I am delighted to be able to join you here today at the 2nd Scottish Government International Summer School on School Leadership.  The excellent turn out during the summer holidays is a clear indication of the significance that this event has for educational leaders.  I am pleased to see that we have wide representations from within schools (headteachers, deputy headteachers, principal teachers, chartered teachers and classroom teachers) and from local authorities and other stakeholders.  I am also glad that the summer school has again been able to attract interest from abroad.  I am sure you are all enjoying your week - it certainly looks an interesting, varied and challenging programme. I want to do two things as I speak to you this afternoon. 

CPDConfer our new tool for discussion on key CPD developments goes live on the afternoon of the 28 February and can be accessed through the CPD Scotland site.

The first edition concentrates on coaching and mentoring and contains examples and accounts of practice from across Scotland. It also features pieces written by Gary Bloom and Jan Robertson who offer international perspectives on coaching in education. Thanks to the many folks in the CPD community who have shared their work and colleagues in LTS who have helped bring CPDConfer to life. 

Please join in the live discussion and share your ideas at  http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/cpdscotland/cpdconfer/index.asp

And if you want to encourage colleagues to join in, send them this CPDFind entry.

Click to read the Coaching and Mentoring summary

This post comes from Graeme Finnie (leadership consultant with Learning and Teaching Scotland).

“This is an important period of growth in coaching and mentoring in schools and local authorities and this commentary reflects the extent of the development supported by SEED 2006/2007. In it you can read about examples of approaches taken and the impact that coaching and mentoring is making in many local authorities. Of course this is not the whole story. There are many other developments going ahead which are not described here and you should get in touch with your CPD contact to find out what is happening in your area. Work is also underway (see the earlier blog entry) to develop case studies and examples of practice which will shed more light on the impact of coaching and mentoring for pupils and students, teachers and school leaders, in schools and classrooms across Scotland.”

Please note some edits have been made to the original posted commentary (17th Dec 07)

As part of the CPD online initiative, which is being developed by Learning and Teaching Scotland in partnership with the National CPD team, a pilot of an online coaching and mentoring environment for Curriculum Managers, Principal Teachers (Faculty Heads) was developed. This was based on Learning & Teaching Scotland’s online communities’ tool which currently hosts, amongst others, ‘Masterclass’, ‘Deputes Together’ and ‘Heads Together’.

You can read an evaluation of the pilot here evaluation-of-faculty-leaders-pilot-28-08.doc

The Flexible Routes to Headship pilot programme has been operational for 9 months involving 30 participants across 5 local authorities. A unique feature of the programme is the support provided for each participant by a Professional Development Coach. This support is currently focussed on each participant’s Professional Learning Plan constructed following self evaluation against the Standard for Headship.

Timescales
Assessment criteria and performance

This is a brief update on some work which Graeme Finnie and I are taking forward to develop examples of practice and approach to coaching and mentoring with the working title “A Guide to Practice”. 

The aim is to build on the project commentaries, the CPD paper on coaching and mentoring and other initiatives underway to develop a practice focused publication to further support coaching and mentoring developments.  The core of the Guide to Practice will consist of case studies, examples of approach, key learning and outcomes from across the spectrum of coaching and mentoring activity taking place in Scottish schools and authorities.    We think we have reached a stage where we have an important story to tell about developments over the last couple of years or so and this is an opportunity to highlight the quality of the work, that many of you have been involved in, to the wider educational community.   Over the next few weeks Graeme Finnie and I (and perhaps others we will ask to assist with this) will make contact in relation to specific examples of developing practice we would like to follow up on.

We envisage using a combination of interview, discussion and workshops to develop the content and we’ll come back to you with details on these.

One of the areas we will focus on is how coaching is being developed in the classroom to support learning and teaching.  We know of some examples, we’re sure there are more, please think and let us know.   We’ll have some other specific requests which we will let you know about in due course.

We hope, with your help, to tell a great story about coaching and mentoring in Scottish schools and we are aiming to produce a LTS publication in Spring 2008.

Please get in touch if you have any questions/ideas.

John Daffurn / Graeme Finnie

Graeme Finnie is the guest for this post

We had a great conversation about coaching and mentoring at the Summer School. Ollie has reminded us of the different ways that teachers and school leaders can work with coaching and mentoring and the distinctions that it can be helpful to make in terms of these approaches. During the SEED coaching and mentoring initiative we’ve created opportunities for teachers, school leaders and other professionals to talk about how they are taking things forward in their own schools and authorities.  You can hear a selection of them on CPD Scotland. These were recorded at a large group conversation at Pollock Halls earlier this year.

Ollie Bray finishes his series of posts on the Scottish International Summer School, here he provides a summary of day four of the conference.

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Judith McClure was the fourth person to take up the position as Chair at the International Summer School. Judith is the current Convenor of the Scottish Educational Leadership Management and Administration Society (SELMAS). In her opening address Judith picked up on some of the emerging key themes of the conference including the importance of building relationships, emotional intelligence and allowing time to think. She even managed to slot in a quick advertisement for the forthcoming SELMAS Conference in September.

The morning was taken up by an activity led by Graeme Finnie around the theme of coaching. We were asked to use group coaching to see if we could think of ways to develop leadership capacity through coaching and mentoring. I have written about coaching before and do believe that it is a powerful way to support leadership at all levels. However from the various conversations that emerged from the morning discussions it seemed that there was still a bit confusion in terminology as to what the differences were between coaching, mentoring, life coaching and counselling. Although we may never reach a true consensus or exact definition of what each of these things are for. I do believe that there is some work to be done in really helping Scottish teachers and leaders understand what we mean by “coaching” in an educational sense.

Here’s what I think:

Mentoring is normally provided by to another person or group of people who have an expertise in the subject that the person is being mentored in. As well as reflection mentoring is also about giving advice based on the experience of the mentor.

Coaching does not have to be provided by a subject expert. Instead the coach has been training in questioning techniques. They are skilled in getting the participant to come up with their own answers by providing structured questioning to allow the person to have some really focused thinking time.

With this definition in mind and one of the recurring themes of the conference being that all leaders need more time to think. I think that coaching could be one way to push forward this aspect of the leadership agenda.

I also think that it is important that we differentiate between “formal” and “informal” coaching if there are such terms? School leaders may already be using informal coaching in schools because it is really just structured questioning. However, I think formal coaching is different. During a formal coaching session a coach will guide the participant in order for them to find their own solution to a particular problem or obstacle. The coach will also help the participant set their own goals to help them overcome or review the problem. Coaching is powerful and important to school leaders because most of the time our minds are filled with more than one task and sometimes it is difficult to prioritise or tackle these tasks in any sensible order. I also believe that coaching can be immensely valuable when helping school leaders plan strategically. All to often school leaders get tied down with the day to day running of the school / authority and do not give enough time to strategic “blue sky” thinking or a clear vision for the school. Working with a skilled coach can provide a way to give some quality time to both of these issues.

One final point, I believe that coaching is here to stay and I hope that there are some plans to engage the ITE Universities in the coaching process. To me this seems a useful way to push forward and develop a coaching model. 3580 students will enter ITE next year and I think that if they all new what coaching was (a clear definition) and if they had all had an opportunity to be coached and perhaps even benefited from being a peer coach then this would be a huge step forward and 3580 less people to convince about the merits of coaching when they enter the profession full time.

After Lunch the conference received a presentation from Graham Donaldson, Senior Chief Inspector, HMIe and Eamon Stack, Chief Inspector, Department of Education and Science, Eire. It was interesting to hear a little bit about the inspection model in Eire and to hear Graham Donaldson’s speak about school leadership. One big difference between the Scottish and Eire systems is that there is no Local Authority Education structure in Eire. Schools report directly back to the centre. After their presentations both Graham and Eamon received a number of questions from the delegation about the advantages and disadvantages of both systems and the inspection process in general.

The final presentation of the day was from Norman Drummond on the Columba 1400 experience. After a motivational introduction from Norman staff and students from Lossiemouth High School and Cumnock Academy took the lead and spoke to the conference about their own Columba 1400 experience. I have always been enthusiastic about outdoor learning and the power of the outdoors to develop leaders, aid reflection and empower people. The presentation provided me with even more evidence to support my theory. The audience listened to two groups of young adults explain to them how the Columba experience had changed their lives. The audience also had an opportunity to take part in some Columba activities and to find out how the schools had gone on to develop their own sustainable leadership programmes. This presentation was an excellent end to the day and for many the highlight of the week.

Graeme Finnie, who has been doing a sterling job in managing the SEED initiative on coaching and mentoring asked me draw this to your attention.

21 teachers from all over Shetland have received professional recognition by the GTCS for their work in coaching and mentoring. Hazel Sutherland, the new executive director of Education and Social Care, joined Helen Budge, Head of Schools, at a very special occasion on Wednesday evening at Herrislea House.  The certificates were presented on behalf of the GTCS by Tom Hamilton, the Policy and development officer.

There are only 123 other teachers in Scotland with this accreditation, so Shetland has certainly made its mark with this group of 21 going through.

The coaching and mentoring project was SEED funded and was run in partnership with the Scottish Leadership Foundation.