Brian's Blog

The Power of Teamwork Today, I am sharing a bonus post to my regular message as I have been deeply impacted by the manner in which my school community have lifted through a challenging situation and I wish to honour the approach they took. As an educator, I've come to appreciate the profound influence a strong team, effective leadership, and a positive culture has, especially during challenging times and in moments of success. This past week, in particular, has been an exceptionally challenging time for my team. However, it also highlighted the depth of our commitment to our students and the way we worked together with grace to navigate the difficulties we faced. Collaboration is all about teamwork and mutual support. When my colleagues work cohesively, we can leverage our diverse skills and knowledge to tackle complex challenges. During challenging periods like the one we just experienced, this unity becomes a wellspring of strength, enabling us to find innovative solutions and of...

I believe as a teacher and a leader, I am a moral guide (Beavis, 2014). I am a bridge connecting the values and moral students come with to their knowledge and behavour. I am committed to leading and preparing well-informed, engaged, principled citizens who are reflective in their practice who think critically about their public and private choices and decisions that are made. My belief is supported by theories related to psycho-philosophical identity that includes psychoanalytical, social cognitive and Erikson’s psychosocial development (Wright, Berns, Sigelman, Rider, De George-Walker, Kail & Cavanaugh, 2016). These theories highlight the internal complexities between personality, morality, perceived self and self-concept. Through an internalised and evolving memoir, integrating, reflecting and reconstructing the past and forming the future through the unity of purpose, investigation and personal agency can be drawn on to inform ethical decision making (McAdams & McL...

When reviewing the literature, it became apparent that a school’s culture develops from its leadership while the culture of a school can also affect the development of its leadership. Effective schools are required to engage in deliberate, intentional and long-term strategic thinking to guide the direction in which it is moving, as well as culture building by its leaders. Strategic thinking helps to create and build a bright and bold the vision of the future. The culture is the setting within which the vision takes hold and in turn, the vision characterises the school's culture ( Bass & Avolio, 1994) . Effective school leadership is a function of culture building ( Sashkin & Sashkin, 1990). Teamwork is an essential element for leadership to be truly released to lead in a visionary capacity. Without this capacity building teamwork where others were empowered to take on responsibilities, leaders became less effective to lead. They found that as the leader became the cat...

As society becomes more diverse, educators will require the ability to develop, foster and lead ethical and democratic educational contexts. Australia is an ethnically diverse society. One in four Australian residents were born outside of Australia and have entered as a migrant or refugee. Australia in its present state is only young with many Australians being first or second generation Australians (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2014). This wide variety of backgrounds, together with the culture of our nation’s original inhabitants the Indigenous Australians, have facilitated a fusion of ethos; one that idyllically empowers existence, acceptance and promotion of a culturally diversity, tradition, multigenerational relationship and respectful of differences and individual uniqueness (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2014). The diversity of society has a dramatic impact on educational administrators, staff and student’s strengths, intellectual personality and produ...

A surfer looks at the waves and responds to them. When looking at trends we need to do the same! paraphased quote of Mark McCrindle's. This post has been sitting with me for a while and earlier this week I had the privilege to listen to Mark McCrindle an award winning social researcher, best-selling author and influential thought leader share on the current and future treads in Australia and globally. I was encouraged by much he had to say especially with connecting with emerging generations. The reason I was encouraged was because he said that they desire relationships that are real, relevant and responsive. This trend was common to the Builders, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z and the Generation Alpha. Even though we live in such a connected, device driven world, there is a strong desire for closeness and authenticity in relationship. The emerging trends and the force of change around these trends technology, population and attitudes can be a point of tension, causing ...