Meeting, pre-meetings and bulletins

There are very few leaders in schools who won’t tell you, regardless of how long they have been doing the job that they are not constantly learning. The learning process is varied, reading, courses and so on, but still the most effective for me is reflecting on my mistakes. This may seem like a trivial topic to discuss but it is actually at the core of my current business and one that as you progress through leadership becomes increasingly important, that topic is meetings.

No-one ever taught me how to run meetings or how to get the most out of them so I have spent a lot of meeting time over the last 15 years wasting my time, the time of others and basically getting it wrong. I’m not claiming I’ve got it completely right yet but I’m doing it better than I ever have and achieving far more in less time.

To start with decide what your meeting is for. If it is simply information dissemination then you do need to ask yourself if that actually requires a meeting? Is your team blessed with the ability to read? If so take advantage of that skill! The sarcasm is aimed at myself because I can recognise that I have wasted a lot of time (and had a lot of time wasted by others) through meetings that are simply information sessions.

Since joining a new school I have changed the way I do my job. Whilst I have always met with members of my senior team I have now formalised this; I have set agendas and fixed time windows but the key element is what I do with the information. These meetings are very specific and linked to each colleague’s operational role, problems are discussed and priorities are identified. This is the forum to filter the noise and highlight what needs discussing with the whole team. I now produce a weekly SLT bulletin with set sections for each member of the team. This goes out before the SLT meeting, contains the key information and I highlight any matter that needs discussing. Whilst it takes time to produce the bulletin I suspect it is no more than the time wasted with information sharing in a meeting. A consequence is that colleagues recognise that their time is used far more productively and the important strategic discussions can take place. By identifying the discussion areas before the meeting also ensures that colleagues are prepared. You are also directing the discussion points and ensuring that time is not devoted to discussions that may be of no interest to some of the participants. One other point is that the bulletin is an excellent record and certainly reduces the load created by writing minutes.

 

Now looking back on my career I can see how I could have used this approach at middle leadership level. I have been a subject and faculty leader as well as a pastoral leader.  Pastoral leaders could meet up for 10 minutes every week with individual members of their team and run through key points. Collating these into a weekly pastoral bulletin (year groups or phases) will give an excellent overview of key information, waste less time and produce an excellent written record. Faculty and subject leaders should consider the same approach. I spent years as a Head of Science and in that time I could have saved huge amounts of time by meeting with the heads of subjects and collating their findings and deciding on the discussion points.

Some of you reading this (if you have got this far) may be thinking that the previous 600 words have been an exercise in stating the obvious but had someone held the obvious up to me 15 years ago I suspect my life may have been a little easier.

The Power of Pause

When I started thinking about this post I went straight to Google and started looking for quotes about “haste” and “patience”. I realised that I could quickly fill pages with pretty superficial aphorisms without getting to the heart of the matter. This is simple in teaching and leadership patience is definitely more productive than haste. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when I have to respond immediately, either in the classroom or the office, but these moments are rare. We do not “pause for thought” when a child has his hands around the throat of another child but when we are responding to a complaint, a staffing dispute, a change to the curriculum (for example), we do tend to have time.

Think about a Q&A in the classroom. A research study from a few years ago showed that the average “wait time” between asking a question and taking an answer was under a second. When observing lessons I look at this myself and it is still often the case that many teachers don’t wait long enough. The problem is that half of your class are being excluded from the activity because they are possibly still processing the question by the time someone else has answered it. I reached the point where if after waiting 5 seconds only half the hands went up then I’d rephrase the question and wait again. It may seem time consuming but it gave children the time to think, and in that time it increased the chance that they would get it right rather than feel pressurised to give a rapid answer that is wrong.

We are no different when a colleague asks you a question or brings a problem to your attention. Whilst it is unlikely that you will be asked “what is the name of the group of substances that we use to determine whether an unknown chemical is an acid or an alkali” you will get questions and problems thrown at you that require responses. You may think you have the answer, you may believe you are infallible, you may believe that you are wise and experienced and that “wrong” is not part of your professional profile. If that’s the case get out of leadership and enter politics. Otherwise consider the following.

The first tip is… WAIT! You do not know everything and getting it wrong in a split second is likely to do considerably more damage. Count to 10, or maybe 50. Lean back on your chair, look out of the window, whistle a little tune, but wait. Now multi-task whilst counting. When we take a decision in leadership we are having to weigh up a diverse range of issues. For instance a very simple problem which may provoke a knee-jerk reaction may raise a multitude of questions:

• Do you actually need to act?
• Do I need to consult?
• Is there more than one possible solution?
• Who will be affected?
• What are the possible consequences of your decision?
• How will colleagues, parents, children, governors react?
• Will the solution absorb resources (time, money and so on)?
• Is your solution legal?

There are sure to be more but this is a simple snap-shot of what you should be asking whenever you take decisions.

I now tell colleagues that I do pause, I do reflect and that they will have to wait. They know this before they come through the door. That way my ego isn’t at risk by thinking that my colleagues may perceive that I’m a little slow on the uptake! They also understand the way that I work and so the way I will consider their issue. They actually know that not only will I attempt not to get it wrong but that their problem is worth taking time over.

It is true that over time you will recognise that some problems will be similar to those which you have dealt with before and so finding a solution is made easier, but it is still likely to be unique and so will require and deserve attention.

It takes time to process ideas and formulate a response. We are all different and our processing time is different (and this is not about IQ), if we are in a race to make decisions then those who process quickly will come first but how often can we not wait five minutes to get it right? No-one will remember you as the school leader you made the right decisions in a split second or in 5 minutes, but you will be remembered as the impetuous fool whose knee-jerk reactions did more harm than good.

So here’s my pithy aphorism: Act in haste, make mistakes. Take your time, it should be fine.

Pick your shot: How cricket can help you make smarter leadership choices

Life as a school leader is marked by the need to constantly make decisions, the results of which can make or break a career. I liken this to the experience of a cricketer and this is a good place to start when considering decision-making in school leadership. Whilst not a perfect match the following analogy is worth considering. If you know absolutely nothing about cricket then I apologise for what may be totally unintelligible, otherwise stick with this and hopefully you’ll see the point.

It could be argued that the job of a batsman is to make runs but even before this the main job is not to lose his wicket. In cricket any delivery that is coming straight at your wicket must be played, however it can be played in two ways, either simply fending off the ball or hitting it to score runs. The analogy with school leadership is that there are some tasks that you have no choice about playing, these are the must-do tasks which cannot be avoided. Such tasks could include exam entries, exam analysis, schemes of work, curriculum statements, and so on. Other tasks may come your way that you don’t have to undertake, these are the shots you simply don’t have to play but there are three likely outcomes. Going for a big hit at a wayward ball may have several different outcomes, the ball may sail away over the boundary, you may simply miss the ball and look a little foolish or you may smack the ball skyward and get caught.

Here’s an exercise for you to undertake. Consider your role and list as many of the leadership/management tasks and decisions you undertake (including those you have to do and the additional tasks that you don’t actually have to). Now assign them to the following cricket analogies according to how you have responded up to now:

The shots you have to play

• Defending your wicket (not playing a shot, just stopping the ball knocking your stumps over).
• Defending your wicket but playing a shot (whether going for a single or the boundary).
• Have you ever been clean bowled?

The shots you don’t have to play

• Belting the ball over the boundary.
• Clipping the ball and being caught out.
• Flailing at the ball, missing and looking foolish.

A little story. In my first Head of Science role I decided that we had to have a drive on “science in society”. I got up in front of my department and espoused the virtues of the undertaking and genuinely believed that we should put this a long way up our list of priorities. So I expected everyone to produce worksheets, create opportunities to talk about applicable science and then put their findings in a shared file. When I got to the end of the year our results had improved (though not massively) and so I went to the file and found that the only work that was in it came from me. Though I still firmly believe in teaching science in an applied and relevant way I probably went about the wrong way, created loads of work for myself and ended up just looking a little foolish in front of my department. Which shot did I play?

So to summarise. Before you undertake a task decide whether you have to play the shot at all. When you’ve decided that ask yourself what type of shot you are going to play. Will you go for the boundary or just play defensively? Have you developed the skills and confidence to play a risky shot that may end in disaster?

The 6th P - Principles

Elsewhere in this blog you will find me espousing the 5Ps as a model for developing and planning lessons. I would like to add another please!

For some time I have placed values and character at the heart of my educational practice but only this morning recognised that there was a fundamental shortcoming in my 5Ps approach. Where did this blinding revelation come from? This morning I had the privilege of listening to Professor Bill Lucas (look him up and buy “Expansive Education” or “Educating Ruby”) and he was talking about a “split screen” approach when teaching, not only thinking about content but the character trait you also want to develop. This got me thinking, I had in my own teaching thought about the content and the thinking skills but never previously thought about explicitly planning for character traits or values. I realised that this should be easy to achieve yet could have a profound impact.

What would this require? In the simplest form it may simply be stating along with the learning objectives that “today we will also be developing our understanding of empathy” because the lesson would naturally do this anyway. The difference then being the explicit statement of intention and then hopefully an appraisal after the activity of how well the trait had been understood and developed. It may be more complex; the school may be focusing on a specific value that week, for example “unity”. You may need to adapt an activity to promote the activity and so would require more effort. I accept that this would take a little more but I believe that if you commit time and effort to developing character and values then it is more likely that a pupil will be successful in the long run.

And so back to the title. I already had 5Ps and so I really had to have another “P”, after all “5Ps and a V” would never do. Consequently I thought that “Principles” was close enough to summarise my intention and maintain the alliteration. So if you have found the 5Ps useful I would ask you to add the 6^th.

As with the others I would suggest that you consider some questions before constructing your lesson.

• What are our core traits or values?
• Does the topic lend itself to the development of a particular trait?
• Is there a particular trait I want to develop and can I adapt my tasks to reinforce this?
• How will I communicate and model the trait?
• How can I tailor my activities to allow the development of the trait?
• How will I know that pupils have understood my intentions and the trait I wish to develop?

And so now the 6Ps look like this: