NZAIMs

NZAIMS  is an organisation that focuses specifically on learners in the Intermediate/Middle School years, and this event was an opportunity to explore issues and ideas relevant to our older learners. Two key presenters, Steve Francis and Alison Mooney,  facilitated the learning and discussion over the course of the day.

Adapt or Die:Thriving in Times of Change - Steve Francis
Steve suggested that we are reaching a tipping point in education, where change of some time is almost inevitable. With this in mind, we need to consider the implications for both our school staff and our parent community, as school is different from what they have previously experienced.

He talked about there being predictable stages of concern when people are faced with change (Ken Blanchard). These are:

• Give me all the information
• What does this mean for me?
• How will we start implementing?
• Impact (when you start doing)
• Collaboration (best done with someone experiencing the change alongside you, or a little way ahead)
• Refinement

It is important to keep in mind that you need to take time to address the first two points, before you can successfully address the others. Steve noted that there are two factors to successful change; your attitude and your ability to learn. Keep in mind that things tend to get worse before they get better.

When it comes to implementing change initiatives, you should only focus on 3 big areas per year (Steve referred to these as the 'big rocks'). It is important to communicate these clearly and consistently and monitor progress towards your goals. As a leader, you need to be clear about what it will be like after the change, paint a picture so that you have a clear and compelling vision. A suggestion was to priority plan and break the year into 5 week chunks, and to display this in the staff room so that everyone can see where they are heading and the progress made to date.

Motivation is the key to successful change and there are three key drivers for motivation:

• Purpose - people like to be purposeful
• Mastery - people like to be seen as good at what they do
• Autonomy - people like to have the power to make some choices

However, it is also important to be clear with everyone about the flip side of each of these:

• Responsibility - because we change lives
• Change - be willing to tweak and refine
• Accountability - yes you have choices, but if these are not leading to outcomes for our learners then this is a problem

In order to achieve desired change, you need to have a compelling vision or you will get confusion. Change needs to be planned and staged or people will feel that the pathway is unclear. Training needs to be provided, if required, or people will feel anxious. You need to ensure the necessary resourcing is in place or people will feel frustrated. Finally, momentum needs to be established or people will get 'change fatigue'.

Four Things Great Leaders Do and Three They Don't - Steve Francis

Leaders need to make sure all of their 'moments of truth' are sending the messages that they want to be sending. This includes when meeting with members of the school community, online interactions and all of the usual home/school communication. 

Great leaders focus on their teachers; they ensure they are doing everything they can to make them feel supported and valued, while also ensuring they are on the same page with the school's vision and beliefs, and that they are accountable for themselves and their learners.

There are four key criteria for identifying a great leader:

• They expertly manage staff, students and parents, keeping in mind that all 3 groups are interrelated and connected
• They make decisions based on what their 'best people' will think
• They focus on people, not programmes
• They ruthlessly invest their time and do what only they can do, delegating other tasks as appropriate

Fostering Intelligent Relationships - Alison Mooney

This was an exploration of 4 key personality types: Playful, Powerful, Peaceful and Precise. Being aware of an individual's personality can help with responding and interacting with others in a purposeful and productive way. 

Alison identified a key word for each personality type:

• Playful - People
• Peaceful - Steady
• Precise - Thorough
• Powerful - Action

Each personality type has a specific leadership style:

• Playful - Inspirational leader. Loves to encourage
• Peaceful - Diplomatic. Cares about people
• Precise - Strategic. Sets goals and works backwards from them in order to work out steps
• Powerful - Visionary. Loves achieving things

Finally, each personality type has a different set of needs:

• Playful - attention, affection and approval
• Peaceful - respect, value and harmony
• Precise - space, quiet and sensitivity
• Powerful - credit, loyalty and appreciation

To explore the four personality types further, read Alison's book "Pressing the Right Buttons"

3 Brains Overflowing - NZEALs Conference with Mel and Bev

On April 18th to 20th I was fortunate to attend the New Zealand Educational Administration Leadership Society conference at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland. This organization supports leadership and innovation in education sectors in New Zealand. They have strong networks across primary, secondary and tertiary education institutions and are known for sharing research as well as quality practice while supporting aspiring and existing leaders.

I attended the conference with the lovely and lively Mel Bland and Bev Aerenga from Te Uho O Te Nikau. We thought that the conference was well organized with a range of inspirational think leaders as presenters providing us with a smorgasbord of learning around reconceptualusing leadership in Aotearoa. It was clear to us that a lot of thought had been put into the design of the three-day conference as each day had a different Focus.  For example Wednesday was about leadership for cultural inclusivity Thursday focused on leadership for collaboration and Friday was all about leadership for sustainability. 

My thinking was challenged around how we engage Maori and Pacifika communities within our New Zealand education sector. We were provoked as educational leaders to consider how we could should and need to enact change in our schools to ensure equity while remembering that the context of each individual school and surrounding community is central to how we do this. Organizational change requires leadership, relationships and project management skills and in order to enact this change we need to be transformative servant leaders. 
See all of my notes here and my Synopsis below. 

Kicking things off we were immersed in the aspirations of Chris Hipkins, Minister of Education who reminded us that educational leadership, not governance, will make the biggest difference for our learners and that we have the responsibility to empower the teaching profession by unleashing the potential of the NZC without the constraints of National Standards. And closing the conference was Professor Martin Thrupp from U of W emphasising the importance of policy and being brave leaders through our individual and collective leadership voice. Tahu Kukutai (UoW) challenged us to consider if we are working towards diversity or divergence and proclaims that Maori have been removed from the conversation at the policy level for too long.  The professor asks how are we addressing racism and colonialism in our education system when more than 10% of people identify with multiple ethnicities and more than half of Maori identify with another ethnicity? If Te Tirit o Waitangi is essentially our first immigration policy, how are we honouring this? Do we as a nation view Maori as a problem to solve and migrants as a resource?  What is our vision for national belonging and how can we embrace an indigenous disposition? A lot of questions with little time for discussion on possible solutions. Fortunately, Professor Melinda Webber (UoA) reminded us of the aspirations within Ka Hikatea and the 8 characteristics (Ka Awatea) for realising Maori potential. Local leaders Deidre Alderson, Laurie Thew and Di Cavallo share how their schools embrace and respond to cultural diversity highlighting the need for cultivating a sense of belonging through visible values, strong educator-learner relationships, effective transitions to school and how doing what we do when we don’t know what to do (as leaders) sets the tone for our school community.  Additionally, Sue Dockett, ECE expert from University of Australia suggested that effective school transitions are seamless, invisible, peaceful and to achieve these we must examine the: opportunities, aspirations, expectations and entitlements of those involved.  How do we develop social respect, personal regard, competence and perceived integrity as we induct whanau into our schools? Damon Salesa charismatically provoked us with the fact that future Pasifka leaders are here in NZ, and we have segregated ourselves socioeconomically and ethnically, so how are we growing this leadership resource?  If we know disruptive innovation occurs in areas of disadvantage and every single Decile 10 ten school outperformed every single Decile 1 school what does the future hold? Noelen Wright shared her research on how educators and learners make sense of an ILE (Rotouna), the nature of collaboration and involving community in learning authentically, calling for leaders to think and act differently.  Her learning identified the difficulties and struggles of leading in ILEs which aligned with the message from Rachael McNae (UoW) who highlights the importance of relational leadership- why is change so unnatural in human organisations? Ross Notman, University of Otago, outlined his research on what effective principals do→  1.Leading T&L, Support for staff PL 3.Care for our OWN personal and PL 4. Collaborative Leadership Strategies  5. Intrapersonal leadership. Dr Bruce Barnett, University of Texas shares explores the differences between mentoring (expertise, longer)  coaching (skills based) and counseling (emotional) and how these feature in our development and induction of emerging leaders. Dr Howard Youngs proclaimed we are human beings not human doings and asks “what’s damaging the conditions of learning, teaching and research in your organisation?”  While Murray Fletcher reminded us that the hardest thing to shift is a person's beliefs. What do I/we stand for? How can we go about connecting head, heart and hand because modern leadership needs integrative thinkers and thinking!  What are the cognitive, psychological and social aspects of effective leadership?