Leading on learning

Maurice Smith, Guest Career Writer

With research pointing to an inextricable link between school leadership and student performance, it is critical for principals to continuously hone their skills to best organise and lead learning in their institutions.

In leading learning in their schools, principals must create a collaborative climate among teachers so that they clarify what competencies students should possess at the end of each unit, design curricula and share methodologies to achieve those skills, develop effective and rigorous assessment modalities, and then analyse performance data with a view of generating appropriate responses and interventions to support student learning.

Such a focus on learning necessitates self-evaluation by principals, the accessing of on-going professional development, whether in school by way of learning communities or otherwise, an alignment of the curriculum with teaching and assessment, and the creation of a performance-based culture as well as the implementation of effective accountability measures.

It is the non-existence or low-quality provision of this approach in several of our public educational institutions inspected by the National Education Inspectorate between September 2012 and March 2013 which resulted in:

44 per cent of them receiving satisfactory ratings and 46 per cent being given unfavourable ratings for leadership and management.

46 per cent of them receiving satisfactory ratings and 50 per cent being given unfavourable ratings for teaching in support of student learning.

47 per cent of them receiving satisfactory ratings and 41per cent of them being given unfavourable ratings for curriculum and enhancement programmes.

In an effort to support the continued development of existing principals, the National College for Educational Leadership, an agency of the Ministry of Education, introduced an Effective Principals' Training Programme (EPTP). This professional development is designed to keep serving principals abreast of the latest developments in school leadership.

The modules are designed to prepare the principals for their dynamic roles as transformational school leaders who are able to effectively manage the input they receive and improve processes in an effort to gain greater outputs. Their training materials emphasize hands-on application while keeping an eye on the Education Act and Regulations.

The EPTP is informed by standards for leadership espoused by the Jamaica Teaching Council, and are aligned with the Commonwealth Framework for Professional Standards, as well as six capabilities as reflected in the literature on school leadership.

The modules are designed to build principals' competencies in areas related to school financial management, performance management, quality educational leadership, as well as school planning and data management, to name just a few.

They were developed via research and focus group discussions with principals across the island, and comprise case studies, presentations, modelling and practice, which are delivered by a carefully selected team of leadership practitioners whose expertise in the respective field is well noted.

The ability of principals to successfully make the transition from teaching in a classroom to leading learning in their institutions will be largely dependent on the philosophy they adopt and their willingness to themselves become learners.

Maurice D. Smith, PhD, is principal director of the National College for Educational Leadership in the Ministry of Education.business@gleanerjm.com

Research linking leadership to learning

◆ Leading is second only to classroom teaching as an influence on student learning. It improves teaching and learning indirectly and most powerfully through its influence on staff motivation, commitment and working conditions (Leithwood, Day, Sammons, Harris & Hopkins, 2006).

◆ Leadership functions with the greatest/largest effect size on teaching and learning (in descending order) are promoting and participating in teacher learning and development, planning and evaluating teaching/the curriculum, allocating resources, establishing goals and expectations and ensuring an orderly environment (Robinson, 2007).

◆ The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers and principals, since student learning is ultimately the product of what goes on in classrooms (The PISA Report - What makes a School Successful?, 2009).

◆ Frequent monitoring of teaching and learning, the extensive use of data garnered from assessments to drive instruction, teacher evaluation and the design of instructional strategies to fill gaps in achievement, and planning specific interventions are features of effective schools in Jamaica (Watson and Fox, 2013).