As a retired school principal in the Principals Academy, I get to visit eleven schools every fortnight. That’s my community of practice. The warm and sincere greeting experienced at each gate, reception window and principal’s office is both inspirational to a lifelong student of schools, and instructive, in that it is thrilling to witness the power that a school’s personalities have to shape any visitor’s initial impression of a school’s all-important culture.
Sometimes I have to wait for a few minutes. I’m not your usual visitor; I’m part of the furniture so I blend in and wander down passages, quadrangles and stairways to soak in the atmosphere, to hone in on facial expressions, to focus my trained eye on attention to detail and to experience the reality of teachers and learners interacting both within classrooms and in the explosion of energy that characterises break time. I’m not looking to criticise; I’m just trying to appreciate context, to understand current practice and to observe how different schools approach similar situations.
As a coach I’ve worked with thirty schools in the last five or six years. That’s about 600 school visits. As a serving principal I made a point of visiting schools regularly and of using meetings and sports occasions at other schools to look beyond the hall or field and to learn how other professionals approach common challenges. If we are prepared to learn from what others make possible, we see the little things that shape behaviour and attitude, that make classrooms work, that make staffrooms special, that make foyers functional, that turn unused corners into welcome places, that transform blank walls into exhibition spaces and that change toilets from institutional embarrassments into proud assets. And just imagine how many little things we can learn by visiting inside classrooms, especially when learning is happening.
On an exchange to the US in the early eighties I learned the power of a preposition. Americans like to visit, even at a first-time meeting. They visit with you which means they spend time talking informally. It’s like an invitation to open lines of communication, to join us,our community. Try visiting with colleagues and enjoying the hallmark of any successful workplace: relationships.
If there’s one concept that generally grabs me when visiting a school, it is how ‘tight’ things are in every respect. In a great school things are ‘tight’. Not for one moment does this tightness refer to anxiety, pressure and stress. It speaks to the hold that the school management team has on teaching and learning in every classroom; that level of engagement visible through every corridor door; that principal who comes out to greet me with energy, optimism and confidence; that clarity of purpose that a staff displays in dealing with a day’s routines, its discipline and its deadlines; that sense one gets that a school’s code of conduct is a living reality; that urgency that defines a busy teacher on the move; that punctuality which settles a school within minutes of every siren; that deputy who operates alongside and in tune with the principal; that learner whose natural smile and demeanour denote safety, belonging and pride. That tightness is a positive professional influence; an embedded daily proficiency practised by a school where distributed leadership is visible everywhere.
It is simply so that schools lose that tightness in a matter of days. Poor learner attendance in bad weather, a debilitating run of staff absences, a period with insufficient staff briefings or school assemblies all take their toll. School leadership stretches from office to staffroom to classroom to playground. It’s an active state like an alarm that’s on or a Wi-Fi network that’s active and in full use.
A school is a human organism with a central operating hub that’s connected to every corner: a sensitive nervous system that’s easily distracted and disturbed, a resilient immune response mechanism that quickly sparks into action when a challenge arises, a healthy daily diet routine and good doses of humour, fun and joy. The only medication needed is love. Lots of it.
An excellent school is a tight balancing act, and that tightness is something I recognise and respect. Try tightening-up.
Till next time.
Paul
Coach/Mentor
The Principals Academy Trust
PS. I was going to write about the Olympics this week and remind you of the school motto (Citius, Altius, Fortius) which became the Olympic motto. I would have changed it to Faster, Higher, Stronger, Tighter!
Read my letter Keeping in Touch in Tough Times 20/2021 (available here). The Olympics is always a great topic for a school.
No: 12/24
07 August 2024