Introduction
In this report I will be focusing on Moffat Academy, which is a great example of how leadership can improve learning and teaching outcomes for pupils and teachers. The school serves more than 500 pupils, aged from 4 to 18 in between three sectors which are: nursery, primary, secondary. Jeff Brown has been there a headteacher for ten years. As we can read out from the case study, the headteacher is showing ”outstanding leadership and had established excellent, positive relationships among staff and pupils” (Scottish Executive, 2001). The leadership in the school has four main characteristics: focus on learning, demonstrating interpersonal skills, developing personal credibility, developing teamwork.
Everyone has a potential to be a leader. Leadership means to lead the people and be responsive to their needs. The leading is about having a vision and creating a strategy, that will drive the change and inspire others. Effective leaders must be enthusiastic and passionate about their role, they need to be creative and have flexible approach. Some of the other essential qualities: confident, reflective, competent, trusted and respectful. By being attentive and focused on people, the leaders can identify any further training needs of their own and the staff. Allowing employees to work toward their full potential as it is an ongoing process of improvement.
Ethos
“Children are always the only future the human race has. Teach them well” (as cited in Scottish Executive, 2001).
This quote is framed and hangs on the wall outside the headteacher’s office. Through leaderships Jeff Brown aims to enhance learning and teaching in the school. He truly beliefs that the young people are the future of the society, and the ways they have been taught are crucial in securing the positive outcomes. He promotes family atmosphere overall, and leads by example.
Active participation, flexibility and positive risk taking
To be actively participating means to be empowered to play a real part and have a say in the creation and life of the service. Mr. Brown alongside with the teaching staff, attends weekly meetings. Through active participation, he enables others to share their opinions, let people speak and listen to their views. He values every belief, therefore School Board’s key role is putting forward ideas and views from parental perspective. He is open to adverse views, and enables staff to make their choices, by giving them freedom. He also acts quickly on requests and actions established on the meetings. By using questionnaires and surveys given to the parents, pupils and staff, he ensures everyone are contributing to the school’s life.
The teachers (including the headteacher) are continually reflecting and developing new skills. There is a variety of internal trainings for staff. The performance indicators for learning and teaching are successfully implemented, which helps to evaluate the teaching across the whole school. The staff is also provided with opportunities to develop their leadership skills professionally. Which states about overall inspirational and positive atmosphere in the school.
The headteacher demonstrates great interpersonal skills and flexible approach. For instance, he teaches equally with other teachers in different classes, that allowed him to establish trustworthy relationships with pupils and staff. The teachers feel much more relaxed when they see the headteacher in the classroom. Mr Brown has developed his personal credibility (he does what he says he will do), therefore the teachers are more composed, and feel inspired to take positive risks – every idea that has been brought up is treated as a new opportunity for the whole school environment. As a great example of taking positive risks and innovative practice would be establishing a “holistic approach” in the school. As some of the children and young people had been there since nursery, having this approach has been incredibly helpful to ease the transitions and be responsive to the individual needs.
Challenging discrimination, promoting meaningful values, health and wellbeing
The setting is incredibly focused on teamwork, promoting inclusion and equality. Main legislation supporting diversity is Equality Act 2010, which provides “the basic framework of protection against direct and indirect discrimination, harassment and victimisation in services and public functions, premi, work, education, associations and transport” (Scottish Government, 2015).
The functioning of the Moffat Academy is being constantly evaluated, everyone are informed about the achievements and future developments, the ground rules and responsibilities, have been respectfully agreed with the pupils, and are clear and easy to understand. Everyone are involved in the school life, staff from all sectors work together, “the school promoting an overall ethos of a family atmosphere from nursery through to secondary” (Scottish Executive, 2001).
Personally I like the idea of promoting the school in a family context. For me it means that everyone look after each other, moreover they share one vision. I think working together as a team, gives everyone a chance to contribute in their own unique way, hence supports the concept of achieving one goal, which on a big scale is much more important.
The leadership in the academy tackles individuality adequately and values each person as an irreparable part of a “family”. I think in this setting, this approach works very well and the headteacher, by being open-minded and working alongside the others in the classroom, has created this casual and safe environment, where people have courage to share their ideas and are happy to step up (personal development, improvement of the school systems). Pupils and teachers are equally taking the ownerships of the school. Their efforts being noticed, and outcomes are being secured. The children’s and young people’s welfare is at heart of the school’s work.
Person centered practice, choice and control
Moffat Academy promotes person centered care on all levels. For pupils it means that teachers are reflective, and by carrying out the observation they are able to be more responsive and by evaluatuation are able to personalise process of teaching. Moreover in academy there are “student profiles” (for S5 and S6 class). These include set targets for each subject. Students have an individual meeting to talk about their progress with the headteacher. I think it is a good idea to help the pupils identify areas that need more focus, but also, having a conversation with the headteacher, can prepare them for the future university/work interviews. That also can boost their self-esteem and confidence. I think observation and tracking the progress, is valuable and helps to tailor the teaching accordingly, furthermore observation helps to early intervene in case of any concerns.
Positive school environment, and autonomy given by the headteacher, encourages staff to be reflective and recognise the further developments. Focusing on individuality of each member, allow the evaluation and constructive feedback. There is a high staff morale and positive attitude, teachers are encouraged to make choices. The advisory team with the group of promoted teachers from each sector, gather together to discuss and decide about the school policies. The teachers, parents and pupils influence and control the Academy. Mr Brown has not only developed his own leadership skills, but also inspired other teachers, as well as parents to emerge the leadership within themselves.
I think the person centered practice and good communication are fundamental for every successful organisation. In such a big setting, it is important to work together, listen and reflect. By cross-sector working and exchanging the views, the staff make sure the service provided is consistent. I must mention, that not everyone may feel arising leader inside, so I guess for some, it may be rather challenging and will require extra training. To make this role clear and help the professionals achieve that, Scottish Social Services Council has developed Codes of Practice. These are “standards of practice and behaviour expected of social service workers, including social workers, social care, early years and young people’s workers, and their employers” (Scottish Social Services Council, 2018). The standards sets out clearly the responsibilities for workers and employers. Those include valuable information and tools to use to think reflectively about self – improvement, possible areas of development, needed support and how to promote a good and anti-discrimination practice. Many of these are interlinked with leadership, which is already effective in the Moffat Academy.
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say ‘we did it ourselves’. ” – Lao Tzu (as cited in Shinagel, 2017)
Leadership as an inspiration, that leads to innovative practice
The headteacher of Moffat Academy is truly inspiring personality, he is very dedicated and helpful. He raised the value and self esteem of all staff, as he pays the attention to the work done and comments positively. Everyone maintain this healthy and secure environment in which the change and growth are encouraged. Mr. Brown has a clear vision, and he developed holistic approach to learning, which is continually evaluated between all sectors. He constantly promotes importance for innovation of teaching and learning, which makes it the main focus of the school. As the ages range from 4 to 18, everyone are aware of their crucial role in the pupils’ lives. The school has a high staff morale, and has very good standards of attainment in national examinations. I believe that having a leader and being inspired by him/her is extremely important in every career path. The reality sometimes can get very tiring, and as we never should doubt ourselves, we are all humans after all. We have our weaknesses and bad days, that is why it is helpful to have someone – a leader, who will remind us who we are, and show us the significance of our roles, hence clear our thoughts and give us strength.
Organisational culture
To hold such an attitude and have common idea about the shared approach, developing the organisational culture in Moffat Academy was definitely beneficial. By the organisation culture we can understand “expectations, experiences, philosophy, and values that hold it together, and is expressed in its self-image (…). It is based on shared attitudes, beliefs, customs, and written and unwritten rules that have been developed over time and are considered valid.” (The Business Dictionary, 2018). Moffat Academy has strong values, that are shared among everyone. As it was mentioned in the Case Study: ”pupils and staff identified strongly with the school which was highly regarded by parents and enjoyed strong support from its School Board and PTA” (Scottish Government, 2001). It states how successful the established norms are, furthermore they bring a coherence and clarify the goal of the organisation for everyone involved. The values are not only implemented in the school, but taken home by pupils and practiced with the parents. Good example of supporting this vision could be “Health and Social Care Standards” which were developed to make sure that everyone in Scotland receives integral help tailored to their individual needs, the practice have to be consistent and practitioners should demonstrate their leadership skills. The standards are obligatory for everyone working in the care sector, therefore promoted among whole society.
From the other side bringing one philosophy to the organisation may limit the extraordinary ideas, and discourage to coming up with new ones. People may get reluctant to see outside the box, thus the balance and person centred practice has to be retained. The other weakness of having shared values may be, that some people has different views, and may find it quite difficult to adjust to the expectations (effects of cultural background, personal beliefs, religious), which will directly affect the productivity and performance of the organisation.
As a successful leaders we have to keep strong understanding of uniqueness and unity. We can work collaboratively with others, therefore I personally think it should be rather distanced. Working in partnership can strengthen our position and improve the service provided, which can be more efficient and integrated. It basically means to join the forces for mutual advantage, share the knowledge and skills. Good example would be a nursery setting and primary school, working together, to ease the transition of the children, and it works both ways, as currently primary teachers are encouraged more to plan play based activities in the classroom. Contradictory, collaboration may affect planning and use of resources, as two organisation may have different perspectives, it can influence the decisions. There could be also a possibility of having too many leaders which will effect in disorganisation.
Coming to an end, I must say that Moffat Academy is an excellent examples of successful leadership in the whole service. Their next steps of development sound very promising and they are already making big progress. I have also read the school inspection report from 2014 which proved the continuous work and achievement, therefore promoting leadership through different activities – “Many young people develop leadership and extend their confidence, skills and talents through sports, cultural and citizenship activities for example, the school orchestra and choir, gymnastics and drama” (Scottish Government, 2014).