Connected leadership Extended schools and ECM National Middle Schools’ Forum 9 th October 2006 Maggie Farrar NCSL

Connected leadership Look at trends – why are we where we are ? Explore issues of leadership – ECM & extended schools and services Focus on relationships – students matter

Synchronicity Standards plateau – well being, standards and social justice Social context & learning context User ‘ customer’ focus – parents, children and young people Personalisation – spaces, places and times PISA study – high excellence and low equity Schools – federated / extended / core social centres / learning hubs New professionals – remodelling Making a difference locally – 5 outcomes Schools as public spaces

It’s a challenge …. How do you define need? How do establish the school at the heart of the community? How do you collaborate effectively? How do you ensure that services are sustainable? From bonding to bridging : inward and outward How do you measure impact – what value do you create ? How do you lead for sustainability How do you ‘marry’ the standards and the ECM agenda ?

Sustainability: need for long term support “We can see differences now but I think it’s going to be five to ten years before you can see the real differences and people don’t like that because they’re putting money in and want results quick, quick, quick.” Primary headteacher

Developing a model of leadership Managing complexity boundaries / extent of authority and influence / interdependence / the long view Building leadership capacity Encouraging ownership and distributed leadership Conversations – not meetings / creative approaches Skills and attributes VisionaryMorally led, committed FlexibleCulturally open – focus on bridging EntrepreneurialPolitical Locality leadership Meaning making – importance of trust Promoting bridging not bonding Local learning guarantees – of which school is one part School and leader as agent of change Generating environment / building skills set / local solutions

Relationships matter ….. ‘If relationship building is central to success, why is the principle of change violated so often ?’ Michael Fullan

Start with students….. Students relationships with students circle time / buddy / peer tutoring Students relationships with teachers negotiated learning / extra curricular / ‘first fridays’ Students relationships with content Enquiry / learning2learn / intelligences / evaluating Students relationship with community Citizenship / volunteering / ambassadors

Extended Learning – a bridging space and place Ownership – students, families, communities Social entrepreneurship – effect can be multiplied Fosters engagement in learning Promotes and practises shared accountability and responsibility; from consumers to contributors Exists at the margins of formal schooling Connects young people within the community – not exclusively those who attend a specific school Encourages active engagement with the community through volunteering and active citizenship Builds confidence in the capacity of the community to engage in the learning and well being of young people

Communities with high social capital have: A focus on relationship building Shared norms and values Sophisticated social networks High level of trust High civic engagement and involvement Interdependence and reciprocity Volunteering and community action What characteristics can a school help to foster ?

‘ In sum – social capital appears to have a large impact on educational attainment. On the face of it, and from what we know, the impact of social capital dwarfs that of the factors the governments and education professionals normally argue about such as financial resources, class sizes and teachers salaries’ Halpern : Social Capital (Cambridge Ed Press)

Unique environment of middle schools Relationships – student / adult Social capital – trust / networks Student leadership – responsibility and authority Public spaces – open / surprising / co – opted by the public ‘ when young people are no longer children, but do not yet know what adults they will become’

The next stage of reform …. interdependence ‘As long as we use very different terms for explaining good schools and good communities, we risk talking about how schools can be improved or transformed as if this could be done independently of the community. This is in defiance of the facts and can generate inflated expectations of what school leaders can achieve alone’ David Hargreaves 2003

Advice ….. Someone dancing inside us Learned only a few steps The ‘ do your work’ in 4-4 time The ‘ what do you expect’ waltz She hasn’t noticed yet the woman Standing just away from the lamp The one with black eyes Who knows the rhombi And strange steps in different rhythms From the mountains If they dance together, something unexpected will happen If they don’t – the next world Will be a lot like this one Bill Holmes