At the primary school where I’m chair of governors we are planning to recruit a new headteacher.  As you might expect, governors started by clarifying where we want to take the school in the future.  With thanks to my friend and ex-colleague Jim Laing  who prompted this question, I asked: what is the greatest threat to society today?  There were many, so I asked ‘which of those can we address in school?’ I suspect, given long enough, we would have been able to tick them off one by one.  We talked about self-worth, relationships and respect, breakdown of faith, amongst other things.  We might have added critical faculty, confidence,  love of learning, commitment to values and values-based education.  As governors, we have the privilege and the responsibility of setting the strategic direction of the school. If we fulfil our role effectively, what matters to the school will matter to the children.  We talk about primary schools having a role in putting in place the foundations.  Do we know what happens when our children arrive in and leave secondary school?  Not enough, is my answer.  Governors could and should be asking that question.  As the national education agenda demands that we work more closely with other schools, we have the potential to grow that influence: we could work with other primary and secondary schools, so that children have a consistent message from the age of two to 18.

As is often pointed out, we have the children for a very short time, so we need also to work with parents and families.  More importantly, though ‘No-one spends longer with children than they spend with themselves’ was a chance remark by a friend, which has stayed with me.  The new national standards of excellence for headteachers   describe governors as ‘guardians of the nation’s schools’.  By implication then, we are guardians of the nation’s education.  As a board of governors, have you a corporate view of what education is for?

In every school there will be a different balance between the focus on academic results and the pressure to achieve them.  It’s relatively easy for me: it’s not my job on the line if our academic results are not where we expect them to be.  In holding our headteacher to account, perhaps we should also be holding ourselves to account for the impact we are having, not just on this generation of staff and students, but on their children, and their children’s children.

Last month I visited York Minster.  It took 250 years to build. Perhaps those who laid the foundation-stones feared that their work would be in vain. They could not know what their legacy would be.   All we can know today is that over five or six generations the vision was strong enough to overcome all the barriers they faced so that – despite the more recent challenges  – the building still stands.   If we as governors embrace the opportunity to shape a society based on acceptance of difference, perhaps not in my lifetime, nor in my children’s, nor possibly in their children’s, but before the end of time, love will overcome fear.

The post Terror in Paris: what can schools do? first appeared on Chrysalis Leadership Development.

I was around when Ofsted was invented

I gave up Ofsted inspections in 2000 to focus on something where I felt I could make a difference in the longer term.  Now I support headteachers through coaching and helping them to develop resilience to deal with the stresses of the job. We’re told that ‘good leaders will allow teachers to identify and celebrate what their strengths are’.   In my experience, too many good leaders forget to celebrate their own.    It’s as though there’s a silent conspiracy amongst school leaders: it’s not okay to take care of yourself as a leader, you have to be looking after everyone else.  Leaders absorb all the projections and insecurities of those around them – including a government and press who want to blame schools for all society’s ills. Resilient leaders know it’s important to take care of themselves – to put on their own oxygen mask before helping others with theirs.  When you’ve spent months climbing the mountain, are near the top, and the oxygen supply is thin, it’s easy to hallucinate and imagine you can manage by simply holding your breath.

Correspondence in the TES (8th March, 2013) suggests that the only organisation to be surprised that Ofsted inspections are data led is Ofsted.  As a school governor, Mr Wilshaw, I know that data is important; I also know that the latest dashboard doesn’t tell the whole story.   There can be no excuse for a school which fails its students – but there can be lots of reasons – many of them outside the school’s immediate control. A system is only as compassionate as those who implement it.  Staff in good schools understand the reasons for students’ under-achievement and consistently support them to improve.  We know that the climate created by the leader has a significant impact on the way staff perform.  Should we be surprised that compassion is largely missing from the inspection system?

The post Ofsted – requiring improvement first appeared on Chrysalis Leadership Development.

That got me thinking. How often do we as leaders miss the obvious cost-effective solution? This week I’ve been looking again at my research on emotional resilience for school leadership. Why emotional resilience? Because managing our emotions is ultimately what allows us to continue without being overwhelmed.

So is emotional resilience something leaders are born with? Does it develop over time? Can it be learned? The answer to all these questions is ‘yes’. One of the headteachers I interviewed talked about having ‘a lucky personality’. There were very few situations in which she’d felt she really couldn’t think of a way out. All interviewees felt that their emotional resilience had developed over time just by doing the job. Are we happy to leave it to chance, or can we pro-actively develop emotional resilience for leadership?

It is possible to learn to be more emotionally resilient and there are ways of behaving and thinking which will help. The difficulty is that many headteachers instinctively put their own needs at the bottom of the list. Even those who know about Stephen Covey’s time management guidance and dealing with the conflicting demands of what’s important and what’s urgent, don’t see their own needs as sufficiently significant to prioritise them. Research suggests that ways of feeding headteachers’ emotional resilience include

• Taking exercise
• Eating a healthy diet: drinking lots of water and alcohol in moderation
• Getting enough sleep
• Networking with other headteachers
• Recognising and celebrating what’s going well
• Recognising that some things are outside my influence
• Re-connecting with what gives me a buzz
• Having regular coaching to ensure the above
• Accepting that sometimes ‘good enough’ has to be good enough

Of course you know all this, but when the pressure’s on, other things seem more important. You miss the obvious: that you can deal with life’s pressures more effectively if you’re feeling more emotionally resilient.
What’s really required to facilitate all the above is deep self-awareness and a belief that it is okay to prioritise your own needs. That’s tricky.

If you’re deeply self aware, you will know why you find it difficult to put yourself first; you’ll listen to and heed your body’s warning signals; you’ll challenge unhelpful patterns of thinking; you’ll recognise that you have a choice concerning whether to absorb others’ stress; you’ll resist colluding with the expectation that you are superman/woman.
and you’ll show compassion for yourself.

Given the climate of high expectations, high public accountability and lack of compassion shown by the press or the government, that’s going to be difficult. But it is possible.

Make a start today – and by the way, it’s okay to ask for help.

The post Supporting emotional resilience first appeared on Chrysalis Leadership Development.