Leadership for
Learning
In a time of change, challenge and
opportunity
David Cameron
What changes are we
responding to?
 The changing world - technology, globalism,
uncertainty
 The changing context - policy, frameworks,
expectations and priorities
 Changing relationships
 Inhabiting ambiguity
Eric Hoffer
 In times of change, the learners
shall inherit the earth while the
learned will remain beautifully
equipped for a world that no
longer exists
David Cameron
 And the learners who can
identify opportunity and manage
risk, who can innovate and
create, will shape that
inheritance and define the future
 Adding value is not enough for
some of our young people, we
need to challenge their destinies.
We are not editing life stories, we
are creating new narratives
Improvement will not be
enough
Effective
Ineffective
Traditional
Forward Looking
What do learners need?
 The capacity to think, learn and adapt
 The ability to innovate and create
 The skills to access knowledge including the skill
of questioning
 The commitment to sustained enquiry or task
 The specific skills required by disciplines or
vocational choices
What sort of learning?
 It has to be active
 It has to involve the quest for meaning
 It has to be varied
 It needs motivation
 It should respect disciplines but not be dominated by
them
 It must be assessed in terms of breadth, depth and
application
What makes learning successful?
 ''My father would cry reading Dickens to us as
kids. These are the passages I remember.'’
Malcolm Gladwell
 ''One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant
teachers - but with gratitude to those who
touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so
much necessary raw material - but warmth is the
vital element for the growing plant and for the
soul of the child.'’ Carl Jung
The “Mortimore” factors
 Purposeful leadership of the staff by the head-
teacher
 The involvement of the deputy head-teacher
 The involvement of teachers
 Consistency among teachers
 Structured lessons
 Intellectually challenging teaching
 Work-centered environment
 Limited focus within sessions
 Maximum communication between teachers
and students
 Record keeping
 Parental involvement
 Positive climate
"There can be no educational development without
teacher development;....the best means of
development is not by clarifying ends but by
analysing practice.”
 Lawrence Stenhouse
 "The greatest problem in teaching is not how to get rid
of the 'deadwood', but how to create, sustain and
motivate good teachers throughout their careers.”
 Fullan and Hargreaves 1992
 "People learn what they need to learn, not what
someone else thinks they need to learn.” Fullan
(1994)
 "In the end, it is the teacher in his or her
classroom who has to interpret and bring about
improvement.”
Fullan and Hargreaves
 "You cannot have students as continuous
learners and effective collaborators, without
teachers having these same characteristics.”
Sarason (1990)
 In short, it is the task of all educationalists outside
the classroom to serve the teacher.. For only
they are in a position to deliver effective learning
 Adapted from Lawrence Stenhouse
Key principles
 Where change is imposed or driven by others,
we play at it, defuse it and subvert it
 It affects interviews far more than practice
 It makes no difference to pupil achievement
 You work best when you are enthusiastic about
what you are teaching
More Principles
 Change should only be driven by self-
evaluation, provided that self-evaluation is
realistic and takes account of economic and
social changes
 If all learners were experiencing the best
practice in our schools, we would not be talking
about system change
 Any change has to be rooted in current
practice
And……………
 Focus on learning
 Support and challenge learners
 Whatever you do, do it right, consistently and
persistently
 Improvement comes through systems, priority for
practice and looking at the needs of individual
learners
What do we need from leaders?
 Certainty (where possible), confidence at least
 Early anticipation/creative response
 Clarity - of purpose and of expectations
 Cohesion
 Engagement
 Direction and support
 Common purpose
What do leaders need?
 Clarity
 Commitment
 Courage
 Collegiality
Clarity of Purpose
Purpose is not simply a target that an organisation
chooses to aim for - it is an organisation’s reason
for being. It needs to express what the
organisation wants to accomplish in providing
value to its stakeholders - and describe how
these accomplishments can be measured.
Aims and ambitions
 Schools must make it very clear what they
stand for and must have a clear vision of
what they are trying to achieve. The vision
will always be there for them as a goal and
will support and encourage when things go
wrong or are difficult. Knowing what you
want to achieve is crucial. Without that,
there will be no progress
A real vision
..we believe that people are important, the children
placed in our care, the adults who spend their
working lives in the school, the parents and members
of the wider community.
We believe that education is about every aspect of
human personality and achievement. This view
requires that teachers give generously of their ideas
and the community to welcome those ideas
What we teach must work for all the children and
tap all their potential talents, not just some of
them.
The curriculum that we offer must be broad,
balanced and progressive. It must reach out
and touch all children in a way that makes sense
to each individual child. It must motivate each
child, involve each child, inspire and enlighten
each child. It must be a curriculum that
recognises that there are many kinds of knowing,
feeling and expressing truth.
So……………?
 We need to create a culture where we all
believe we can make a difference and have a
common view about what that difference is
 We need to create the conditions where we can
make that difference
 We need to listen, to learn and to act
 We need to build on the work done
In this context….
 Leadership has to be collegiate
 It concerns leading people not managing institutions
 It has to be founded on belief, knowledge and
understanding
 It requires skill
 It needs purpose
 It has to be informed by evidence
 It must be judged by outcomes
But let’s think……
 Targets need to reflect ambitions and not just
requirements
 We need to get beyond set standards and
qualifications
 There are many ways of assembling the vital
elements
 We need to think about learning AND leadership
Leadership lessons
 Consistency
 Persistence
 Generosity
 Getting beyond self
 Getting the best people and enabling them to
be the best -create the team
…. And more
 See things clearly – tell them simply
 Keep the focus
 Get rid of the clutter
 Everything fit for purpose
 Leadership and management = 2 wings/1 bird
 Leadership without legacy = pan+ flash
The Lacuna
Their white dresses swirled like froth, with skirts so
wide they could take the hems in their fingertips
and raise them up to make sudden wings, like
butterflies, fluttering as they turned…..
“Indian girls,” she spat……”A corn eater will
never be more than she is”
The dancers were butterflies. From a
hundred paces Salome could see the
dirt under their fingernails, but not their
wings