University of Huddersfield Repository King, Tamara Comparing Leadership in Effective and Less Effective High Schools in Jamaica Original Citation King, Tamara (2016) Comparing Leadership in Effective and Less Effective High Schools in Jamaica. In: 29th International Congress of School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI) 2016, 6th - 9th January 2016, Glasgow, Scotland. This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/26927/ The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. 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For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ ICSEI Connecting teachers, schools and systems: Creating the conditions for effective learning Glasgow, Scotland 6-9 January 2016 Abstracts ICSEI @icseiglasgow2016 International Congress for School 1 www.icsei.net/2016 @icseiglasgow2016Effectiveness and Improvemen t Parallel Session 1 Wednesday 6 January 2016 15.30-17.30 2 www.icsei.net/2016 @icseiglasgow2016 LDP Symposium Title: Leading, learning and aligning: Keys to sustaining school improvement Topic: Leadership development and practice to build sustained improvement Abstract ID: 152 Session: Parallel Session 1 Session Date and Time: 6 January 2016 15.30-17.30 Location: Argyll Suite 1 Author/Speaker: Joan Conway Company/Organisation: University of Southern Queensland Co-Authors: Lindy Abawi Dorothy Andrews Cheryl Bauman Shauna Petersen Presenting Author: Joan Conway Overview of symposium This symposium explores the key concepts that enable sustainability of successful whole school improvement. Sustainability, the outcome of capacity building processes, is dependent on the development of the school community to be innovative and creative, to share and work towards aspirational goals ensuring a futures orientation. Sustainability, is also a value adding process, where the school recognises the importance of relational leadership, a key component of sustaining school success. The Leadership Research International (LRI) team at the University of Southern Queensland posits that when school communities commit to the creation and development of culturally and contextually relevant systems and processes, then sustainability through ongoing learning becomes a reality. Our current understanding, based on individual and collaborative research into school improvement processes for over a decade, is that sustainability for ongoing organisational alignment requires commitment and leadership to the capacity building of Social, Intellectual and Organisational Capital. Papers in this symposium map three keys to building capacity for sustainable school improvement as leading, learning and aligning. Keys to Leading –the importance of social capital for leading with collective responsibility and collaborative individualism as principals and teacher leaders define their purpose (organisational capital) for whole school improvement. Paper 1: Sustaining school improvement through Cultural-Relational Leadership the relational nature of leadership for leading learning: “School cultures. .purposefully created by distributed leadership efforts that outlast the current leaders.” (Bauman) Paper 2: A Teacher Leader Capacity Building Model rethinking the importance of sustaining leadership processes: “building teacher leader capacity across all levels of an education community.” (Petersen) Keys to Learning - professional learning underpins the success of building intellectual and organisational capital as individuals and the collective create, develop and implement defined practices of quality teaching and learning. One paper presents the key to learning as deepening the schoolwide pedagogical understandings and practices. Paper 3: 3-Dimensional Pedagogy: A New Professionalism in Educational Contexts embedding innovative and creative processes through a pedagogical framework: “acknowledgement of teachers as professionals capable of making and actioning sound decisions.” (Andrews & Abawi) 3 www.icsei.net/2016 @icseiglasgow2016 Keys to aligning - culture building and the role of language are imperatives for building organisational capital enabling the aligning of all elements contributing to the success of whole school improvement. Paper 4: The language of school alignment: Contextualised meaning systems in action the glue that aligns cognitive and structural processes in an organisation: “a contextually created meaning system is a powerful force creating long term alignment and sustainable improvement.” (Abawi) In conclusion, this symposium presents our understanding of school alignment as the building of social, intellectual and organisational capital, where the relationship of capacity building to sustainability requires deliberate and ongoing processes of leading, learning and aligning. The challenge is set for cultural knowledge and ongoing narrative to build capacity for the endurance of systems and processes that continually respond to the need for diversity and overall success. This team posits the call for heightened personal and professional ethic, responsive individual and organisational mindset, and futuristic agency for sustainable school improvement. PAPER 1 ABSTRACT Sustaining School Improvement Through Cultural-Relational Leadership, Dr Cheryl Bauman, Leadership Research International, University of Southern Queensland This paper draws from a larger study (Bauman, 2014) that explored the interconnectedness between job satisfaction of elementary teachers, school culture and student achievement in two high performing elementary schools in Canada. The focus of this paper is that school-wide approaches emphasizing lasting improvement involve sustainable leadership that encompasses the creation and on-going evolution of a culture of belonging, expectations, learning, and advocacy. Sustainable educational leadership preserves and develops deep learning for all that spreads and lasts. Hargreaves and Fink (2006) espouse that sustained school improvement is enhanced through the collective beliefs and values teacher leaders and principals hold. In the study behind this paper, teachers and principals believed that through their autonomous and collaborative planning efforts and purposeful practices, they could make a positive difference in the lives of their students. Together they believed that all students could achieve and they demonstrated this belief by continually planning and implementing a school-wide approach to advance long-term lasting school improvement. School cultures can be purposefully created by distributed leadership efforts that outlast the current leaders. Sustained improvements must not rely on individual efforts or personalities, but rather on individuals making a collective choice to dynamically move school improvement continuously forward. Analysis of the data in the larger study revealed that teachers and principals were intrinsically motivated to improve their practices to further sustain lasting student learning. In order to be sustainable, the leadership was distributed through the school’s professional community so others could carry the torch after the principal and/or teachers were gone. Illustrated in this paper is an understanding that in order to create lasting, meaningful improvements in student learning for sustained school improvement, effective teacher leaders combine both autonomy and collaboration in their work settings. The relationship between autonomy and collaboration is dynamic and circular in nature, and collaborative roles actually enriched the autonomous practice in the classroom that engage students academically, socially and emotionally. Further, the importance of collective action and distributed (parallel) leadership on behalf of both teachers and principals in order to sustain lasting change and to further enhance student learning outcome is highlighted. Both the elementary teachers and the principals were the collective forces that collaboratively led meaningful, long-term changes through sustainability in their leadership practices. This collective action captures the relational nature of leadership in a model titled Cultural-Relational Leadership (CRL) (Bauman, 2014). PAPER 2 ABSTRACT A Teacher Leader Capacity Building Model, Shauna Petersen, University of Southern Queensland Leadership for sustainable school improvement is at the forefront of current educational thinking and it has long been acknowledged by researchers worldwide that engaging teacher leaders in the process is paramount. Despite the evidence in the literature, leadership, and particularly the development of teacher leadership is rarely prioritised in government and system efforts to improve schools and student results. Schools face continual challenges and increased pressure to improve results via external drivers for reform. Yet the research clearly shows that deep change is