Tips for large schools to remain Agile

Circumstances are challenging for all schools across Australia with a range of government, health and societal expectations converging on schools simultaneously.  The line of sight remains on teachers delivering effective teaching and learning experiences with their students, but now there are even more variables for school leaders to navigate on behalf of their teachers.

Particularly in the case of large K – Year 12 schools, leadership teams play a key role to maintain agility and avoiding a one size fits all approach when identifying solutions.  Varying needs exist not only in learning needs across early years to year 12, but also in terms of the operational and structural differences across primary and secondary staff and students.

Here are five areas we think help leaders to move the needle at the moment:

1.       Prioritize

What are the most important priorities for the remainder of the school year?

Have the honest conversations and align on where the leadership teams focus needs to be in order to best support their staff and students.

Then check in with staff and listen to their thoughts on the agreed priorities.

Once priorities are established, identify what success looks like for each priority and how it will be measured, this ensures a disciplined focus on delivering outcomes that can be communicated with everyone.

2.       Measure

The impacts of COVID 19 for schools will go beyond the short term affect of providing different ways of learning.  There will be significant financial impacts for schools and families, those students at risk will become even more at risk and schools will have to do more with less.

Metrics: What key measurables are critical to track now and also in the medium and long term? 

Examples might include student engagement, outstanding fee payments, staff absence, future enrollments, student outcomes.

Develop simple ways of measuring your school’s key metrics (E.g. Balanced Scorecard) then track and communicate consistently with staff. A transparent and consistent method of measurement sharpens focus on top priorities.

3.       Clarity

Be crystal clear on who is doing what and take time to clarify simple systems and processes to maximize efficiency. Ensure systems and processes support progress towards agreed priorities and empower staff rather than diminishing trust and wasting time.  Teachers have enough on their plate currently, their time and focus needs be on their core business.

4.       Distributive Leadership

Empower those closest to the action to take ownership over appropriate activities, this promotes trust and it ensure those in the best positions can make good decisions. 

This approach allows principals and senior leaders in schools to maintain a high-level focus at a strategic level and keeps their heads out of the weeds.  To be honest, it also prevents senior leaders from holding up progress by micro-managing and taking a one-size fits all approach which just doesn’t work in large, K-12 schools.

5.       Feedback

A focus on progress of over perfection is core to remaining agile and setting up systems for regular feedback is important.  Feedback provides the capability for constant evaluation of progress and to shift focus if necessary.  Two areas of feedback:

Feedback within leadership team

In large schools, leadership teams need to work hard on developing trust within their team to ensure feedback can be delivered honestly, respectfully, and regularly.  Principals can lead the way by inviting regular constructive feedback from the leadership team.

Feedback between staff and leadership team

When people are under pressure for long periods of time, cracks can form quickly, frustrations boil over and staff room gossip increases.  Instead, we want this to be channeled in the form of honest feedback and in schools, staff need to feel safe to express their feedback to their leaders openly without fear of reprisal.  

At its best, regular feedback enables leadership teams to refine their approaches and reach better outcomes for their school community.  If not an established practice yet, developing regular feedback opportunities at the very least ensures staff feel valued.  Of course, if there is no acknowledgement of the feedback, benefits will not last and frustrations grow further.