How to use this document
Self-Evaluation & Development Plan
The self-evaluation and development plan is there to help you consolidate your reflections and sharing of ideas on the course and help you to identify concrete, actionable steps that will move your school towards a more distributed leadership approach. The idea is that as you finish the course you have a sort of action plan that you can start putting into practice across your school or, if you have been working on the course individually, to use it as a starting point for a discussion with your colleagues at school. The document is organized around four domains (engage, enable, enact, evaluate) which address different levels of school and steps that are required to move towards a more distributed leadership approach. These domains, levels, and steps might not all be entirely applicable to your own context so they should be seen as a general guide to point you in a certain direction. The document will be part of your final submission of work on the course in Module 4. If you want to formally complete the course it is therefore required to complete all parts of this document as you progress through the course. 1. Your first step in filling-in this document will be to briefly describe your current practice, something you have probably already done as part of the module. Feel free to copy your contributions from the Padlets, Triciders, etc. 2. The second step is to think about what you would like to change and identify realistic goals for the development of a distributed leadership approach. Ideally you would discuss this with colleagues at your school. 3. As a third step identify a set of concrete steps and actions that you can take to come closer to the goals expressed previously. The approach used in this document is an adapted version of a benchmarking document developed at the RMIT University, University Wollongong, and Macquarie University in Australia by Sandra Jones, Marina Harvey, Geraldine Lefoe, Roger Hadgraft, and Kevin Ryland. More information about the project behind the benchmarking exercise can be found here. Adaptations in this document have focused on the application to a school context and considering some of the dimensions addressed in the EPNoSL School Leadership Toolkit.
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ENGAGE Distributed leadership engages a broad range of participants from all relevant functions, disciplines, groups and levels. This includes formal leaders, informal leaders and students. ELEMENTS
GOOD PRACTICE DESCRIPTOR
DESCRIPTION OF CURRENT PRACTICE
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE
STEPS TO ACHIEVE THIS CHANGE
Formal leaders (leadership team)
Formal leaders proactively support initiatives through attendance at meetings, publication of activities and other sponsorship activities.
Formal leaders are overwhelmed with bureaucratic work and they have no time at all to the initiatives and and other activities
Formal leaders should have someone to help them on routine work so that they could be involved in that important tasks
Stakeholders like government and parents, should pay attention to those needs
Informal leaders
Staff participate in learning and teaching enhancement and are recognised for their expertise through good practice.
Many teachers think that learning and teaching enhancement is something compulsory and daily routines don't allow teachers to understand how important that is
Teachers formation should respond to their real necessities and the outcomes should be seen through good practice
Design good formation plans that respond to real needs of the teachers
Individuals from the school community such as parents, local businesses, further education organisations participate in school meetings and their input is recognised and valued.
Parents and other external actors most of the times only came to school on formal meetings and they all claim that they have no time to more participation
Engage stakeholders in school life in a positive way avoiding seeing them as intruders
Invite stakeholders to know better school life and also the teachers
External actors
Recognise teachers good work
Make stakeholders participate in school activities and iniciatives
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Students
Formal school structures exist for the organisation of the student body and students participate in meetings.
Students participation is also only formal and they have a small parte on the decisions
Students participation according to their age and maturity should be developed
Design development plans of maturity, critical thinking and other skills that allow students to be involved and engaged
ENABLE Distributed leadership is enabled through a context of trust and a culture of respect coupled with effecting change through collaborative relationships. ELEMENTS
GOOD PRACTICE DESCRIPTOR
DESCRIPTION OF CURRENT PRACTICE
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE
STEPS TO ACHIEVE THIS CHANGE
Context of trust
Decisions made in initiatives are based on respect for and confidence in the knowledge, skills and expertise of teachers and support staff in addition to the relevant rules and regulations.
Many times rules and regulations are more important than people.
Give people a chance to take part on substantive decisions using their knowledge and skills
Choose the right person to the right job so that decisions can be taken with care and responsibility (in a collaborative way)
Decisions made in initiatives are shared between all participants based on their expertise and strengths.
Some decisions made in initiatives are not shared between all participants, so they look to things as something strange to them
Decentralized groups engaged in decision making
Modeling communities of practice giving participants opportunities with meeting times to reflect
Culture of respect
Shared understanding
Daily routine doesn't allow people to develop their skills
A forum for debate and planning of Everyday work make us the organisations’ goals and values forget the i mportance of a exists and is open to all. forum for debate and planning
Develop respect on shared decisions and initiatives Reduce bureaucracy in a way that participante could have time to discuss, debate and make plans
Create meeting times that gives participants a chance to planning and debate
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Collaborative relationships
Participants in initiatives are provided with professional development opportunities as well as experienced facilitators and mentors to encourage collaborative decision making.
That only happens if someone is really intrinsically motivated because that one searches for the opportunities
Give participants developing opportunities and mentor´s help
Opportunities to regular networking must be supported Regular communication and consultation must be encouraged using both face to face and eletronic media
ENACT Distributed leadership is enacted by involvement of people, the design of processes, the provision of support and the implementation of systems. DESCRIPTION OF CURRENT PRACTICE
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE
STEPS TO ACHIEVE THIS CHANGE
Involvement of people Initiatives identify and encourage the participation of experts from among all relevant school stakeholders.
We try but sometimes we fail on that encouragement
To encourage more involvement of people
Recognition and reward the experts participation
Design of participative processes
Communities of practice and other networking opportunities are encouraged and supported.
If they existed they would be encouraged and supported
Encourage collaborative networking and communities of practice
Promote events where people could share good practice and be in contact with other communities
Provision of support
Space, time and finance for collaborative initiatives are provided.
We have not enough means to support collaborative initiatives
Give schools space , time and finance for collaborative initiatives
Engage stakeholders that can provide the initiatives
ELEMENTS
GOOD PRACTICE DESCRIPTOR
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Integration and alignment of systems
Systems are aligned to ensure that Sometimes that is not decisions arising from initiatives possible because formal policy are integrated into formal policy is very strict and processes.
Align systems
Give room to participants could also participate on formal policy decisions
EVALUATE Distributed leadership is best evaluated drawing on multiple sources of evidence of increased engagement collaboration and growth in leadership capacity. DESCRIPTION OF CURRENT PRACTICE
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE
STEPS TO ACHIEVE THIS CHANGE
Increased engagement Performance review processes acknowledge individual engagement in initiatives.
Teachers evaluation doesn't work
Create performance review processes acknowledge individual engagement in initiatives
Show participants that performance review process can be very rich
Increased collaboration Data identify evidence of increased collaborative activity between staff.
This last two years there are evidences of a increased collaborative activity
We are going in the right way
Continue slowly in this way. Courses like this one are very important
Growth in leadership capacity
Not every time
Leaders must recognise participation and initiative by compliments and other rewards
Give people compliments and other type of recognise
ELEMENTS
GOOD PRACTICE DESCRIPTOR
Participation in initiatives is recognised and rewarded.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.