle that people can go through , and I think as a school leader being mindful of that is important .
What is school culture ? What does it look like , and can it still be positive in a complete lockdown mode where everyone is learning remotely ? School culture is really the basic assumptions or beliefs or practices , the school norms , that are shared by the whole school community . Essentially , our schools are like little microcosms of the suburbs where they ’ re situated , really . And then we have teachers coming in from all over . We have students coming in from all over , and we interact with community and parents as well . So the school culture is the assumptions and the beliefs , and it ’ s all the individuals coming together as the collective .
What the culture looks , sounds or feels like depends on what those basic assumptions , beliefs or norms are , and it ’ s absolutely driven by leadership and the expectations it places on people . When I work with schools I like to ascertain where the culture is at , and sometimes we might ask a series of questions , or we use some of our profiling tools .
Obviously , if somebody ’ s asked us to come in and work with their school around its culture , it ’ s because they feel like something might not be right , or perhaps we ’ re hanging on to something from the past . We get the ‘ that ’ s just the way it ’ s done around here ,’ when we question some of those things and ask why are we doing it that way ?
We ’ re really going in with this lens of what is the positive culture ? What ’ s the positive culture look like ? What do we need to do ? What kind of norms and expectations do we have to set for everyone ? From the littlest student to the most senior of leaders , and to every parent that walks in and out the gate , how do we set those norms and expectations with the whole team , and then keep each other accountable , because that ’ s really key .
If we ’ re wanting to create a different kind of culture , we ’ re addressing building professional trust within the team . It ’ s the professional trust from our community and parents that we ’ re doing the very best with the resources we have for students , and it ’ s students trusting that their teachers are striving for excellence , not just for themselves , but for them .
The next thing we look at is managing conflict . This is a really interesting one , because people dismiss this when we first bring it up , but we actually talk about promoting something we call unfiltered , passionate debate , which is really exciting . We ’ re not saying let ’ s get rid of a conflict altogether , but let ’ s make sure we have unfiltered , passionate debate instead .
The next area we talk about is getting your team to be thinking about weighing in to buy-in , especially when it comes to school improvement , and that again is students , it ’ s teachers , it ’ s all of those support staff , and it ’ s community . Again , I ’ ll mention accountability . It ’ s so important . We ’ ve got to keep people accountable to what we agreed to . So if we ’ ve set some expectations and some school norms , and someone lets us down , we actually need to address them and address them quickly .
The last one is , and sometimes schools find this a little dirty , is that we still have to concentrate on results . We have to decide what student improvement we ’ re seeking , and we have to measure it regularly .
Those are the five things we really focus on when we ’ re working with schools to change culture and the cohesion and effectiveness of teams .
We can absolutely have a positive culture in lockdown . We are supporting lots of school leaders currently , and this has been our major focus : how can we maintain collective efficacy with our schools and high engagement , and really focus on positive culture . We ’ re really happy to report the majority of our schools are presenting back to us that they ’ re even more connected than ever .
As leaders , we ’ ve got to understand that things like uncertainty lead to anxiety , fear and dread .
After all that they ’ ve gone through , Australian teachers are still needing to display resilience . What tips or advice do you have for them ? This is an area that we really pushed into last year , and we did a lot of research and work with an academic team on resilience and what it really meant . What ’ s interesting for us is this recognition that self-care is really important , and it should absolutely be a focus .
Resilience is the way in which we respond to crisis or times of adversity and change , and we ’ re right in the middle of that : this is happening right now , this second . When we ’ re getting people to really think about how they ’ re responding , we want them to think about the adaptive strategies , including things like being solutions focused , and having good conflict resolution , and problem solving , and critical thinking and decision-making .
What we tend to see on occasions is maladaptive things , like blame , projection , making excuses , catastrophizing and poor communication . It ’ s important for teachers to understand , it ’ s okay , and it ’ s part of human nature that we sometimes do those things ourselves as adults , and we definitely see them in students . So if we want to work towards those more adaptive strategies , first we need to look at self-care and actually unpack that .
We talk to schools about looking at that in six areas . Not just the physical self , where we are thinking about sleeping and eating well and taking breaks and going for a walk , but also looking at things like your psychological self , your emotional self , your spiritual self , and workplace as well , even relationships .
It moves away from us thinking about this idea of resilience as being able to bounce back , because actually , it ’ s about much more than that . It is asking , ‘ Am I doing all of those things to take care of myself , so that I can then choose really adaptive strategies and help young people that I ’ m educating do the same ?’ ■
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