Blog feedLeadership in a time of opportunity and change
August 1st, 2008
David Cameron (Director of Education in Stirling Council) finished the summer school with a roar! His talk on “Leadership in a time of opportunity and change” meant no let-up in the challenges for the conference delegates to the last. Actually, talk comes nowhere near describing his unique presentational style – it’s more like ‘getting a doing’ from a particularly funny and insightful philosopher!
Partly, he used the session to take a magnifying glass to the other contributions of the week and zoomed in on a number of areas where clarity was required. Nor did he mind if his bright light through the glass burnt a few of sacred articles of faith along the way!
But mainly, David set out his own personal views on leadership and issued a few challenging statements and questions, such as:
- Are we talking about dispersal of leadership when we actually mean honouring responsibility and fulfilling roles? Is leadership making sure that everyone sees and honours their responsibilities?
- In a time of change, we need clarity, certainty (or at least confidence) from our leaders and we need them to see further down the road
- ACfE cannot be anarchic but nor should we prescribe it to death. David likened it to a Miles Davis jazz piece where everybody can recognise the tune but the real beauty is in the improvisation.
He took time to look at definitions of purpose and excellence and his words about the head teacher (Evlyn Allsop) and staff of Kennoway Primary in the ‘90s were particularly moving. If you only have time to look at 2 of the slides below make them numbers 11 and 12. These slides outline part of Kennoway Primary’s mission statement from that time.
He sounded the death knell for the school improvement plan, while recognising its past usefulness. Instead the school plan should be a combination of individual educator development plans within the school.
He went on to share some personal feelings about being a leader and including how to minimise the feeling you get from “distributing the leadership and keeping the guilt”
David ended with an impassioned, optimistic view of leadership in Scottish education as represented by the conference delegates.
Not one to forget!
On Friday, just prior to David’s final presentation, the Cafe Conversation sessions provided an excellent mix for delegates to share some of the exciting work going on in Scottish education. As a result several of the delegates have already arranged visits to find out more.
I agree with Dorothy, when she says that the experience of the Summer School has allowed her to clarify her core values. Additionally, one of the key messages I return to school with is that , all the key note speakers had something for me to try out and how I combine them within the context of my school is the challenge which I am looking forward to.