LEARNING TO LEARN
Probably the most basic ingredient of any great school is top quality teaching and learning . It is the supposition of this paper that consistently good teaching is a direct result of quality leadership , at all levels , but especially at middle leader level . At YK Pao School in Shanghai , a recent project in developing leadership for learning serves as a helpful example .
YK Pao School was established in 2007 and has rapidly evolved into one of the best bilingual schools in China , consistently voted best international school in China by its peers ( Hurun Report ). The model seeks to develop proficiency in both Chinese and English , emphasising the Chinese National Curriculum delivered with more international teaching methods through to IGCSE and IB . In 2020 , the Pao Foundation decided to establish an institute that would pass on the lessons gleaned from its successes in Shanghai .
Leadership development to improve teaching and learning
David Mansfield Educational Consultant , Advisor , Trainer and Writer Former Executive Headmaster Y . K . Pao School , Shanghai Former Headmaster , Dulwich College , Beijing
July 2023
The newly established Pao Centre for Teaching and Learning , based in Hong Kong , sought to create two staple courses .
• The first was a short eight-week induction course to international pedagogy based on agreed standards that were relevant to the bilingual cross-cultural setting .
• The second – our focus in this paper – was a yearlong leadership programme focusing on developing young and inexperienced bilingual middle leaders into effective transformers of the quality of learning within their area of responsibility .
It was my privilege to be the first Executive Headmaster of YK Pao ( 2016-2020 ) and I was asked to write and then manage the leadership programme . The first cohort of 12 teachers from a range of schools across greater China has just finished the programme , and shared below are the lessons learned . Each had some leadership responsibility in which to apply and experiment with the lessons being taught .
Our first task was to identify the desired outcomes or evidence of best practice that we wanted to see developing in our teachers .
Twenty Standards of effective leadership in a bilingual setting were developed within five Key Areas of Knowledge and Practice . Each standard had as its focus the improvement of the practice , environment , or content of pupil learning experience .
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