Agile Leadership in Action: Leading continuous school improvement

Transcription

1 Agile Leadership in Action: Leading continuous school improvement Agile School s flagship program is designed to equip leadership teams to positively impact student outcomes within their own unique school context. An 8-12 week program designed to build change leadership capabilities and accelerate improvements in teaching and learning in your local school context. This program equips executive, aspiring leaders and lead teachers with the strategies and tools to drive the sustainable changes in teaching practice that can positively impact student learning. It will ensure your team become agile leaders of learning with the understanding and skills to successfully support teachers to continually improve their practice. The program is targeted at senior leaders of teaching and learning and their teams who are seeking to deepen and accelerate change and build a culture of continuous improvement in their schools. Target positions include: Principals and deputy principals, directors of curriculum, directors of professional learning, head teachers, and lead teachers and anyone in a school or system leadership role. It is designed for up to 40 senior leaders of learning and their teams in a single school or across a community of schools or system. The Agile Leadership in Action program is designed to support leadership teams to cultivate deep pedagogical change and meaningful improvements in student learning. Teams will develop the change leadership capabilities needed to ensure every educator is continuously improving in their practice. The program connects theory to practice, with an explicit focus on supporting the improvement agenda that teams are already leading in their schools. The program draws on the research evidence base in instructional leadership, effective teaching strategies, behaviour change and organisational learning.

2 Build confidence in leading Agile Improvement Cycles in order to meaningfully impact student outcomes with your team, in the unique context of your school. Set a clear evidence-informed focus for improvement in student learning outcomes. Synthesise and understand the research on the science of learning and effective teaching practices. Understand current instructional leadership research and build confidence in positively impacting the quality of teaching and student learning in your school. Leading teams, cultivating trust and creating a culture of continuous improvement. Generating and using evidence to guide continuous iteration and adaption for impact. Reflect on leadership strengths and tendencies and build the resilience to lead through ambiguity and complexity. The program is ideally held over an 8 12 week period as an intensive 2 days plus 1 day follow-up. Pre-learning Leadership Leadership Follow-up Online prior learning including videos and readings, available before and during program 2-days of in-person intensive leadership capability development and impact project design Embedded change project work within the school context including the collection of evidence 1-day in-person intensive leadership capability development, reflection and future planning Relevant to Context Leadership of learning development is grounded in the real-world activity of driving a school improvement project An action learning project that is focused on rapid prototyping, rapid learning, sharing and gaining feedback to create a measurable improvement in student learning Research-based Pre-readings on the key evidence for improvement

3 Using evidence-informed frameworks for evaluation Set a clear evidence-informed strategy for improvement in teaching practices and student learning outcomes Generate evidence of improvement and base changes on that improvement Collaborative Leaders learn connected within a community of practice Focused on building core networks within and across schools Tools to facilitate that collaboration outside of the training days Program Component Core Objectives Pre-learning Pre-reading on instructional leadership literature Analysis of student data to identify potential areas of learning outcomes to focus improvement work on Leadership DAY 1 Leadership DAY 2 STAGE 1 Form a community of practice from leaders within and across schools Understand the 3-step Agile Improvement Cycle and the key approaches to be used Understand the impacts of various teaching strategies on learning Understand current instructional leadership research and the practices that have the highest impact on teacher quality and student learning Apply the current research on high-impact approaches to teachers professional learning in order to improve student learning. Understand how to generate, interpret and use assessment data to set improvement focus areas and support improved instructional practices. Set a clear evidence-informed focus for improvement in teaching practices and student learning outcomes Understand the real problems of practice that need to be solved in or to gain improvement in student learning Design evidence-based solutions to shifting teaching practice and professional learning Create an action plan for your impact project Create a design team to lead the impact project Conduct internal research to better understand the nature of the problem Collect examples of existing best practices from across the school Conduct early prototypes and iterate based on feedback Solving emerging challenges and review evidence

4 Leadership DAY 3 STAGE 2 Review evidence and incorporate feedback into a refined solution Analyse the enablers and inhibitors of implementing the change so far Understand the research evidence base on building collective efficacy Generate a strategy to spread the practices to a broader number of staff Creating a culture of continuous improvement Run a 4-week disciplined prototyping cycle and collect evidence of impact on student learning Continue to refine the approach based on evidence We are a learning research and design agency focused on building collective capacity to drive innovation for better student learning. We support educational leaders to navigate the rapid pace of change, develop the capabilities of their teams, and drive continuous improvement in student learning. Our unique fusion of rigorous research, real-world application and immersive learning design ensures educators leave our programs equipped to positively impact student learning in their home contexts. Agile Schools Founder and Director Dr Simon Breakspear is known internationally for his practical insights on learning innovation and system reform. Simon holds Bachelor s degrees in Psychology and Teaching, a Masters of International and Comparative Education from the University of Oxford and a PhD in education from the University of Cambridge. He was a Commonwealth Scholar at the University of Oxford and a Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge. He began his work in education as a high school teacher in Sydney.

5 What others have said Working with Bonnyrigg Partially Selective High School, 2015 Simon has the demonstrated ability to bring together a disparate group of executive staff into a united team with a common purpose aligned with the schools strategic direction. He has an incisive mind and is able to direct thinking from abstracts to measureable concrete outcomes. Michael Bryce - Principal & Margaret Smith - Deputy Principal Working with Moriah College, 2015 Through our partnership with Simon and the dynamic processes he employs, we were able to accelerate a pathway to school improvement especially in the area of learning design. Simon s collaborative approach to working with teams sweeps in a broad range of views resulting in greater levels of coherence and depth. John Hamey - Principal Working with Peninsula Community of Schools, 2015 Simon delivered numerous presentations to the Peninsula Community of Schools (PCS) on the Northern Beaches of Sydney throughout March and April Mr Breakspear s presentations were outstanding, pertinent, engaging and contextually on the money. The subject matter was incredibly relevant but it was probably the efforts Simon went to in building a theme of effective planning and change management that most impressed. In Simon s main address he engaged almost 500 staff with his upbeat, optimistic view on the future of teaching and preparing students for their life ahead. Then in three smaller workshops he then refocussed the content to an executive audience from 13 separate schools, allowing time to plan for school change while valuing the representative voice of all present. Simon speaks with an engaging tone, flowing with personality and passion. He captures the audience and holds their interest until the very end leaving them feeling honoured to have heard him speak. I would be delighted to address any correspondence on Simon Breakspear and fully support and recommend him to any person seeking his services as a speaker and workshop facilitator. Ian Bowsher - Principal