Professional
Coherent support for school leaders By David Lee School leaders consultant
The recognition by the Department of Education (DoE) of the need to reinvest in developing, supporting and sustaining school leadership and the flow on to system leadership is highlighted in the commitments made in the 2020-2024 strategic direction document. The statement is that: The school autonomy reforms of recent years have, as well as benefiting schools, had a significant impact on the culture of the organisation and the relationship between schools and central, regional and statewide services. Principals have not only accepted greater responsibility for their school’s performance but are now also playing a leadership role in relation to the improvement of the whole system. Further to this, evidence shows that the autonomy reforms have changed the relationship between the three levels and it is timely that the purpose of the regions and what they can offer both to the centre and schools is revisited. 6
Western Teacher
July 2020
The 2013 reforms stripped out many of the resources at a regional level that had previously been utilised by schools and had an unintended consequence of increasingly isolating schools and breaking down the sense of coherence and identification with being part of a united public school system. The SSTUWA supports the position that regional offices provide an important resource to schools and have been active in seeking to place additional resources at this level through the last EBA negotiations. Regional offices and the support offered at the regional level are important structurally in vision setting, planning, building effective local support structures, developing people and processes at a level closer to schools to build the capacity of school leaders, staff and community to provide a quality education for our students.
High quality leadership is required to ensure that regional offices play their role in building school and system leadership and that means a re-think and an adjustment to the key regional executive director role that in the future is proactively geared towards leadership as opposed to their management focus that became evident over the last decade. To further support school leaders the SSTUWA in the new Schools General Agreement 2019 expressly called for the establishment of a Collegiate Principal position and the reintroduction of a Professional Learning Institute providing a range of professional learning opportunities for all – school leaders and teachers. The rationale for these initiatives reflect both the DoE current philosophy of placing educators and students at the centre of our work and the view of Michael Fullan who uses extensive research to state:
