Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

I just realised that I never did get around to giving you an update on the outcomes of the staff meetings that I have been attending recently. Here's a summary of the discussions which transpired:

The Principal decided to put 'on-hold' the discussions about school values. Instead discussion has focused on trying to further draw out the key issues which the school is facing. Recent meetings have involved a lot of group-work activities, plenty of post-it-notes, bowls of minties, coloured textas and poster paper. These meetings are reminiscent, similar to those think-tank/brainstorming /workshop-type meetings we have in the corporate world, intended to tease out the root-causes of a HUGE problem.

Anyway, this week's meetings, facilitated by the Principal, were fruitful. It was identified that the No.1 key issue underlying many of the school's problems was consistency. Consistency in terms of:

• classroom rules and management techniques
• discipline / response to student misbehaviour
• assessment of students performance /work
• teacher training and professional development opportunities

Key Issue No.2 was resourcing. The issues surrounding resourcing concerned:

• availability of 'pastoral care'/'counsellor' resources
• insufficient number of teachers to accommodate for class sizes

Actually, permit me to digress - the No.1 key issue was initially 'The Community' (in which the school is located). It was agreed by all that socio-economic background of the students who attend this school was the biggest factor that affected the way the school functions. (i.e. students here do not perform academically because of their upbringing and the communities in which they live).

This comment is not intended to blame the students for the reason why the school is performing in this way. But you can't separate the fact that a lot of the kids who attend this school come from broken families/homes that don't exactly provide the safe, nurturing environment where they can learn values that equip them for a stable adulthood.

The principal did point out however that the school needs to address the concerns that are within its control and that’s a good and fair point. Hence, the root cause of ‘The Community’ was put aside, leaving ‘consistency’ as the key issue which the staff will have to address.

Well, I think the Principal did a great job in facilitating the meetings. Apparently he’s only been in this school for six months which explains why he doesn’t appear to be as disillusioned as his staff members! hehe :-) I think it was a good idea for him to park the whole discussion about values because it was as if the team had hit a brick wall or a mental blank on the whole ‘values’ discussion. Sometimes you have to take two steps back to make one step forward. I think after this week’s meetings and doing all the root-cause analysis activities, the teachers start to chip away the monolith and start to have a better understanding of the core problems that need to be addressed by the school.

Yes, I think this week has definitely been a step in the right direction.