On Wednesday 17th May, school leaders from across the West Midlands once again gathered for the highly-anticipated West Midlands School Leaders Annual Conference. The focus of the day was on how the educational landscape is changing and ways that school leaders can get involved to drive the agenda for this new territory

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Wednesday 17 May 2017
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Welcome to #WMschoolled17
MARY RHODES
Conference Host

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#WMschoolled17 Sponsors

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Introduction and Scene Setting
RICHARD GILL
West Midlands Representative on the
Teaching Schools Council @TSCWestMidlands

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From here in the 1980’s …
#WMschoolled17@WMschoolled

6. From here in the 1980’s …
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Every child is entitled to be in a great school
Put simply there are three commitments that the Teaching Schools Council seeks to ensure that:
Every school in England is entitled to relevant and
timely support
Every school in England is prepared to be a giver
of support
Every school in England is in an effective
partnership

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The mind-set that underpins
future Leadership thinking
• Scanning the Horizon and looking ahead.
 Preparing and Anticipating change
• Collaborate with people who are different
to you
 Too many collaborations reinforce similarities
not the differences
• Be bold enough to abandon the past
 Dare to be different and stand out from the
crowd

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Leadership in a collaborative
context is going to be a crucial
part of our system for
the next 5 years

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From here in the 1980’s …
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ESTELLE MORRIS

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From here in the 1980’s …
Freedom
Curriculum
Assessment
Pedagogy
Constraints
Resources and Staffing
Buildings
Governance
#WMschoolled17@WMschoolled

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… to here in the 2010’s
Constraints
Curriculum
Assessment
Pedagogy
Freedom
Resources and Staffing
Buildings
Governance
#WMschoolled17@WMschoolled

14. Supported by
… to here in the 2010’s
Constraints
Curriculum
Assessment
Pedagogy
#WMschoolled17@WMschoolled
Freedom
Curriculum
Assessment
Pedagogy
Constraints
Resources and Staffing
Buildings
Governance
Freedom
Resources and Staffing
Buildings
Governance
Constraints
Curriculum
Assessment
Pedagogy

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Every Child in a Great School
ANDREW WARREN
Chair, Teaching Schools
Council

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Goals Against Odds
- From the Child's Perspective
ASHLEY JOHN-BAPTISTE
Inspirational Speaker
BBC Broadcast Journalist @AshleyJBaptiste

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Power and Love in Teaching
and in Leadership
STEVE MUNBY
CEO
Education Development Trust @steve_munby

19. Transforming lives by improving education around the world
Steve Munby, CEO, Education Development Trust
(formerly CfBT Education Trust)
Power and Love in Teaching and in
Leadership

21. Power and Love
Power: the drive to achieve one’s purpose, to get
the job done, to push things to a conclusion
Love: the drive to connect things, to bring people
together, to unify

22. Power without love is reckless and
abusive, and love without power is
sentimental and anaemic.
Martin Luther King

23. Driven
Kind
Pacey
Inclusive
Relentless
Collaborative
Indomitable
Relationships
Challenging
Invitational
High expectations
Asking for help
Holding to account
Empowering
Assertiveness
Compassion
Confidence
Humility
Determination
Empathy
Power Love

24. Power and Love in Teaching

25. Power in Teaching
1. Authority of teacher to command the learning and keep the pupils
focused on the tasks. Clear boundaries.
2. Ensuring pace and challenge in the lesson
3. Knowledgeable about the content of lesson. In control of the
information and confident about the subject content.
4. Ambitious for the children –high expectations. Confidently
believing in what the pupils can achieve and can become.
Love in Teaching
1. Focusing on the needs of the pupils as they are
2. Creating a climate where children feel safe.
3. Inclusive. No child left isolated. Looking out for the
vulnerable.
4. Showing empathy and connecting with the pupils
5. Helping pupils take responsibility for their learning.

26. Power and Love in School Leadership

28. Key aspects to leading improvement
• Driving preoccupation with teaching quality and impact
(power)
• Ensuring essential systems in place and implemented
consistently (power)
• Good analysis of data to challenge and focus (power)
• Spotting and empowering talent- opportunities for
colleagues to make an impact with others (love)
• Building morale and a common, inclusive vision (love)
• Building coalitions for transformation (love)

29. Once a commitment is made, the
goal will seem larger, bolder, and
more exciting… leaders need to fix
on it like a laser beam. They need to
see it intensely, even obsessively.
They feel it. They hear it. They taste
it. They smell it. It becomes part of
them, their very identity, because it is
something they are committed to
make happen, come what may,
whatever it takes.
Stephen Denning
‘The Secret Language of Leadership’

30. Be kind for everyone you meet is
fighting a hard battle.
Plato

31. “ If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to
walk far, walk together”
African proverb

32. Power in School Leadership
1. Set high expectations of students and of adults
2. Demonstrate drive and relentless focus. Refuse to be
sidetracked, Challenge complacency
3. Walk into the wind. Make the weather
4. Remember that feeling good is a skill
5. Ensure consistency on systems
6. Use of data to challenge and to focus
Love in School Leadership
1. Co-construct the strategy. Build ownership
2. Demonstrate kindness and empathy
3. Be close to the climate and emotions of the organisation
4. Be invitational and ask for help
5. Be authentic and know your weaknesses. “In praise of the
imperfect leader”

33. Power and Love in System Leadership

35. There is something wrong with the big picture
Across the world there are often struggles and
tensions between governments and schools
“Many of us have worked for years in systems which
are caught in a struggle between …country level
policy on the one hand and the action or inaction of
individual schools on the other. Policy pushes in one
direction, the profession pulls in another. The result is
a type of friction which produces heat but not light:
plenty of activity but not enough systematic change or
improvement in outcomes”
Munby and Fullan 2016

36. “Considering the tensions and barriers to change
we shouldn’t be surprised that many leaders
become worn down, defensive or overly
pragmatic; beaten down by accountability and
exhausted by the pressure of increased single
school autonomy without the means to invest in
capacity”
Munby and Fullan 2016
There is something wrong with the big picture

37. Inappropriate government policies and top-down
strategies that are incoherent can create an unhelpful
culture which can lead either to:
• dependency,
• withdrawal or
• a skewed approach

38. Bottom up approaches/school autonomy
when combined with strong central
accountability systems lead to four problems:
1. Isolationism. Schools can become closed and insular– either
due to over-confidence or due to insecurity or just because they
are too busy
2. Competition. A tendency for schools to compete so they are
less likely to share and collaborate and to learn from each other
3. Variability. Those with capacity and advantage tend to get
better whilst those without capacity get stuck, thus creating a
bigger gap between good and not so good schools
4. Vulnerability. Many schools and leaders feel vulnerable and
overwhelmingly anxious about the next cohort’s results. From
“good stress” to “bad stress”. School leadership becomes less
attractive (especially in fragile schools)

39. Top Down or Bottom Up Change?
Neither work on their own.
So, if top down change is “one size fits all”, lacks
context and threatens the autonomy of schools and
leaders and if bottom up change is not coherent and
leads to isolation and too much variability, what is the
solution?

40. “We believe that leaders can either remain a victim
of fragmented and top-down policies or they can
turn the tables. The idea is not to be a rebel for the
sake of it but to change the game from compliance
to purposeful focus. It is the responsibility of leaders
to shape the culture and to ensure that although
they take account of the external national
accountability requirements, they develop an
internal, collective accountability system that leads
to the right outcomes.”
Munby and Fullan 2016

41. Power and Love in System Leadership
 Power
 Seize the agenda.
 Lead in the middle.
 Create a local accountability system that goes beyond the national
accountability system and is right for your local context.
 Look outside as well as internally for challenge and support.
 Embrace peer review.
 Love
 No school isolated.
 All young people included
 Reciprocity, generosity and moral purpose.
 Build capacity through great CPD and coaching within and between
schools
 Develop collective responsibility across schools and shared ownership
of strategies.

47. “Kasserian Ingera”
“How goes it
with our children?”
Masai traditional greeting

48. Anyway
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centred
Love them anyway
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives
Be kind anyway
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies
Succeed anyway
If you find serenity and happiness, others may be jealous
Be happy anyway
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable
Be honest and frank anyway
People may need help but attack you if you help them
Help them anyway
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight
Build anyway
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow
Do good anyway
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough
Give the world the best you have anyway

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Wrapping Up
RICHARD GILL
West Midlands Representative on the
Teaching Schools Council @TSCWestMidlands

51. Supported by
Wednesday 17 May 2017
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#WMschoolled17