In an earlier post, I vented a bit about the relevance of performance related pay for teachers. Well, I recently watched a short (10:48) RSA Animate video based on a lecture by Dan Pink, in which he explores how people are motivated. He suggests, and he is supported by reams of research over the last 30 years, that money only motivates where the task is a simple one requiring little mental effort - not teaching then!

However, what really does motivate are three things: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.

So how do we become motivated? Pink outlines three critical ideas:

1. Autonomy
   Controlling management approaches assume people are passive and inert and require prodding - the Victorian idea of Theory X!.  Autonomy approaches assume people are active, looking for interesting work and curious and self-engaging.  Autonomous motivation has proven to promote greater conceptual understanding, result in better grades, enhance persistence at school and in sporting activities, generate higher productivity, less burnout, and greater levels of psychological well-being.
2. Mastery
   Mastery is the desire to get better at something that matters - and it must matter to the individual. First, mastery is a mindset, in that we either believe we can get better or we don’t. Second, mastery is a pain, in that it involves not only working harder but working longer at the same thing. Finally, mastery is an asymptote, or a straight line that you may come close to but never reach. Other work has suggested that we can only really get close to mastery after 10,000 hours of effort/practice.
3. Purpose
   Purpose provides a context for autonomy and mastery.  Purpose is that inner drive, sometimes facilitated by a great leader, to do something that actually matters - educating children rather than ripping off bank customers.

 I wonder if Mr Gove has seen this, or perhaps he thinks that teaching is a mindless repetitive job!?

Leadership, Change Management and Organisational Development

I have just spent a few hours at the NGA Regional Conference listening inter alia to Les Walton speaking to the title "Governance Effectiveness - A Model for Development". In setting up the need for development, he outlined some of the Political, Economic, Social, Technical, Legal and Environmental factors driving increasing accountability in governing bodies. Ofsted are already putting more focus on the adequacy of governance. Like it or not, the world is changing around us and the pace of change is not slowing down.
He suggested that, in exploring how to develop leadership and governance in schools, we need to pay attention to four areas:

1. Policy Development
2. Organisational Effectiveness
3. Leadership climate and competence
4. Quality standards and wider management context.

Now is not the placed to go into those four areas in detail, mostly because what I really want to talk about is how these issues form the core of my 'day job' in which I help leaders, managers and organisations meet the challenge of major change.
The surprise is that I have NEVER heard any school leader or governor talk in terms of change management or organisational development. Does the NCSL offer courses in change management? Do governor development programmes emphasise the skills needed to ensure effective and lasting organisational development?
Organisational development is essentially a humanistic 'discipline' about the systematic improvement of an organisation using the resources available from stakeholders; it's about building the capability of an organisation to deal effectively with its changing environment; it is an ongoing, systematic process of implementing effective organizational change. Exactly what we need in the current climate!
So, how often has your governing body or head discussed the implications of John Kotter's 8-Steps, or Chris Argyris' ideas or those of Peter Senge? OD and Change Management are highly skilled specialist disciplines and unlikely to be available in your average school. Can your LA help?
The very essence of good leadership is the development of the organisation to meet current and future contexts, so my challenge to you is to think about how you bring the appropriate skills to bear on your fundamental role.

Pay for performance

With our beloved Mr Gove releasing headteachers to decide on teachers' pay, I was reminded of an excellent article by Simon Caulkin exploring the concept of performance related pay. This has now been published  in Professional Manager.

Somehow my brain then went off on a tangent and this helped me recognise that, whatever I might think of PRP (and, for the record, I think it utterly inappropriate for the teaching profession, if not all jobs) most of the talk about PRP seems to centre on punishing the under-performers not rewarding the over-performers!

PRP is a relic of the Victorian Industrial Age - as is our current education system - when the bosses invented piece-work and paid according to the work output. Motivation theory suggests that it MIGHT work when the subject is seriously economically deprived, but even then the more vocational an activity the less effective that extrinsic reward mechanisms become. I personally still hold the scars from a new MD/FD who took away our longed-for 3 month sabbatical every 5 years (which had all sorts of beneficial knock-ons, not least the opportunity for someone to 'act up') and replaced it by a bonus payment that on paper was worth more than the sabbatical. I did not want the pay, I earned a lot more than I could spend anyway and really wanted the sabbatical that I had been looking forward to for over 4 years.

I also have a view (unsupported by any explicit evidence but backed by 30-odd years in the 'people business') that the 'type of person', and they do still exist, who is seriously motivated by money is unlikely to be the type of person who would make a good teacher.I have yet to hear a teacher say "If only I was paid £1000 more every year, I would work so much harder..."

And if we are to 'incentivise' teachers how do we deal with other school staff who are also important?

It is clear that we WILL have to deal with this situation where the head is granted more freedom on teachers' pay - for which read 'governing body has more freedom, because it is us governors who agree the Pay Policy - so I think it is time to engage with the dialogue rather than prolong the debate. What suggestions can you make for handling this effectively?

Is teaching a profession?

Now, I am not one for attacking teachers, they generally do a brilliant job often in trying circumstances. I for one would not relish the prospect of a classfull of sometimes disruptive, sometimes challenging, sometimes 'lost' pupils, with no escape route for when I have had enough.

This blog on the Sutton Trust's website however, challenges the suggestion that teaching is a profession.

I would want to differentiate between whether teaching is a profession and whether (all) teachers are professionals. Let's be honest, in some schools we can find those who do the minimum and 'deserve' to be performance managed (or whatever the latest vogue term is for saying "you are not performing to the required standard, either get with the programme or get out"), just as we find exemplars.

What would the pupils think?

We end every meeting with the question "How has our time today contributed to improving learning outcomes for pupils?" The discipline of addressing this questions flows through to both agenda generation and our work in the meetings and really focusses the mind.
I commented at the end of yesterday's Raising Attainment Working Group that, apart from all the rational stuff about curriculum and teaching approaches etc, it just felt like one of the most worthwhile meetings I had attended for some time.
This observation got me thinking about two issues - firstly the place of feeling in modern-day education (as a people-developer and leadership coach I subscribe to the view that the Western approach to business misses a trick by being too rational) but much more importantly "I wonder what our pupils would have made of that meeting?" After all, it is ultimately for their benefit that we spend all this tine in meetings and it would be really interesting to find a way for our primary pupils to express an opinion on how they thought we were helping.
I would be really interested in hearing from anyone who has sought the views of their pupils on the usefulness of GBs etc.

New Head, new skills?

So, the Head who so skillfully steered us out of Special Measures has found another job in pastures new - good for him!

This leaves us recruiting our 2nd Head in 18 months and I am wondering about the skill set needed for the new postholder. The IEB recruited the old one before I joined and clearly did an excellent job, now we are out of Special Measures I hope that we are able to give thought to how different the skills needed for a progression from Special Measures to Satisfactory are from those required to go from Satisfactory to Good and even Outstanding.

In my 'day job' of developing leaders, we differentiate between the skills needed for Transformation (which I would equate with getting a school out of Special Measures) and those for Continuous Improvement (which might more closely approximate the slow but steady slog of climbing the Ofsted ladder). All that stuff about situational leadership starts to play out for real when we have an opportunity to match our new recruit to the (slightly less urgent) needs of the situation and the (improving but not yet complete) maturity of the followers.

Let me suggest one big difference that I sense is appropriate - management (c.f. Leadership) ability. When a school is in Special Measures, the focus is almost exclusively on raising attainment and indeed IEBs are instructed that this is to be their primary focus. Quite rightly, some of the more mundane aspects of management are allowed to go by the wayside in the urge to get the education of the pupils back on track. However, things like Health & Safety, Policies & Procedures, SEN Provision (to name just three in which I am particularly interested) do need some detailed attention at some stage. One lesson that SM offers is which of these 'management' topics are really important and which ones can be left to dry out in the cold wind of school improvement - a lesson to be carefully learned.

Policies, policies, policies - and some that are not!

As part of our ongoing journey to convince our Ofsted Inspector that we are doing well enough to be released from Special Measures, we have been looking at every policy the school has/needs - after all, governance is about much more than 'simply' improving performance and anyway these Policies should be such as to aid, in some way, the performance of the school.

 First move - ask our LA for a comprehensive list of those policies that we are required to have. We got a useful, and somewhat daunting, list of 36 documents they think we must have.  Well, here's the DfE list - 23 items and by their own admission it might be out of date and only covers Statutory Policies and not any 'required' by statutory, or indeed any other, guidance.

Why does a Maintained School need:

• a Pay Policy when our pay rates and terms & conditions of employment are determined nationally? 
• an Admissions Policy when admissions are determined by the Local Authority? 
• ...and a host of other bits of paper that could be generalised by the LA who control such maintained schools and are ultimately responsible for many aspects of their operation? 

It seems to me that hours must be wasted writing/re-writing/badging documents that could be handled much more efficiently by one person in the LA. Indeed, at one school where we found a serious lack of formally approved policies, we simply went through the model LA ones and put our school name in them. It took hours, achieved nothing other than satisfying some box-ticker from Ofsted that we did have policies in place. But we were 'legal'! Let's get on top of the bureaucratic burden - I know we need to ease it for teachers, and we need to ease it for governors too not least because we volunteer our limited time and I would rather spend it on topics over which we have some direct influence.

OU courses for Governors

Well, as trailed a couple of months ago, I am back! I am now a member of an IEB for a failing primary school in Bradford. They are on the recovery path and I hope to be able to add something by way of my leadership and business expertise.

I was pleased to hear that Bradford is willing to use IEBs - it seems to me that when a school enters Special Measures there is a prima facie case for getting rid of the current Head and Governing Body, after all who else can be held to account for a failure of leadership and management? Not the pupils, that's for sure.

Anyway, as I was trailing through some stuff I found out that the Open University are offering a huge range of FREE courses in governance - check this link out . Gotta be worth a go!

I may be back!

Well, after a bit of a break, I have been approached about the possibility of joining an IEB for a VERY local primary.

I have always been a fan of IEBs in principle - after all, if a school fails Ofsted then there is surely a prima facie case that the leadership has failed the pupils and should be removed. The same, of course, applying to the Head.

Looking forward to developments....

It's all over now - or perhaps 'for now'

Well, last week I resigned both of my governorships. Sometimes, you just have to focus on other things and I would rather not do the role at all than simply turn up every few weeks for a meeting and then ****** off again - for me It's a full committment or nothing.
I did this with much regret, yet in the knowledge that both schools are now equipped with great leadership, great staff, great kids, great pupils and a great chance of even more success in the future.
I have really enjoyed my latest stints as governor both giving and learning (mostly about patience!) in a new environment.
So, no more entries for a while - be well and keep up the good work...

The role of students in recruitment

The NASUWT recently published some data on teacher's responses to the use of 'Student Voice', so I thought I might write up my current views on the topic.

Students are the primary recipients of teachers' practice and wisdom, teachers need to be respected by those pupils (it's earned, not granted by right of position), need to be able to communicate effectively (the meaning of a communication is the response you get) and to be able to engage students when either or both are stressed.

Why should those recipients (we would call them customers in a different environment) not be involved? I used to involve my staff in decisions about their peers and theri bosses - they had to work with them so let them have a voice.

The challenge then becomes how to engage pupils most effectively in the process and how (much) to value their input in the final decision. That might be the topic for a separate blog, here I want to stick with the principle of pupil involvement.

Obviously a teacher liked by the students but who has no technical knowledge or teaching ability would be no use, equally a teacher with the best knowledge and teaching credentials would be no good if they could not actually enage the students. Would you employ a great teacher who could not communicate effectively with their peers (or 'subordinates' if they were seeking a management role)? I hope not. Likewise someone who comes across well to the interviewers but cannot connect with the kids is likely to be a weak link.

The students have their place in the process, as I said above, the challenge is to give them the right place and weight and to equip them with the right tools to be abel to contribute effectively (and what a useful skill that will be in theri futures).

Putting your head above the parapet

I have had a couple of conversations in the last week about the benefits and dangers of putting your head above the parapet, so thought I might share my thoughts on the subject.
Sitting back and just letting things happen whilst we keep our thoughts, supportive or critical, does not come naturally to some of us - and just as well too because if all governors did this we would end up with passive nodding dog governing bodies. So some of us routinely speak out, sometimes being deliberately provocative in order to generate debate - we 'put out heads above the parapet'.
One consequence of this is that we become targets for others who disagree with what we are saying or the way we are saying it. My experiene is that I even get arrows fired at me when I am silent, as people make all sorts of wierd assumptions about what the silence means.
The constant barrage can be tiring and ways of dealing with that are useful:
1. Remember that it is not you that is being attacked - at worst it is your opinion and that is 'just' a mental construct, not any part of your core identity
2. Regard all comments as valuable feedback - they generally say as much about the other person as about you, so what can you learn from the interaction?
3. Remember that even the strongest warriors need a rest from time to time - take time out to listen or observe
Then get back in there and make a difference, nothing was ever changed by those who sit on their hands wishing for a quiet time!

Staff or stuff

Let's imagine your, averagely performing, school has just got a windfall of £50k revenue - guaranteed for the future. How do you spend it?

I am wondering if there is any reliable research about the relationship between what I will call 'staff or stuff'?

We could spend the money on staff, teaching or non-teaching, or we could buy some kit for the school. Which i smost likely to have the consequence of improved outcomes for our pupils? Would the answer be different if it were a one-off (employment law aside)?

Thoughts on a postcard please....

Health and Safety

For my sins, and recognising my 'previous' in the field, I am nominated H&S Governor for 'my' two schools. I have spend part of the day producing an aide memoire of topics that need to be picked up in my ongoing discussions with school staff in order that I can report to the FGB on how well the school is doing. If you want a copy then please email me.
I'm always cautious of H&S, one of my favourite jobs being that of "Elfin Terrorist" - those H&S people who try to use it as a frightener and want to stop you doing perfectly sensible things. They forget that risk in an implicit part of life and of managing H&S; it's about reducing risk to an acceptable level not eliminating it. (It seems that we are expected to produce a risk assessment for 'tripping over rocks on the beach' when we take our pupils to the seaside. Well, I have better things to do with my time, as do our staff. Next thing, we will have to think about the Hazard and Frequency for a seagull sh***iing on their heads - probably a greater hazard than rocks on the beach and it has certainly happened to me).
Anyway , the point of this rant is to encourage all concerned to get numerate about risk - whenever a hazard is identified you need to ask "How frequently does this hazard materialise?" and "What, specifically, will be the consequences when it does?" No more of this subjective High/Medium/Low, let's get numerate.

You cannot teach anyone anything!

You might know that I make a living in the field of 'personal development' - that means helping individuals, teams and organisations 'do better' by helping the people find out what really turns them on and then to get on with it! This seems to me to be so much like what we ought to be doing in schools - let's help pupils become intersted in learning, let's help them find what gives them a buzz and then fit the learning opportunities around that.
This may sound like heresy, but I don't believe that anyone can be taught anything; the best we can do is find oppoortunities for them to learn, the 'teacher' role is one of finding and creating suitable learning opportunities for everyone and then facilitating their learning.

Anyway, what prompted this post was a recent reading of The Four Agreements (Don Miguel Ruiz). I have these on the wall in my 'office' (well that's what the taxman thinks my garden shed is!):

Be impeccable with your word - Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Don’t take anything personally - Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Don’t make assumptions - Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Always do your best - Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

In these changing and challenging times, these seem especially appropriate...

An Inspector calls

Well, we had Ofsted in at one of 'my' schools this week.
Our lead Inspector was a 'fully signed up' HMI with considerable experience of Special Schools and it really made a difference - we didn't have to explain the challenges of running a special school catering for, inter alia, medically dependant PMLD pupils!
We have been advised that 'our self-assessment was accurate' - code for "Good with some Outstanding features" - so BIG congratulations to everyone involved and a relaxing weekend while we wait for the written report.
The current framework is more rigorous in examination of how well Governors understand our statutory responsibilities, especially regarding safeguarding and community cohesion. In our case they were also very interested to explore our approaches to parental engagement, especially for hard-to-reach parents.
We thought the school was Outstanding for Safeguarding, but they downgraded us to Good - then when we asked for specifics on what needed to be in place to achieve Outstanding we didn't really get much help, the Inspector found it hard to articulate the gap! Being told that 'we rarely award Oustanding for safeguarding' was something of a consolation although the cynic in me wonders if this is a rear-orifice covering stance just in case anything goes wrong subsequently (vide Haringey!)

Anyway, a good week and one that has thrown up some positive and welcome suggestions for improvement - the relentless drive for improvment continues.

A positive approach

My friend Chris Edwards is known for his relentless pursuit of brilliance. In a recent blog he says:

I recognise of course that some colleagues feel that they are on the barricades; feeling beleaguered, disillusioned and worn down by the relentless and uncompromising pressure that never goes away. I also know some colleagues are sick of, and turned off by, our optimism, positivity and constant search for the outstanding, the exceptional and the brilliant. But, so much of what we do here in Leeds is world class: so what can't we achieve together if we aspire to excellence in everything we do; and build on, and learn from, what is working really well.

I too recognise all of this - and remember that us governors do it all for free. Not that money actually helps resolve the feelings but those who are very well paid to handle all the change would do well to occasionally remember that there is an army of volounters out here who handle all this change in our spare time with little organisational support.

To those who feel that there is too much optimism around, I ask "What would you rather have - downtrodden pessimism?" It is well kknown in psychological circles that optimism, even in the face of potentially overwhelming odds, is more empowering than pessimism and that the most valuable outlook is one described as 'pessimistic optimism' - fundamental optimism whilst recognising that the world does not always deliver what we want and so we need to do some contingency planning.

I remain optimistic that our schools and children have great futures. Our task is to help release the brilliance - "watch where you walk, for you tread on my dreams"

So much going on!

Well I guess we should have expected the new government to have a few different ideas; what we may not have expected was the rush of both ideas and implementation.

I find myself wondering how to deal with the various changes that are due to happen soon. Does it matter to us that the GTC is to go, that the primary curriculum is going, that there is to be yet another review of SEN, that there is to be another route to academy status...all this while our school is in the midst of a major relocation of part of our provision.

Ot's all about priorities - we can only do so much at once, and for me 'the move' has priority as it affects our current pupils and is time-critical. Nonetheless our GB does need to be thinking about the various other issues so we will need a discussion fairly soon. Do we discuss actively or do we 'acknowledge and park'?

Personally I just LOVE this sort of environment - uncertainty, change, lots ahppening arre all features of where and when I work best. I need to remember to keep all governors informed/involved...there will be too much for one person to handle so this is a great time to find out what turns people on and let them loose.

Academies!

Am I the only governor who is slightly peeved by Micheal Gove's decision to write to headteachers about his plans for academies?

Any decision to apply for academy status is VERY strategic and hence the clear responsibiity of the Governors - so it would have been polite to write to Chairs, or at least copy us in on the correspondence. Let's hope this is an oversight and not an early indication of the new government's respect, or lack of it, for governors.

As for the content, it would be good to be able to get an unbiased appraisal of the pros and cons of the latest opportunity- just about everything I read has its' own agenda.

Developing your skills as a governor

I was recently asked the following question by somoene from SGOSS:

"Which of your existing management skills have you found most valuable in carrying out your school governorship... ...and which have your developed or added?”

I don’t think I have added any (after a 30-odd year working career at the most senior levels that might not be surprising) but all of the following come immediately to mind as having been used and hence developed:

Change leadership, coaching, stakeholder relationships, policy formation, influencing, negotiation, facilitation (of meetings mostly), leadership, Vision/Ethos/Values co-creation, financial strategy, meetings management, delegation, giving and receiving feedback, performance management, Emotional intelligence, patience, teambuilding, motivation, risk management, communicating in writing and verbally, presentations, workload (time) management, diplomacy...

WOW!