I have nearly completed one year as team leader at Lynmore School and as the time came up to reapply for these positions, I thought it would be appropriate to reflect on all I have achieved, what I still want to achieve and my philosophy of leadership.
When I think about what pushes me to do my best as a leader, I realise that I am influenced by wanting everyone to achieve at their personal best and know that I will do whatever I can to help them achieve it. I was looking up quotes about leadership and this one rang true to my leadership style
"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches but to reveal to them their own."
I have decided that the best way for me to do these reflections is by relating each aspect of my job description to this quote and to how I have achieved these in relation to this quote over the past year.
When I think about what pushes me to do my best as a leader, I realise that I am influenced by wanting everyone to achieve at their personal best and know that I will do whatever I can to help them achieve it. I was looking up quotes about leadership and this one rang true to my leadership style
"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches but to reveal to them their own."
I have decided that the best way for me to do these reflections is by relating each aspect of my job description to this quote and to how I have achieved these in relation to this quote over the past year.
As both a teacher and a leader I believe in the importance of three way relationships for helping children to achieve success, both within my team and across the school. As a result of this throughout the year I have personally kept in contact with the whanau of children within my class and have encouraged my team members to also. We have done this in a variety of ways and these include: blogs, emails, phone contact and through meetings such as the parent evening for accelerating literacy learning. In addition to making contact with these parents I have also valued the expertise that they can offer my team - whether this be on school trips, coming in to provide feedback/feed forward for students learning or through providing their children guidance through student led conferences. Through these learning conversations with parents across the team there has been the development of parent led initiatives where they develop kits alongside their child's teacher that fully develops and supports what their child is learning within the classroom.
In addition to this, across the team we have provided appropriate and engaging support for special needs students that allow them to become included within the everyday classroom programme whilst still having their educational needs met. Individualised Educational Programmes have been discussed with parents, whanau, the special needs co-ordinator and teacher aides that work with these students to ensure that all students are provided with the opportunity to experience success. Through working with family and whanau I have helped both students and whanau realise the riches they can and do bring to the educational journey.
In order to be a good leader I think that it is important that I first ensure that my classroom environment is representative of what I am asking others to do also. As a teacher I consistently vary my teaching approaches and methods to ensure that I am meeting all of my students learning and cultural needs, this is done through providing students with an environment where they feel comfortable asking question about, and making suggestions to, their learning. I provide learning opportunities that ensure children are intellectually engaged in challenging context and that all children have had appropriate modelling to help them achieve at the top level that they are able. Within my classroom, there is a culture maintained where students encourage each other to step outside their comfort zones, knowing that they are in a psychologically safe environment in which to do so. High expectations of all learners and relationships between student and student and each individual and myself ensure that this culture occurs. Both within my classroom and across the classrooms of my team members there is consistently strong learner influence, engagement and achievement - this has occurred through students having input into their learning, and through providing learning opportunities that are relevant for students at the time that they are learning - sich as conducting a social studies integrated unit that aligned with the celebration of ANZAC 100 years and using the Rugby World Cup for students to do a statistical investigation on whilst it was being played out on the world stage.
I have in depth curriculum knowledge, sound pedagogies that influence the way I teach and why I teach that way and I consistently use formative assessment to enhance the learning opportunities provided to my students. Formative assessment is used regularly in order to diagnose evidence of learning for individual students and this information is married seamlessly with existing planning. In addition to formative assessment I also use summative assessment to evaluate where students are at as a cohort and to help myself articulate with clarity what each students needs are and how I can provide pathways that enable students to meet these. In regards to my teaching, planning, reporting, classwork, classroom environment and attending extra curricular events I am a positive role model for my team.
As a leader, I have helped to ensure that all teachers in my team are clear about where their students are and can provide evidence about this also. I have worked with members of my team consistently throughout the year in order to ensure that there are pathways in place for all learners across the team and that there are planned approaches to respond to the individual needs of these students. Evidence of this is through assessment folders and analysis of all assessment, completed both as a class and as a team. Through analysis and assessment, I have ensured that as a team we have identified out most pressing priority learners and addressed them with fast and best fit solutions - evidence of this is present in the ALL work that we undertook as a team when we identified that over 30% of our students were well below in their writing after our first team writing moderation. This analysis of assessment is also supported by professional discussions at team meetings each week where teachers have the opportunity to engage in professional discussions about where children of concern are at and how we can continue to move them along.
When I consider professional dialogue and how I have and can continue to engage teachers in dialogue about their practice I reflect on the fact that each teacher I am working with has excellent knowledge, practice and capabilities and it is my job to ensure that they make the most of these. I have done this in a variety of ways throughout the year. Making observations of my colleagues and providing them with feedback and feed forward has allowed me to help them identify their key areas for development and next steps whilst still acknowledging what they are successful at. Through minutes of meetings and notes of my observations I also pass these onto the senior leadership team so that they are able to support me in my role of supporting the teachers within my team and can provide me with advice and guidance.
In my role I ensure that I make time for my team and asking about what is working and what is not - based on the benchmarks from Tony Burkin. This has been evident in 'Clarity in the Classroom' and ALL working on ideas together and where to for term planning, we discuss the way the planning is going, how we changed ideas and share resources to aid the learning in our classes. Last term my team were all asked to share something they had learnt - and lead our own PD around it - items ranged from professional readings, sharing power points, using new resources to teach maths, interactive web 2.0 tools, and blog sharing.
Interlead Appraisal helped me to voice my awe of the expertise within my team and how they have the 'goods' and are making a difference for their children. Speaking with the music teacher I commented on how he used his 'Measures of Success' - he was full of praise for the process from the 'Clarity in the Classroom' and how it was helping him to create WALTs and gives his teaching more purpose. As part of the ERO process of auditing our school, ERO met with the other team leaders and myself. We were asked how we are supported in our roles and what helps each of us - I discussed "That often we relied on each other for ideas and direction and as part of my leadership PD - with the collaborative futures academy that I felt that there was a need for an alignment of our curriculum across all the school."
Also this year, I have been enrolled in a course with Vikrum Murthy - Academy for Collaborative Futures and yesterday I worked with a group of leaders from around Rotorua. At the end of the day I always leave feeling positive and empowered ready to take on exciting new challenges and fantastic opportunities.
I am looking forward to next year still as a Year 5 Team Leader with a new team and 'the world is my oysters' as they say. Roll on 2016.
In my role I ensure that I make time for my team and asking about what is working and what is not - based on the benchmarks from Tony Burkin. This has been evident in 'Clarity in the Classroom' and ALL working on ideas together and where to for term planning, we discuss the way the planning is going, how we changed ideas and share resources to aid the learning in our classes. Last term my team were all asked to share something they had learnt - and lead our own PD around it - items ranged from professional readings, sharing power points, using new resources to teach maths, interactive web 2.0 tools, and blog sharing.
Interlead Appraisal helped me to voice my awe of the expertise within my team and how they have the 'goods' and are making a difference for their children. Speaking with the music teacher I commented on how he used his 'Measures of Success' - he was full of praise for the process from the 'Clarity in the Classroom' and how it was helping him to create WALTs and gives his teaching more purpose. As part of the ERO process of auditing our school, ERO met with the other team leaders and myself. We were asked how we are supported in our roles and what helps each of us - I discussed "That often we relied on each other for ideas and direction and as part of my leadership PD - with the collaborative futures academy that I felt that there was a need for an alignment of our curriculum across all the school."
Also this year, I have been enrolled in a course with Vikrum Murthy - Academy for Collaborative Futures and yesterday I worked with a group of leaders from around Rotorua. At the end of the day I always leave feeling positive and empowered ready to take on exciting new challenges and fantastic opportunities.
I am looking forward to next year still as a Year 5 Team Leader with a new team and 'the world is my oysters' as they say. Roll on 2016.
