The Cabinet Secretary got things going on day 3 with a passionate and packed address. Her commitment was to outline her vision for the education of Scotland’s young people in reference to the Curriculum for Excellence and to focus on the importance of leadership in delivering that vision. She spoke of the crucial importance of the early years, of the need for closer partnerships between Faculties of Education and teachers, of the new relationships between central and local government and the opportunities these bring, and of CfE and qualifications.

She gave an overview of some of the leadership activity which is happening across the country and paid tribute to the wealth of experience and the excellent practice that she had seen in many different areas. She reminded delegates of her intention to produce a paper on leadership as evidence of her belief that great leadership is fundamental to the programme of transformational change that we are currently undertaking.

Many delegates were still talking and thinking about Malachi’s session yesterday, and she informed us that in the 14 months that she had been in post, she had spent perhaps only 30 minutes at the computer screen. ‘Nuff said!

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. 

This post was written by Margaret Orr of the National CPD Team. You can find out more about Malachi Pancoast’s  work on his web site, the Breakthrough Coach

Following the lunch break at any conference is always a challenge but Malachi rose to it very well and energised the group, including a very good stress buster exercise – just breathe deeply! He also managed to make housekeeping an attractive proposition. I am sure that all delegates undertook a voluntary (or involuntary) visioning exercise of their own office. Maybe they also envisioned whose office was going to be grateful recipient of all their treasured possessions!

It would be easy to remember Malachi’s session for the above but miss the core message. In whatever context we work, there is potential and capacity to reflect on organisational practice and change. However that is managed will be based on the leader’s knowledge and understanding of the context in which they work.

The success of Malachi’s strategy is clearly dependent on the leader having a high calibre support machine (both admin and classroom-based) – factors outwith the direct control of school managers? How many of us have Ronaldos on our staff?

His invitation to be open to change by reflecting on our current practice is valid – echoing the emphasis of self-evaluation promoted by HMIE and chimes with the aspirations of a Curriculum for Excellence. The translation of his 7 steps to producing a breakthrough will be determined by internal and external factors and the encouraged expectations that our customers and clients have of the system.

While the open door approach does have its dangers if not carefully managed, there is an obligation on school managers to respond to the needs of pupils and parents – both legal and professional. Often, these imperatives cannot be ignored, no matter how impeccable your office or strong-willed your secretary!

All of us will have tuned into different aspects of Malachi’s vision. The degree to which it applies is also for each individual to determine. I wish you luck with your duster!

Chris Ward on day 2 of the summer school challenged us to come up with describing our best leadership qualities. This ‘cloud’ summarises the view of conference. The bigger the size of font, the more groups voted for it!

Both Chris and Malachi came away with a few crackers but quote of the day comes from Chris

“Nobody likes change, except maybe a wet baby!”

Clip of the day also features Chris

This is a guest post from Gillian Hunt (CPD Manager for Edinburgh City Council and Summer School delegate).

Collaborative learning didn’t seem new until experienced with Chris Ward. Her session on ‘Leading to Learn and Learning to Lead’ promised to connect ideas to practice and she undertook to celebrate or cause an explosion! Well, I believe she did both!

Delegates were celebrating good practice with positive affirmation of what they already knew and practising skills from Chris’ repertoire while becoming increasingly innovated, energised and empowered.

Connections were made with colleagues at the table but also there was the ambitious task of working collaboratively with individuals and groups from the 100-strong audience. Chris quoted Frank Smith; “you learn from the company you keep!”

Four panel members; Karen Prophet (Head Teacher), Don Ledingham (Director), Val Drew(Chartered Teacher) and Kristy Rennie (Faculty Head) ably and admirably demonstrated leading learning in their various contexts. Chris used a variety of collaborative learning techniques to draw out the learning from all the panel members . You can get a flavour of techniques from the presentation below.

My own personal actions from this session which will benefit both me and my team:

• look into Shift Happens (a presentation on the need to manage change)
• investigate the innovation of senior pupils providing ‘CPD’ for younger pupils
• reflect on one of Chris’ last informational slides

vision + skills + incentives + resources + action plan = CHANGE

Graham Thomson of SCSSA informed and entertained the participants over 2 hours on the afternoon of the first day of the international summer school. ‘Good schools have good communication’ was the starting point for an inspirational presentation. Good leaders influence and persuade others to do things they would otherwise not have done, and communication to enable this is a key responsibility of good leadership. Graham emphasised the importance of a collegiate approach in school with leaders being aware of their personal qualities and interpersonal skills in the development of good relationships with colleagues.

Graham moved on to talk of how ‘collegiate schools promote the voice of all individuals within the school community’ and this communication is a key feature school improvement. We as leaders need to ‘be aware of the use of language in maintaining effective relationships’. As ‘Hendry’, Graham illustrated the importance of language in a humorous scenario involving 3 of the participants and which clearly exemplified the need for clarity of communication when interacting with staff. This extract focussed on the requirement for all of us to be aware of types of intellectual information including data on what we observe and how this makes us feel.

We know that ‘individuals perform at a higher level when they feel valued and participate in the decision making process in school’, and Graham reflected on the need for praise to be an integral feature of school life. He stressed this use of praise as a powerful instrument to ensure good leadership in influencing others to improve performance.

Graham’s message to us was clear and encouraged the participants to critically reflect on our own practice. How good are we as communicators? What is the extent of our reflection on our own use of language in our communication with others?

The message from this exhilarating session was clear in encouraging us to reflect on our own practices as leaders and for us to realise the importance of the power of communication as a resource in facing the dilemmas and challenges of leadership.

The quote of the day is from Brian Boyd (although I think he was quoting)

“When a measurement becomes a target, it ceases to be a useful measurement!”

The clip of the day features the students from Wester Hailes who fielded expertly a number of questions from the floor. Here are their replies when asked the question, “Who came up with the concept for their presentation on the day?”

Brian Boyd a weel-kent face in Scottish Education, delivered a thought-provoking, amusing and, at times, moving presentation on his personal reflections of leadership. He posed the question “What is leadership?” by drawing on the lessons he learned from his time as a rookie teacher in Port Glasgow (when jobs were allocated on the basis of “being able to string 2 sentences together and being warm to the touch”) through a number of school and local authority leadership roles to his current role as professor at University of Strathclyde.

As you might expect, we never got an answer to the question but, even better, a tremendous number of insights based on his own early experiences and the work of people ranging from his mother to Maya Angelou. Some (not necessarily representative but memorable) quotes:

• Leadership is within all of us (keep on watering the rocks, you will be surprised what leadership blooms may develop!)
• Leadership and management cannot be separated
• When a measurement becomes a target, it ceases to be a useful measurement
• “We’re no meant to do that stuff, sir, we’re thick!”
• School targets should be based on the UNESCO targets  ACfE gives us the opportunity to remove the shackles to make that happen
• resilience as well as brilliance

The conference opened with “Learning to Change the World” by a group of young people from Wester Hailes Education Centre coached by Michelle Armstong and Dave Wills from Youth Coach Scotland. The group expressed their thoughts on education and how it can be improved. They emphasised through their presentation how important it is to help all young people reach their potential, the importance of seeing everyone as an individual with their individual learning preferences and styles. So whether blue theorist, green reflector, red pragmatist or yellow activist the group they presented their Learning manifesto stating what they want from education. They also challenged the delegates to identify one thing that they had learned from the presentation and one thing that people can do to raise the bar on how they do their job!