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Regional Training Unit Conference - Education In Leadership
20 - 21 March
Transformation And Shaping Futures
Good morning. Thank you, Tom, for the invitation to speak at your conference. One of my challenges is to tell key players about the Education and Skills Authority – how we see our role and how we will set about our business. This conference represents a great opportunity to share some thoughts with a large number of school leaders and, most importantly, to hear your thoughts.
As has been discussed over the past 2 days, the education sector is in a real period of transformation. The creation of ESA is taking place in the context of major reform, including new arrangements for post-primary education, the introduction of a revised curriculum, major infrastructural investment, the Bain Review and the Review of Public Administration, to name only a few. As a new organisation, ESA will help deliver these reforms.
However this whole change programme is about much more than transforming structures. The structure is simply a means to an end. Instead, this is a real opportunity to transform outcomes for children. ESA will have a wide range of roles and functions but its focus will be on raising standards – achieving improved outcomes for all pupils through strong, successful schools and youth services. And right at the outset, I want to state that improved outcomes can only be delivered in schools by teachers. My job is to ensure that nothing stands in your way!
We start from a position of relative strength. There are many very good schools in Northern Ireland . However, we have a tendancy to focus on only the high and low performing pupils. We want to change this focus. Each and every school is capable of, and should be actively striving for, improvement – This is the essence of continuous improvement.
With the creation of ESA, there is a huge opportunity for us to look at raising standards in a holistic sense and not merely focus on exam performance. This is about improving the entire educational experience for children - from the bus they travel in to school, to the classroom they sit in; from the food they eat to that which is most fundamentally important - the teaching they receive, and not just in examination subjects but in all areas of personal development, including sports, arts and culture.
So how do we do that? In looking towards the future for schools, the only place to start is with the people in this room – you know what works, you know what doesn’t work and you know what support is needed to make things better.
One of the things I liked to do when I was CEO of CCEA, from a management perspective, was to visit schools where there had been big turnarounds in performance. In every case the turnaround started when someone said “We can do better for our young people”. I have learned a lot from listening to a number of really inspirational school principals.
To help us design the new organisation we recently held a number of focus groups with both primary and post-primary school Principals looking at the issue of improvement and support services – I see a number of those Principals are here today – these discussions were very helpful in identifying what Principals thought important in helping them improve outcomes.
I want to focus on a few of the key issues which arose and which I believe are most important in looking forward and transforming outcomes. Will outline what I see to be ESA’s role in relation to each of them:
Leadership
All the research identifies the vital importance of leadership in the success of schools. No school, no group of teachers will fulfil their potential in the absence of strong leadership .
‘The difference between a boss and a leader: a boss says ‘Go!’ – a leader says, ‘Let’s go!’ (EM Kelly)
‘The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.’ (Theodore Hesburgh)
So a successful school leader will bring not only staff, but parents, pupils and the wider community along with him/her. They will command respect, know the issues on the ground and will take strategic decisions and see them through. They will provide clear and realistic direction based on a sound knowledge of and vision for the school.
Again we start from a position of strength. We have plenty of examples of strong leadership in schools in Northern Ireland . Some of these were involved in the workshops yesterday – schools such as St Anne’s Primary School which achieved the Northern Ireland Quality Award and UK Business Award in 2006; Ballyclare High School which has achieved Investors in People accreditation and won the Becta Excellence Award in 2006. Belfast Model School for Girls which is a Specialist school for ICT; and St Joseph ’s Primary School, Crumlin which is involved in a number of initiatives including the extended schools. Just a few examples where committed, inspirational leadership can make a difference.
It is clearly important that we draw upon strong leaders within the system, make use of their expertise, recognise and reward achievement. I am keen to develop the concepts of an ‘expert Principal’ and ‘expert teacher’ who can act in a mentoring/coaching capacity to support others.
Understand that this currently happens in an informal way in some areas i.e. Principal has a problem and can pick up the phone to the Principal down the road and ask them what they would do. ESA will want to support and encourage these relationships.
So what will ESA’s role be in supporting leadership?
ESA’s role will be to continue on the good work of the RTU – to support leadership development at all levels - Helping current leaders to develop and perform better; helping future leaders to prepare for new and increased responsibilities.
ESA will also have an important role in disseminating best practice, providing access to appropriate training and professional qualifications.
Most importantly, ESA will be the critical friend for school leaders – give clear direction, listen to what you have to say and respond to your needs in an effective and timely manner.
Partnership
We know that successful schools cannot operate in isolation – isolation from other schools, or isolation from their local communities. We aspire to a model of increasing collaboration and partnership between schools and colleges for a number of reasons:-
It is in itself a good thing to share expertise and good practice, to benchmark performance against other schools – how do you know if you are running a school which is as good as it possibly can be? Where do you get new ideas from?
For most post-primary schools, it will not be possible to provide the full range of curriculum choice envisaged under the Entitlement Framework at GCSE or GCE level without collaboration with other schools and colleges. Let me remind you of the key issue here – post-primary schools in Northern Ireland are relatively small on average but, even within NI, there is a wide range of size – one of the impacts of this is a huge diversity in the range of choice available to young people – the Costello Working Group reported that the range of choice at level 2 (GCSE equivalent) went from over 40 courses to less than 5. Is this fair?
The third important reason is to meet government policy set out in A Shared Future – this encourages greater collaboration between sectors as we build our society for the future.
As in other areas we start from a position of relative strength – there are many excellent examples of collaboration between schools, and between schools and colleges across Northern Ireland . However one of the key tasks for ESA will be the implementation of Area Planning for school provision as set out in Sir George Bain’s Report and accepted by DE.
Area plans will seek to ensure all opportunities are taken for schools of different types to cooperate and collaborate more effectively with each other and with Further Education Colleges – this will enable children and communities to learn together and help promote greater understanding and tolerance. Collaboration and sharing will also enhance the range of facilities and subjects available to schools and young people. Our aim should be to create ‘learning communities’ and some good examples of this already exist – one is right here in Limavady.
Recognition that many schools operate in communities where there are a broad range of social problems which don’t stop at the school door. Children may not be getting the support/care at home and teachers/schools are being asked to perform a number of roles over and above their educational role. Can be extremely difficult and stressful for teachers, especially facing issues where they don’t have formal training.
Child welfare and protection issues are becoming more and more significant and ESA will aim to have a more integrated approach with the Health and Social Services sector. The appointment of a Director of Children’s Services will be a new, important role within education and we want to develop our thinking on what this role will entail. But it has to be about children having access to health and education services in a more integrated, timely way to ensure that their full range of needs are properly met. It also means that there needs to be an emphasis on early intervention.
Empowerment
The last 2 issues link closely with each other. The first is empowerment. For me, empowerment is about giving people the opportunity to take decisions that matter, giving them the resources, support and encouragement to do what they know is right to do their job better.
‘Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what you want them to achieve and let them surprise you with their results.’ (George S Patton)
Improvement has to start from within a school - creating a culture of empowerment can really drive improvement in schools. We understand that flexibility is very important to schools and it is absolutely appropriate that we rely on professionals to design the educational provision for their pupils in their circumstances, subject only to broad government guidelines. But flexibility has to match capability.
This is where the concept of maximised supported autonomy arises. It is about giving more responsibility to those who can manage it; about assisting those who want more autonomy to achieve it; and by providing appropriate support according to your needs. All schools are at different stages and it is about striking a balance between autonomy and support.
This leads us to my 4th and final issue - Support
What support will ESA provide?
Support
Schools are performing multi-disciplinary roles and can experience any number of problems in one day – they want to know who to contact, where to contact them; they want reassurance the problem will be resolved and that they will not be talking to a different person each time.
ESA will be there to provide support for schools and provide advice on what schools can do rather than what they cannot do. Need to be able to provide tailored support – every school is different - and ensure that schools do not have to wade through a mass of bureaucracy to get help. This will be one of our touchstones of success.
In designing the new organisation we will be looking at models of service delivery for all of the key services – looking at how they are currently performed, their strengths and weaknesses, where there are inconsistencies and how they can be delivered better.
The focus groups with Principals provided us with useful information about high level issues and we will want to repeat that process as we delve further into planning service delivery.
Closing Remarks
This is the first opportunity that I have had to speak to a large number of school leaders since I took up my post at the beginning of February. I have, however, spoken to other groups of staff who are affected by RPA. In many cases their concerns are different:-
- Will I still have a job?
- Where will it be located?
My message to everyone in the affected organisations, the ELBs, CCMS, NICIE, CnaG, CCEA, the Staff Commission and DE is that ESA will be a new organisation, not a merger of existing organisations. It will be focused primarily on supporting schools to deliver better outcomes for learners. For many reasons, including the development of technology and, of course, the reduction in duplication across the sector, it will employ fewer people at the centre. Remember, a major principle underpinning RPA is the transfer of resources from administration to front line services. So my aim will be to free up resources at the centre so that more money is available to be allocated to schools and front-line support services.
In terms of location, I don’t intend that ESA should have a huge headquarters with all operations being run centrally: The truly important activity in education happens in schools, colleges and youth clubs. So I anticipate that the location of direct support services will be determined by the needs of schools. There are other core corporate services which can be more efficiently delivered centrally. We will work within the Public Service Commission guiding principles in making location decisions.
As we take forward the creation of ESA, I will be talking to Principals, existing authorities, and looking at models elsewhere for examples of best practice.
I can only be successful in my job if each of you is successful in yours – the ultimate measure of success is better outcomes for children. That’s why my major emphasis will be on supporting you. But for ESA to be successful we need your help
- In designing the organisation
- In honestly telling us what we do badly and how we can improve
- and in continuing to be active in the debate around education – not just in policy terms but also in dealing with some of the difficult fall out from managing change.
There will be difficult times ahead as we shift the balance of resources from the centre to schools. If we don’t have the support of Head Teachers in changing the shape of administration, for changing the balance of resources, then the exercise may become futile.
This is a great opportunity for us to bring about improvements in all areas of school life. I want to create an ESA which is customer focused, highly professional and provides an excellent service at all levels.
This is about doing things right; and doing the right things.