Denny High School - A School's Leadership Project
"Think Feel Know has given us a novel and refreshing method to help our SMT and PTs to think through a number of management and leadership issues."
We are part way through working with Gerry Docherty (recently retired HT of Grangemouth High School) and Wendy Fraser (Communications Coach) on our Think, Feel, Know project. Our twin aims are to improve communication strategies and build up various levels of teamworking within and between the senior and middle management of the school.
This is a coaching programme and, after only a few meetings, we have benefited greatly from the mixture of expertise and insight that Gerry and Wendy bring to the discussion in a direct, professional and non-judgemental way so that we can move forward in these two critical areas of school life.
"By means of an amazingly accurate diagnostic assessment, individual styles were identified with regard to communication preferences and approaches to team working. In conjunction with other information arrived at through individual interview, we now have a better understanding of our group dynamics, what we need to do in order to improve communication and how demands of time might be more effectively addressed."
Delivering a Curriculum for Excellence will require a lot of hard work from staff. Part of the process will involve new opportunities for staff to work together in new ways on developments within the curriculum and teaching and learning methodologies. If we are to help children develop their skills for learning, skills for life and skills for work (Building the Curriculum p4), we as the leading learners within the school need to embody and model such a skill set.
Improving communication and teamworking will be central to this process. In particular, PTs need to be able to work with each other and the SMT at an enhanced level in order to:
- Restate our joint vision for the school
- Communicate effectively with each other
- Know what is required of each of us to deliver an improved curriculum design and teaching and learning methodologies
Within the programme, we have:
Reviewed communication structures and strategies within the school. This was interesting and sometimes painful. Communication ‘lumps' you thought you had ironed out were sometimes still there and needed a second ironing. As a result, I have decided to:
- Rewrite (ie restate) PT job descriptions so that we can go forward on a consensual footing and make management and leadership responsibilities more explicit.
- Adopt a consistent formula for stating agendas and compiling minutes of all management meetings to make them focused on teaching and learning as a top priority
Considered the different ways we operate within respective PT and SMT teams. A Think Feel Know profile was created for each team member based on various communication and behaviour preferences traits. In the main, the profiles were agreed as accurate. At the very least, they provided us with a common language to understand where we all are in relation to our learning, leadership and management styles. This has the potential to be divisive but we have avoided this because of the relative objectivity provided by Gerry and Wendy in the process and the fact that all ‘judgements' are professional ones and no particular style is lauded as ‘correct' or even ‘more appropriate' than others. I feel sure that had we tried out something like this ‘in house', there could have been the danger of a charge of subjectivity and hidden agendas, however unintended.
I am looking forward to seeing how these fresh perceptions about each other and about how we communicate and operate as a team help us to be more effective and efficient in our headline discussions about AiFL strategies, classroom monitoring and ACE related curriculum development.
A more than occasional thought crosses my mind about how we should, perhaps, have been able to arrive at the same place without having had to part with funds for the privilege. Something tells me, however, that it was better that someone ‘from the outside' was part of the process of pointing out what was there and how we could move on. At the very least, it wasn't me who was telling them - and all of us, together, were starting out on this stage of the journey as common recipients of the truths that were allowed to surface.
From where I am just now, as long as the pupils benefit - and I think, feel and know they will - it will have been time and money well spent. And that's something you can't always say!!
Stephen Miller
Rector, Denny High School
United Kingdom
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