Jul 25, 2024
I have always been fascinated by an effective teacher’s presence; not just being present, but successfully holding learners’ attention and creating a classroom atmosphere which makes engagement, focus and inspiration possible.
Nothing pleases a principal more than walking the corridors of a school and witnessing, hearing and feeling teaching and learning in action in every classroom. We all recognise that atmosphere of positive engagement as the deliberately chosen and consistent daily tone of a great school. Any principal or deputy on walkabout can immediately gauge whether there’s that unsightly distance between the teacher who sits at the desk and the class left to its own resources. Yes, engagement, a teacher and a class in action, is music to the school leader’s ears.
Think of your own children and their teachers. A good teacher creates the calm and the ethos which makes continuous learning possible. The learners buy in to the teacher’s distinctive way of doing things.
Think of how fully a child embraces the unique relationship and individual attention of a foundation phase class teacher. Forged over the course of four terms, it’s a climate which makes a child feel a sense of belonging, recognition and calm which provide the consistency, the routine and the motivation to bring out the very best in terms of early learning milestones.
Sure, professional presence has lots to do with being fully prepared, organised and familiar with both the subject matter and the methodology, but how sad is it if a teacher fails to create this climate or to take personal responsibility for those all-important milestones? The opportunity, the benefit in terms of further school performance and eventual career and earning potential are severely limited or lost altogether.
Our schools have more novice teachers than ever. Can schools provide professional learning in building classroom presence, interpersonal skills and that critical connection with toddlers and teenagers?
The university has given them the training, but often the toolbox is only professionalised in the engine room, which a first full-time class most certainly is – as any experienced teacher knows. It’s coaching, collaboration, peer learning and personal commitment which turn teachers into professionals with the presence to perform in the modern classroom.
Education students do practical teaching weeks which are monitored and evaluated, but when that one teacher is chosen to join the staff of a first school, that school has the chance to support the novice to use both personality and body to command attention, to create a more harmonious, effective classroom and to strengthen relationships with learners.
It can be frightening to walk into a classroom of forty 15-year-olds as an inexperienced teacher, but it’s important to mask any anxiety with that necessary presence that comes with the right posture, good eye contact and a clear and audible voice.
I’m one of the shortest high school teachers in history, but I know how to stand tall in a classroom and to speak with authority. I work hard to remain calm and grounded; to move into the right spaces and to throw in those powerful pauses for emphasis.
I’ve learned to excel as a storyteller because much of the teaching of History and English is about enticing interest and excitement by slowly revealing a secret or creating anticipation or intrigue as I try to hold attention and to build an emotional response which promotes engagement and learning.
As a principal, deputy or departmental head, you have mastered very similar strengths. I hope that as I detail the skills you all know well it helps you to isolate and share them with those tasked with mentoring novice teachers. So many of them are articulate, lively and willing, but they need to build experience quickly. Nothing will help them more than a very supportive, collaborative climate and a school with a growth mindset which a management team makes clearly visible from day one.
But, remember, a school leader has a presence too – one that gives the school, its staffroom and its spirit a unique character. When a new principal takes over, that dynamic takes on a new dimension. The school may have systems and structures in place, but a new leader brings his or her own personality to leadership.
Yes, as principal, you have the capacity to bring vision, direction, motivation and style to the way teachers and learners feel, interact and perform. Do you bring out the best in those you serve? It’s a question which should make us all think about the way we face every day.
Till next time.
Paul
Coach/Mentor
The Principals Academy Trust
Kerra Maddern, ‘Use your body to create presence’, Times Education Supplement, 4th January, 2013
No: 11/24
25 July 2024
Jul 9, 2024
We naturally associate holidays with summer. A three-week winter break is a much-needed blessing for teachers and learners.
Now the challenge is to reboot a positive teaching and learning mindset.
It doesn’t happen automatically; like your surgeon you have to have a detailed and internal knowledge of your patient: your teachers must be just as ready; you carefully envision the procedure; you focus totally; zone in and PERFORM. You know my mantra – at your best.
The surgeon may have three very different operations today – a knee replacement, a shoulder arthroscopy and a crushed foot which requires careful reconstruction. That’s how different a teacher’s approach to methodology and necessary interventions may be from Gr 1 to Gr 4, Gr 7 and, obviously, to Gr 12.
Just as the surgeon’s reputation is earned, consolidated and recommended, so teachers should enjoy the total trust of their colleagues, learners and their parents. Just imagine being the patient of a surgeon whose standards are not world class.
The test results are in, the learners’ individual and collective scores over two terms or a few years are available in various forms – EGRA, systemics, progress over more than one quarter and the general marking profile of all subjects in the May/June assessments.
Gr 1 is the teacher’s equivalent of neonatal intensive care with live data, permanent individual attention and regular collaborative monitoring. After two terms, Gr 1s should be on track to be reading simple stories by November when they are due to be discharged. Who are the most seriously vulnerable learners; how many of them: what needs to be done to give them an early second chance to become healthy learners who will survive and thrive and; how will they be monitored? As a principal, team and teachers – we cannot lose these ‘patients’. They are too precious.
Gr 4 is often when learners’ ’health’ is under threat with the risk factors being a possible change in LoLT, concept-based subject teaching, increased homework, more structure, tests and written exams, individual study and research, etc.
The Gr 7s will, in most schools, score a 100% pass rate in December. How much of that is because the best teachers teach Gr 7? How much effort has gone into making the first year of the Senior Phase a springboard for success in high school? There is national concern about both the general unreadiness of primary school learners and the inflated and inconsistent (from school to school) percentages reflected on reports which accompany applications to high school.
Grade 12, with fewer than 40 teaching days left, are in and out of the casualty ward. They all need to be triaged by someone with expert technical knowledge of matric vital signs. Make sure the whole Gr 12 team knows those who are in the following categories: those who require on-going support to better their best; those close enough to a bachelor pass to be shown exactly what they need; those who need weekly observation and possible re-assessment in a few weeks.
Error analysis is an important part of systemic testing, but it should be every teacher’s duty to study the errors in learners’ quarterly assessment with a view to finding both explanations for the errors and trying to eliminate as many as possible. Ask teachers to document this succinctly and make a point to discuss when popping in to grade meetings.\
Interventions are a critical element in a teaching year as teachers discover disparities and as they learn from on-going assessment. Be sure, however, to implement interventions where the learners are, rather than just revising a topic. Surgeons are intervention experts and teachers should be, too. Consider insightful keyhole surgery that fixes the glaring error identified in the exam. Careful interventions in the Foundation Phase, especially at this time of the Gr 1 year, are in effect, highly effective preventative care. They save lives.
As educators, we are all salaried and, mostly, covered by GEMS for timely surgery. The majority of our learners are not so lucky. When those vital signs are dangerous, they rely wholeheartedly on expert, caring and committed teachers. Their future educational health is reliant on a principal who takes responsibility for teaching and learning, and for teachers who are accountable to the learners they serve.
As we start a new term (preferably on day one or before) the principal and team should bring a number of key priorities into focus. Approaching the issues on a grade basis necessitates meaningful discussion and decision-making in grade meetings, thus including every single teacher.
I hope that my health analogy helps you to feel a little better about starting school next week.
Till next time.
Paul
Coach/Mentor
The Principals Academy Trust
No: 10/24
05 July 2024
