Ideas from our readings linked to the MOE site re IES - David Seaman

Ehara taku toa i te toa takatahi
Engari i te toa takatini


My success should is not mine alone: it was not individual success but the success of a collective…

Ehara taku toa downplays the importance of independent leadership in favour of the collective

strength that comes from shared leadership.

(“Educational Leadership For Tomorrow”, Mason Durie.)

Following are statements from the MOE site regarding IES/CoLs, linked to research that supports the intention (in blue italics)

“ How IES will work: IES provides a process to get communities behind raising achievement for all children and young people through working together to identify and address common achievement challenges. It is intended to enable the most effective teachers and principals to share their knowledge and expertise across multiple schools, to everyone’s benefit. It is aimed at making it easier for schools to work together around a child’s journey through the education system to tackle educational challenges, and get the professional resources they need to do that.
My claim is that the greatest influence on student progression in learning is having highly expert, inspired and passionate teachers and school leaders working together to maximise the effect of their teaching on all students in their care. There is a major role for school leaders: to harness the expertise in their schools and to lead successful transformations. There is also a role for the system: to provide the support, time and resources for this to happen. Putting all three of these (teachers, leaders, system) together gets at the heart of collaborative expertise.” (Fullan, p 2.)
“This is not asking teachers and school leaders to attain some impossibly high set of dream standards; this is merely asking for all teachers to have the same impact as our best teachers.”  Page 2. “What works best in Education. The Politics of professional Collaboration Expertise.(Hattie, J. 2015.)

Communities of Learning:

Communities of Learning are the ‘engine room’ of IES. Groups of schools and kura will come together into groups of around 10 schools which will represent the ‘pathway’ for students from primary to secondary school. 

“To effectively lead improvement in a school, a principal/leader must engender trust and confidence of both the other leaders and staff, as well as the community. Trust is developed when competence (knowledge and skill in the job) is displayed, when people are treated with respect (i.e., really listened to), when integrity is demonstrated in daily interactions (doing what you say you will do) and personal regard is displayed for people, beyond the basic requirements of the job.” (Bryk & Schneider, 2002).

“A networked leader must start by changing thinking about networks and schools and demonstrate a growth mindset. Second, they must then demonstrate a change in behaviour, shifting from hierarchies to collaborative and democratic ways of working, and from thinking of ‘me’ to ‘we’. Third, there must be system change to provide the appropriate structures, supports and drivers in place to ensure that these changes can take root and become ‘the way we do things’ in our education system into the future. “ Networked Leadership"  Derek Wenmoth, Director, eLearning, CORE Education August 2015 for the EDUCANZ council. 

New teaching and leadership roles

IES introduces proposed new roles for some of our most skilled teachers and principals, better enabling them to share their knowledge and expertise with colleagues. This will give teachers a genuine choice between going into management and staying in the classroom, and give principals more career stretch.

“Recognise that developing teacher, school leader and school capacity through professional learning is the key to school improvement.” (Page 46 Item 2. Mc Intyre, A., “Continuous School Improvement – What Matters Most. 2011.”)

Providing leadership:

A new principal role will help and support all principals and teachers in a Community of Learning to meet shared achievement challenges, and will use the principal’s project leadership abilities to harness the best skills from across the Community. Supporting principals to extend their skills and rise to meet new challenges will also provide more opportunities for deputy and assistant principals to step up into an acting principal role, and strengthen team leadership.
“Place the fulcrum on the continuum of school accountability and school capability at the point that best lifts capability, so that teachers and school leaders are directly engaged in the process of continuous improvement in teaching and student learning.”   
“ Articulate clearly a professional learning continuum that describes development from classroom teaching to school leadership and engage teachers on the pathway to leadership early in their careers through providing a personalised, recognised professional learning school leadership qualification. 
Mc Intyre, A., “Continuous School Improvement – What Matters Most. 2011.”)

Strengthening high quality teaching:
It is anticipated that each Community of Learning will have 4 or 5 teachers working closely with other teachers to share their subject and practice expertise and to get the best out of the combined strengths of their colleagues. This would mean about one teacher in 50 would be in the role, so most teachers would not spend any more time away from their classes. The new role is expected to provide an opportunity for teachers to remain classroom focused rather than being promoted out of classrooms into management positions. Each Community of Learning will have resources available to release teachers to work together and to learn from each other, something that international and local evidence says is vital to supporting the highest quality of teaching. Around 1,000 of these roles will be available nationally and interested teachers will need to apply, and meet clear selection criteria

“2. Recognise that developing teacher, school leader and school capacity through professional learning is the key to school improvement 


3. Value the knowledge within schools about teaching and school leadership and establish programs to engage the education profession in continuous inquiry 
”

Mc Intyre, A ., “Continuous School Improvement – What Matters Most. 2011.”)

Within a school:
It is anticipated that up to 5,000 new career opportunities will be available nationally to support teachers to open their classrooms as models of learning for other teachers. The roles will be within schools that are part of a Community of Learning. These teachers will remain in their own classrooms and strengthen the “teaching as inquiry” practice of other teachers by providing opportunities for observation and discussion. About one in 10 teachers will be able to take up this role if they apply, and meet the selection criteria. Schools will receive additional funding to release other teachers to spend time on the job, continuing to develop their professional skills for the benefit of students in their own classrooms.

The onus needs to be on everyone working collectively to improve student achievement: the teachers, the school leaders, the other adults in the schools (such as teaching aides), the parents (and voters), the policy-makers and the students. Page 13. . “What works best in Education. The Politics of professional Collaboration Expertise. Hattie, J. June 2015.

Inquiry Time:
All teachers currently have various amounts of time where they are released from their classroom to complete administration tasks and prepare lessons. Investing in Educational Success provides more time for teachers to focus specifically on working together to tackle achievement challenges.
All schools/kura within a Commmunity of Learning will be funded to allow teachers time to work together on meeting the achievement challenge in their Community. Communities and schools themselves will decide how best to use this time to help their children and young people.
Understand that a cooperative quest for student excellence and equity, rather than a market driven quest for competitive advantage, is most effective in improving school and student performance.
(Item 14 page 47. Mc Intyre, A., “Continuous School Improvement – What Matters Most. 2011.”)

Communities of Learning - Achievement Challenges:
Once they have been approved by the Minister, Communities of Learning come together to discuss and analyse data and factors affecting achievement for students in their Community. These form the basis of the achievement challenges that every Community develops and agrees to work on over several years. The endorsement of the achievement challenges is an important step in the development of the CoL and its supporting frameworks.”
“We must stop allowing teachers to work alone, behind closed doors and in isolation in the staffrooms and instead shift to a professional ethic that emphasises collaboration. We need communities within and across schools that work collaboratively to diagnose what teachers need to do, plan programmes and teaching interventions and evaluate the success of the interventions. We need communities that pro- mote and share professional development aimed at improving teacher effectiveness and expertise, that devise performance‘dashboards’ to show success in learning and achievement and that build a coalition of the successful. “
What works best in Education. The Politics of professional Collaboration Expertise. Hattie, J. June 2015.)

Ensure there is a balance between systemic summative assessment of school performance and within school formative assessment of student learning They recognise that the most powerful strategy to improve student learning outcomes is through the use of school formative assessment that provides explicit feedback on both teacher and student performance.
(Page 47. 
 Mc Intyre, A., “Continuous School Improvement – What Matters Most. 2011.”)

written by David Seaman