This document discusses the ideal relationship between a school principal and deputy principal. It emphasizes the importance of trust, shared vision and values, clarity around roles and responsibilities, close personal and professional relationships, and self-evaluation. An effective principal-deputy relationship requires open communication, shared leadership, and jointly planning, acting, modeling and reviewing their work. It is important that roles are clearly defined but also allow for flexibility depending on individual strengths. Maintaining this collaborative relationship can help create a positive school culture and environment.

1. FísFoghlaimForbairt
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2. The centrality of the
Principal and Deputy
Principal Relationship
Misneach 2016

3. www.pdst.ieHow might you describe the ideal relationship between a principal and deputy principal in
any school?

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Outline
• Know the ‘water you are swimming in’
• Know thyself!
• Fostering the relationship with the Deputy
Principal

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Who is the Deputy?
‘The Deputy Principal occupies a position of
vital importance in the administration and
development of the school. The Deputy
Principal shall undertake responsibility
under the direction of the Principal for the
internal organisation, administration and
discipline of the school’.
Circular
04/98

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Role and functions
• Check contract and job-description
• What the DES expects-recent WSE/MLL findings
• What are the parameters of the initial conversations
• Some of the fears and anxieties of Deputy Principals
• Readiness for the change-clarity and building capacity
• What are the particular strengths of the Deputy and his/her preferred
roles and areas of responsibility?

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WSE
• Senior management roles and responsibilities are clearly
defined and agreed. The principal and deputy principal have a
vision for the school and work effectively to share and
implement this vision. They are very concerned to maintain
the ethos of the school in all its daily routines and operations.
They work very hard to ensure the smooth running of the
school and to enable both teachers and students to work
effectively. They are mutually supportive, share
responsibilities and communicate effectively. The principal
and deputy principal provide effective management and
administration and strive to promote improvements in the
quality of teaching and learning. They use a range of skills to
motivate, manage and support others

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WSE
• The principal and deputy principal are well established in the school
having both been appointed at its inception in 2002. They have a
clearly defined working relationship with a strong administrative focus
and involve themselves separately and together in a range of school
activities including, for example, resource allocation, timetabling, policy
development and the management of students. One area of ongoing
challenge is the establishment and maintenance of a positive working
environment. Evidence gathered during the evaluation indicates that
morale is low and that relations between management and a number
of staff are strained. This evidence also suggests that a shared
understanding does not exist as to the basis on which some
management decisions are made or as to how these decisions are
communicated to staff. The development of a positive working
environment should be addressed as an immediate whole-school
priority, involving all parties working, if necessary under the guidance
of an external mediator, towards developing trust and openness in
their working relationships.

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Dealing with the
expectations......
The intermediary?
The disciplinarian?
The multi-tasker
The carer?
The Leader?

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Fears and anxieties of the Deputy
Principal
• Balance of teaching and administration
• Time management/Interruptions/Congestion of issues
• Burden of administration
• Fixer
• Increasing burden of post work & S/S
• Where the final decision lies?
• Emotional demands-not seeing enough of students
• Negativity of adults-’energy vampires’

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Know Thyself
The more faithfully you listen to the voice
within you the better you hear what’s
sounding outside
Dag Hammarskjold

13. What is personality?
A person’s preferred style of behaviour
We are “creatures of habit”
So, tend to be consistent over time and situations
If behaviour or personality wasn’t reliable, there’d be no point
in measuring it

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The relationship with the Principal
“Coming together is a beginning
Keeping together is progress
Working together is success”

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Key Elements that underpin successful relationship
between Principal and Deputy
• Trust/Loyalty
• Shared values and vision
• Clarity about the boundaries between the
two roles
• Close personal and professional
relationships
• Self Evaluation

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TRUST
• Of all the personal qualities of a leader trust is probably the most
important. It is difficult to envisage any aspect of leadership work
that is not profoundly dependent on trust – indeed it could be
argued that it would be impossible for leaders to work without
trust. The absence of trust implies control, coercion and
compulsion. JWB
• Leaders should be trustworthy, and this worthiness is an important
virtue. Without trust leaders lose credibility. But trust is a virtue in
other ways too. The building of trust is an organizational quality.
…Once embedded in the culture of the school, trust works to
liberate people to be their best, to give others their best, and to
take risks. (Sergiovanni (2005) p90)

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Shared Values & Vision

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The PDST is funded by the Teacher Education Section (TES)
of the Department of Education and Skills (DES) and is managed
by Dublin West Education Centre
FísFoghlaimForbairt
This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0
Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ie/. You may use and re-use this material
(not including images and logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike Licence.
© PDST 2015

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Clarity about boundaries
between the two roles
• What to know
• What to do
• What to share
• Styles of leadership?

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Principal/Deputy Principal
Relationship
Jointly?
Separately?
What tasks do Principals and DPs
perform

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Roles of Principal and Deputy
Principal
• Shared Vision
• Joint Planning
• Joint Action
• Joint Modelling
• Joint Reviews
• Joint Counselling
• Staff Leadership
Separate Roles
• BOM
• DES
• Parent Council
• Student Council
• Staff Contracts
• Front-of-House
• Year Heads and Class
Tutors
• Various Admin.
Actions
Joint Roles

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Close personal and professional
relationships in practice
• Working and
learning
together
• Sharing ideas
• Taking risks
• Time out

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How does it work ?
• How we share the lead and the load?
• Time together-structured meetings
• Channel of communication-unease?
• Physically –where are we vis-a vis each
other?

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Evaluation of our effectiveness-
separate and together
• Why?
• How?
• When?

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Lesson for both of you!
• Staff involvement, motivation and work –rate are all
connected and if you go it alone as a leader, you will
decrease all three and make it more likely that your
funeral will be well attended!