Working together to develop future leaders

 

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  I'm Iwan Davies and I'm Assistant Head at Dartford Grammar School in Kent. Thank you for the invitation to speak at this conference and to share with you some of the work that I've been involved in over the last two or three years in supporting leadership development and capacity building - both within my own school and beyond it, within the north-west area of Kent.

  The work I'm currently involved in stems from my own experience of an 18-month secondment to the local authority as Remodelling Adviser, charged with responsibility of challenging and supporting just over 600 schools to understand and embrace the implications of the Workforce Reform agenda. It was during this period of intense cultural change that I began to look around at the differing models of leadership and programmes for developing future leaders. What became apparent to me was the high degree of correlation between effective leadership and the capacity to manage change effectively to create a better future for everyone.

  In short, I suppose I was asking a simple, but not unique, question. What is it that makes some leaders capable of harnessing the power of change as an exciting opportunity that inspires colleagues to achieve great and fulfilling things in their work? Allied to this is the follow-up question - what can we, who work in the system, do to identify future leaders and equip them with the necessary skills, attributes and mindset to impact positively on those they lead, in ways that will engage and inspire?

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  Let me just share with you some examples with you of what we have done. Firstly, within my own school. Dartford Grammar School is a selective five-form entry school with a sixth form of 500 students making the overall roll about 1,300. The staffing profile is an interesting one that has seen significant change over the last three-year period, with 95 teachers (full and part-time) and 63 associate staff (or 97 if you include our team of invigilators). The school has two specialisms. Firstly, it is a Language College and secondly, a mentor school - in both capacities supporting other schools on a variety of school improvement issues. We are also the largest state-funded provider of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme in the sixth form and the first UK state school to be authorised to offer the IBO's Middle Years' Programme.

  Our interest in leadership development stems from the nature and scope of ongoing change within the school and our intent to recruit and retain high-calibre staff in a geographical area of the country that experiences recruitment difficulties.

  So what kinds of things do we do to develop leadership capacity, at all levels, within the school as well as addressing the question of succession planning?

  Firstly, we are always on the lookout for leadership potential from the moment a new member of staff joins us. Working with the National College and the Hay Group reminded us of some personal qualities that colleagues display that may reliably indicate leadership potential. For example, we pay close attention to colleagues who bring out the best in other people; those who act with integrity and those who seek opportunities to learn and have the courage to take risks - experience has taught us to value these things because they are significant.

  These are personal qualities rather than skills and knowledge, and attending a day's INSET is unlikely to develop or enhance them, in the short-term. Yet, my experience tells me that many schools are investing heavily, in terms of time and money, in skill and knowledge training at the expense of creating opportunities for staff to develop and refine these fundamental leadership competences.

  So, for governing bodies and school leadership teams, it may mean re-defining what your leadership issues are and then looking to personalise development experience for staff at various points in their careers according to individual need. Such examples may include the use of secondments or work shadowing.

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  Let me give you an example. At Dartford we have used external secondments, such as my own, as well as internal ones. In the case of latter, we offer a small number of temporary secondments annually to middle leaders to join the Leadership Group. We currently have three colleagues who attend all our meetings, take part in discussions and generally become acquainted with whole-school leadership issues. It builds a familiarity and confidence about whole-school leadership and responsibility.

  Another feature of our in-house CPD provision is a short six-module introduction to middle leadership for newly-appointed and aspiring middle leaders. The programme focuses on key leadership elements - such as strategic planning, leading teams and monitoring. It is designed, not only to prepare and equip aspiring leaders with the necessary competences, values and attitudes to lead, but also to provide them with the time for reflection and the space for them to envision themselves in leadership roles.

  Underpinning our CPD programme is our involvement in Initial Teacher Training through a local SCITT (school-centred initial teacher training) consortium, which has enabled us to develop a culture of coaching and mentoring that requires staff to act, reflect and improve their practice through working with an experienced colleague. In the context of leadership development, this could mean shadowing a colleague in a leadership role, or perhaps leading a whole-school initiative and then feeding back formally to colleagues on an INSET day or perhaps formally to the governing body. We have also used short business placements to broaden our understanding of leadership.

  This internal programme is supplemented, where appropriate, by national leadership programmes, such as the College's Leading from the Middle and NPQH; and the Specialist Schools Academies Trust programmes. We are always keen to personalise training and development where possible to provide a blended learning programme.

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  What I would like to do now is to share with you some of the work that I've been involved beyond the school over the last three years, in working to develop a wider learning community by fostering a systematic and collaborative approach to leadership development for the local authority in the north-west of the county.

  Over the last two years we have, in the Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley areas of Kent, piloted an approach to leadership development. This work has fed directly into the authority's county-wide consultation on a 'Leadership Strategy for schools and settings', to ensure that, in Kent, we continue to recruit, develop and retain high-quality leaders at all levels.

  In working towards these aims we have organised a truly inspiring conference on the theme of 'Leading in a Culture of Collaboration', which examined the necessity of working collaboratively with a range of partners and stakeholders so that a broader range of knowledge, skill and expertise, that might not otherwise be available within a single school context, can be drawn upon.

  We have also run two middle leadership programmes for newly-appointed and aspiring leaders - two groups for secondary colleagues and one group for primary.

  We have also begun to develop a more systematic approach to coaching and mentoring within the school both at primary and secondary levels. The development of local learning networks for NPQH graduates and CPD co-ordinators are planned developments, both building on emerging collaboration.

  Perhaps what we've done most effectively is spread a simple message to staff that says: 'This is what effective leaders do - it's exciting and stimulating and you can do it - because there are development opportunities within your school, the local cluster, centrally within the Local Education Authority and at national level that will support your development as a leader.'

  It's amazing to see how we have arrived, two years down the line, at a point where there is a greater sense of coherence and connectedness in our thinking about leadership development. Perhaps the most important thing that we have realised is that developing leadership talent is everyone's responsibility.

• View Part 5 transcript

  So, in rounding off this talk, what have we learnt that we can share? The first thing is that no one organisation or individual can develop future leaders in isolation - it's a systematic and collaborative process within a school and beyond it. It requires working with others, maybe through developing leadership networks, or communities, such as the ones I've talked about today. All of this takes time and energy and a real commitment to making things happen.

  I hope very much that some of the things I've shared with you may get you thinking about your own context and the very practical ways in which you and your partners can work together to create a well-led, sustainable education system that delivers the best for our children and colleagues.

  Whether you are a school governor, school leader, or a member of the local authority, I would ask, do you know who your future leaders are and how are you supporting their development at each stage of their careers?

  Invest in Continuing Professional Development - because prospective applicants will view this positively. Current employees will feel valued, and confident in taking on leadership roles.

  At Dartford, from time to time, we remind one other of Michael Fullan's words that simply state that: 'Ultimately, your leadership in a culture of change will be judged as effective or ineffective by not who you are as a leader, but by what leadership you produce in others'. Thank you.