Category Archives: School Change

The cognitive load of school communication

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I have recently been thinking about cognitive load as it relates to AI and our wider experience of communication in schools, as well as the experience of students in classrooms.

The recent La Trobe University guide The Science of Learning and Generative AI (Tanti, Maddox & Phillips, 2026) draws attention to the limits of human attention and working memory. Effective teaching does not seek to make learning effortless, but rather to remove unnecessary cognitive clutter so that students can direct their attention towards thinking that builds understanding: retrieving, elaborating, connecting and applying.

The guide also considers the role of technology. Digital tools can help when they reduce unnecessary complexity or provide useful scaffolds. They can hinder when they create distraction, fragment attention, overwhelm with information, or do too much of the thinking on behalf of the learner. The research is about learning, not school communication, but it has me thinking about the communication environments we create in schools.

Communication requires work by communicator and receiver. There is work involved in deciding what to communicate, how and when. There is also work involved in receiving, locating, interpreting and responding. I have been wondering how schools might streamline and improve communication load for everyone in the school community.

When communication feels too hard

Schools have much to communicate, through a growing range of channels. McCrindle’s recent research (Renton & McCrindle, 2026) suggests that almost four in five parents experience some kind of challenge with communication from their child’s school. 26% identify too many apps and platforms as a problem, 24% receive too much information they feel is irrelevant to them, and 19% struggle to know where to find the information they need. Parents also identify communication that feels cold or impersonal, one-sided communication and slow response times as sources of frustration.

Of course, families want communication. They want to know how their child is going, and not only academically. McCrindle found that parents place equal value on behaviour and social updates, and grades and academic results, both at 55%. Parents report greater satisfaction with academic communication than with information about their child’s social and emotional wellbeing.

At my school, we never seem to feel that we have communication exactly right. Our annual parent survey usually surfaces some frustrations or frictions relating to communication. We continue to ask families what works for them and how we can do better, while interrogating our systems, processes and practices.

Parents are juggling workloads, life administration and digital noise, alongside family, social and community commitments. Some are navigating communication from multiple schools, for multiple children, and across multiple co-curricular activities.

One question we have been considering is:

How much work does our communication ask the recipient to do?

Does a parent need to search across platforms? Work out whether a message is relevant to them? Interpret what action is required? Find a date buried in a paragraph? Decide which staff member to contact?

Each additional step or question the receiver needs to undertake or ask is a small demand on their attention. Across a week, a term, multiple children and multiple organisations, those demands accumulate and navigating a school’s communications can feel too hard.

Making communication easier to find

At my school, our school app has become the central source of truth for whole-school communication. If the school has communicated something families need to know, they should be able to find it there. This reflects the wish from one parent in the McCrindle study for a single platform where notices, assignments and activities could be found without having to search for them everywhere. The broader findings point to the same frustration around multiple platforms and difficulty locating information. Schools are constrained, however, by the differing capabilities of apps and systems available. There are few genuine one-stop shops.

Every new communication channel or publication creates another place for information to live, another place for families to look and another thing for staff to maintain. For us, improving communication has therefore also involved de-implementation. The fortnightly whole-school newsletter has gone, replaced by smaller, more targeted communication through the app, while celebration happens largely through social media and the school website. Likewise, the traditional long-form end-of-semester academic report has been replaced by continuous reporting through our learning management systems, allowing families to see feedback closer to the learning rather than waiting months for a retrospective summary.

Predictability also helps to lighten the load of receiving communication. When families know where communication will appear and when to expect it, there is less need for constant checking. While not every communication can be anticipated, as a school we plan the cadence of communication so that regular communication can become expected. Rhythm and predictability make it easier for families to know where to look and what to expect, and for staff to plan what needs to be communicated.

What is worth asking people to show up for?

Communication is not only what appears in an inbox or app. There is also the volume of events families are invited, and sometimes expected, to attend, and which in turn staff are expected to plan and attend.

McCrindle’s research suggests that families value experiences that bring them into direct contact with their child’s learning and school community. Half of parents say they prefer attending student performances and creative showcases, 49% value one-to-one parent-teacher meetings, and 48% celebratory awards and graduation events. When asked what would bring them to an after-hours event, 58% nominate seeing their own child perform or showcase their work and 49% a private conversation with a teacher about their child’s progress.

As my school continues to examine an already busy school calendar, we are trying to be more judicious about what we ask busy families to come to school for, what might be better communicated asynchronously, and when physical presence and coming together matter most.

The same question applies to staff. An evening event that asks something of family time also asks something of the time of the teachers and other staff who make it possible. If someone has been at school since early morning, we need to consider how many after-hours events can reasonably sit within a week or a term.

Communication that is sustainable for everyone

This question of sustainability is increasingly visible in written communication. The McCrindle findings surface that parents value and expect responsiveness. McCrindle found that 21% of parents expect a response to a non-urgent teacher email on the same school day and another 45% within 24 hours. 66% expect a response inside 24 hours and 90% within 48 hours. Teachers, meanwhile, need time and attention to prepare, teach, give feedback, assess, record and respond to the many other demands of their work. When we consider the load of communications on school stakeholders, we need also consider staff.

There is a newer dimension to this, too. Generative AI has made it possible to produce long, polished and detailed correspondence with very little effort. A 2026 Browne Jacobson survey of school leaders in England found that 45% had seen an increase in complaints that appeared to be AI-generated or AI-enhanced. In the United States, the 2025 EdWeek Research Center survey found that 19% of district leaders and 16% of school leaders were certain they had received an AI-drafted complaint, with another 19% and 14% respectively suspecting they had. One in four educators who had received or suspected an AI-generated complaint said it took longer to respond. Respondents particularly described complaints as unusually lengthy, comprehensive and legalistic.

While AI can substantially reduce the effort required to produce a complex email, it does not reduce the professional work required to receive and respond to one. A teacher or school leader still needs to understand the concern, establish what has happened, exercise judgement and respond with care. We must avoid creating environments in which the sheer ease of producing communication contributes to greater volume, complexity and expectation for everyone.

This is also occurring within a changing Australian workforce and industrial context. Teacher workload is increasingly being scrutinised, made visible and, in some settings, more explicitly quantified. Recent agreements in independent schools, for example, require greater transparency around face-to-face teaching hours and extracurricular expectations, while national workforce policy explicitly seeks to reduce unnecessary teacher and school leader workload.

An expectation of responsiveness is an expectation of time. So is an evening parent event, a lengthy complaint that requires investigation, or another channel that staff need to monitor and maintain. These things cannot sit outside our thinking about workload simply because they have historically been part of the relational work of schools.

At my school, our expectations are explicit. Staff use approved communication channels and communicate in ways that are professional, transparent, purposeful and connected to their role. Communication with parents and caregivers should support constructive partnership and student wellbeing. Emails and phone messages are acknowledged within an agreed timeframe. Staff also set professional boundaries around after-hours communication. Routine work emails are not expected to be monitored or answered outside working hours, on non-working days or during leave.

Where to now?

Schools should work to design communication with an awareness that attention and time are finite for everyone in the system. For families, that might mean fewer places to search, communication that is relevant to them, and greater predictability about what arrives where and when. For staff, it means systems and expectations that recognise that reading, investigating and responding are part of the work of communication too.

Our not-insignificant challenge is to make school communication clear, relevant and easy to navigate without creating new layers of volume, complexity or expectation elsewhere. That requires ongoing attention to what we communicate, as well as to the systems, rhythms and expectations that sit around it.

References

Renton, S., & McCrindle, M. (2026). Communicating with today’s parents: Designing effective parent partnerships for stronger school communities. McCrindle Research. https://mccrindle.com.au

Tanti, M., Maddox, A., & Phillips, E. (2026). The Science of Learning and Generative AI: A guide for secondary teachers. La Trobe University. https://doi.org/10.26181/32775462

“The air we breathe every day” – Schools as cultural atmosphere

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Schools are places where intentional teaching and learning happen, and they are also cultural atmospheres that shape the intellectual, social, and inner lives of young people over time. When I hear my school called a ‘bubble’ or that people are ‘institutionalised’ into the school, it indicates the immersive quality of our culture. Such descriptions could be concerning when the bubble is unexamined, but can be positive when we are aware and intentional about the kind of place we are shaping.

I have previously written about culture as the shared and often unspoken elements of school life: purpose, values, stories, relationships, behaviours, and language. Students encounter learning materials, classroom environments, and teacher instruction, while absorbing ways of speaking and listening, norms of attention or disruption, assumptions about intelligence and effort, and expectations about who belongs, who speaks, who is seen, and who is heard. The question is not whether schools produce culture; they do. Rather, it is whether this cultural formation is deliberate, ethical, and coherently aligned with mission, vision, and values.

Recently, in conversation with Fionnuala Kennedy, Head of Wimbledon High School, she described what students and families value most about her school as “the air we breathe every day.” That phrase stayed with me as it names the accumulation of small daily actions that shape our community’s experiences. The air we breathe in a school is what I call the “tangible intangibles” – the way classes begin, the ‘vibe’ in the yard, the buzz in the staff room, the feeling visitors carry with them as they move through the grounds. The cultural air we breathe can be evident in explicit things (school values, communicated messages, behavioural expectations, position descriptions, policies) but develops largely through daily exposure and immersion. The cultural atmosphere that percolates through every interaction in a school cannot be packaged or labelled, but it can be felt.

The power of Fionnuala’s metaphor lies in the constancy of breathing and its absence of conscious decision. Breath comes in and out, sustaining life through unassuming repetition. We often don’t take time to consider and value the air we breathe. We may not notice a change unless there are sharp changes in its quality – temperature, pollution, smell, humidity. School culture operates in much the same way. It exerts influence through repetition and immersion. It shapes what feels normal, possible and admirable.

Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus offers a way of understanding the cumulative effects of schools’ cultural atmosphere, and how school cultures endure. Habitus describes how dominant social and cultural conditions are established and reproduced. Individuals absorb dispositions, ways of perceiving, valuing, and acting through participation in social contexts, which are then reproduced through practice. In this sense, habitus is the embodiment of how cultural norms are sustained over time through prolonged exposure to particular cultural conditions.

Schools generate habitus through their structures, routines, language, and expectations. Policies encode assumptions about what matters and what is tolerated. Timetables, assessment practices, technology use, and pastoral structures all contribute to the conditions in which learning and wellbeing unfold. What we measure and make time for signals what we value. Teachers shape the air of classrooms through their relationships with knowledge, students, and each other. Leaders shape culture through what they communicate, what they protect and interrupt, and what they allow to pass without comment. The stories of a school’s alumnae often reveal how particular ways of thinking and being, shaped at school, are reinforced and carried forward over time.

One of the challenges of culture is that it is harder to see from the inside. We enter an organisation and are absorbed into its normalised ways of thinking, speaking, valuing, listening and acting. Early in my principalship, I remarked that “you cannot read the label when you are inside the jar” and I was, at that time, outside the jar – new to the organisation and able to be an observer of culture. With time, immersion brings familiarity, and familiarity brings ease. Now immersed in that culture, I am reminded that over time the air becomes less visible to those who breathe it daily. We can take the good, the bad, and ‘the way we do things around here’, for granted. What feels comfortable to those on the inside may feel constraining or confusing to those arriving from elsewhere. We need new eyes, ears, and voices to enter our schools to constantly show us what observers can see that we cannot, to challenge us to be aware of the air we are breathing and the culture we are constantly creating. Schools benefit from inviting new staff and families to tell us what they notice as they enter our community.

Thinking of culture as the air we breathe helps us to understand leadership as stewardship rather than directorship. It involves sustained attention to mission and values, pace and pressure, coherence and alignment, and the quality of intellectual and emotional conditions. It asks leaders to consider whether operational structures support excellence and care, whether teachers have the space and trust to teach with energy and depth, and whether students experience challenge as meaningful opportunity for growth. These are ethical considerations as much as strategic ones, because students and staff do not opt in or out of the air they breathe.

As my school prepares to launch a new strategic plan, I find myself returning to these questions. Strategy can be approached as a list of actions to be implemented, or it can be understood as a means of cultivating culture through careful attention to the conditions that sustain learning and human flourishing over time. Every strategic decision carries assumptions about learning, relationships, authority, and care. Each one shapes how a school feels to those who inhabit it daily.

The most important strategic questions may be experiential ones. How will this be lived by students and staff? What forms of attention will it invite or discourage? What kind of learner and teacher will it make possible? What kind of air are students breathing each day, and what does that air make possible or difficult for them?

What schools offer, day after day, is the air in which young people grow, think, and come to know themselves. That responsibility demands humility, intention, and leadership committed to tending the conditions in which values are lived and people enabled to grow and thrive.

Small actions matter: Rhizomes, butterflies and flywheels

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In schools and other complex human organisations, long-term predictions are notoriously difficult. The interconnectedness of parts of the system (people, practices and contexts) means that cause and effect are rarely linear or tidy. We often find ourselves searching for the ‘one thing’ that might make a big difference, yet change is hard to correlate to particular actions.

Complexity theorists remind us that human systems are characterised by emergence, sensitivity to initial conditions, and constant adaptation. Three metaphors help us think about the dynamics of small actions in complex systems: rhizomes, butterflies, and flywheels. Each offers a different lens on how change happens, how momentum builds, and how leaders might navigate the tangled ecosystems of schools.

Change is unpredictable

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari conceptualise change not as hierarchical or linear, but as rhizomatic: networked, subterranean, and multi-directional. Rhizomes grow in unpredictable ways. They spread laterally, pop up unexpectedly and resist containment and control. Seeing change as rhizomatic invites us to let go of the illusion of control and the comfort of neat linear narratives of change. It encourages us to ask: What are we noticing? What do we know and how do we know it? What remains unseen or unknown?

This perspective foregrounds the distributed, relational nature of change in school, where ideas sprout in unexpected places, and influence flows through conversations, relationships, and shared practice as much as through strategy and policy documents.

Tiny events create major disturbances

Art Garmston and Bruce Wellman offer thinking that has long shaped how I conceptualise schools and the teams within them. They remind us that organisations, especially schools, are non-linear dynamical systems. In such environments, small actions matter, sometimes in ways we expect and sometimes in ways we do not. Their principle that “tiny events create major disturbances” reveals that small, seemingly insignificant actions can lead to large, unpredictable consequences.

Like Edward Lonenz’s well-known chaos theory metaphor, that “a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil could set off a tornado in Texas” this concept reminds us to consider the sensitivity of conditions, the unintended side effects of actions, and the potentially amplified impacts or big differences in outcomes that can come from small moments, incremental changes or a single decision.

Seeing schools in this way means accepting their complexity and the tangled ecologies of relationships, rhythms, priorities and actions. In complex systems, conditions matter and every decision and action, no matter how small, creates side effects, some intended and some unintended. In schools, a seemingly insignificant decision – a timetable adjustment, an offhand comment, a minor tweak to a process – can disrupt a system or, equally, enable it to evolve in generative ways.

Creating positive momentum

While the butterfly effect helps us understand how small actions can create big, unpredictable disturbances, the flywheel effect points out how small actions can create slow, steady, cumulative momentum that eventually becomes self-sustaining. Popularised by Jim Collins in Good to Great, the flywheel effect describes how disciplined, consistent, small actions, in the same direction over time, build persistent and powerful momentum.

A flywheel is heavy. At first, each push barely moves it. But each push adds to the previous one. Over time, as the result of many small, aligned actions over time, the accumulation of effort creates acceleration. Eventually, the flywheel turns under its own momentum. Over time, these small efforts compound, generating stability, coherence, and direction. While the butterfly effect warns us about unpredictable amplification, the flywheel effect teaches us about the power of intentional accumulation.

The little things are the big things

In schools, new practices emerge in pockets and innovation bubbles in hallways. Culture is built in daily conversations or eroded in micro moments of mistrust or disappointment. Much of what shapes work in schools is subtle or easy to overlook. The effects of incremental change are often chaotic, unmeasurable, or invisible, until suddenly they are not. Hindsight is always clearer than foresight.

If we are looking to harness the momentum of the flywheel, we need to be intentional about what we tweak, what we amplify, and how we act in alignment with each other as a team and a community. There is no single breakthrough moment or heroic actor that leads to long term improvement. Small gestures and tiny actions, aligned across an organisation, shape the future of the place.

Leading in complexity

Leading, then, means navigating complexity with care, curiosity and coherence. It means tuning in to people, patterns and feedback. It means careful noticing, sense making, listening, holding our assumptions lightly, stepping gently where possible, and connecting with others in order to keep our eyes and ears open for unintended disturbances and gems of opportunity. As we work together with shared purpose, we can collectively build positive, directional, values-aligned momentum over time.

Together, these metaphors (rhizomes, butterflies and flywheels) invite us to accept the paradoxes of leading in complexity. Change is unpredictable, yet also shaped by intentional, cumulative action. Tiny events can derail a system, and tiny events can strengthen it.

Our task as leaders is to embody these truths simultaneously by being strategic and adaptive, tuning in to what might be emerging while committing to the steady work of building momentum over time. In doing so, we honour both the unpredictability and the possibility inherent in non-linear dynamical systems, and we help cultivate systems that are thoughtful, resilient, relational, and capable of evolving in values-aligned ways.

Strategic planning for schools

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Strategic vision as the north star

A strategic plan is a key part of any school’s trajectory to improvement, and strategic planning is an exercise in alignment, coherence and prioritisation. It is at once a a relational journey of sense‑making and community building, and a rational process of setting goals and allocating resources. It helps us to know: What is most important to this school at this time? On what are we focusing our efforts? Asking ‘Is this aligned with our strategy?’ is clarifying. Clear strategic vision acts as a guiding light to filter out the noise and multiple possibilities of all the good things that could be done, to help the entire organisation to work in unison to travel in a common direction, toward distinct shared aspirations.

Polaris, the north star, has been used for navigation and wayfinding for generations due to its constancy. A strategic plan articulates a school’s visible and unwavering north star, communicating the purpose and priorities from which decisions at all levels cascade, so that the school remains on course. The hardest part is often prioritisation – choosing to focus on a core set of goals, which might come at the expense of other directions. Sharp prioritisation ensures that goals are not diluted, and that short term pressures do not distract from longer term aims. In this way, strategy shapes what is resourced, focused on and invested in. It anchors, frames and guides the thinking and doing of all in the organisation.

Looking behind and ahead, together

Strategic planning involves co-design, with multiple stakeholders, that integrates past, present and future. It involves undertaking a simultaneous looking back, looking forward, and an anchoring of ourselves in the now. In schools this means honouring heritage and values, listening deeply to the people who make up the community, and scanning the educational landscape for emerging trends and innovations.

A strategic planning process:

  • Revisits the school’s history, values, mission and non‑negotiables to ensure continuity of purpose and identity;
  • Engages students, families, staff and alumni, to understand their values, aspirations and circumstances; and
  • Examines current educational research to anticipate how future shifts might shape priorities.

The Australian Education Research Organisation found that the effective features of a school strategic plan are:

  • Compelling mission and vision statements.
  • Specific, sharp and select goals, approaches and practices.
  • Content on goals, approaches and practices aligns with the evidence on ‘what works’ for school improvement.
  • Defined processes for monitoring and evaluation that are data-informed, and contain clear performance measures and time frames.
  • Coherence within and across documents (for example, across multi-year and annual plans).

Starting with purpose, mission, values and vision, and revisiting these regularly, ensures alignment with the school’s core identity and legacy, and coherence across documents, years and teams. Engaging widely and listening deeply facilitates a strategy that is shared by diverse stakeholders and that serves the community. Immersion in research, evidence and trend forecasts keeps plans forward focused so that the educational offering has future students and the future world in mind.

As a lead up to my school’s next strategic plan, I have been working alongside the executive team to explore current and future trends in education and schooling. We undertook a PESTLE analysis of the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors at play. We found that the future of education is increasingly learner-centred, holistic, and broad ranging in its measures of success and mechanisms for credentialling learning. Personalised learning is progressively enabled by AI. Social and emotional learning, wellbeing provisions, and staff support, are intensifying priorities.

In line with the shifting global education environment, as schools plan strategically, they will need to:

  • Align their offerings with future skills, competencies, and emerging industries.
  • Adapt with the ways in which students learn and demonstrate their learning.
  • Prioritise inclusion, mental health and wellbeing – of students, families and staff.
  • Consider workforce strategies that care for staff and support professional longevity.
  • Be clear on digital strategy and technological innovation, including ethical complexities and human impacts.
  • Stay abreast of evolving regulatory and compliance expectations.
  • Plan for climate and sustainability priorities.

Active, adaptive planning

While strategy is often aspirational, it also needs to be actionable and achievable. If the strategy is the north star, the plans that follow are the route maps, instruction manuals, and assembling of the team and equipment required to get there.

In schools, what we publish to the wider community are often the overarching goals or core pillars of the school’s strategy – the shared priorities. The agreed areas of focus are then supported by ongoing planning, communication, implementation, reporting, monitoring and evaluation. Resources, budgets, structures and development opportunities are aligned to the strategy. Actions and timelines are outlined and performance measures are formulated. The community should see the strategic priorities in action – in projects, programs, publications, facilities, stories, events, opportunities, and daily behaviours. As principal, I work with the board and the executive team to constantly review and report on our strategic work plan, monitoring progress against strategic goals and associated actions.

Strategic planning is not a one-off event or static brochure. Plans are adaptive to evolving circumstances, trends, evidence and community aspirations, through a constant process of listening, innovation and co-iteration. They should be referenced regularly, communicated about relentlessly, and their implementation visible. School strategy comes to life through how we show up, how we collaborate, how we engage students and community, where we invest, the decisions we make, and the stories we tell.

The global landscape of educational leadership

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On 31 October, UNESCO launched the 2024/5 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, Leadership in Education: Lead for Learning, which engages with Sustainable Development Goal 4 ‘Quality Education’. The report explores global research and practice in educational leadership, capturing the current landscape, possibilities, practices and challenges of leadership in education around the world.

Below, I briefly summarise some of my key takeaways from the GEM Report.

Impact: School leadership matters

The report notes that leadership in schools is second only to teaching in the classroom for its capacity to impact on student outcomes and experiences. If we are to improve outcomes for students, it is vital to understand the impacts, influence and ingredients of school leadership.

The report notes that those principals who have a significant positive impact on schools tend to set transformative directions, use policies and reforms to drive purposeful change, enable safe and positive environments, build relationships, develop people, provide feedback, manage resources strategically, and work to improve classroom teaching. It also notes that school principals in Australia have been reporting higher levels of stress, burnout and depression in recent years (with women reporting this more than men), with workload quantity, lack of time for engaging with important work, and the seeming impossibility of managing life outside of the job, being major reported causes.

Australia’s Professional Standards for Principals, developed by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership in 2014, define the principal’s role as focused on five areas: leading teaching and learning, developing self and others, leading improvement and change, managing the school, and working with the community. Based on the work of Ken Leithwood, the GEM Report identifies four key roles of the school leader as: setting expectations and vision, focusing on learning and leading instruction, fostering collaboration, and developing people to improve school outcomes.

Autonomy: There can be no leadership without the opportunity to make decisions

The context for leadership affects those things a leader does in setting expectations, such as sharing vision, holding high expectations, setting a personal example, representing the community, and staying abreast of trends, data and information to inform decision making. Standards and accountability mechanisms for schools and school leaders vary from system to system and school to school. The GEM Report found that in 20 high-income countries, the more principals had the primary responsibility for human and financial resource decisions, the more likely it was that a country would be among those ranked more highly in terms of average performance in mathematics.

School leaders have more chance to make a positive difference if they have autonomy, support and well-defined responsibilities. Education systems need to empower school principals with sufficient autonomy to manage financial and human resources and to make decisions related to teaching and learning. Autonomy must, however, come with adequate support, sufficient resourcing and appropriate accountability measures.

Collaboration: School leaders cannot and should not lead alone

School leaders are not solo heroes, but part of an enmeshed ecosystem of influence. As I often say, leading is an action and a way of being, not a role or a formal title. All can lead. In schools, this might mean senior leaders, middle leaders, teachers, school services staff, students, parents and community members.

Shared school leadership and collaboration among empowered stakeholders strengthens decision making, contributes to enacting a shared vision, and leads to lasting improvements in educational outcomes and school cultures. School leaders have a central role to play in developing school culture and climate; maintaining a safe, healthy school environment; raising resources strategically, building networks; managing risk; nurturing collaboration; enabling others to act; and consulting with families and community.

School leaders who build the capacity of others, ensure they are accessible, provide training and resources, foster a collaborative environment, involve others in decision making, are involved in collaborative structures and processes, and distribute leadership among and across the organisation, are more likely to see the school’s vision realised.

Schools can promote shared school leadership by establishing clear communication channels, ensuring transparent decision-making processes, implementing regular feedback mechanisms, ensuring clarity of roles, and recognising unique contributions. School leaders can keep track of staff professional development needs, provide individualised professional support and mentoring opportunities, ensure evaluation of practice, and reward good performance.

Collaborative relationships (such as those built through committees, teams and other collaborative structures) strengthen governance, improve decision making, enhance accountability, and foster inclusive and resilient environments. Fostering safe, inclusive and culturally responsive environments is key to ensuring a climate of care and challenge where collaboration can thrive, where shared vision can be realised, and where all students, staff and wider community can flourish.

Reflections on six months of principalship

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I have worked in education for my whole career – from a graduate teacher, through middle and senior leadership in schools. Teachers know their impact and see it every day in the progress of their students, or when a student they used to teach tells them what a difference they made to the trajectory of the student’s life. Teaching and leading in schools is work full of purpose and meaning. One thing I have never had to wonder is, “What is the point of my work?” or “Why do I do what I do professionally?” From the direct influence on students in the classroom, to more diluted and broader influence through leading, working in schools is literally life-changing work.

Now as a school principal, the ‘why’ of my work is clear. According to the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL):

“The role of the principal in a school is one of the most exciting and significant undertaken by any person in our society. Principals help to create the future. Principals are responsible and accountable for the development of children and young people.”

AITSL describes the principal’s job as to raise student achievement, promote equity and excellence, cultivate conditions under which quality teaching and learning thrive, engage with community expectations, deliver on government policy, and contribute to the education system at local, national and international levels.

Through the Australian Professional Standards for Principals, AITSL outlines the scope of the work of principal. Firstly, to lead the vision and values of the school, serving the best interests of the community by upholding high standards and fostering respect. Secondly, principals know, understand and apply the theory and practice of leadership, teaching, curriculum, assessment, reporting, strategy, policy, legislation, and management of human and financial resources. According to the Standards, principals also have the emotional intelligence, empathy, resilience, decision making frameworks and conflict management skills to build trusting, collaborative and positive cultures across the school community. Additionally, AITSL outlines the nature of principals’ work as including: leading teaching and learning; developing self and others; leading improvement, innovation and change; leading the management of the school; and engaging and working with community.

When I think of the role of principal, I think of it as encompassing the roles of: custodian of the school’s history, identity, mission, values, traditions and stories; servant to the school community; chief ambassador, sense-maker, storyteller and advocate; relationship builder; stakeholder engager, seeking to understand multiple perspectives and engaging enthusiasts and dissenters; leader of strategy; ethical decision maker; coach, mentor and builder of others’ capacity; fosterer of high performing teams and a culture of trust; networker beyond the school gates to local and international contexts; and joy-finder, because it’s important to find celebration and wonder among what can be challenging times.

So, knowing all this, how does a principal new to a school begin her work? What have the first six months looked like for me?

In my first semester, importantly, I have been getting to know the people and the school’s specific context; these people and this place at this time. While there is never a dull moment in principalship, and much of a day or a week can be made up of the unexpected and the surprising, below I outline some of what my semester has encompassed as I have sought to get to know community.

I enjoyed visiting classrooms across the school from ELC to Year 12, and teaching my Year 10 class. I love to be in the classroom. It is students that make my heart sing and ground me in the ‘why’ of school. I met students as they got on, and then later off, buses from camp, full of new memories, challenges overcome and strengthened friendships. I hosted lunches with all Year 12 students, in groups of about five, and met regularly with various student leaders and committees. I have gotten to know students through House events and competitions, service opportunities, and attending sports events and arts performances. I am constantly humbled by the resilience and achievements of students in academics, arts, sports and other endeavours.

I connected with parents at coffee mornings, events, committee meetings, school tours and in one-on-one or family meetings. I have begun to understand the school’s rich history and community by meeting alumnae through old scholars’ committee meetings and events.

I partner with the school’s Council of Governors and Executive Leadership Team on actioning the business of the school and its strategic direction in ways that are sustainable, ethical, futures-focused and in the best interests of students. I have been involved in planning and opening new facilities, overseeing budgets, leading staffing decisions and processes, minimising risk, responding to critical incidents, and attending to complex student issues. I have led the refreshing of the school’s values, generated community responses to the school uniform and begun a uniform review, instigated a new scholarship, and launched a new strategic plan.

It was a joy to collaborate in the finalisation of the school’s strategic plan. While I came to the process mid-way, I was able to engage in shaping the threads and themes of consultation and synthesis to fruition. As the principal I need to live and breathe the school’s strategy. I need to feel it in my bones with a resonance that hums through everything from decision making to the way I show up each day. Clear strategic intent anchors all in our community to unite in important shared work around a collective purpose, so it is exciting to have a new plan to shape our decisions, initiatives, actions and opportunities.

My visits to classrooms, walks through the campus, yard duties and staff meetings, have all been opportunities to understand those who together contribute to the work of the school. It has been a pleasure to get to know their knowledge, skills and commitment to our students and families. At the outset of the year, I invited all staff to a one-on-one meeting with me to each share their story and to convey their views on what is great about the school, what might be improved, and how I might support them in their aspirations. These conversations revealed insights into individual staff from across the school as well as into the broader culture and history of the place.

Leadership is built one conversation, interaction and action at a time. As I reflect on my first semester as principal, the highlights have been many. Mother Teresa said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” Our community is made up of students, staff, parents and wider community who are all doing small things with great care, and these kindnesses and micro-moments all add up to make the school the special place it is. In principalship, too, it is the daily actions—undertaken with care, intentionality and the desire to serve and do good—that make up the work.

Culture: Who do we want to be, together?

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I have talked with staff this week about together creating the conditions for all of us to grow as a community of learners, through fostering an environment of high support and high challenge. Our staff have been preparing for the return of students and coming together to work through the idea of organisational culture, including hearing from students about their experiences of and insights into our school culture.

We have been wondering: Who are we now, and who do we want to be and become?

Peter Drucker famously said that “Culture eats Strategy for breakfast”, implying that strategy falls flat without a positive culture that empowers and supports the people in an organisation to enact the strategy. While most would agree that culture is important in organisations, it is one of those fluid, nebulous, and slippery terms that evades clear definition. Richard Perrin defines organisational culture as “the sum of values and rituals which serve as ‘glue’ to integrate members of the organisation.” The metaphor of glue is central; culture binds individuals together as a collective. Culture is about those things we share, consciously and unconsciously. When I think about culture, those things we share, or aim to share, include:

  • Purpose – Our shared why.
  • Values – What underpins our beliefs and actions.
  • Stories and symbols – What we say about ourselves, to ourselves and to others.
  • Relationships – How and who we are with each other.
  • Behaviours – How we do things around here.
  • Language – How we talk around here.

Herb Kelleher famously said that “culture is what people do when no one is looking.” We perform culture through our presence and our actions, seen and unseen, accepted and challenged. As Lieutenant-General David Morrison’s oft-cited message goes: “The standard we walk past is the standard we accept.” We become enculturated through our immersion in a culture and our observations of how a place and its people present, interact, and operate. As a new principal to a school this year, I am at the outset of my own journey of enculturation; of absorbing, being influenced by, and being initiated into, an existing culture.

In their work on culture this week, our staff were guided by organisational psychologist Hayley Lokan, from ISC Consulting, who described culture and both intangible and palpable. She shared Robert Kreitner and Angelo Kinicki’s definition of culture as “the set of shared, taken-for-granted implicit assumptions that a group holds and that determines how it perceives, thinks about, and reacts to its various environments”. Hayley likened culture to an iceberg and challenged us to look beyond the visible aspects of culture to interrogate our deep-seated assumptions. It reminded me of one of the findings from my PhD study: that in order to change our behaviour we often need to change our beliefs. In order to shift culture we need to challenge our norms, and our accepted attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours. Story, symbols, rituals, and traditions are important markers of and continuers of culture, but we need to be honest about those things that we allow to continue that are not aligned with our moral purpose or current community. Context, as always, is Queen, and our communities and their needs change over time.

This week’s staff workshops and student panel on culture revealed insights into the school. Staff described the school’s culture as supportive, caring, welcoming, inclusive, kind, collaborative, friendly, aspirant, dedicated, proud, respectful, hard working, and with a mixture of tradition and trailblazing dynamism. Students in a panel discussion described the culture as safe, caring, close-knit, empowering, inclusive, and one in which students feel encouraged to be their best while being supported during times of difficulty. In exploratory discussions about the future of our culture, staff began to wonder about how we might elevate wellbeing, agency, and celebration of the diversity of the individual, to strengthen what is great about our culture and to grow with our community.

If we can build and maintain a culture of trust in which there is openness, honest and gracious feedback, diverse voices, varied aspirations, and a commitment to lifting each other up, we can all learn, lead, be well, and be in community with one another. We will continue to ask ourselves, our students and our wider community:

  • What about our culture do we want to keep?
  • What about our culture might we like to change or develop?
  • What are our next steps to move forward with intentionality?

Key concepts for leading professional learning

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A recent report purports to dispel myths about professional learning, including the apparent ‘commonly held’ beliefs that ‘professional learning is a waste of time and money’ and that ‘districts should implement research-based PL programs with no modifications’. These claims run counter to much literature around professional learning which argues that effective professional learning is a lever for improving student learning and achievement by improving teaching, and that context is crucial for any education model (and that therefore any model should be tailor fit to context).

This week I presented to a group of school leaders about leading professional learning. Part of my preparation for the presentation took me back to the roots of my work in this space, and those concepts I have come across that have stuck with me, become part of my thinking, and continue to anchor my work. I explain some of these below, in addition to others I discussed on the day, such as trust, context, teacher expertise, and teacher agency, self-determination and self-efficacy.

HOLONOMY

Holonomy is an ecological concept that has captured my attention for years, drawing together the individual and the larger system. Art Costa and Bob Garmston (2015) base their conception of holonomy on Arthur Koestler’s work around the word ‘holon’ as something which operates simultaneously as a part and a whole. Holonomy encapsulates the simultaneity that each person is both an independent individual and an interdependent part of the larger system, at once self-regulating, responsive to the organisation, and able to influence those around them.

This speaks to me of what we must consider when leading professional learning: balancing the needs of the individual and the needs of the organisation or system.

HOLDING ENVIRONMENT

Introduced to me through the outstanding work of Ellie Drago-Severson on leading adult learning, is the notion of the ‘holding environment’. With its roots in Donald Winnicott’s psychology concept, this is an environment of psychological safety in which members of the community or organisation feel ‘held’ in a culture of high care and high challenge.

Ellie was the first to really challenge me to consider how we honour where each adult learner is at, differentiate learning for adults in schools, and take an invitational, growth-focused approach to professional learning.

MEANINGFUL COLLABORATION

In Chapter 4 of Transformational Professional Learning, I explore that 1) collaboration does not happen by calling a group of people a ‘team’, or by organising for a group of people to be in a room together; and 2) feeling good working with colleagues is not professionally learning. Politeness, compliance, avoidance, and silence may make for an easy, harmonious-feeling meeting, but do not result in rigorous collective work that moves individual, team and organisation forward.

Rather, collaboration occurs when there is a clear shared purpose, collective accountability, collaborative norms, a focus on data to inform, and protocols for collaborative ways of working. Taking the time to create the conditions for skillful collaboration, to structure and nurture intentional collaborative practices, and to develop people’s skills in graceful disagreement and productive conflict, facilitates meaningful collaborative opportunities that develop teachers and positively impact students.

SEMANTIC SPACE

The importance of language is explored by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey (2001), and Bob Garmston and Bruce Wellman (2016). The notion of semantic space—‘how we talk around here’—is outlined by Stephen Kemmis and Hannu Heikkinen (2012), and Rachel Lofthouse and Elaine Hall (2014).

Talk defines and drives emotions, relationships, belonging and action. Talk is a terrific barometer of professional culture, allowing us insights into beliefs, values and behaviours. We can ask: What are the staff water cooler conversations like at our school? How do we collectively talk about our work and practice? What questions do we ask? What contributions do we make? What shared language, and ways of speaking and listening, do we use? How do we talk around here?

In a recent episode of my podcast, The Edu Salon, Adam Voigt says: “The language that the leaders of a culture use, shapes the kids that grow in it, and they leave speaking that way as a result. If you’re looking to transform culture you can’t do it without changing words.”

I have this year written on my office whiteboard something I remember Rachel Lofthouse saying at a conference in 2017:

The talk is the work.

We need to value, focus on, create space for, and put effort, intentionality, time, and learning, into the talk in our schools.

References

Costa, A. L., & Garmston, R. J. (2006). Cognitive coaching: A foundation for Renaissance schools (2nd ed.). Heatherton, Australia: Hawker Brownlow Education.

Drago-Severson, E. (2004). Becoming adult learners: Principles and practices for effective development. Teachers College Press.

Garmston, R. J., & Wellman, B. M. (2016). The adaptive school: A sourcebook for developing collaborative groups. Rowman & Littlefield.

Kegan, R., & Lahey, L. L. (2001). How the way we talk can change the way we work: Seven languages for transformation. John Wiley & Sons.

Kemmis, S., & Heikkinen, H. L. (2012). Future perspectives: Peer-group mentoring and international practices for teacher development. In Peer-group mentoring for teacher development (pp. 160-186). Routledge.

Lofthouse, R., & Hall, E. (2014). Developing practices in teachers’ professional dialogue in England: Using coaching dimensions as an epistemic tool. Professional Development in Education, 40(5), 758-778.

Netolicky, D. M. (2019). Transformational professional learning: Making a difference in schools. Routledge.

Breaking bias

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Australia was recently ranked overall 50th in the global gender gap (including 70th in ‘economic participation and opportunity’ and 99th in ‘health and survival’, but equal 1st in ‘educational attainment’). But while gender remains an issue worth discussing, our discussion needs to move beyond ‘women’ and consider complex structures and practices of power and equity. An article in yesterday’s Guardian by Sisonke Msimang argues that white women’s voices and anger are now being presented as central and as relatable, while the voices and stories of “Aboriginal women, women in hijab, women whose skin is far ‘too’ dark, and women who live on the wrong side of town; who can’t go to university and who will never report from parliament or file stories in newsrooms” are ignored. She adds that “Black women have pioneered the landscape of courage. … everywhere you look there are Black women who continue to be punished for loudly wearing their anger.”

As I reflect on the IWD 2022 theme of ‘break the bias’ I continue to consider how to acknowledge my own biases and privileges, and seek to understand the ways in which I help or hinder the project of diversity, inclusion and equity. I know that posting a blog post, photo or hashtag does little to address existing biases and their impacts on groups and individuals. I know that action and advocacy are needed in micro and macro contexts, and that sometimes appropriate action might be to speak less, take up less space, or question my own way of being in the world. I am proud of edited books such as Future Alternatives for Educational Leadership (which features 19 women out of 25 authors) and Flip the System Australia, but know these are imperfect in their attempts to share a diverse range of voices.

The following blog post is on the WomenEd website as part of a suite of worldwide reflections for International Women’s Day 2022.

Source: @PIRO4D on pixabay

Each year, International Women’s Day is surrounded by questions as to why the day is needed. Yet a dig into data from any country shows that gender equity is far from a reality. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated gender inequities, as this UN policy brief and this UN technical briefattest. There has been an increase in unpaid domestic and caring duties often taken up by women, an increase in gender-based violence, a decline in the availability of reproductive health services, and lack of women’s representation in pandemic planning response.

The 2022 International Women’s Day theme is ‘Break the Bias’. But how do we ‘break’ bias when it’s unconscious, unacknowledged, or invisible? With so much complexity in the social world, accepting stereotypes, tropes, and assumptions about gender can make the world a simpler place with less cognitive load, easier judgments, and faster decision making. But left unchallenged, biases can block, hinder, and harm individuals and groups in society and in organisations.

The education world should look at how bias might be influencing school communities and students’ experiences of learning, living, and being in the world. In schools, sometimes the racial, ethnic, ability, sexuality, and gender diversity of the staff does not match the diversity of the student and parent community. Sometimes there is a lack of diversity in the community, or in the teaching or leadership staff. Conscious and unconscious biases of those overseeing staff recruitment and promotion can influence who is recruited, who is promoted, and who is overlooked. Biases of educators can affect response to student behaviour.

The questions we ask of ourselves and of others can help us to understand our own biases, to challenge the biases of others, and to encourage different ways of being and behaving. In a recent conversation with Jacob Easley II on my podcast, The Edu Salon, he challenged educators to take the time to explore their professional identities, beliefs, and purpose. He suggests that a place to start is with the question of why a person is entering the teaching profession: “Is it really to work with certain types of students, and not others, those who are more like me, and not those who are different from me?” This is something we should all ask ourselves. How do we respond (to a student, parent or colleague) when someone is not ‘like me’?

We can break open, or splinter bias, if we ask good questions. How about: Do we like to teach those students mostly like ourselves? To what social issues do we draw our organisation’s attention? What and who do we ignore or pay little attention to? Who is visible, celebrated, and recognised? Who is ignored or ridiculed? Who do students see ‘out in front’ at assemblies and events? Who do the school community see in middle and senior leadership?

Do we hire mostly people like ourselves, or do we seek to recruit a diverse workforce? To whom (if at all) do we offer flexible work options? While it may seem fair to apply the same decision-making framework for all people, aiming for meritocracy can perpetuate existing advantage. Is it more equitable to consider the varying needs and barriers of individuals, and to seek to tackle those barriers on a needsbasis? What is our approach to a situation with which we are unfamiliar or to someone whose experiences and perspectives are vastly different from our own? Do we engage in uncomfortable conversations? Do we dismiss or seek to understand concerns?

We can ask these questions of ourselves and others. From there, here’s what else I think we can do.

  1. Interrogate our responses. Be ok with not knowing, with learning, discomfort, and respectful challenge. Be willing to listen and to learn. Work to identify biases in ourselves and our organisations, and the barriers and inequities they create.
  2. Anchor ourselves in our values. Be brave enough to know what kind of individual and what kind of organisation we aspire to be. ‘The community won’t accept this without resistance,’ is not a good enough reason to remain stagnant on issues of equity, social justice, diversity, and meaningful inclusion.
  3. Educate and advocate. Stand up. Support. Resist. For example, when someone is critiqued for their cultural dress or accent, speak out. When someone is not being considered for a role or promotion, question why or point to attributes and experience that may have been ignored.
  4. Implement practices and structures that support mitigating bias, such as transparent and consistent recruitment processes with diverse representation across the decision makers, thoughtful leave policies (including flexible and generous parental leave and carer’s leave), options for flexible working where possible, and an organisational culture in which staff are trusted and professional expectations take into account a diversity of life responsibilities.

We all have influence, and we all have a responsibility to take bias seriously and to engage with its realities and ramifications, even and especially when those biases work in our individual favour. If there is one thing the pandemic has taught me, it’s that we need to work for the greater good over the individual good.

This year’s IWD pose reflects ‘break the bias’.

Starting the school year in 2022

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Here we go again. Another year. In a pandemic.

In Australia the academic year has just begun. We are in the ‘schools are first to open and last to close’ phase of the pandemic, with teachers considered essential workers (essential to keeping children in school and parents in the workforce, as well as to continuing the learning of and supporting the wellbeing of students). Schools have, of course, never been closed in Australia. There have been lockdowns during which schools remained open to the children of essential workers with teachers providing remote learning. There have been, and will continue to be, times when there are a number of students at school and a number at home. 2022 may well test the notion of being ‘open’, with staff shortages due to ill and furloughed staff a real concern for schools. Nonetheless, as they have throughout the pandemic, schools will continue to apply the government directions and do their absolute best.

A return to school after the summer break—even with masks, regular rapid tests of students and staff, open windows, air purifiers and CO2 monitors (for those schools that have received supplies)—brings with it uncertainty and the need for constant decisional responsiveness to changing circumstance. Yesterday on ABC’s The Drum, NSW school Principal Briony Scott talked about schools responding to the constantly changing government instructions as:

“like driving a huge ship liner and saying: turn left now. I can spin the wheel all I want, but you have to bring people’s hearts and minds with you.”

She described how schools encompass extensive communities that are cared for by the school, with students, parents and staff falling along a continuum of needs. That’s also my experience in a school of 1800 students and 300 staff, and their associated families. A school is a slice of society and so reflects wider issues and social complexities, with each individual in a school community bringing their own vulnerabilities, anxieties, family intricacies and idiosyncrasies of personal context.

One thing we have been discussing at my school is what we could alleviate in terms of teacher workload, as part of our approach to supporting teacher wellbeing. While we cannot control potential future staffing shortages and the effect this will have on workloads, what professional expectations and meetings can be rethought as the year unfolds? How might staff best collaborate or share tasks to increase efficiency in curriculum planning and preparation of resources? A 2016 UK report on effective marking practices, well before the pressures of a pandemic, noted that there are many ways to acknowledge students’ work, to value their efforts and achievement, and to celebrate progress. It added that:

“too much feedback can take away responsibility from the pupil, detract from the challenge of a piece of work, and reduce long term retention and resilience-building. … Accepting work that pupils have not checked sufficiently and then providing extensive feedback detracts from pupils’ responsibility for their own learning.”

We have encouraged our teachers to think deeply about how much assessing and correcting of student work they are doing, and what they might be able to let go of if they consider the purpose of learning activities, feedback, and evidence of learning. I have shared resources by Glen Pearsall on fast, effective feedback; by Kat Howard and Daisy Christodoulou on techniques such as whole-class feedback; and Dylan Wiliam’s work on what makes feedback effective, including ensuring students meaningfully act on feedback. I always ask: Who is doing the thinking? The student should be doing the cognitive work, facilitated by the teacher.

I have asked curriculum leaders to ponder the following questions as they begin work with their teams this year:

  • Is there anything your teachers are doing that they can stop doing?
  • Are there ways to be more efficient yet still effective in planning, marking, feedback and assessment? Are all planned assessments necessary?
  • Are there ways that teacher collaboration and technologies might help streamline teacher workload in your team?
  • Are there ways you can help to energise and sustain your team?

As someone who likes to be prepared well in advance (I like a long runway to change), I am challenging myself to be as prepared as I can while also being ok with uncertainty and accepting of what I cannot control. I am reminding myself that while forward planning, informed decisiveness and communication are key in an ongoing crisis, what’s most important is checking in with the people in our community, looking out for and looking after them as best we can in what are likely to continue to be difficult circumstances.