Shaping the Destination your Educational Organisation

It has been a while since I took some time out to write down my reflections about my current practice in education; however, recently I have found myself encouraged by the passion, willingness to serve and desire to raise up others within our profession. Over the last 12 months, I have been on an educational leadership journey.

At the start of 2021, I began a new role after 11 years at my previous school. There were immediate differences, though, I saw a willingness to adapt and grow. More than 12 months on, with a considerable amount of time navigating the pandemic through virtual learning, my team has continued to use the challenge to improve.

One of the key learnings I have made was, when we work together in a similar fashion it allows us to create a flow in which our students can improve. When we are at odds with each other and walking in different direction, it creates obstacles to student learning. As professionals, our goal is to improve the opportunities for students. My encouragement to you is to explore ways of working within your team that places both educational leader and the teacher on the ground on a level playing field. Use tools such as the strategic plans and school vision, what works best, the quality teaching framework and goal setting to identify the direction you are moving, then do what you can to keep discussions aligned to building momentum behind this.

As you do, solutions to issues develop out of collaboration and teamwork. Which then assists with the development of distributed responsibility and teacher leadership in shaping the destination your educational organisation is headed. By empowering educators, we empower the destination student get to in life.

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